Instructions on Not Giving Up
More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.
- Ada Limón
Dear Peacemakers,
Today, we celebrated five years of our Zen Peacemakers weekday meditation group. We gathered online to sit, wore silly hats, sang the birthday song and shared a little. More than a few members have been together for five years.
Our friend Mary Lynn Oertel wrote us a gatha:
I see calm faces, eyes closed, gently breathing.
Melting into this tranquil energy,
My heart bows gratefully
Before this haven of peace.
We began this group in March of 2020 as a way to connect and support one another as Covid began to rage.
It worked.
Peace,
Geoff
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
We invite you to participate in the Native American Bearing Witness Retreat, a profound opportunity to listen, learn, and engage with the history, wisdom, and resilience of Indigenous communities.
This retreat is an immersive experience guided by the Zen Peacemakers' Three Tenets—Not Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action.
Together, we will:
🔸 Hear from Lakota elders and community leaders about their traditions, history, and contemporary challenges.
🔸 Visit significant historical and cultural sites, engaging in deep reflection and dialogue.
🔸 Participate in Council, Ceremony, and Bearing WItness practices to foster connection and understanding.
🔸 Cultivate an open heart through direct experience and presence.
This retreat is open to all who wish to engage with Indigenous perspectives through deep listening and shared humanity. Space is limited—register now to be part of this transformative journey.
🔗 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)
Monday, March 31st - Mental Health Professionals & Caregivers with Dr. Iris Dotan Katz
Thursday, April 24th - The Way of Council with Bobby Chowa Werner
SERIES EVENT
EARTHING: A 5-Part Series on Not Squandering our Planet
Third Session: Thursday, March 27th, 2pm Eastern Time, Zoom
Please join Olga Garcia Falceto & J. Ovidio Waldemar for the third installment in this series. Olga Falceto, will talk about a recent ecological disaster that hit her home, in south Brazil. Heavy floods remained for an entire month, destroying lives, urban and rural properties. She will summarize scientific studies about the impact of the climate emergency on human health, focusing mainly on mental health. She is a psychiatrist who has been studying this issue for many years. She will introduce the international movement called “Planetary Health”, a new transdisciplinary concept that defines the search for human equity in harmony with other natural systems. Ovidio Waldemar, has been working with young people in schools for the last 15 years, teaching Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence. He is a witness to the creative energy and the solidarity that emerges during disasters.
PEACEMAKER CIRCLE
Tuesday, April 1st, 12pm Eastern
Sacred Mischief for April Fool’s
Please join us for a gathering of April fools, clowns, misfits and warm hearts. Our esteemed guests will bring love, light, and dee-light. Come expecting nothing! You will be likely to get it!
PRECEPTS OF THE ORDER OF DISORDER:
The Three Treasures-
Disorder
Humor
Love
The Three Tenets-
Not even not knowing
Just wait
Belly laughter
The Ten Guidelines–
1. Don’t kill anything by taking it seriously
2. Don’t steal anything unless you can get away with it (and you can’t)
3. Don’t worry about promiscuity; no one would look twice at you- you clown
4. Don’t lie by pretending to know anything
5. Forget about intoxicants, you are already a mess
6. Laugh at yourself at least as often as you laugh at others
7. If someone makes a fool of themselves, pay your respects and join in the fun
8. If you can, smile. If possible, giggle. Whenever there is a chance, laugh with all your might.
9. Have fun.
10. Don’t laugh at Bernie, Yoowho, or Kuku….
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