Summary Report: 2019 Zen Peacemakers Auschwitz-Birkenau Bearing Witness Retreat
The Auschwitz retreat, for the 23nd year, is an effort towards spiritual healing, peacebuilding across cultural, political, religious, and other divides, and a plunge into extremes of human nature: its darkest cruelty and most noble compassion.
2019 Zen Peacemakers Bearing Witness Programs Impact Report
The Auschwitz-Birkenau retreat is the core program of ZPI’s Bearing Witness programs. What follows is this year’s impact report on the 23rd Bearing Witness retreat in Auschwitz.
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.
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.
[Deutsch/English] Roshi Barbara Wegmüller shares about lay practice in Pajamas, with soap bubbles
BERN, SWITZERLAND. “Since her accident in May, she can only use her left arm. I put it around my neck and remind her to feel her feet and to trust the floor she is wearing. I hold her close to my body and like in a dance we manage together two steps to the night commode, where she sits down powerlessly…”
Between Walls and Holy Places: Peacemakers Plunge in Palestine and Israel
ISRAEL-PALESTINE. In April 2018 a group of Swiss, Brazilian, Israeli and Palestinian Zen Peacemakers visited Israel and Palestine. Read Zen Peacemaker Iris Dotan Katz’ reflection on the trip, with photographs.
Diversity Day in Brattleboro Vermont USA: High School Students reflect on Not-Knowing & Non-Violence
VERMONT, USA. On Friday May fourth, Brattleboro Union High School held its annual Day of Diversity. The four presenters engaged sixty students on questions like “what labels do you use for others?”, “what is violence?”, “what is the relationship of identity and violence?” and “what is non-violence?”.
Bearing Witness to Land, Food and Race: Organizers review the 2017 retreat at Soul Fire Farm
PETERSBURG, NEW YORK, USA. In September 2017, Zen Peacemakers Roshi Paco Genkoji Lugoviña and Zen Peacemakers Minister Ariel Pliskin organized the retreat “Bearing Witness to Land, Food, and Race” with Soul Fire Farm in Petersburg, New York, US. The retreat will be offered again in September of 2018.
Great Doubt and Great Faith on Guard Towers and Trading Floors: Interview with Sensei Grant Couch
KEY WEST, FLORIDA, USA. Interview with Sensei Grant Couch. “Suddenly, I realized I was standing in the boots of the commandant … reading the camp (Auschwitz) just like I had “read” the operations of the big company I once managed. Had I been raised the way he was, I could have walked that same horrible path.”
Prayers on the Plum Tree: Sensei Engu Dobbs’s Reflection on the Zen Peacemakers Native American Plunge August 2017
SOUTH DAKOTA, USA. Each day we sat in a large circle and began and ended our meetings by smudging with sage smoke, offering tobacco, and listening to Lakota songs and prayers. Listening deeply and bearing witness to the grief of others tends to be hard, hard practice…But if we’re able, more or less, to stay with the grief…The result is often a powerful and surprising feeling of joy.