April
I wanted to speak at length about
The happiness of my body and the
Delight of my mind for it was
April, a night, a full moon and-
But something in myself for maybe
From somewhere other said: not too
Many words, please, in the muddy shallows the
Frogs are singing.
- Mary Oliver, from Swan: Poems and Prose Poems, Beacon Press.
BEARING WITNESS RETREAT
Ehani wichoun ikxoyagya woechun
Connecting with our Ancestors Way of Life
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.
In the sacred lands of Elk Mountain and Hot Springs, we gather in relationship with the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota nations—through story, presence, and shared practice. This is not a reenactment, but a living act of bearing witness to what is, and what still calls to be seen.
Since 1996, Zen Peacemakers has offered retreats around the world grounded in the Three Tenets: Not-Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action. 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:
Visit sacred sites in the Black Hills, guided by Native elders and hosts
Listen to stories of cultural survival, identity, and connection to place
Reflect in daily circles centered on presence and mutual respect
Deepen our understanding of solidarity with Indigenous communities
🔗 Learn more & register
We hope to see you there.
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)
Friday, April 18th - Women Only Council
Thursday, April 24th - The Way of Council with Bobby Chowa Werner
Monday, April 28th - Mental Health Professionals & Caregivers with Dr. Iris Dotan Katz
PEACEMAKER CIRCLES
Joanna Macy's Work That Reconnects
Tuesday, April 15th, 12pm Eastern Time, Zoom
The Work That Reconnects helps people discover and experience their innate connections with each other and the self-healing powers of the web of life, transforming despair and overwhelm into inspired, collaborative action. – Joanna Macy
This workshop led by our Peacemaker Friend, Priyanka Sharma, is a group work designed by Joanna Macy to foster the desire and ability to take part in the healing of the world. Since its inception in the late 1970’s, it has helped thousands of people around the globe find solidarity and courage to act despite rapidly worsening social and ecological conditions. If you are worried about the state of the world and feel depleted by the enormity of the challenges facing us, this workshop will help you to reconnect with yourself and others and be heard in community. You will learn to use pain to fuel your wish for the betterment of the world in community.
In this workshop you will go through a spiral starting with gratitude, honor each other's pain, learn to see with new eyes and make plans for going forth based on the wisdom we gained from the previous steps. You will have the opportunity to share these in the community.
EARTHING: A 5-Part Series on Not Squandering our Planet
Fourth Session (All Are Welcome): Thursday, April 10th, 2pm Eastern Time, Zoom
Join Kathleen Hoêtsu Battke for EARTHING: Confident beyond Hope- Council as a Wake-Up Space
The space beyond hope
I abide, fully present.
despair turning green
Whatever you do, how enthusiastic or hopeless, confident or desperate you may be: In times of massive transformation as we experience now, it is crucial to have a warm and safe place to go to, where there’s community, slowing-down, listening and sharing. And where you may abide in a space beyond hope, in spacious not-knowing without losing your determination to act.
After a short introduction we’ll explore the possibilities that the Way of Council offers for environmental activists, and we may experience the powerful energy of this transformative heart-mind practice in a short guided Council sharing.
CORE TRAINING
Introduction to Zen Peacemaking with Eve Marko
Monday, April 14th, 7pm Eastern Time, Zoom
Our approach to Peacemaking is unique. As we practice the Three Tenets of Not Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action, we commit to not taking fixed positions, to embracing wholeness and unity, to setting a place at the table for everyone. In a world of conflict, suffering, and violence, how do we make peace in this way. Please join us to learn about Zen Peacemaking.
FILM SERIES
Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power
(On-Demand March 13 - April 12)
Cost: $5.49 via KINEMA, proceeds go towards supporting our Bearing Witness Retreats
The passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 represented not the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement, but the beginning of a new, crucial chapter. Nowhere was this next battle better epitomized than in Lowndes County, Alabama, a rural, impoverished county with a vicious history of racist terrorism. In a county that was 80 percent Black but had zero Black voters, laws were just paper without power. This isn’t a story of hope but of action. Through first person accounts and searing archival footage, LOWNDES COUNTY AND THE ROAD TO BLACK POWER tells the story of the local movement and young Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers who fought not just for voting rights, but for Black Power in Lowndes County.
Purchase a ticket via KINEMA here:
https://kinema.com/events/lowndes-county-and-the-road-to-black-power-omeamw
AFFILIATE EVENT
Dear friends,
I'm glad to share that the registration for our Retreat in Brazil is open.
With the dedicated service of a little group of Brazilian volunteers - including Sandra and Marcelo, participants from Cohort 1 - we organized a beautiful program. In this 2025 edition of the Retreat, we will have the opportunity to listen to many more voices and to learn from many places linked with the tragedy of slavery and racism in Brazilian history. At the same time, we will share the richness of the Afro-Brazilian culture, alive and vibrant in the social reality of Bahia, the state of Brazil where the Retreat will happen.
Please, have a look at the website of the newborn Brazilian Zen Peacemaker Circle, and, if you feel the calling, give us the joy of receiving your Presence in our Retreat.
Thanks for your attention and support.
Jorge Koho Mello
on behalf of the CZPBR
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 the Sangha for Ukraine
Sangha for Ukraine
Compassion for Ukraine Mission: The Compassion for Ukraine community maintains a daily gathering to open our minds and hearts, and radiate compassion to all who are suffering as a result of the invasion and the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Our daily practice is based on traditions and practices of Buddhist meditation and mind training, with a focus on the practice of tonglen. In addition to our practice, we bear witness to the impacts of the war and learn from our Ukrainian friends about their experience and concerns, and about Ukrainian history and culture. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE
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
Maybe I’m missing something, but where are the voices in opposition to genocide in Gaza? Where are the voices in opposition to Israeli apartheid in Palestine? Where are the voices against the US complicity in this imperial slaughter that is continuing to unfold in front of our eyes?
Hi Anthony,
Thank you for reaching out and for your heartfelt questions. I hope you’re hearing, as I am, the many voices rising up for peace in these challenging times.
It’s very likely there are organizations near you doing this kind of work. As for Zen Peacemakers, we are long overdue for a check-in with our friends in Palestine. That said, with the current conditions, it’s more difficult than ever to connect and schedule something meaningful.
You can view our past Holy Land Bearing Witness events here:
👉 https://zenpeacemakers.org/?s=holy+land
If you're interested in how we approach peacemaking, we’re offering a free introduction to our process on April 14th, and would love to have you join us:
👉 https://hive.zenpeacemakers.org/events/168955
With appreciation for your interest and care—feel free to follow up with any questions or thoughts (press@zenpeacemakers.org)
I’m happy to support however I can.
In Gratitude,
Zen Peacemakers
Our mission is to realize our oneness and relieve suffering through contemplative social action.
www.zenpeacemakers.org