meaningful ways. I found that this helped to clarify both practical and
theoretical issues: what I was experiencing in everyday life and what I was
finding in my researches in ancient Eastern literature on mind studies.
It was in connection with this course of events that I came into con tact
with Taoism. In the years following my first exposure to Buddhist
teachings, I looked into other Asian classical traditions such as Hinduism,
Confucianism, Taoism, and Sufism. I also read from the Bible, the Koran,
and the mystic traditions of Judaism and Christianity. During these studies I
found that turning the light around revealed unsuspected dimensions in the
literature of other religions. A transcultural, transdogmatic appreciation of
the mental dynamic of religion became manifest in a very direct manner by
means of this technique.
My studies of world religions took place in several phases. The first
phase of study was partly comparative, observing what was common to
different religions and what was peculiar to each. This helped to distinguish
local historical and cultural elements of religious presentations from
perennial underlying concerns. I returned to these studies later; in
connection with programs from the classical Pure Land; Zen; and Flower
Ornament schools of Buddhism, each of which include investigation of
other religions and philosophies as part of Buddhist study.
It was through the last phase of intertraditional study, as part of the
practice of the comprehensive Flower Ornament school of Buddhism, that I
