Buddhist Peace Fellowship
Socially engaged Buddhism is a dharma practice that flows from the understanding of the complete yet complicated interdependence of all life. It is the practice of the bodhisattva vow to save all beings. It is to know that the liberation of ourselves and the liberation of others are inseparable. It is to transform ourselves as we transform all our relationships and our larger society. It is work at times from the inside out and at times from the outside in, depending on the needs and conditions. It is is to see the world through the eye of the Dharma and to respond emphatically and actively with compassion.
– Donald Rothberg and Hozan Alan Senauke, Turning Wheel Magazine/Summer-Fall – 2008
Wholehearted Connection
Buddhist Peace Fellowship is a community of primarily dharma practitioners established to support socially engaged efforts of visionaries of compassionate social justice and dharma-based organizations for social change.
Mutual Liberation
Buddhist Peace Fellowship is a leader in socially engaged Buddhism, cultivating peace through sharing with others decades of experience, providing donors who value peacemaking to other organizations, and educating the public with dharma-centered views of social justice. We are here to assist in implementing projects that work toward ending suffering in the world.
A Voice for Change
Buddhist Peace Fellowship makes an effort to speak without anger and opposition for those who have been silenced by war, poverty, environmental disaster, genocide, and youth whose lives have been impacted by violence.
Thich Nhat Hanh: What Is Engaged Buddhism?
see also – whats more: Ram Dass interviews Thicht Nhat Hanh (1995)
One of the best known and most respected Zen masters in the world today, poet, and peace and human rights activist, Thich Nhat Hanh has led an extraordinary life. Born in central Vietnam in 1926 he joined the monkshood at the age of sixteen. The Vietnam War confronted the monasteries with the question of whether to adhere to the contemplative life and remain meditating in the monasteries, or to help the villagers suffering under bombings and other devastation of the war. Nhat Hanh was one of those who chose to do both, helping to found the ‘engaged Buddhism’ movement. His life has since been dedicated to the work of inner transformation for the benefit of individuals and society.
The Zen Peacemakers
A Force for Socially Engaged Buddhism
Inspiring | Teaching | Doing
“When you realize the wholeness and interdependence of life, you have to take care of everyone, and to do that, you have to work with every ingredient of life.”
Zen Master Bernie Glassman, Founder
In 1967, Bernie began his Zen studies with Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi Roshi, Founder of the Zen Center of Los Angeles. He became a Zen teacher–Sensei Glassman–in 1976. In 1980 he founded his own Zen Community of New York in the Bronx, New York. He started the Greyston Bakery, at first staffed by Zen students, as a livelihood for the Community, and then made it a vehicle for social enterprise in Yonkers, 3 miles north (see below). In 1995 Bernie Glassman received inka, or the final seal of approval, from his teacher and became known as Roshi Bernie. During that year and in 1996 he served as Spiritual Head of the White Plum Lineage, comprising hundreds of Zen groups and centers in the US, Latin America and Europe, as well as the first President of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association of America. His Dharma Family includes dharma teachers, zen priests, zen preceptors, zen entrepreneurs, Christian clergy, Rabbis, Sufi Sheiks and multi-faith peacemakers.
The mission of the Zen Peacemakers is to alleviate suffering by:
⢠developing holistic social service projects that help individuals, families
and communities;
⢠promoting and supporting Socially Engaged Buddhism throughout the West; and
⢠inspiring and training a new generation in this way of service as Zen practice.
About Zen Peacemakers blogDiscussions on articles from Bearing Witness, the free monthly online newsletter of Western Socially Engaged Buddhism
Commentary on Socially Engaged Buddhism
Writings of Zen Peacemakers founder Bernie Glassman, including previously unreleased material
Up-to-date news from the Zen Peacemakers Mother House in Montague, MA including:Montague Farm Zen House
Zen House Residence Program
Montague Farm Zendo and Shared Stewardship Circle
First major Symposium for Western Socially Engaged Buddhism