The uneventful life of the great medieval mystic Jan van Ruusbroec suddenly took a decisive turn in 1343, when he was twenty-six. With two other catholic priests, he left Brussels for Groenendael, a clearing in the forest of Soignes a few miles to the south, there to begin a contemplative life. In this small community, which was obliged by church authorities to take on a traditional monastic rule but which seems to have been intended more as a kind of "ashram", Ruusbroec lived out the rest of his days in prayer and in spiritual direction. When he died in 1381, at the age of eighty-eight, he had written eleven of the most electrifying mystical works in the Christian tradition.
Mysticism Buddhist and Christian is an intense study of the mystical doctrine of Jan van Ruusbroec and its reverberation with Buddhist contemplative thought. Mommaers, a leading authority on Ruusbroec's thought, and van Bragt, a Catholic priest and former director of the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, discuss the most critical Points of encounter between this fourteenth century Flemish love mystic and the Buddhist path. Alternating chapters, they seek the parallels and contradictions between the Eastern and western contemplative traditions, creating an excellent scholarly contribution to the broader, vital Buddhist-Christian dialogue.