ARE WE ONE
Wed 10 July | 18:00 | Pálás Screen 3
2024 | Ireland, USA | 62’
This documentary traces the transmission of Zen meditation through the life’s work of 90-year-old Irish-American Jesuit Zen Master Robert Kennedy – and his successors – in a contemporary exploration of interfaith dialogue.
Kennedy was the first American Catholic priest to be installed as a Zen teacher, which caused outrage in the U.S. Zen community. Faced with this fierce opposition, his teacher, Bernie Glassman, famously refuted the objections by asking his students “Are we one, or are we not?”.
Robert Kennedy’s work in Zen has brought him into dialogue with some of the most iconic figures of 20th-century Japanese and American Zen; the course of his life’s journey intersecting with key historical moments in the coming of Zen to the West.
World Premiere | Post-show discussion will follow
Director: Dónal Ó Céilleachair
Producers: Miriam Healy, Turlough O’Donnell, Noel Brennan, Dr Cuca Montecel, Amy Yee, John Ankele
Cast: Robert Kennedy SJ, Amy Yee, Krishna Das, Miriam Healy, Ken Byalin, Ellen Birx, Joan Halifax, Charles Birx, Noel Brennan, Dr Cuca Montecel, Inge Von Woebeser-Hopfner, Dr Mónica Maher, Mary Laheen
Principal funder
