The camelia tips,
the remains of last nights rain
splashing out
- Yosa Buson
Join Our Monthly Haiku Challenge Here
BEARING WITNESS RETREATS
Join Us for the Native American Bearing Witness Retreat
July 15 – 20, 2025
📍 Hot Springs, South Dakota
This July 15–20, 2025, 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
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)
Thursday, May 22nd - The Way of Council with Deborah Jyoshin Stewart
Monday, May 26th - Mental Health Council
PEACEMAKER CIRCLES
Running a Business With a Heart
Tuesday, May 20th, 12pm Eastern Time, Zoom
Owner of Via’s Cookies, Via Carpenter and President of Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, Jeff Furman hail from wildly different backgrounds, yet they tread on common ground in their mutual passion for justice, equality, and putting smiles on faces through cookies and ice cream. See what they have learned and struggled with while combining social justice with business ventures.
Path of the Dharma Troublemaker
Wednesday, May 28th, 12pm Eastern Time, Zoom
What if the most radical act in our tumultuous times (or in any time) were to sit down wherever you are and wake up to the oneness of life? And what if that awakened rebel mind then stood up and resisted the status quo of confusion, division, and intolerance and went on a subversive mission to embody wholeness and compassion in the heart of life?
As a Zen teacher, journalist and poet, Amy (Tu es cela) Hollowell has devoted her life and practice to this spiritual path of the troublemaker, fostering a revolution of the heart and mind for all. Join a talk with Amy to explore her life and work and the wildly subversive ways we might meet the challenges of our current moment.
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
Sunday, August 17 to Thursday, August 21 2025
at Stelserhof, 7226 Stels, Switzerland
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
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