Jesuit – Father Lassalle – Zen Meditation for Christians – Zazen as a modern “Cloud of Not-Knowing”
Zen master Father Reding talks about Jesuit Father Lassalle - Zen meditation for Christians - Zazen as a modern "cloud of not-knowing"
Some Christian denominations have tried to find something in this area that is adapted to modern man. This happened and still happens partly using Eastern, non-Christian methods. If the church is still extremely reticent in this regard, this is partly due to the dark experiences that have been had in the past with the confusion of false mysticism.
One must also admit that the purposeful path to meditation, as we understand it here, is a risk; because it is a leap into the unconscious. Nevertheless, man must take a risk because meditation "can only thrive in this space."
Lassalle - Transition from objective contemplation to supra-objective meditation
In addition, staying too long while contemplating something is not without danger. It is a fact confirmed again and again by experience that in the long run most people's observation "dries up". The time will come when the sources are exhausted. Nothing as if there could ever be a lack of material to consider - the Holy. Writing alone is inexhaustible - but in the sense that looking at it no longer stimulates us. But then there is a danger that one will give up the practice of contemplation that has been started with such great enthusiasm and will not practice either contemplation or meditation.
Online Talk - H.M. Enomiya Lassalle
When you are whole, you love the world. If you are unwholesome, then you don't love them.
But there are even more serious dangers, for example that people create "idols" for themselves through ideas of the spiritual that are too anthropomorphic (humanized), which become an insurmountable obstacle to penetrating the essence of God himself and ultimately even endanger true faith.
This danger is particularly great for modern people. Many people have lost their faith in God because they grew up with overly anthropomorphic ideas about God and were not guided to a more spiritual conception of God in time. On the other hand, anyone who has once penetrated into God's essence - as far as this is possible for a person in this life - no longer loses faith in God. Modern man also has an extraordinarily great desire to experience God.
....
The Will
If the activity of the understanding becomes less important, then that of the will predominates. However, this should not be understood to mean that there is now a strong use of the will, but rather that the observation becomes more affective. This means that the contemplation becomes a conversation with God, i.e. a prayer in the true sense.
(Excerpt from Zen Meditation for Christians, H.M. Enomiya Lassalle)