Possible Congo Bearing Witness Retreat

The Zen Peacemakers is considering hosting, with Congo partners, a Bearing Witness Retreat in the Congo. It would most likely occur in early 2016. If you would like to be notified if this retreat becomes a reality, please fill out the form below. In April, 2014, we held a Bearing Witness Retreat in Rwanda which […]

Rwanda: April 2014, Report on Rwanda Bearing Witness Retreat by Eve Marko

[slideshow_deploy id=’9026′] All Photos by Ola Kwiatkowska Monday, April 14. We’re at the EPR, the Presbyterian Church’s well-known guesthouse in Kigali, seated on chairs assembled in a circle. Downstairs a children’s choir practices for the Easter weekend services; they will sing for us tomorrow at our orientation. But right now we’re 11 Council facilitators, 6 […]

See the ocean? And that’s only the top of it.

So, a fish is swimming in water, and you ask the fish, “Where’s the water?” And the fish says, “What water?” You say, “You are water.” You know, the water goes right through the fish. It’s flowing in and out. The fish doesn’t know that. The fish is attached to the notion that he or […]

Eve Marko Shares Thoughts on Peter Matthiessen

I want to share some thoughts and feelings I have about Peter Matthiessen, who passed away last Saturday.

Peter was in the hospital till Friday, and I was told that he talked very little to none at all in the last few days of his life. But Michel Engu Dobbs, his successor, said that on Wednesday evening, when he visited, he asked him if he wished to chant the Heart Sutra in Japanese, or the Shingyo, as they did in his Ocean Zendo. Peter said yes, and the sick, mostly silent man and Engu chanted the entire thing in Japanese without missing a beat.

Roshi Peter Muryo Matthiessen

All photos by Peter Cunningham, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Roshi Peter Muryo Matthiessen was a master novelist, naturalist, and literary voice for nature—an acclaimed activist concerned with ecological issues, and the rights of indigenous peoples, social justice. He was a Zen teacher—a Zen Master, a Buddhist priest—Zen Buddhist priest, and founder of The Paris Review. He […]

Groking, Second Foundation, and Bearing Witness

I read a lot of science fiction when I was younger. I haven’t read that much recently, but there’s a few thoughts that have stuck with me all these years. One was “groking.” Grok was a word that was coined by Robert Heinlein, in a book he wrote in 1961—a science fiction novel called Stranger […]