Beyond Us and Them
November Night
by Adelaide Crapsey (1878–1914)
Listen . . . With faint dry sound, Like steps of passing ghosts, The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees And fall.
PEACEMAKERS CIRCLE
Bearing Witness to Oneness: Cops, Convicts and Council
Wednesday, November 4th
12:00 - 1:30 PM EST
This Peacemakers Circle brings a freewheeling conversation with the leadership team of Beyond Us & Them, an organization rooted in the practice of council that has been bridging divides and creating pathways to connection for more than a decade.
Beyond Us & Them Executive Director Jared Seide will be joined by Lyndon Barber and Mitch Highley, each of whom came to this work through council itself — Lyndon after a seventeen-year career with the Los Angeles Police Department, Mitch from inside Ironwood State Prison, where he was serving a life sentence. Together they embody council's capacity to shift perspective beyond us and them. Join us for honest stories and open conversation.
Unfinished Vow: A Conversation with Roshi Joan Halifax
Wednesday, November 18th
12:00 - 1:30 PM EST
Join Zen Peacemakers for a conversation with Roshi Joan Halifax exploring what she has called “the architecture of goodness.” She will share perspectives on motivation, intention, commitment, atonement, and vows from her upcoming book 'Unfinished Vow,' and how these principles can form the ground of a life oriented toward goodness.
Roshi Joan is a Buddhist teacher, social activist, anthropologist, author, and Founder and Head Teacher of Upaya Zen Center, and a pioneer in end-of-life care. A successor of Bernie Glassman and a Founding Teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order, her work and practice for more than three decades has focused on socially engaged Buddhism. For more about Roshi Joan’s life and work, go to joanhalifax.org.
RETREATS
Soon, Zen Peacemakers from all walks of life will gather at the site of the death camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. We go for the same reasons now as we did at the first retreat: to bear witness to humanity.
Registration is still open.
Join us in bearing witness.
Zen Peacemakers Auschwitz-Birkenau
Bearing Witness Retreat
November 15 - 21, 2026
Oświęcim, Poland
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Scholarships are available
contact us at [email protected]
CORE TRAININGS
The Three Tenets with Sensei Jim Daikan Bastien
Monday, November 16th
7:00-8:00 PM EST
Bernie Glassman articulated the Three Tenets of Zen Peacemakers early in its evolution. These three simple, profound vows or commitments can also be taken as a complete practice for our lives.
Not-Knowing: I will embody Not-Knowing, thereby giving up fixed ideas.
Bearing Witness: I will bear witness, opening my heart to the joy and suffering of life.
Loving Action: I will take loving action arising out of Not-Knowing and Bearing Witness.
Through the Three Tenets, we can practice and manifest our true selves in every situation and with everything that arises. This is a lifelong practice—one we never complete. During this hour-long session, Sensei Daikan will present and describe the Three Tenets, followed by time for questions.
ZEN PEACEMAKERS SERIES
Aging: Renewing the Mystery
A Monthly Gathering with Roshi Eve Marko
2nd Tuesday of each Month
Aging: Renewing the Mystery is a monthly Zoom gathering investigating themes and issues many of us face as we get older. Topics include forgiveness, fear of dependence, illness and death, simplicity, regret, loneliness, the changing faces of love, and others that come from participants.
We are also offering an “Aging Council” the 4th Wednesday of each Month.
Open to everyone.
Nov 27th: Peacemakers Council - Aging Council with Geoff Shōun O’Keeffe
THE 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 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)
Nov 14th AEDT: The Way of Council with Aus-NZ Peacemaker Council
Nov 20th: Women Only Council
Nov 27th: Peacemakers Council - Aging Council with Geoff Shōun O’Keeffe
NEW OFFERING
Bearing Witness Peacemaker Councils
Bearing Witness Peacemaker Councils are a new unique offering from Zen Peacemakers. These councils focus on peacemaking by consciously integrating divergent and opposing views as a way to make whole, or create peace. They will be ongoing, meeting weekly for one hour, and are offered and facilitated by people who participated in a 6-month council training with Zen Peacemakers.
Follow the link below to learn more about joining in one of these councils:
Families of the Protectors: Do you have a family member, police, firefighters, first responders, military, whose job puts them in harm’s way? Join us to share your story.
The Portuguese Peacemakers: You don’t have to leave your language at the door. Come as you are.
Bearing Witness to Immigration: Open Arms, Up in Arms, in Sheltering Arms - Let’s land here to share our experiences of immigration.
The Hard Way - Loving and Hating the Addicts in Our Lives: Come and Share your experience.
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Homeless? Can we have a conversation about one of the world’s most urgent issues?: Homeless in your neighborhood? Homeless yourself, in your family? Let’s gather and share our experiences.
MEDIA LIBRARY
Peacemaker Circle Recordings
A Life Translating China’s Mountain Poets:
A Conversation with Red Pine
In this Peacemaker Circle on October 7th, translator and author Bill Porter (Red Pine) recounts how he began studying Chinese after receiving a Columbia fellowship, struggled through intensive coursework, and was influenced by a monk in New York Chinatown and later monastic life in Taiwan.
Art, Activism, and the Practice of Peace:
A Conversation with Poet Jane Hirshfield
Renowned poet, essayist, and translator Jane Hirshfield joined Geoff Shōun O’Keeffe earlier this fall in September for a Peacemaker Circle on art-making, activism, and compassion, including readings of her poems.
ZEN PEACEMAKERS AFFILIATES
NEW AFFILIATE SPOTLIGHT
Mountain Cloud Zen Center
Our mission is to awaken, liberate, and protect all beings.
What we do: Mountain Cloud Zen Center is a lay Sanbo Zen practice community dedicated to awakening, liberation, and reducing suffering through Zen practice and compassionate engagement with the world. Founded in 1985, the Center offers zazen, teachings, sesshin, community practice, and programs that integrate contemplative practice with social and ecological responsibility. Its recent Ecodharma Residency brings Buddhist practice and the Three Tenets—Not-Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action—into direct relationship with environmental and social crises, while land stewardship workshops put these principles into practice through care for local trees, soils, trails, and ecosystems. Across its programs, Mountain Cloud emphasizes loosening fixed identities, deepening connection with others and the natural world, and allowing skillful action to arise from attentive, compassionate presence.
Where we are: Santa Fe, United States, and online.
Learn more at mountaincloud.org
Zen Peacemakers is a network of independent organizations on five continents dedicated to realizing our oneness and relieving suffering through contemplative social action. Together, our collective commitment to interconnectedness and compassion ripples outward far beyond ourselves, transcending all boundaries and transforming lives.
TAKING ACTION
The Earth sustains all life. Caring for her is caring for ourselves.
With the Three Tenets, we respond:
Not-Knowing: Meeting the climate crisis without rushing to easy answers.
Bearing Witness: Spending time in threatened places and feeling their truth.
Taking Action: Joining efforts in conservation, regeneration, and climate justice.
Daily Practice: Walk gently, reduce waste, honor the land beneath your feet.
Get Involved: Volunteer with reforestation, clean water, or climate advocacy groups.
Learn more here: https://zenpeacemakers.org/taking-action-home/taking-action-environment
✨ 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 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. 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