Brother David Steindl-Rast

Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B. was born in 1926 in Vienna, Austria, where he studied art, anthropology, and psychology, receiving an MA from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and a PhD from the University of Vienna. In 1953 he joined a newly founded Benedictine community in Elmira, NY, Mount Saviour Monastery, of which he is now a senior member. He was one of the first Roman Catholics to receive Zen training and to participate in Buddhist-Christian dialogue. Together with Thomas Merton, Brother David helped launch a renewal of religious life. From 1970 on, he became a leading figure in the House of Prayer movement, which affected some 200,000 members of religious orders in the United States and Canada.
For decades, Brother David divided his time between periods of a hermit's life and extensive lecture tours. His audiences included starving students in Zaire and faculty at Harvard and Columbia, Buddhist monks and Sufi retreatants, New Age commune residents and naval cadets, Green Berets and participants at international peace conferences.
He has contributed to books and periodicals from the Encyclopedia Americana to the New Age Journal. He authored Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer and A Listening Heart, both of which have been reprinted and anthologized for well over a decade. Brother David co-authored Belonging to the Universe, with physicist, Fritjof Capra, and The Ground We Share on Buddhist and Christian practice with Robert Aitken Roshi. His most recent book is Words of Common Sense for Body, Mind, and Soul.
At present, Brother David serves a worldwide Network for Grateful Living, through an interactive website with several thousand participants daily from 226 countries.

http://www.gratefulness.org