Making Peace
A voice from the dark called out,
‘The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.’
But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can’t be imagined before it is made,
can’t be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.
A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.
A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses . . .
A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light—facets
of the forming crystal.
- Denise Levertov
Join Us for the Native American Bearing Witness Retreat
July 15 – 20, 2025
📍 Hot Springs, South Dakota
We invite you to the Black Hills of South Dakota for our Native American Bearing Witness Retreat—a time of humility, listening, and reconnecting with the ways of our ancestors.
"Bearing witness is to be fully present for whatever arises, letting go of fixed ideas and holding space for transformation to occur.”
🔗 Learn more & register
PEACEMAKER CIRCLES
Amache: Strength of a Community
Wednesday, June 25th, 12pm Eastern Time, Zoom
With Mitch Homma, Chris Mather & April Kamp-Whittaker
Located in a remote corner of southeastern Colorado, Amache, also known as the Granada Relocation Center, was one of ten incarceration sites established by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) during World War II (WWII). Amache unjustly incarcerated Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from their communities on the West Coast through Executive Order 9066.
From 1942-1945, over 10,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of them American citizens, lived at Amache. The original building foundations and the historic road network are still visible today. Amache also includes a historic cemetery, a monument, and several reconstructed and restored structures from the camp era. Preservation efforts by the Town of Granada, Amache Preservation Society, former internees and descendants, and community supporters are dedicated to educating the public's understanding of Amache’s significance.
Join us as we learn more about life at Amache and what is being done to preserve this important history.
As we witness the current horrors and devastation taking place in Gaza, and the distress and fear that has taken hold of the entire region, we are faced with the recurrent, painful question: Is there hope for peace? How do we respond in this time of crisis? Iris and Tani Katz along with a panel of peace activists from different groups in the region, will share their feelings and ideas about the current situation and their hope for peace. Please join us for this important panel discussion.
Please register and we will keep you updated if anything changes due to the ongoing and unpredictable conflict that is currently happening.
BEARING WITNESS RETREAT
Join Us for the Auschwitz-Birkenau Bearing Witness Retreat
November 16–22, 2025
📍 Oświęcim, Poland
This November, we invite you to gather with us at Auschwitz-Birkenau for a Bearing Witness Retreat—an encounter with the unthinkable, held in silence, ceremony, and community.
Since 1996, Zen Peacemakers has returned each year to the site of these atrocities. Grounded in the Three Tenets—Not-Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action—we come not to explain, justify, or even to understand, but simply to be present.
As shared on our event page:
“Bearing witness is to be fully present for whatever arises, letting go of fixed ideas and holding space for transformation to occur.”
Together, we will:
Sit in meditation on the grounds of Auschwitz and Birkenau
Listen to the voices from diverse traditions
Honor lives lost through daily rituals
Share our personal reflections in council each morning
Practice with the unknown, allowing it to shape how we live and serve
This retreat is not a history lesson. It is a plunge into the heart of our shared humanity.
Please join us.
Zen Peacemakers
Our mission is to realize our oneness and relieve suffering through contemplative social action.
www.zenpeacemakers.org
WAY OF COUNCIL
Council is one of our most important core Zen Peacemaker practices. We share Council during our Bearing Witness retreats most every day. In Council, we come together in a small group in a profound way. We create a shared liminal space that is safe, confidential, and perhaps sacred. We each listen and speak from the heart, encountering and experiencing one another gently and with awareness. We are not solving problems or debating issues or making plans. We are making a healing space for each of us to hear and be heard, see and be seen.
UPCOMING COUNCILS (click on title to learn more & register)
Tuesday, July 1st - The Way of Council with Kineret Ando Yardena
Wed., July 9th - The Way of Council with Bobby Chowa Werner
Friday, July 18th - Women Only Council
FILM SERIES
The Eternal Song (Virtual Film Screening and Discussion)
July 10th, 6PM Eastern Time
Tickets are $5 via Kinema
There are stories that inform us… and there are stories that transform us. The Eternal Song is both. Filmed across Indigenous lands from the Arctic to the Amazon, this new documentary carries stories of communities around the world healing from the trauma of colonization and ecological destruction. A thread of memory and prayer weaves through 13 Indigenous communities, each carrying their own ancestral songs of grief, resilience, and belonging.
In a time of great unraveling, The Eternal Song is an invitation to remember what lives beneath the noise; to listen deeply; to gather in reverence for the Earth and for each other.
Proceeds from ticket sales go to help support our Bearing Witness Retreats:
Click Here to Create Your Kinema Account and Purchase a Ticket
CORE TRAINING
The Three Tenets with Sensei Jim Daikan Bastien
Monday, July 14th, 12pm Eastern Time, Zoom
Bernie Glassman articulated the Three Tenets of the Zen Peacemakers early in the evolution of the organization. But these three, simple, profound, vows or commitments can also be taken as a complete practice for our life:
I will embody Not Knowing, thereby giving up fixed ideas.
I will Bear Witness, opening my heart to the joy and suffering of life.
I will take Loving Action arising out of not-knowing and bearing witness.
We can practice and manifest our true selves in every situation and with everything that arises, using the Three Tenets. This is a lifelong practice, one we never complete on our hourlong session we will present and describe the Three Tenets and have time to take your questions.
Message from Zen Peacemakers’ Affiliate Holy Land Trust
AFFILIATE EVENT
Liberated Self - Liberated World
A Zen Peacemaker Retreat with Eve Myonen Marko Roshi
Sunday, August 17 to Thursday, August 21 2025
at Stelserhof, 7226 Stels, Switzerland
Co-leader: Franziska Jinen Schneider Sensei
Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
How do we live in unliveable times?
How do we give no fear in fearful times?
What gives us strength when we feel vulnerable and alone?
We sit to shine the light within. As Ram Dass says: We go behind that which changes to find that which does not change.
We will do sitting and walking meditation, seeing how the things of our life—thoughts, feelings, ideas—come and go continuously. We will listen to dharma talks and use interviews, or face-to-face, to empty our mind and open our heart. At the same time, we must always return—to our loved ones, our work, the world. We empty our cup, stop listening to our own endless chatter, and then bear witness, looking at beings and relationships all around us. When we take ourselves out of the equation, presence emerges, and out of presence, spontaneous loving action.
The retreat will be led by Eve Myonen Marko Rōshi and Franziska Jinen Schneider Sensei.
Eve Marko Rōshi founded the Green River Zen Center in Massachusetts/USA. She is a founding teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order, author, and editor of various books.
Franziska Schneider is the founder and leading teacher of the Zen Zentrum im Grünen Ring, St. Gallen/CH. She received Dharma transmission from Eve Marko Rōshi. Judge em., mother, grandmother.
Information & Registration: Franziska Schneider: info@zen-imgruenenring.ch; www.zen-imgruenenring.ch
AFFILIATE ANNOUNCEMENT
To strengthen our planetary network, ZP will feature newly affiliated groups. Join HERE to explore some of the offerings of the organizations affiliated with ZP, and visit here for a full list of these groups. Following is an introduction to our newest affiliate, Jamtse Ling
Jamtse Ling Centro Rimé
per il Buddhismo Non Settario
A Non-Profit Dharma Center dedicated to the Non-Sectarian Practice, Promotion, and Dissemination of Buddhism
Tell us a bit about how your group was conceived
In 2022, a group of Dharma practitioners in Bologna (Italy) perceived the need and usefulness of establishing a Dharma center dedicated to the Non-Sectarian Practice, Promotion and Dissemination of the Dharma, in order to contribute to the spread of the Buddha's teachings.
When did your organization form? February 1, 2022
Tell us about one exciting project, program, or other offering you are currently working on.
This current year, we will apply for affiliation to the Italian Buddhist Union. The most recent initiative has been the Tibetan Culture Week in Bologna, with His Holiness the Dalai Lama's Sister Jetsun Pema Amala, "The Mother of Tibet," to support the Tibetan Children's Village.
How do the Three Tenets inform your social engagement?
Not-Knowing. The Rimé Association for Non-Sectarian Practice, Promotion and Dharma Diffusion supports the realization of one's Fundamental Nature through the practice of the Buddha's Teachings. With this motivation, it respects, promotes and studies all Dharma Traditions and Schools which, by virtue of unbroken lineages, lead to the true Realization of “Absolute Reality” or “Rigpa” or “Nature of Mind”, beyond concepts, names and forms, based on the understanding that arises from direct, personal spiritual experience and growth beyond intellectual concepts.
Bearing Witness. The Rimé Association prioritizes contemplative experience, as this reveals a unifying vision within diverse Dharma traditions. This vision, a common denominator among the Traditions, transcends institutional organizations and formal components, all of which remain integral parts of the Sangha, the Community of Dharma practitioners.
Taking action. Based on networks of authentic human relationships, the Rimé Association carries out, supports, and participates in activities, practice,s and the sharing of information and knowledge that support the dissemination of correct Dharma.
For more information: jamtseling@jamtseling-rime.org
Our Website: https://jamtseling-rime.org/
TAKING ACTION - Prison Outreach
Letter Writing Campaign
Compassion Prison Project has been told by several prison residents that nothing brightens their day more than hearing their name called during mail call.
They have also heard from letter writers on the outside that their lives have been deeply enriched by the relationships they’ve cultivated with the incarcerated men and women with whom they communicate. Expressive writing can be therapeutic and healing and can also cultivate a sense of belonging and connection.
CPP is always looking for volunteers to join their letter writing campaign. Please fill out the volunteer form and let them know that you’d like to write to someone living in a prison.
CPP is a grassroots, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
May we fulfill our vows to free and save all sentient beings.
JOIN ZEN PEACEMAKERS TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT PRISON OUTREACH
ZAZEN
Experience a connection with your personal landscape through the transformative power of online meditation sessions with the Zen Peacemakers. Whether you're part of a local sangha or other spiritual community, we invite you to join us in this virtual space where we can gather across geographies and time zones.
Join us for these online meditation sessions and experience the profound benefits of collective mindfulness. The Zen Peacemakers are here to support you on this transformative journey.
Monday - Friday
10:00 - 10:40 am US Eastern
MORE INFO HERE
Haiku
Monthly Haiku Page
Please participate in our Haiku Poetry Challenge
OFFERING
The Bernie Koans
Edited by: Ken Byalin, Francisco "Paco" Lugovina, Christopher Panos
‘It’s just my opinion, man’, as Bernie would say. We all have our opinions about Roshi Bernie Glassman. To some of us, he is the stern head monk at Zen Center of LA; to others, he is the socially engaged Buddhist who built up the Greyston Bakery and Foundation. To others he is the founder of Zen Peacemakers International and the instigator of bearing witness plunges on the city streets and at Auschwitz and to others he is the clown, the founder of the Order of Disorder. He is all of these and more. As the stories in the book show, he is Bernie, the mensch, who spent his life feeding the hungry ghosts of society and teaching that Zen is to realize the oneness and interconnectedness of life.
-Gerry Shishin Wick, grateful Dharma brother and disciple of Roshi Bernie
The Three Tenets of Current Affairs with Peter Coyote
The wait is over—our conversation with Peter Coyote is now live.
Peacemakers Podcast—a space where compassion, action, and deep listening come together. Presented by Zen Peacemakers, this podcast explores the transformative power of the Three Tenets: Not-Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action.
Join us as we engage with activists, spiritual leaders, and people just like you who embody the principles of peacemaking in their lives and work. Through their stories, we uncover the challenges and insights that arise when we step into the unknown, witness suffering, and respond with wisdom and love.
Whether you're a longtime practitioner or new to these teachings, we invite you to listen deeply, reflect, and discover how peacemaking can become a way of life.
Let’s walk this path together.
Listen Here: https://voice.zenpeacemakers.org/s/podcast
Thank you for reading this week's Zen Peacemakers newsletter.
We look forward to connecting at upcoming events, on social media, and via email.
With gratitude,
The Zen Peacemakers Team