The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
- Emma Lazarus
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
Fleet Maull: Mindfulness-Based Wellness & Resiliency for Public Safety Professionals
Wednesday, July 2nd, 12pm Eastern Time, Zoom - All Are Welcome
Fleet Maull, PhD, will share insights into the often-overlooked health and well-being challenges faced by public safety professionals—those who serve daily on the front lines of trauma and crisis. He has explored the immense psychological and emotional burden carried by law enforcement, firefighters, and EMTs, and the systemic factors contributing to burnout, compassion fatigue, and even suicide. Drawing from his extensive work delivering mindfulness-based wellness and resiliency programs in these sectors, Dr. Maull will illustrate how contemplative practices can serve as a lifeline for those in uniform.
SERIES EVENT
The Spiritual Journey – The Ten Zen Ox Pictures with Genjo Marinello
Mondays: June 30th (done), July 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th, Aug 4th, 11th, 18th
2:00pm US Eastern Time
In this 8-Part Series, we will examine together how The Ten Zen Ox Pictures can be helpful on our journey from ignorance to awakening, and then the long road from awakening to maturity. I hope that as we deeply explore our own spiritual paths, using the reflections of the Zen Ox Pictures and verses, we’ll collectively become more effective in these challenging and crazy times to care for all beings, big and small, animate and inanimate.
We know there’s nothing to achieve; we already have all the resources we need to blossom as wise and compassionate humans, but growth is tough, and maturity doesn’t come easily. So, let’s explore together how exploring The Zen Ox Pictures can help us prepare better for today’s trials and tribulations.
We will be using Genjo Marinello's book Reflections on Awakening & Maturity for Spiritual Companions for the pictures and verses associated with The Ten Zen Ox Pictures.
All are Welcome to join the days that they can.
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)
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.
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
Pamsula Zen Center
Zen Meditation Center in the White Plum & ZPO Lineages Zazen, Dharma Talks, Retreats, Workshops, Study, Precepts, Engaged Practice, InterFaith Engagement
Tell us about one exciting project, program, or other offering you are currently working on.
Recent Workshop on The Bodhisattva Precepts with an emphasis on the Three Tenets; making use of them to explore being of service, lessening cravings/causing harm, studying Teachings (from Zen & other Wisdom Traditions) plus finding ways to embody the Three Tenets in one's Life.
How do the Three Tenets inform your social engagement?
My Teaching — direct 1-on-1, Dharma Talks & Workshops — all focus on the Three Tenets. I introduce them to people, then encourage them to find ways to integrate them into their awareness then into their day-to-day (moment to moment) living.
Upcoming Events with Pamsula Zen Center
2025 Summer Ango
28 June — 30 September
Zazenkai: NYC — 28 June
Iowa City — 26 July
White Plains — 23 August
Youngstown — 13 September
Ongoing Offerings
Monday Evening Meditation
6:00p - 7:15p
Small Chapel at Union Theological Seminary
Main Entrance: 3041 Broadway (at W. 121st Street)
(1 Train to W. 116th or W. 125th Street)
In-Person & Online
We stream live via Zoom: PM for Zoom link: Here
Friday Morning Meditation
7:30a - 8:30a
via Zoom: PM for Zoom link: Here
Small Chapel at Union Theological Seminary
Main Entrance: 3041 Broadway (at W. 121st Street)
(1 Train to W. 116th or W. 125th Street)
In-Person & Online
We stream live via Zoom: PM for Zoom link: Here
For more information: daikenn@gmail.com
Our Website:
https://www.pamsulazen.org
Pamsula (definition):
1) Dusty, covered with dust; 2) Polluted, defiled, sullied, stained
Traditionally, the discarded, soiled cloth that monks & nuns found from which they made their robes
TAKING ACTION - Housing and Food Insecurity
Rather than just giving a person a fish,
we teach people to fish,
then teach them how to cook it
The Mission of Mandala Café: To provide dignity, accessibility & mutuality around issues of food & employment
Weekly Community Meal
Each Wednesday
Adam Clayton Powell Blvd & W. 116th Street (outside First Corinthians Baptist Church), NYC
Volunteers Arrive at 4:00
Serving: 5:00 until all meals are handed out
69,000+ Meals Served Overall!






MAILING ADDRESS
47 Ft. Washington Avenue, Suite 32
New York, NY 10032
Rev. Daiken Nelson, Roshi has worked in kitchens since High School; doing everything from washing dishes to serving to cooking to managing.
Daiken began Zen Practice 35 years ago in Iowa, where he was born.
For the past 10 years, he had studied with Roshi Paco Genkoji Lugoviña, a Successor to Roshi Bernie Glassman. In October, 2013, Daiken received Shiho/Dharma Transmission from Roshi Genkoji. In November, 2021, he received Inka, making him a Roshi (Venerable Teacher).
Daiken is an authorized Teacher in the White Plum Asanga.
He leads the Pamsula Zen Center in Harlem.
Prior to focusing on Zen, Daiken was a Social Worker; working with the homeless plus those with Chronic Mental Illness & Substance Abuse issues.
In addition to Zen, Daiken is a Reiki Master, Yoga Instructor, Photographer & Writer.
The Mandala Café Project is a weaving of the many threads of Daiken’s Life & the Vision for his Dharma Teaching.
JOIN ZEN PEACEMAKERS TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT
HOUSING & FOOD INSECURITY
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
Occupation, Faith & Forgiveness - Life as a Palestinian Christian
In today’s episode of the Peacemakers Podcast, we’re honored to share the voice of Elias D’eis, a Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem and a leader with the Holy Land Trust.
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