• Director: Dónal Ó Céilleachair
  • Country: USA, Ireland
  • Year: 2024

View Trailer

Are We One traces the transmission of Zen meditation through the life’s work of 90-year-old Irish-American Jesuit Zen Master Robert Kennedy—and his successors—in a contemporary exploration of interfaith dialogue. Kennedy was one of the first American Catholic priests to be installed as a Zen teacher in the U.S, which caused outrage in the Zen community. Faced with this fierce opposition, his teacher Bernie Glassman famously refuted the objections by asking his students ‘Are we one, or are we not?’ Kennedy’s work in Zen has brought him into dialogue with some of the most iconic figures of 20th Century Japanese and American Zen; a life’s journey of intersection with key historical moments in the ever-evolving story of the coming of Zen to the West.

This film will be available to stream until midnight on Saturday, January 31, 2026. To play the film, click on the play button that appears at the center of the image above.

Robert Kennedy with Bernie Glassman (Photo Courtesy of Peter Cunningham)
Robert Kennedy in meditation alongside Lex Hixon (Photo Courtesy of Peter Cunningham)
Bernie Glassman leads an Interfaith Bearing Witness Retreat in Auschwitz (Photo Courtesy of Peter Cunningham)
Bernie Glassman leads a Street Retreat, New York City (Photo Courtesy of Peter Cunningham)
Maezumi Roshi instructs Bernie Glassman (Photo Courtesy of Peter Cunningham)
Bernie Glassman with Peter Matthiessen (Photo Courtesy of Peter Cunningham)
Calligraphy from the Film (Photo Courtesy of Anú Pictures)
Oileáin Árann/ Aran Islands, West of Ireland (Photo Courtesy of Anú Pictures)
Robert Kennedy faces the Atlantic Ocean, West of Ireland (Photo Courtesy of Anú Pictures)
Aisling Árann, Inis Mór, Oileáin Árann/ Aran Islands, West of Ireland (Photo Courtesy of Anú Pictures)
People in Prison practice Meditation, Mexico Cty (Photo Courtesy of Inge von Wobeser-Hopfner)
Robert Kennedy faces the Atlantic Ocean, West of Ireland (Photo Courtesy of Anú Pictures)
Buddha Statue at Morning Star Zendo, Jersey City (Photo Courtesy of Anú Pictures)

Dónal Ó Céilleachair is an award-winning Irish Filmmaker who lives between New York & Ireland. Dónal’s wide-ranging international experience–from across the independent film landscape–includes over 30 fiction, documentary, and experimental films over the past 30 years. Dónal’s work has been broadcast internationally and released and exhibited in cinemas, film festivals and museums worldwide.