Native Americans fight for items looted from bodies at Wounded Knee

Peace offerings of tobacco ties adorn the fence at the Wounded Knee Memorial on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota on Oct. 20, 2014. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post) By Dana Hedgpeth July 17, 2022 Getting them returned from an obscure museum outside Boston hasn’t been easy for the descendants of those slain during the 1890 […]

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:

Heartwood – The Art of Living with the End in Mind

Great masters of many traditions have taught us that we must die before we die if we wish to truly live. In her new memoir Heartwood: The Art of Living with the End in Mind (Flatiron Books, Macmillan, May 2021), Barbara Becker sets off on a journey to explore this truth like a koan, with […]

Native American Bearing Getuigenis Retreat

Native American-Zen VredestichtersGetuigenisretraite Native American-Zen Peacemakers Bearing Witness Retreat 2023 Wolakota Makasintomni AwachekiyapiBidden voor heilige harmonieen wereldwijde vrede Medicine Wheel in de Bighorn Mts. van Wyoming en op de plaats van de Rosebud Battlefield in MontanaZondag 9 juli tot en met zaterdag 15 juli 2023. REGISTRATIE IS NU GESLOTEN Registreer hier Zen Peacemakers organiseert sinds […]

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.

Start Talking Lakota: Manny and Renee Iron Hawk Discuss Reviving the Lakota Language, Immersion Schools, Trauma, Prayer, and Spirit

Renee Fast Horse Iron Hawk and Manny Iron Hawk, two of the organizers and hosts of Zen Peacemakers’ Native American Programs, have been instrumental in the opening of Lakȟótiyapi Okáȟtaŋ Wičhóičhaǧe Inc. (LOWI), a school dedicated to education by full immersion in Lakota language. In an interview with Rami Efal, they discuss language loss and immersion, Trauma, Prayer, and Spirit.