Peacemaker Circles UK

We held a day in Manchester to honour Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi for the fourth year running, in Howard Bamforth's house in Withington. The day began with welcome and introductions, and then a period of singing Arabic chant, accompanied by Persian drumming by Howard's friend Arian from Tehran. We had half an hour of silence, with people reading aloud from books of Rumi laid around the central table, and then more singing, this time a song taught to us by Rabbi Ohad from Israel on the Zen Peacemakers Auschwitz retreat. We then studied a chapter from a new book by the Dalai Lama,' Towards the True Kinship of Faiths', considering his own journey in inter-religious encounters, and why he thinks they are vital for the survival of humanity. After a shared lunch, we spent the afternoon reading and reflecting on three passages from Shams of Tabriz, Rumi's own teacher, using the recent translation by Camille Helminski and Refik Algan called "Rumi's Sun". We ended...

I went to see Tron: Legacy on Saturday night in Leeds. I love sci-fi movies anyway, but I went particularly because the founder of the Zen Peacemakers, Bernie Glassman, was involved as a consultant for 'mythic' material in the planning stage. He's a friend and informal Zen teacher for some time to Jeff Bridges, which provided the link. Going to the cinema this month has now a double Bernie Glassman element: the film involved him, and the Ben and Jerry's icecream in the foyer includes chocolate fudge brownies from the Greyston Bakery outside New York, founded by Bernie to employ homeless and other local excluded people... I won't give a summary of the movie, plenty of other online reviews do that already. I found the film a good watch, great special effects (and I only saw the 2D version, so 3D must be amazing), and the leading actress was so beautiful I couldn't help falling for her (which was the aim, I think!) The script is a little less satisfying, with...

"When our holding on loses its grip and we stop pretending to know and we rest in the innocence of Now and allow life to flow. When we realise we are part of a love so divine What need is there of I, me, or mine?" (poem by Kim Birch, North of England Circle) Our annual celebration of Rumi, mystic poet of love, took place in Leeds this weekend. It began with a short ceremony late on Friday night, the evening which is traditionally celebrated in Turkey as his "wedding night with the Beloved", or in other words the night he passed away in 1273 by the western calendar. Then on Saturday we held a Day of Reflection in Rumi's honour, in Steve Suleyman Hart's house. It began with a period of silence intermingled with reading different translations of Rumi's poetry. Then we read and discussed a chapter from the new book "Towards a True Kinship of Faiths" by the Dalai Lama, on the importance of understandi...

We held our monthly Great Heart meditation circle this evening, training in mindfulness, love and Silent Sitting zazen. For our discussion theme we read a chapter on deep ecology from the book "Thinking Like A Mountain: towards a council of all beings" by John Seed, Joanna Macy and friends. The essay looked at human beings as part of nature, rather than as the pinnacle of creation at the top of nature. Instead, "I am that part of the rainforest recently emerged into thinking" and "We are the rocks dancing"... The Unitarian Chapel where we hold our circle was this evening covered in snow, and we took the opportunity to do some quiet walking meditation outside under the big trees in the old graveyard garden. It's such a wonderful place of peace in the midst of Leicester city centre.

We held our monthly 'Great Heart Circle' for training in meditation tonight. We were a small circle, braving the wild winds and the rain! For a change we were downstairs in the Unitarian meeting rooms instead of the garden room, and it was great: nestled in the depths of the building with the wind howling outside. We talked about joy in life and practice, and how it links to "raising the bodhi mind" in traditional zen language, and about different kinds of practice in different zen communities. Several people have experienced close deaths of family and friends recently, so this was a point of sharing too. We had guided meditation, silent sitting zen meditation, and a shared sacred meal again...

Last week the international Zen Peacemakers held a Bearing Witness retreat in the former Nazi camp of Auschwitz Birkenau. It is the 15th year of holding the retreat, and this year we came together as 95 people from all over the world- UK, Israel, USA, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Sweden, Brazil, Canada, Holland, France, and including a group of 20 young adults aged 16-23 from many countries, with everyone coming from many different religious and cultural backgrounds. On Monday we visited Auschwitz I, the first camp established in the Polish town of Oswiecim by the Nazis. It's now a museum with exhibits tracing the history of the concentration camp, with a film showing footage of the prisoners just after release. The next four days were spent in Birkenau, the death camp built just outside Oswiecim to gas hundreds of thousands of victims - mostly Jews - and work many more hundreds of thousands to death in conditions of indescribable deprivation. Birkenau is a ...

We held a Zen Peacemakers Day of Reflection in Leeds on Saturday, arranged and hosted by Steve Suleyman Hart. The day was 10am till 4pm. It was a cheerful, relaxing day- beginning with a period of silent meditation, and exploring the practice of Council Circle (loosely: talking and listening circles based on the Native American approach to communal decision making). In the afternoon we watched "Zen on the Street", a video on Bernie Glassman's work made in Switzerland 15 years ago. It's an overview of his Zen approach, including social business and housing, street retreats and the annual Auschwitz retreat. The next events in Leeds will be an evening ceremony in honour of the Persian mystic Jelaluddin Rumi on Fri 17th Dec, followed immediately by a full day event based on Rumi the next day, Sat 18th Dec. There'll be a Rumi Day in Manchester the next day, Sun 19th Dec, exploring the teachings of Rumi's master, Shams of Tabriz.

We held our monthly Great Heart Circle last night, with meditation and discussion on the theme of "metta", the Buddhist teaching of universal love. We read the Metta Sutta, a discourse from the earliest Buddhist scriptures on extending our hearts to all beings without exception, and also a couple of quotes from Islam and Buddhism which are remarkably similar: Muhammad said to Anas: "My son, if you are able, from morning until night and from night until morning, keep your heart free from ill-will towards anyone." Then he added, "Oh! my son, this is one of my laws, and he who loves my laws, truly loves me." and The Buddha said: "Hatred never ends by more hating, but only by abandoning hate. This is an eternal law." We ended once again with a shared sacred meal together. The next meeting will probably be the second instead of the first Thurs in Nov for a change, to be confirmed soon...

We held the North of England Zen Peacemaker Circle meeting on Saturday, from 10.30am till 6.30pm. The venue was Steve Suleyman Hart's lovely house in Rothwell, outside Leeds. The loose theme for the day was "Bearing Witness". We began with a checking-in circle, and then Kim led us in a little Nembutsu chanting- Namo Amida Bu. Then Steve led a guided relaxation/metta meditation following on from the one he did at the last circle... soften/allow/love. We then read together a section from Roshi Joan Halifax's book "Being With Dying", and explored an exercise together where we look with innocent child-like eyes at the person sitting opposite us and imagine their own child-like innocence present at the same time as their current state. We discussed the exercise in depth afterwards. We had a shared lunch together- Tom made soup with a pumpkin from his mum's garden. Then we did a 30 minute exercise in Silent Sitting meditation led by Zang. We began in sil...

We held the monthly Great Heart Circle for meditation last Thursday, once again in the Unitarian Great Meeting House in the city centre. After our usual guided relaxation and meditation on kindness, we studied and discussed the Zen Peacemakers' Precepts together. These are the 16 traditional Refuges and Precepts transmitted by the Japanese Soto and Rinzai lineages, together with the "Five Commitments" agreed at the last World Parliament of Religions. The discussion included the nature of precepts, why have them at all; the question of why they're usually worded in the negative "I will refrain from... " etc; and how we feel about implementing them in our daily lives. We concluded with a period of silent Zazen meditation, and a shared meal.

For the first time in over 3 years, the Manchester Zen Peacemaker Circle went roving, being held in the welcoming house of Steve Suleyman Hart in Leeds. This marks a new stage in the Circle, hopefully able to invite a wider range of people to events in both Leeds and Manchester. Perhaps it is now the "North of England Zen Peacemaker Circle"! We met from 10am till 5pm, beginning as usual with a checking-in circle to see how we all were. Then Steve led a guided mindfulness meditation practice, leading us to recognise and accept all the physical and emotional sensations in our bodies, then generating love towards ourselves and others. Next, Kim gave a talk on "not-knowing". He began by talking about some images which came to him the night before after a talk he gave on Pureland Buddhist practice, based on his experience of the Amida Trust community from Leicestershire. He spoke of our individual lives and efforts as being like rock pools, and the grace of the univ...

This evening we held the monthly Great Heart meditation circle, in the Unitarian Chapel's lovely garden room. The evening began with a cup of tea, followed by guided mindfulness and metta meditation practice. We then walked a little in silence in the chapel's tranquil garden - a haven amidst the busy city centre. We held a short checking-in council circle, and then studied and discussed the model of the five buddha familes, used in the Zen Peacemakers as a way of including all aspects of your life in socially active practice. After this we did 20 mins of zazen meditation, and ended with our usual celebratory meal, with cake,chocolate, biscuits, and lemon-curd flavoured yoghurt!

I was invited last night to open an interfaith evening with a little Buddhist meditation, in the Belgrave Community Centre in the predominantly Asian area of Leicester. The evening was arranged and hosted by the local Baha'i community, and included readings from different religious traditions and Hindu music. They plan to hold two further evenings in the next couple of months, hoping to attract people from the local community to attend. Especially beautiful I found were two pieces of live singing/reciting - one in Arabic, one in Farsi, by Baha'i women from Egypt and Iran. from Zang

Last Thursday we held our monthly Great Heart Circle in Leicester, once again in the Garden Room of the Unitarian Chapel in the city centre. We did relaxed silent sitting meditation, some walking meditation in the garden, and finished with a meal and coffee. The next meeting will be on the first Thursday in August...

There was a day meeting of the Manchester Circle this saturday, 4th July, held once again in Howard`s house in Withington, South Manchester, and facilitated this time by Steve Suleyman Hart. In the morning they went together to a Bach recital performed in a local church by someone Howard knows. Then in the afternoon there was first a talk given by Steve on the Andalusian Sufi Ibn al-Arabi, in response to a book Steve read written about him by the orientalist scholar Henri Corbin. Steve explored overlaps with Buddhism, the the heart and with Western artistic imagination. Following this, each person talked for a time about the roots of their personal and spiritual inspiration- what in their life has brought them to feeling there is a more creative and compassioante way of living and exploring life. There was also a discussion of what the Manchester Circle can hope to achieve when it re-opens to new members and public events at the end of this year of practice together, looking at ide...

from Zang: I was invited to give an informal training evening for the "council circle" practice we do in the Zen Peacemakers, based on the Native American tradition of meeting in circles for making communal decisions and storytelling. Eight people took part in the evening, arranged and hosted kindly by Rowan and Willow, organisers of the Leicester Unitarian gathering (one of the two Unitarian communities in Leicester). In the first half of the evening I gave an overview of the practice and the 'ground rules' for keeping it alive. I played a piece of Irish 'sean-nos' singing by Roisin Elsafty as an example of coming from the heart, and we read a short story by Erica Wagner together to enter into a storytelling spirit and listening to one another. Rowan read out a passage (I think by Thich Nhat Hanh) on the value of deep listening. Then after a short break, Rowan and I co-facilitated a full council circle, which began with a poem by Carol Anne Duffy about be...

On Thursday evening we held the third monthly "Great Heart Circle" in Leicester- an evening of warm-hearted meditation and relaxation, study and Zen training. We read together another chapter from Bernie Glassman's book 'Bearing Witness', this time on the Auschwitz retreats, to coincide with this year's retreat beginning in the former prison camp. Every year for over 10 years the Zen Peacemakers have arranged multi-faith and multi-national retreats in the grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau, to remember and bear witness to the events that happened there and to learn to listen to each other's stories and diversity. We also did a little informal walking meditation in silence in the beautiful bluebell garden at the back of the Unitarian chapel where we hold the Circle, and ended once again with a celebratory meal together. The next Leicester Great Heart Circle will be on Thurs July 8th at 7.30pm

By happy coincidence, our monthly Leicester 'Great Heart Circle' meditation class fell on Thursday 6th May- the day of the British General Parliamentary Election! It felt a good moment of the poetry of life- an evening of calm and appreciation of diversity whilst the country was in a frenzy of anticipation... We began with guided awareness and kindness meditation as usual, followed by tidying up rubbish from the grounds of the chapel where we were meeting! Then we studied a section from the book 'Bearing Witness' by our Zen master, Bernie Glassman, where he talks about meditating regularly as a group in the grounds of a derelict school in New York, gradually cleaning it up each day from rubbish and drug needles and even asbestos. The city were so pleased with what they were doing, they even sent them a squad of US marines one weekend to help out...! We had a period of silent Zen meditation towards the end, finishing with a poem and song by Rumi. Then we had a shared...

From Zang: I was invited today by the Leicester Unitarian Gathering, one of the two Unitarian communities in Leicester, to facililtate a workshop in the spirit of our Great Heart Circle gatherings. Most of the participants had been to a workshop the day before on the Dances of Universal Peace, and have an interest in Sufism- so the theme I brought along was "Zen Meditation and the Sufi practice of 'Adab' ". We did some guided meditation together, including loving-kindness practice, and held a short checking-in talking circle. Then I introduced the four training principles we used to use in the Manchester weekly group, which are an attempt to bring the Turkish Sufi spirit of "adab"- beautiful behaviour/manners, to our regular training. These are 1) Come to the training house without expectations 2) Come in a spirit of generosity 2) Respect the intimate relationship between you and everyone/everything in the training house , and finally 4) Welcome an...

On Saturday from 11am-6.30pm we held the Manchester Zen Peacemaker Circle meeting in Howard's house. Tom, Kim, Howard, Suleyman and Zang were present. We began as usual with a little silence and a checking-in circle, and then we had a 90 min workshop on Chi Gong and Pranayama led by Kim. Because it was such a beautiful sunny day we held this in a nearby park, and we were joined by Simon Gupta who often came to our meetings last year. Kim led us through a series of relaxing and invigorating movements, and then taught simple breathing exercises. We came back to Howard's for a shared lunch, and then began the afternoon studying Chapter 2 of 'A Deeper Beauty' by Paramananda. The chapter was about the value of our bodies, how we don't appreciate them enough or their value in spiritual practice, talking especially about our hands as an example. Tom led us in the guided meditation from the end of the chapter, reflecting on how much we do with our hands each day. We ...

We had the first Manchester Zen Peacemaker Circle of 2010 on Saturday in Howard's house, from 11-6pm. It was the first of our "closed circles" for this year- between now and the end of 2010 we decided to have a few meetings only for those who have been involved with the ZPC before and who are able to commit to coming to every meeting during the year. The aim of this is to be able to deepen our practice together and work more on understanding what it means to meet as a circle- last year we had many wonderful days of training, but they were more like drop-in sessions with many different people coming each time. The aim is to "reopen to public events" in Deceember 2010, starting with our annual celebration of the Islamic mystic poet Rumi. Five of us attended the circle on Saturday- Howard, Tom, Suleyman, Kim and Zang- travelling from Oxford, Leeds and Leicester, so we're beginning to have a broader geographic pull than in the beginning, when people only came...

This evening we launched the weekly public Great Heart Circle in Leicester. We will be meeting every Thursday from 7.30pm in the Unitarian Chapel, 45 East Bond St, LE1 4SX. There will be guided relaxation, council circle, a short Dharma talk, and silent Zen meditation... ending each week with a celebratory shared meal. It's a delightful unplanned coincidence, given our tradition's links with the Islamic meditation schools of Sufism, that this evening also marked the beginning of the Prophet Muhammad's birthday, many blessings upon him. May this be an auspicious sign for our practice together in Leicester!

Barbara Salaam Wegmueller from Switzerland came this weekend to lead a workshop for us on the Zen Peacemaker Precepts. The venue was Eco House, an environmental show-home set in snow-covered Western Park in Leicester. On Saturday we studied the "Three Refuges of the Zen Peacemakers" - Oneness, Diversity and Harmony, reflecting deeply in a circle about what each of these principles mean for us in our own life experience. After a shared lunch we had some silence, and chanting from Pure Land buddhism led by a member of the Amida Order. Then Barbara talked about the Zen Peacemakers, the Auschwitz retreats, her social projects with Muslim women in Switzerland, and Bernie Glassman's new Zen House project for service in socially deprived areas. On Sunday we had a frank and deep discussion of two Zen Precepts: Not Being Angry and Not Elevating Oneself by Blaming Others . Barbara explained the three ways of approaching the ethical principles- taking them literally; interpret...