David Steindl-Rast

David Steindl-Rast ( born July 12, 1926 in Vienna) is a native of Austria American Benedictine monk, hermit, spiritual teacher and a leading global traveling lecturer.

Life

David Steindl-Rast grew up in Austria. He graduated in Vienna from an art and a degree in psychology in addition he studied anthropology. After receiving his doctorate in psychology, he followed in 1952 for economic reasons, his earlier emigrated to the USA family. In 1953 he joined the newly founded Benedictine monastery shortly before Mount Saviour in Elmira, NY, a. 1958/59 he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Cornell University, where he held the first Catholic Raymond G. Thorpe Lectures.

Zen training

In 1965 he was commissioned as one of the first monks after the Second Vatican Council by his abbot to deal with the inter-religious dialogue between Christianity and Buddhism. He practiced Zen then the masters Haku'un Yasutani, Soen Nakagawa, Shunryu Suzuki and Eido Tai Shimano.

Interfaith Initiatives

Together with rabbis, Buddhists, Hindus and Sufis founded Steindl-Rast 1968, the Center for Spiritual Studies, 1975, he was awarded for his commitment in the religions of the Martin Buber Award dialogue. In the same year he was co-founder of the Retreat Center Sky Ranch in Sonoma, California, its Board of Directors he served from 2002 to 2010.

He was involved from 1970 in the House of Prayer movement, which in the U.S. and Canada has about 200,000 followers.

In 1989 he founded together with the Zen priest Vanja Palmers in Dienten the House of Silence Puregg, meeting place and center of spiritual practice and reflection.

David Steindl-Rast represents a pluralist theology of religion, under which neither Christianity nor any other religion " only true " universal Mediator of salvation are: religions originated in a specific cultural and historical context, and each religion can fulfill the same function.

Further inserts

In Internet Steindl-Rast operates the co-founded by him Gratefulness.org portal, an international network for grateful life (English: . Network for Grateful Living In connected online shop can be purchased with the logo of the network coffee mugs, t -shirts etc..

When David Steindl-Rast is not on lecture tours on the road, he lives as a hermit in the vicinity of the monastery Mount Saviour. He is a member of the Advisory Board, founded in December 2010 Upper Austrian think tank ACADEMIA SUPERIOR - Society for future research.