"A consciousness grows in silence that allows recognition and response to the deepest spiritual truths.  For this reason meditation strengthens whatever genuine religious beliefs the meditator already has.  Clarifying one’s intention in meditation determines the course of the journey.  Christians approach self-emptying with the aim of saying with St. Paul, ‘It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.’  Buddhists sit with the intention of encountering the Buddha nature that is at one with the cosmos.  Both can find in their personal encounter with silence a spiritual renewal at the heart of their human experience."

--Patricia Hart Clifford, Sitting Still: An Encounter with Christian Zen