Abstract

This article undertakes a comparative phenomenological reading of two radical twentieth-century spiritual experiences and their charisms: Chiara Lubich’s Catholic mysticism centered on Jesus Forsaken and Uchiyama Kōshō’s Sōtō Zen tradition transmitted through his disciple Okumura Shōhaku, focused on zazen and the practice of “opening the hand of thought” (omoi no tebanashi). While emerging from distinct religious contexts – Catholic Christianity and Japanese Zen Buddhism – both traditions converge around themes of nothingness, the centrality of life in community, radical authenticity, and the non-dual relationship between suffering and liberation. This study argues that these paths reveal a shared experiential core where emptiness (śūnyatā) and fullness (divine fullness) constitute not opposites but interpenetrating, pericoretic realities, offering a pathway beyond doctrinal divisions toward lived spiritual praxis.