How did the rose ever open its heart
and give this world all its beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
against its being,
otherwise we all remain too frightened.
- Hafiz
Dear Peacemakers,
April 24th through 28th, we will offer our Bearing Witness to Racism retreat in Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. I heartily invite and encourage you to join us this year.
2025 is the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, when white Selma police violently attacked and beat peaceful civil rights marchers on the entrance to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. We will cross the bridge as part of our retreat.
As we all know, racism is not limited to this time or this place. As humans, we have the capacity for great compassion and unspeakable cruelty. We bear witness to these events in these places to experience this capacity and to hear the cries of those who suffered, to stand as one body, to see and not look away.
You can see the efforts within our cultures to sweep aside history, to "protect" people from being upset by these horrors. If this effort succeeds, even for a decade, a generation or more of young people will be unaware, crippling them as effective citizens.
Come and participate in this retreat in Alabama. Bring your kids and grandkids. Help keep this history alive so we avoid repeating it.
More information and registration can be found here.
Peace to all,
Geoff
BEARING WITNESS RETREAT
Bearing Witness to Racism in America 2025
April 24, 2025 - April 28, 2025
It has long been our desire to create a bearing witness retreat around America’s racial history – as seen through the eyes of African Americans. The intention has always been to engage without becoming a tourist; to seek unity without ‘othering’ those with whom we Bear Witness.
This year we plan on walking the grounds of a deep history in the expansion of slavery, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement – Selma and Montgomery.
We intend our Plunge in Alabama to be personal and transformative, with attendees coming away with an emotional and heart connection with the people, places, and events we witness.
We hope you can join us.
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)
Thurs., Feb. 13th - The Way of Council with Annie Myoshin Markovich
Friday, Feb. 21st - Women Only Council
Monday, Feb. 24th - Bearing Witness In Times of War
PEACEMAKER CIRCLE
Truth, Healing, and Repair as a Pathway to Peace
Wednesday, Feb. 12th, 12:00pm Eastern Time, Zoom
Author Hilary Giovale will share stories of learning that her ancestors were early settlers, colonizers, and enslavers in the United States. Through relationships with Indigenous Peoples and Lands, she began developing an awareness about the harms of colonialism that are still unfolding. She will detail a nine-year process of introspection that has helped her begin the process of building right relations, nine generations after her ancestors first immigrated from the Scottish Highlands. During this talk, Hilary will refer to a guide to making a personal reparations plan, the resources available on her website, and her recently published book Becoming a Good Relative.
AFFILIATE EVENTS
Remembering the Innocents 2025
Monday 27th of January marked the International Holocaust Memorial Day. Dina Awwad-Srour and The Etty Hillesum Cards team in cooperation with other peace activists held an online ritual. In this ritual people read the names of the children who were killed in the last war since October 2023, in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon and Israel. The ritual began on Sunday, 26 January 2025 at 7:00 am (Palestine/Israel time) and ended on Monday, 27 January 2025 around midnight (Palestine/Israel time) - 40 hours of ritual.
View The Program Recordings Here: Remembering the Innocents | Etty Hillesum Cards
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 - 10:40Â 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.
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-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