The place held by the Heart Sutra in Mahayana Buddhism parallels that of the Gospel of John in Christianity. Each is central to its tradition. Each demands the practitioners transformation through prayer and meditation. And, although the approach to deep and abiding human experience in the Heart Sutra is quite different from that expressed in John's Gospel, there is a resonance between the Sutra's emptying of every vestige of self-identity and Johns call for a radical reconfiguration of consciousness.

This book presents a Christian reading of the Heart Sutra, allowing its teaching on emptiness of self to percolate through the central teachings of the Christian tradition Incarnation and Trinity as these are disclosed in the Gospel of John.


I Am / No Self A Christian Commentary on the Heart Sutra, John & Linda Keenan, Peeters, 314 pages, $48.00

John P. Keenan is professor emeritus of religion at Middlebury College, Vermont. His book The Meaning of Christ: A Mah?y?na Theology received the first Frederick J. Streng Book Award in Buddhist-Christian Studies.

Linda K. Keenan conducts research in the area of Japanese religious culture and literature. The translator of Beyond Loyalty: The Story of a Kibei, she is also coeditor of Beside Still Waters: Jews, Christians, and the Way of the Buddha.