Robert A. Jonas

Robert A. Jonas, was born in Wausau, Wisconsin, to a Lutheran family. He attended Mosinee High School and then Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, thinking that he'd be a Lutheran minister. But when God was declared dead (Newsweek, Time, etc.) he transferred to Dartmouth College and majored in Government, thinking that his dream for a more just society could be realized more effectively through political action rather than prayer. At Dartmouth he encountered Tai Kwan Do karate and Chinese meditation, and this experience initiated his life-long interest in the Christian-Buddhist dialogue. He joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1973 as a Third Order Carmelite, a follower of the 16th century mystic, St. John of the Cross. In 1978 Jonas entered Harvard University as a doctoral student in peace studies. In the course of his studies he changed his focus to psychology and fashioned his doctorate under the guidance of clinical psychologist Richard Katz (Boiling Energy: Community Healing among the Kalahari Kung). Jonas practiced as a psychologist at Wrentham State School for several years, and then as an organizational consultant and psychotherapist in private practice. From 1988 to 1991 he studied the Christian contemplative tradition at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, MA, and in 1991 he received a post-doc Masters in spirituality with a thesis on the intersection of Christian contemplative prayer, Buddhist meditation and Object Relations psychotherapy. In 1991 he began lessons in the Japanese Buddhist tradition of Blowing Zen, and now has three CD's on iTunes. In 1993 he founded the Empty Bell, a contemplative sanctuary dedicated to the Christian-Buddhist dialogue (www.emptybell.org). He has written several books, two of them about his friend and mentor, Fr. Henri Nouwen. He is now a musician, retreat leader, and videographer, with many videos posted on YouTube and Vimeo. In 2022 Jonas' new book is My Dear Far-Nearness: the Holy Trinity as Spiritual Practice. In this book he explores each "Person" of the Trinity as a unique dimension of spiritual awareness. He argues that in order to know the Trinity we must be the Trinity.