April Rain Song
Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.
- Langston Hughes
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
EARTHING: A 5-Part Series on Not Squandering our Planet
Final Session (All Are Welcome): Thursday, April 17th, 3pm Eastern Time, Zoom
Join Martin Pradel for EARTHING: Taking Action out of Bearing Witness in the Midst of Uncertainty
“If we can listen not just with our ears but with our eyes, our noses, our mouths, and every pore of our bodies, then we do not see all the ingredients in front of us, we are those ingredients. And once we listen, we have to act.” - Bernie Glassman, Bearing Witness: a Zen’s Master’s Lessons in Making Peace, pg. 78.
In the midst of climate emergency, anxiety, fear and uncertainty can create feelings of individual and collective despair and paralysis. Yet, through this course, we have listened deeply to the Earth’s wounds and taken healing actions locally and globally. In this final session, we will gather and synthesize your course journey through a writing process session that culminates with a personal Earthing Taking Action map. Come with pencils and blank paper as we take you through a writing process of self-enquiry to reflect and name your deepest yearnings for Earth Stewardship.
Meals Served With Love
Wednesday, April 23rd, 12pm Eastern Time, Zoom
When Ariel Pliskin experienced a Zen Peacemakers Bearing Witness Street Retreat, he noticed that when they ate at a soup kitchen, the staff would treat them with love, but not with dignity. As a result, Pliskin, Bernie Glassman, and others worked to create a model of community building and hunger relief in which people of all socio-economic backgrounds are treated with dignity. Join a Talk with Ariel to learn more about his life as a practitioner of socially engaged spirituality and a dedicated student of mindfulness.
CORE TRAINING
Meditation Instruction with Lisa Gakyo Schaewe
Monday, May 12th at 7:00pm Eastern, Zoom
Human beings have been practicing mindfulness or meditation for millennia. It is a natural activity for us, like sleep, or walking, or moving about. Often, this practice is part of a religious or spiritual tradition, taking on many varied forms. And many of us meditate unaffiliated with any doctrine or lineage. We will offer a basic, introductory training in meditation, unattached to any specific tradition, that participants can put into personal practice immediately. It has been said, “Stillness answers every question.” Let’s explore that together.
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
I certainly don't disagree with you on the need to be more engaged in helping to relieve suffering. Our outreach is somewhat limited to supporting the Holy Land Trust, but we would like to do more. Maybe you can help us. What organizations are you involved with that you would suggest? Glad to move this to press@zenpeacemakers.org, if you're willing.
As I mentioned last week, I can’t understand why this organization is so silent on the genocide in Gaza and the ongoing apartheid in the rest of Palestine. I see there is a sangha for the Ukraine. That’s good and appropriate, but nothing about the unbearable sadness of Palestine?