得失是非，一時放卻。
Gain and loss, right and wrong—
release them all at once.
Zen Peacemakers Auschwitz-Birkenau
Bearing Witness Retreat
Auschwitz-Birkenau is not an easy place to approach,
especially when you are being called,
to make whole.
November 15 - 21, 2026
Oświęcim, Poland
Bearing Witness at Auschwitz-Birkenau
There is a difference between knowing a thing and being changed by it.
Synchronized Gatherings Across Sites of Nazi Persecution and Genocide
Zen Peacemakers invites our Affiliates, European Peacemakers, and friends to join in a shared act of remembrance across Europe.
This is a shared practice held across distance — a way for people in different places to enter the same field of remembrance, presence, and bearing witness.
Participants may gather at one of the suggested locations, or name another local site during registration: a camp, sub-camp, transit site, memorial location, rail site, or nearby place of historical significance.
Peacemakers Circle
In 1986, I was first introduced to the phrase, “Taking your practice off your cushion,” by Thich Nhat Hanh. That has been a wonderful koan to me for the past 40 years. A year later I began studying Japanese Psychology. Naikan Therapy offers a path to questioning the stories we carry with us and seeing our relationships with others through a different lens. In our time together, and through stories, maxims and poetry, I hope to share with you ideas and principles from Japanese Psychology and explore, in dialogue, whether, and how, this might fit into your own life and spiritual path in the Zen Peacemakers tradition.
Wednesday, July 15th
12:00 PM US Eastern
Gregg Krech has been studying and teaching Japanese Psychology for 39 years. He is the author of five books including “Tunneling for Sunlight: Living Wisdom from Buddhism and Japanese Psychology to Cope with Difficult Times”. His work has been featured in THE SUN magazine, Tricycle, SELF, Utne Reader, Counseling Today, Cosmopolitan and on Public Radio. He is the Director of the ToDo Institute in Vermont.
Peacemakers Circle
Join The Lotus Institute’s Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward and Emanuel Ward, son of Dr. Larry Ward, for an intimate gathering centered on Morning Night, Larry’s posthumously published collection of poetry.
Wednesday, July 29th
12:00 PM US Eastern
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)
Friday, July 17th - Women Only Council
Monday, July 20th - Mental Health Professionals & Caregivers Council
Wednesday, July 29th - Way of Council
Core Training
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.
Duration: 60 minutes - Format: Presentation
TAKING ACTION
Spiritual traditions are many, yet the divisions we experience are not only between them, they are also within us, in the ways we hold views and define what is “true” or “other.” Through the Three Tenets, we begin here. Not-Knowing invites us to loosen our attachment to fixed ideas about religion and belief. Bearing Witness brings us into direct relationship with the practices, rituals, and lived experiences of others. Taking Action arises within this encounter, not from agreement, but from staying present in difference.As we engage across traditions, in dialogue, shared practice, or collaboration, we begin to notice our own assumptions, our preferences, our subtle habits of separation. In that moment, there is an opportunity to remain present and meet one another more openly.This may look like participating in interfaith initiatives, building relationships across traditions, or working together to address shared needs. The work is not about resolving difference, but about how we meet it.
Learn more here: https://zenpeacemakers.org/taking-action-home/taking-action-interfaith
✨ 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
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
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
I have to buy it in written form asap