Zen Peacemakers International
“The question for me is, what forms can we create in modern society that will be conducive to seeing the oneness of life? What are the forms that will make it easier for us to experience that state of non-duality? Almost anything we do will cause more dualistic thinking, how do we lead ourselves, our brothers and or sisters into a state of non-duality?
That’s the question. That’s the koan.”
Bernie Glassman
Awakening at Home is happy to announce that it has just become an affiliate of Zen Peacemakers International https://zenpeacemakers.org/ ZPI was founded in 1994 by Roshi Bernie Glassman, a dharma heir of the Soto Zen Master Taizan Maezumi Roshi of the White Plum Flower lineage, his wife and friends. ZPI emanated from Roshi Glassman’s question, “How can I best serve?” This is a question that is primary to me so this form of Buddhism is a good fit. Their mission, our mission, statement is:
We are a worldwide movement of Peacemakers who practice meditation, embody the Three Tenets of the Zen Peacemakers (Not Knowing, Bearing Witness, Taking Action), live an ethical life, and do social action as a path of awakening and service. We seek to connect, inspire, support, train, and mobilize Zen Peacemakers throughout the world.
ZPI includes many different meditation groups and programs, including Greystone Bakery, a B-corp with an open hiring policy -no background checks, no resumes, no interviews. They offer workforce development and community wellness services designed to break the pattern of poverty in their New York Yonkers neighborhood- and they make great brownies! (you can order some online) ZPI also includes Bearing Witness programs in places where great suffering has taken place, such as the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the site of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, sites where indigenous Americans have experienced ethnic genocide, and other places where people have experienced great suffering.
ZPI has other affiliates as well, all dedicated to Buddhism and service. Some affiliates bring meditation into prisons, some bring comfort as chaplains into hospitals and numerous other programs bring Buddhist wisdom and practice where it can ease and support people who are suffering. What the affiliates have in common is they are all dedicated to service arising from direct insight into our interconnection with all beings. When we have insight into our interconnection with all of life it follows that when one of us suffers, we all suffer. Bearing witness to that suffering and acting compassionate to ease suffering whenever possible becomes a practice arising straight from our heart.
The ZPI programs are tied together by the three tenets articulated by Roshi Bernie Glassman in 1994. I’d like to say a few words about the three tenets as they pertain to Awakening at Home.
Not knowing
Not knowing is most intimate
Awakening at Home is, by definition, home based. Although we are open to people who are not living the family life, our original mission has been to support mothers. This came out of the awareness that pregnancy, birthing and early mothering are greatly enhanced by Buddhist wisdom and practices and that Buddhism is greatly enhanced by the inclusion of mothers. The intention of this work is to serve mothers who serve endlessly, to support the supporters.
One of the pieces of Buddhist wisdom that is tremendously useful to mothers is the value of living in a state of not knowing. During pregnancy we have no idea what will happen from day to day as our body morphs to accommodate the new life growing inside of us. While giving birth we do not know how, or when, things are going to unfold. No matter how carefully we may plan for our birthing experience it is bound to surprise us. As mothers and homemakers we may sometimes feel like we are just holding on to the tail of the ox as it whips us through the town as we hang on for dear life. There are so many factors in our day to day experience that are out of our control.
Mothers experience daily intimacy with not knowing. Many of us feel clueless as challenge after challenge come at us in rapid succession. By naming our cluelessness as wisdom to relax into rather than as an inadequacy, we allow not knowing to work its magic. Intimacy with the koan not knowing creates space around any situation or thought pattern.
When we feel like the walls are closing in on us as we endlessly cook meal after meal and tend to problem after problem we may feel like we are invisible and our life is going nowhere. Not knowing opens up the space and reveals that the walls are fabrications of the imagination which can vanish in an instant. This koan can make the difference between suffering and joy in the homemaker’s everyday life. There is a bright magic and intimacy about the state of not knowing. Everything is possible. It opens us up to creativity, wonder, and closeness with our environment and our self.
Bearing witness
The great way is not difficult
If we just don’t pick and choose
In meditation we develop both detachment and full engagement, samadi and vipassana, emptiness and interconnectedness. Not knowing offers the silence and emptiness, bearing witness offers the illumination and interconnectedness. Suffering, one of the marks of every existence, is all around us. We may be tempted to use meditation as a sedative against suffering. Spiritual practice may untangle us from suffering but it doesn’t remove us from the suffering all around us. Not picking and choosing, bearing witness to the suffering around us, brings us back into the world as it is, with full awareness.
When we see suffering there is a tendency to either try and fix things or to feel overwhelmed and shut down. Our child comes home from school and tells us that they have been bullied. We may want to swing into action driven by anger and fear for our child’s safety. Sometimes action is warranted. But sometimes the wisest action is to support the child in solving their own problem by bearing witness. When we bear witness we are fully present with the situation without having to step in and act right away. We give ourselves the space and time to feel with the person who is suffering which allows our own feelings to settle down so that we can choose our action, or inaction, wisely. Our child feels truly seen and heard when we bear witness to their suffering and action comes out of that deeper place. Bearing witness, not picking and choosing, is clearly a tremendously useful koan for mothers.
Compassionate action
Out of our meditation and spiritual practice comes the awareness that we are all connected, that we cannot ease our own suffering without easing the suffering of all beings. But how do we go about the impossible task of alleviating the suffering of all beings?
Compassionate action is not something we learn how to do and then apply to any situation like a stencil. It is more like jazz. We listen and respond to the moment. Compassionate action naturally arises out of not knowing and bearing witness. Each moment calls for fresh compassionate action. It takes courage and trust to sit in not knowing and bear witness until the needed action becomes clear. Alleviating suffering is not so much a task to complete as a way to live in the world. Compassionate action is a koan we live in.
I will be introducing Awakening at Home to the ZPI community on May 19, 9AM PST. Please join me! I would love to introduce our wonderful, new family to you and introduce you to our new cousins. Also, I would just love to see you! To join us you can email me through https://www.awakeningathome.org/contact and I will send you the zoom link. Or, if you’d like, you can join ZPI (at no cost) directly and sign up for the event through them at: https://hive.zenpeacemakers.org/events/56398
Some of you have been with me a long time through Hearth and Awakening at Home. The alliance with ZPI opens a new chapter for all of us. We are so happy to be joining with our new cousins, brothers and sisters around the world!