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Zen Peacemakers

Join a growing community and engage in social action around the world. Learn more about what it means to become a part of the Zen Peacemakers community today

TAKING ACTION
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About Us

At Zen Peacemakers, we stand as a beacon of hope, an interfaith community bound together by our mission: to realize our oneness and relieve suffering through contemplative social action through the practice of our Three Tenets: Not-Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action. Embracing the rich tapestry of human diversity, we unite souls from varied spiritual paths and traditions, igniting a collective commitment to peace and interconnectedness that transcends all boundaries.

What We Do

Taking Action

Taking Action: that arises from Not-Knowing and Bearing Witness

The underlying intention is that the action that arises be a caring action, which serves everyone and everything, including yourself, in the whole situation.

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Bearing Witness Retreats

Our Bearing Witness Retreats rely on our Three Tenets and take place in locations where deep human trauma occurred and where healing is endlessly needed. Our intention is to contribute to the healing of these places with our Retreats. Click below for details on our three Annual Retreats.

The Three Tenets

The Tenets: Not-Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action lay the foundation for everything we strive to accomplish in our community. To learn more about how we utilize the Three Tenets within our practices click below.

Community Events

At Zen Peacemakers we offer a variety of virtual and in-person events. As part of our community, you will have access to these free events including Peacemaker Circles, Peacemaker Chats, Affiliate events, and more for free.

Core Trainings

As part of our efforts to make Zen Peacemakers accessible and valuable to all, we have recently launched Core Trainings. These trainings encompass knowledge about Council Practice, the Three Tenets, Meditation, our History, and more.

Zen Peacemaker Order

ZPO is dedicated to training those living a life of commitment, aligned with the principles of  Zen Peacemakers and the Three Tenets. To Find out more, click below.

Our Community

Active Members
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Gwen W.
Gwen W.Zen Peacemaker
I started a mobile shower program for the homeless after I moved to an area where many homeless individuals lived, but where there were no public showers available to them.

We all know the gifts of a hot shower; that feeling of being clean and fresh and the uplift it gives to your spirit; it can change your whole outlook for the day ahead. Our shower trailer is driven to 5 shower sites 5 days a week. The sites are primarily located at multiple local churches. There is a staff of 6 volunteers at each site, they welcome our shower guests, hand out new underwear and socks, and clean each shower unit in prep for the next guest.

The best part of working at the showers, for me and our volunteers, is the respect and caring that develop between those working and our homeless guests. Our homeless guests are thankful for our simple shower service and their “thank yous” and “God bless yous” and the uplift in their step, has a direct impact on us volunteers, causing us to be thankful to be able to both know and help others who are in need.
Caz I.
Caz I.Zen Peacemaker
Today, I had the honour of holding space for a mother and daughter to come and do some coffin weaving with me. Their husband/father died just two weeks ago, from cancer that had spread all through his body, and from what they told me, he faced his illness and his death with both resilience and grace. The loss of this important presence in both their lives was hugely evident, the story they shared with me of his final passing and his last words still very much alive in my heart. This work that I do, this being drawn into such an intimate time with total strangers, to bear witness to their (often very raw) grief, is nothing less than a privilege. Every time.

I have been weaving coffins since 2020, inspired as I was by my aunt-in-law’s death in 2015 and her own request to be buried in a willow coffin. The time I spent helping to make her coffin woke something up in me - something I can only begin to describe as a deeper spiritual connection to the boundless cycle of life and death - the essence of which remains at the heart of why I continue to do what I do for a living. Inviting people to come and help weave a part of a family member or friend’s coffin is what gives my willow work soul. Working together, as we do, feels both ancient and wholly present. People always comment on how ‘meditative’ it feels when they get into the flow of the weaving. It allows them, I believe, a moment’s reprieve from their grief, and the opportunity to pour some of that grief through their hearts and hands, weaving love into this last resting place for the one who has died.

When a family leaves my workshop - as did this mother and daughter today - I feel the absence of their presence keenly in the space around me. And, more than that, I feel the presence of something else - a gift, always, in the shape of something I have learned from them. A lesson, every time, in how to be more present and how to live life fully.
Our Journal

HUMAN INSTRUMENTALITIES

January 23, 2025 ~ Eve Marko “In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party—and

OLD EGYPT ROAD

December 4, 2024 ~ Eve Marko   I was in Takoma Park, Maryland, for the Thanksgiving holiday and returned home on Saturday. The following morning, I took