Ebook: Mystical consciousness: Western perspectives and dialogue with Japanese thinkers

This book offers a philosophical account of ordinary consciousness as a step toward understanding mystical consciousness. Presupposing a living interaction between meditation and thinking, the work draws on Western and Japanese thinkers to develop a philosophy of religion that is friendly to the experience of meditators and that can explore such themes as emptiness, nothingness, and the self. Western thinkers considered include Plotinus, Eckhart, Schleiermacher, Heidegger, Brentano, Husserl, Sartre, and Lonergan; and Japanese thinkers referenced include Nishitani, Hisamatsu, and Suzuki. All employed centering prayer, Zen, or other forms of mental concentration. Particular emphasis is placed on the work of twentieth-century Catholic philosopher Bernard Lonergan, whose wntings on consciousness can inform an understanding of mysticism.

"It is the first intercultural philosophy to bring together the work of Bernard Lonergan on critical philosophy in the West and Japanese Zen thinkers. There is a wealth of WTA insights and the ramifications abound." (John P. Keenan, author of 'How Master Mou Removes Our Doubts: A Reader-Response Study and Translation of the Mou-tzu Li-huo lun')

"In the fields of religious studies and theology thinkers have been engaged in debates about such constructs as ‘experience,’ ‘consciousness.’ and ‘mysticism,’ and such philosophical problems as the possibility of ‘pure. or unmediated (by concepts), experience, or consciousness. This book will make a significant contribution to those important debates." (Christopher Ives, author of 'Zen Awakening and Society')

Louis Roy, O.P. is Professor of Theology at Boston College. He is the author of 'Self-Actualization and the Radical Gospel and Transcendent Experiences: Phenomenology and Critique'.