Brush Doodling
Just playing
not doing
anything special –
the drawn traces
of an ink-soaked brush.
- Rengetsu (translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi, Joan Halifax)
BEARING WITNESS RETREAT
Zen Peacemakers Native American Bearing Witness Retreat
July 12 - 18, 2026
Black Hills, South Dakota
This Bearing Witness Retreat centers on relationship — with Lakota horse culture, with the land, and with one another.
We will be based at a single camp location in the Black Hill area of South Dakota. Each day includes periods of horseback riding across the surrounding area, along with council, teachings, meals, and conversation with Lakota hosts about history, culture, language, and contemporary life. Returning daily to base camp creates continuity and deepens the field of connection. This program is designed for both riders and non-riders.
Guided by the Three Tenets — Not Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action — this is not a tour or performance. It is an invitation to be affected.
PEACEMAKER CIRCLE
Zen in the World: Awakening the Roots of Effective Action
Wednesday, May 6th, 12:00pm US Eastern Time, Zoom
In this session, Paul Gyodo — transmitted teacher in the White Plum Zen lineage and serial startup founder — explores how Zen practice becomes a living path of mastery in the world. Drawing from the three tracks of The Noble Path Group (Presence, Purpose, and Impact), Paul will guide participants through a direct inquiry into what it means to bring the full force of your practice into your work, your leadership, and your deepest vows.
CORE TRAINING
Core Training: Meditation Instruction - Lisa Gakyo Schaewe
Monday, May 11th, 7pm US Eastern Time
Human beings have been practicing mindfulness or meditation for millennia. It is a natural activity for us, like sleep, or walking, or moving about. Often, this practice is part of a religious or spiritual tradition, taking on many varied forms. And many of us meditate unaffiliated with any doctrine or lineage. We will offer a basic, introductory training in meditation, unattached to any specific tradition, that participants can put into personal practice immediately. It has been said, “Stillness answers every question.” Let’s explore that together.
A PRAYER FOR PEACE
Hello Family!
Our dear Lakota relative, Violet Catches, would like to invite Zen Peacemakers from all around the world to join on the Fourth Friday of the month at 1:00 pm US Eastern Time, to offer prayers for peace. Participants will be encouraged to offer prayers from their faith tradition, culture, and in their language.
In peace & gratitude-
Michel Engu Dobbs
Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89008592778
WAY OF COUNCIL
Council is one of our most important core Zen Peacemaker practices. We share Council during our Bearing Witness retreats almost 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, 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)
Mon., April 27th - Mental Health Professionals & Caregivers with Dr. Iris Dotan Katz
Sat. May 2nd, 8am AEST-Melb/10am NZST-Wellington - The Way of Council with Australia-NZ Peacemaker Council
Thurs., May 7th - The Way of Council with Kineret Ando Yardena
Friday, May 15th - Women Only Council
TAKING ACTION
Illness, aging, and dying are not separate from life—they are life.These moments ask something of us: to stay present where we might otherwise turn away. Through the Three Tenets, we begin here. Not-Knowing invites us to release our ideas about what this time should look like. Bearing Witness brings us into direct contact with vulnerability, grief, and care—just as they are. Taking Action arises within this intimacy, in how we show up moment by moment. As we sit with those who are ill, dying, or grieving, we begin to notice our own fear, our discomfort, our impulse to fix or withdraw. In that moment, there is an opportunity to not turn away, and remain present—to meet life as it is.
✨ Explore the Taking Action initiative — discover how you can serve, connect, and be inspired by the work already unfolding in your communities.
👉 Explore More
❤️ Your gift helps bring the Three Tenets to life.
👉 Donate Here
AFFILIATE ANNOUNCEMENT
To strengthen our planetary network, Zen Peacemakers will feature newly affiliated groups. Join hive.zenpeacemakers.org to explore some of the offerings of the organizations affiliated with ZP, and visit here for a full list of these groups. The following is an introduction to the Zen Caregiving Project
Our mission is to nurture caregivers and those they care for by teaching skills rooted in mindfulness and compassion while fostering connection and community.
Tell us a bit about how your group was conceived
Zen Caregiving Project, formerly known as Zen Hospice Project, was founded in 1986 to address suffering in San Francisco. Rooted in Zen Buddhist tradition, we began training volunteer caregivers to serve dying residents at two sites of service. Our world-renowned volunteer caregiver training has evolved to become the foundation of our Mindful Caregiver. The education that we teach nationally. In 2015, we began taking our unique approach to care out into the world in order to allow caregivers anywhere to benefit from our course offerings.
When did your organization form? January 1, 1987
Tell us about one exciting project, program, or other offering you are currently working on.
About a year ago (2025) we created Caregiver Support Circles. These were initiated to address a problem we were seeing among caregivers, namely, isolation. These sessions serve as an enhancement to the courses we lead for caregivers. They are a forum for caregivers to come together and share the story of their caregiving and connect with other caregivers. By providing a space where caregivers are held without judgment or any need to fix, they can feel safe sharing whatever burdens them. As facilitators, we are there to listen and witness. When asked, we provide ideas or approaches that may ease suffering.
How do the Three Tenets inform your social engagement?
Within the context of our volunteer program and our educational program, we teach the value of embracing “Beginner’s Mind.” We also teach the necessity of looking clearly into the face of suffering in all its forms and being with things as they are with clear attention and an open heart. In everything we do we aspire to serve others and generate merit for the benefit of all beings.
For more information
Our Website: https://zencaregiving.org/
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
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












