Dec 9-12Enlightenment Retreat To Register, click here.
BERNIE ON THE ROAD
Sep 24-26, 2010 Zen Peacemakers founder Bernie Glassman will lead the workshop Bearing Witness to the Wholeness of Life at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, Stockbridge, MA.
Nov 10, 2010 Becoming a Mensch: Service as Spiritual Practice at the Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany.
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sharing the Zen Peacemakers Newsletters with friends, associates, sangha members and groups you think would be interested. Use the following link to
The mission of the Zen Peacemakers is to alleviate suffering by:
• developing and managing holistic social service projects that help individuals, families
and communities;
• promoting and supporting Socially Engaged Buddhism throughout the West; and
• inspiring and training a new generation in this way of service as Zen practice.
"When you realize the wholeness and interdependence of life,
you have to take care of everyone, and to do that,
you have to work with every ingredient of life."
- Zen Master Bernie Glassman, Founder
Bernie Glassman
Our founder and Spiritual Director, Zen Master Bernie Glassman, is
internationally recognized as a pioneer of American Zen and a founder of Western Socially Engaged Buddhism. His life's
work is based on a commitment to service, born from his long-time practice of the 2500-year-old tradition of Buddhist wisdom and compassion.
Bernie created the Zen Peacemakers in 1980 to embody this commitment in a global network of practitioners and activists who integrate Zen practice, social service, and interfaith work in the context of daily life. Responding to some of the most difficult problems of our time—poverty, AIDS, homelessness, and war—Zen Peacemakers have not only provided solutions, but also highly effective, inclusive models and approaches.
Zen Study
Headquartered on a 34-acre campus in Montague, Massachusetts, Zen Peacemakers has 70 affiliate centers, groups and circles in 12 countries on 5 continents. While their training is grounded in traditional Zen practice—meditation, retreats, liturgy, and personal study with lineage holders—their Dharma practice extends from the meditation hall to the worlds of business, social service, conflict resolution, and environmental stewardship. It is also connected with hundreds of individual Zen activists around the world who have worked on joint projects and continue to come to its headquarters for inspiration and training. Their work illuminates all life as a boundless field of practice.
Roshi Bernie in Chiapas
Maezumi Roshi and Sensei Bernie (Riverdale 1981)
Roshi Bernie Glassman founded the Zen Peacemakers in 1980 with the goal of bringing Zen practice into the worlds of social service, business and the environment. From this effort grew the Greyston Mandala, a holistic network of community development companies and not-for-profits working in the inner city of Yonkers, New York. Greyston’s mission was to free individuals and families from the cycle of poverty and public dependence by providing not only affordable permanent housing but also supportive wrap-around services such as childcare, vocational training, and market-wage jobs. One of the first “welfare to work” programs in the country, Greyston continues to build housing facilities, and operate a highly successful bakery, a certified childcare center, AIDS-related medical services and housing, and other supportive services with .an annual total operating and capital budget of over $20 million, funded by private and public sources.
Roshis Bernie and Jishu at Opening Ceremony for Greyston AIDS facility. (Yonkers 1997)
From 1996 to 2004, Zen Peacemakers initiated social services and peacemaking activities through affiliate circles around the world, including coexistence projects in Israel and Palestine, support for African immigrants in Europe, and introducing nonviolent communication skills in Polish public schools. It also created a powerful infrastructure for linking and training Zen activists in many countries and making them a potent force in civil society. This raised the need for a campus that would serve as a training facility and gathering place for socially engaged Zen activists.
Yuri Maezumi in French Peacemakers Soup Kitchen (Paris 2006)
Today, members of Zen Peacemakers feed hundreds of immigrants every week at a Paris soup kitchen, provide hospice care in New York, work for prison reform in Colorado, offer a broad range of services to various impoverished American inner cities and rural areas, and are some of the important leaders of Socially Engaged Buddhism in the West.
The central headquarters of the Zen Peacemakers is a 34-acre campus in Montague, Massachusetts, hosting the following areas of activity:
Mother House
Montague Farm Zen House
Montague Farm Zendo
Residence Program
House of One People
The Mother House is the administrative office of the Zen Peacemaker Sangha, a network of 70 affiliates worldwide connected by lineage or commitment to Socially Engaged Buddhism. As part of this commitment, the Mother House also sponsors the following:
The Symposium for Western Socially Engaged Buddhism. The first annual Symposium will be a 6-day gathering in August 2010, bringing together more than 50 of the leading Western activist practitioners, academics and sponsors of Socially Engaged Buddhism, for discussions, workshops and panels on mental health, ecology, political activism, social service, social enterprise, and the arts.
The free monthly online newsletter Bearing Witness, the associated daily blog and the online directory of Socially Engaged Buddhism, bringing to a wider audience work being done by Buddhists in prisons, schools, homeless shelters and the streets. These offerings provide practical information and highlight opportunities for getting involved across the spectrum of activities in the world of Socially Engaged Buddhism.
The Montague Farm Zen House is the local ministry of the Zen Peacemakers, providing meals and wellness programs to local families in need. Montague itself is locate in Massachusetts’ largest and poorest county, with high rates of unemployment and rural poverty, which pose big challenges for the delivery of services and insuring that rural families don’t remain invisible and uncared for. The Zen House draws on local Zen students as well as resident trainees, and serves as a laboratory and training center for developing Zen Houses in other locations.
The Zendo, led by Sensei Eve Myonen Marko, hosts a meditation-based curriculum of programs for local practitioners and trainees, including regular Zen practice, intensive retreats and workshops, and private study.
The Residence Program gives committed Zen practitioners the opportunity for full-time training as part of an intentional community, doing sitting meditation, serving in the Zen House, and participating in the development of new services. After gaining sufficient experience, trainees can move on to establish and staff new Zen Houses in other parts of the country.
Main Hall of the House of One People
The House of One People functions as a multi-faith practice center, hosting a variety of activities including:
• Yoga
• Hindu Kirtan
• Sufi Zikr
• Christian Vespers
• Jewish Shabbat
• Spiritual clowning class
Zen Peacemakers’ 34-acre campus in Montague, Massachusetts, bounded by the Saw Mill River on the south and Spaulding Brook on the west, comprises:
• A 12,000 square foot, 3-story renovated L-shaped barn, which comprises the office space for Zen Peacemakers administration and the Main Hall, with mezzanine, used for training, meditation, and multi-faith programs, accommodating up to 200. There is also cafeteria space on the lower level feeding 100 participants at a sitting.
• Farmhouse, Teachers Cottage, and Garden. The 18th century New England-style Farmhouse comprises 16 rooms, including public spaces, bathrooms, a front porch, a back deck, a firewood shed, and a large greenhouse that can grow vegetables almost year-round. In its present condition, the Farmhouse can legally house 12 residents full-time. There is also an independent Teachers Cottage, comprising a living room, bedroom and kitchenette, as well as an outdoors 1+ acre organic garden that is perfectly suited for sustainable agricultural programs.
The campus climbs up a large, gentle slope behind the Farmhouse, perfectly shaped to serve as an outdoors amphitheater for performing arts events, as well as a large flat tract, bordered by forest, that provides scenic vantage points from which to contemplate the valley below. The property line itself is well inside the forest of oak and maple, with the gurgling Spaulding Brook audible everywhere.
Zen Houses
Zen Houses institutionalize a new model of Buddhist ministry. There are currently two Zen Houses, one in Montague, serving needy families in Franklin County, and the other in the Appalachian region of southern Pennsylvania.
The Montague Farm Zen House offers meals and wellness programs both on the Montague campus and in homeless shelters and community centers. It networks with existing agencies and emphasizes service with dignity. It is beginning an on-site organic, sustainable agriculture program for the planting and harvesting of food for use in its meals and is looking to develop a business component that will provide employees with market-wage jobs and economic self-sufficiency.
We would like to use the Montague Farm Zen House as a springboard for the development of additional Zen Houses in the West by using it as a hands-on laboratory where resident trainees can learn the relevant model and skills and build their own Zen Houses. Each Zen House will develop its own social service projects and structure its programs, schedules and staffing based on the needs of the community being served. For example, after completing his residential training, Steve Kanji Ruhl founded the Appalachian Zen House, featuring environmental initiatives addressing rural poverty.
Expanded Residential Program
An enlarged and renovated Farmhouse will be able to house – resident trainees under the supervision of a highly skilled staff. In addition to using the Montague Farm Zen House as a laboratory, the training program will be supplemented by advanced workshops in business practices, social entrepreneurship, fundraising, the basics of Buddhist-inspired social service, etc. Daily life will be focused on Zen practice and service in the projects sponsored by the house.