In July 1996, an historic five-day meeting occurred of Buddhist and Christian monks and nuns at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, USA. It was his Holiness the Dalai Lama who suggested that the meeting be held in a monastic setting, where he could be a monk among other monks, and who urged that the setting be Gethsemani, home of Thomas Merton, whom the Dalai Lama had met before the latter's death in 1968.
