ZPI SHORT - The Healing Power of Inter religious Study and Practice in Challenging Times
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The Healing Power of Inter-religious Study and Practice in Challenging Times: Wisdom Teachings of Rev. Howard Thurman and Reb Zalman Dr. Rachael Wooten will discuss the life-changing effect of her encounters with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (aka Reb Zalman) over the last twenty years and the inspiration she has received from African-American theologian and mystic, Rev. Howard Thurman, in more recent years. After regaling close associates of Zalman’s about the healing power of Thurman’s philosophy and contemplative practice, she learned that the two were dear friends and co-enthusiasts of the practice of Deep Ecumenism. Both men engaged wholeheartedly in relationships with and practices of religions other than their own. Reb Zalman was fond of reminding everyone, “You can’t get all your vitamins in one place.” Thurman preached that in order to know what to do with one’s precious life, one had to recognize the “interdependence and unity of all life, all experience, and all people” (Against the Hounds of Hell, A Life of Howard Thurman, Eisenstadt, 2021, p, 103). Rachael Wooten, Ph.D., is a Zürich-trained Jungian analyst and psychologist who has been in private practice as a therapist for more than 40 years, and a Tibetan Buddhist dharma teacher. An enthusiastic interfaith activist, she has studied and practiced Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, and indigenous traditions throughout her adult life. Rachael practices primarily with two Tibetan Buddhist sanghas, Bhumisparsha in the US, and her teacher’s sangha in Switzerland. She has been a longtime advocate of the Bearing Witness practices of the Zen Peacemaker Order. She is also a member of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, and a founding member of Yavneh, a Jewish Renewal community. Rachael has been mentored by spiritual teachers such as her Tibetan root guru Lodrö Tulku Rinpoche and the late Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. She has taught Tara practices under the authorization of Lodrö Rinpoche for 25 years. Rachael has offered Tara teachings and workshops through spiritual, feminist, and Jungian-based organizations. She currently teaches the sadhana practices of the Twenty-one Taras for two monthly online Tara meditation groups. She is the author of Tara: The Liberating Power of the Female Buddha, Sounds True, 2020. Recorded on July 29, 2021

ZPI SHORT - The Healing Power of Inter religious Study and Practice in Challenging Times