Steindl-Rast was born and raised in Vienna, Austria, with a traditional Catholic upbringing that instilled in him a trust in life and an experience of mystery.

[2] With permission of his abbot, Damasus Winzen, in 1966 he was officially delegated to pursue Buddhist-Christian dialogue and began to study Zen with masters Haku'un Yasutani, Soen Nakagawa, Shunryu Suzuki, and Eido Tai Shimano.

[2] He co-founded the Center for Spiritual Studies with Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu and Sufi teachers in 1968, and since the 1970s has been a member of the cultural historian William Irwin Thompson's Lindisfarne Association.

His writings include Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer, The Music of Silence (with Sharon Lebell), Words of Common Sense and Belonging to the Universe (co-authored with Fritjof Capra).

We have to push through this crust and go to the fire that's within it.In that same episode, he expressed his belief in panentheism, where divinity interpenetrates every part of existence and timelessly extends beyond it (as distinct from pantheism).