Stay Out: Bearing Witness at Wounded Knee Survivors’ Descendants Ceremony

WOUNDED KNEE, SOUTH DAKOTA, USA. Written by Roshi Eve Marko of Green River Zen Center in Levertt, Massachusetts USA, following the completion of the 2018 Zen Peacemakers Native American Bearing Witness Plunge in July. The event, which lasted 5 days and spanned South Dakota, Wyoming and Nebraska, brought together participants from across the United States and Europe with Elders and their families from Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe reservation. “Honor the Treaties. Stay Out. Apologies are useless.” Those words were chalked on the crosswalk they crossed before climbing the hill that leads to the mass grave of the Bigfoot Band, killed in Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1890. How do you stay out?

Bearing Witness at Bear Butte: Reflection from The Wounded Knee Massacre Descendants Conference, October 2017

BEAR BUTTE, SOUTH DAKOTA, USA. In October 2017, Lakota elders organized a conference of Wounded Knee Massacre descendants in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Following from the connections made during the ZPI Native American Bearing Witness Retreats in August, a small group of Zen Peacemakers were invited to join. They were led by Michel Engu Dobbs, who afterwards gave this dharma talk at Ocean Zendo in Bridgehampton, New York:

Impact Report: Auschwitz-Birkenau Bearing Witness Retreat

Since 1996 the Auschwitz retreat has been an interfaith and immersive cross-cultural gathering event for over 1500 peacebuilders from different war-torn countries such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Palestine/Israel, Syria, Native American Nations and over 20 other countries. This 2018 impact report details some of the many positive results of the program.

A Gift of Not Knowing

Peter Pierson, a writer and a participant in the Native American Bearing Witness Plunge in 2019, offers us a reflective writing piece that shares a bit about how the practice of “Not Know” remained with him throughout his return home, long after the retreat had come to an end.