The first Parliament of the World’s Religions—described as the world’s largest global interreligious event—was held in Chicago in 1893. One hundred years later a second Parliament took place, again in Chicago. Since then there have been three more Parliaments: Cape Town in 1999, Barcelona in 2004, and, most recently, Melbourne, December 3-9, 2009.

The theme chosen for the Melbourne Parliament—“Make a World of Difference: Hearing each other, Healing the earth”—highlights the urgent need for religious communities to work together to protect the environment, overcome poverty, and establish a just and lasting peace. The theme was broken down into seven major subthemes:

• Healing the earth with care and concern;
• Indigenous people;
• Overcoming poverty in an unequal world;
• Securing food and water for all people;
• Building peace in the pursuit of justice;
• Creating social cohesion in village and city;
• Sharing wisdom in the search for inner peace.

The 5000 or so participants who came together for six days at the new, state-of-the-art Melbourne Convention Center had to choose from a staggering array of presentations. Each day featured “observances” from diverse religious and spiritual traditions (8:00 - 9:00); “intrareligious sessions” in which speakers from a single religious tradition expressed their identities, discussed their challenges, and showcased their messages (9:30 – 11:00); “interreligious sessions” in which speakers from two or more religious traditions engaged with each other seeking greater understanding (11:30 – 13:00); “engagement sessions” in which speakers from diverse religious traditions considered the challenges of our many crucial topics and the resources to meet them (14:30 – 16:00); “open space” for informal discussions (16:30 – 18:00); and an “evening plenary” for keynote presentations, blessings, and performances (19:30 – 21:00). Especially during the times designated for intrareligious, interreligious, and engagement sessions, there were as many as thirty different programs taking place simultaneously.

Two of the three program proposals I submitted on behalf of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue were accepted: an “observance” entitled “The Breath of Life” and an “interreligious session” on the purpose, history, and activities of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue. For both of these sessions I invited the participation of the Rev. Heng Sure, an American Chan monk from Berkeley, California, who is an advisor to the North American Commission for Monastic Interreligious Dialogue.

“The Breath of Life” was scheduled for eight o’clock on the first day of the Parliament. I expected we would have twenty-five to fifty participants; in fact, about 150 came. I began the service with a short introduction and then played a recording of the Veni Creator Spiritus. After a brief instruction on following the breath given by Rev. Heng Sure, there was a fifteen-minute meditation period. Following that we each spoke on the importance and meaning of breath in our own traditions. We then had another period of meditation and concluded by singing a hymn, the first verse of which reads:

Praise the Spirit in creation, breath of God, life’s origin,
Spirit moving on the waters, quickening worlds to life within,
Source of breath to all things breathing, life in whom all lives begin.

Our presentation on Monastic Interreligious Dialogue was scheduled for the late morning period on the last day of the Parliament. Once again, I was pleasantly surprised by the large number of people who attended. We had planned a four-part presentation: the Rev. Heng Sure and I would each give a personal account of how and why we had gotten involved in interreligious dialogue and how we had benefitted from it. I would then trace the origins of DIMMID, describe some of its principal activities, and provide information about our plans for a new journal devoted to the dialogue of spiritual experience. The Rev. Heng Sure would conclude with a presentation describing last year’s Buddhist/Catholic dialogue at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, which was devoted to monasticism and the environment. However, a half hour before we were to begin we learned that the organizers of the Parliament had asked the abbot of a Taiwanese Buddhist community in Houston, Texas, to talk about his monastery at our session. We decided to omit our personal testimonies in order to allow time for the abbot to make his presentation.

Since the Parliament was so large and so all-inclusive, it is difficult to have a clear idea of what actually transpired in Melbourne. Everyone was “welcome at the table.” The reason for this, as one speaker put it, is that “If you’re not at the table, you’ll end up on the menu!” However, inclusiveness came at the price of focus and clarity and resulted, at times, in a rather casual approach to religious difference. For instance, at a panel presentation on “Praying together in Times of Happiness, in Times of Sorrow? The Ongoing Dilemma for the Interfaith Movement,” a person from the audience who identified herself as an interfaith minister said that when we come together to pray, we need to “leave our labels at the door.” When someone rose to question this position, the response of the audience made it clear that the majority of those who were present for the session believed that religious belonging was much more than a label that could be taken off and put on at will. Interreligious dialogue—a fortiori, interreligious prayer—demands that the participants be deeply rooted in and committed to their own religious traditions. As one of the panelists, Rabbi Ralph Genende, commented, “If you’re too open minded, your brains fall out.”

The dialogue of religious experience was not a prominent feature of the design or proceedings of the 2009 Parliament. At best, it was included in the seventh sub-theme: “Sharing wisdom in the search for inner peace.” The focus at Melbourne was on the dialogue of action “in which Christians and others collaborate for the integral development and liberation of people” (Dialogue and Proclamation, 42). Whether or not the 2009 Parliament provided impetus and direction for this form of dialogue remains to be seen. My impression is that the Melbourne gathering was more about acknowledging the magnitude of the present crisis, admitting past and present failures, and recognizing how far we have come, and less about mobilizing for future joint action.