Peacemaker Circles UK

      From the Peacemaker Circle in Leeds, this update from Steve Hart: We have an excellent harmonious on-line Peacemaker circle including Jeana, Chris and myself - all with a long history of training in various Peacemaker , sufi and Buddhist training. We have re-trained in the five Buddha family drawing on Peacemaker sources, various five wisdom resources and Tibetan Buddhism/Shaivite elemental dakini traditions. We have explored inter-religious training particularly looking at the life of Sheikh Nur / Lex Hixon and Jeana has shared some of her time with him and Sheikha Fariha of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi sufi lineage.   In Leeds, UK we have an in person Peacemaker Circle  which is well represented of the Afro Caribean and asian communities and we are currently training in the five Buddha mandala and exploring the three tenets in reflective zazen. We have also incorporated Jeana's trainings in guidelines for effective council circle and circ...

 This week in the Edgeley Zen Group, near Manchester, we explored a new form for loving - kindness (metta) meditation practice in a circle, created by Jeana Moore. In the practice, we invoke the receipients of our meditation into the circle, as if they are there with us, in ever widening circles. As we go round in council circle format with a talking - piece, each person says a little about why they are invoking that person, and gradually we try to hold or imagine a sense of all of us together. Jeana has been working with Steve Hart (Leeds) and Chris Starbuck (Manchester) to develop the new practice, and she's explored the traditional "rules of Council Circle" for this framework. We discussed these in the Edgeley group before practicing yesterday, naming them 'Grandmother Jeana's Guidelines' The new practice seemed much appreciated, it was a lovely evening. 

This evening at the Edgeley Zen Group, we celebrated the anniversary of the great Sufi poet Rumi. We explored a little practice of turning around the heart, and then in our regular Council Circle, Les played extraordinary sounds on a crystal bowl while one by one we each stood up and turned for a few minutes in the centre of the circle. We dedicated the evening to the soul of Mevlevi Postneshin Shaikh Jelaluddin Loras, pictured above, son of our late Shaikh Suleyman Hayati Dede, who passed from this world last Monday. Ashk olsun - May it become Love. 

  Starting 6th September 2021 - the Edgeley Zen Group. Drop-in meeting on 1st and 3rd Monday of each month, 7.30pm - 9pm. In Aspirit gift shop, 67 Castle Street, Edgeley. £5 to cover costs.  Training in Zen meditation coming to us from the Japanese and American Zen traditions. Zen is the art and practice of seeing ourselves and the world as deeply interconnected. Through meditation and practices which lessen our sense of separation, we experience the wholeness of life - we are all one, without losing our uniqueness too.  The group will be open and welcoming to people with any experience or none, from any spiritual background or religion. We follow an approach to Zen training in interfaith circles developed by the late Bernie Glassman, pioneer of socially engaged Buddhism. Each week there will be training in meditation, and relaxed discussion of Zen writings. For further information email Chris at willowtreeblues@gmail.com

Lockdown meant that the Zen Peacemaker, Leeds Mindfulness, Wellbeing & Spirituality, and Leeds Nur Ashki Jerrahi sufi communities faced many challenges when it came to meeting. I'm grateful to Zoom but there are still challenges with understanding and sensing the space of the "other".  However, new opportunities for new communication and contact came about in this time. Steve Hart (dharma and vision holder, ZP) designed some peer support workshops for on-line groups for people with mental health difficulties under the Live Well Leeds third sector banner. These workshops looked at self care, self esteem, self compassion, confidence building and looking at heartfelt communication - Non Violent Communication, Assertiveness exploration and ethical  speech.  The LGBTQ community in Live Well Leeds also got in touch with Steve to receive on-line workshops on mindfulness, meditation, self nurturing, self compassion and loving kindness meditation. Also we couldn't have a ...

We're starting a new circle in Stockport - the Humble Earth Zen Circle - to rebirth the original Manchester Zen Peacemaker Circle which ran from 2007-2011, until Steve Hart moved it across to Leeds. The new circle will train in the core tools of the Zen Peacemaker Circles - zazen, council circle, study, the five Buddha families, consensus decision making - and will be open and inclusive of people from any spiritual background or none. We are honoured to have as our first Elder for the Humble Earth Circle the venerable Jeana Teiju Moore - a student originally of Taizan Maezumi Roshi, then personal attendant to Bernie Glassman in the early days of the New York zen community, and then invited by Bernie to be one of the founders and visionholders for the Zen Peacemaker Circles, sharing socially engaged zen on street retreats, in Auschwitz, and in community action. Jeana will offer regular contributions and friendship to the circle here.

Here's the latest news from the work of Steve Suleyman Hart, the Zen Peacemaker Circle visionholder in Leeds, and the Leeds circle in our sister community, the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order, arranged by the Circle Guide Sahil Sefer Warsi. The umbrella organisation for Steve's work is Leeds Mindfulness, and he'll be beginning the next round of ZPC training this month: I'll make some time now to bring you up to speed with some succinct news. As you know I regard the groups I facilitate as my social engagement contribution and challenge. One of the groups - the tuesday evening circle at the Quaker House in Roundhay has now been taken over by Tamaris Kielty who works in the NHS and teaches mindfulness in the NHS. She is a lovely warm hearted trickster and laughs alot and is influenced by Tara Brach and Tsultrim Allione. After the highly successful Kirkstall Abbey Mindfulness Festival, our regular group on tuesday afternoons there continues to meet - we held a servi...

Bernie Glassman, zen teacher and social entrepreneur, and founder of our circle approach to zen, died today after a long struggle to recover from a stroke. He leaves behind his wife, Eve Marko, who cared for him in his last couple of years. Please think of Eve and send her prayers, metta, good wishes, to support her.

Steve Hart, a Circle Dharmaholder in the Zen Peacemaker Circles, has been offering training in circle zen practice for a few months each year in Leeds, Northern England. The next period of training will begin on Nov 14th 2018, in the Oblong Woodhouse Community Centre. Details on the link below: http://www.leeds-mindfulness.uk/event/zen-peacemaker-circle-partnership-leeds-mindfulness-mahakaruna-buddhist-community/ The training will include zazen, council circle, ethics and interfaith explorations.

Dear Friends, I'm writing today from Bern in Switzerland, from the beautiful house of Barbara and Roland Wegmueller. I would like to let you know that this will be - for the moment - the last post for this "UK Zen Peacemakers" blog, after four years of postings. Please find future blogs at www.greatheartsociety.blogspot.com After many interesting discussions this week here in Switzerland, I've decided to focus our work on the Great Heart Circle in Leicester, and no longer keep one blog open for both this and wider UK Zen Peacemakers activities. At present there is no Peacemaker Circle still going in the UK, since our Steward Steve Suleyman Hart brought the North of England Circle to a close last month. There may well be new ones in the future (and so future posts for this blog!) The Great Heart Circle will be continuing as usual on the first Thursday of every month in Leicester. Email greatheartzendo@gmail.com for details. Although we'll no longer be using ...

In the past month, two pioneers of Zen Buddhism have passed away. On 15th June, Charlotte Joko Beck died at the age of 94. Her last words were reported to be "This too is wonder!" Although this wasn't actually true (internet Chinese whispers!), it is really a quote from her and a lovely way to remember her. She was a great Zen teacher, who explored the approach of shikantaza in modern life. And then yesterday, 17th July, John Crook, scientist and first Dharma successor of Master Shen Yen of Taiwan, passed away aged 81. He was a teacher in the Chinese Chan traditions of Lin-chi and Cao-Dong (Japanese: Rinzai and Soto), and like Joko Beck he developed forms and approaches to explore Zen in modern life. May their efforts and inspiration continue to bring happiness to the World.

Dear Folks, You may remember Zvonko Radikovic, the Croatian war veteran who's been corresponding with us for a few years now? People from UK and European Zen Peacemakers helped raise money for his flight to Thailand last year. I'm delighted to let you know that this week he's received full ordination as a Buddhist monk (bhikkhu) in the Thai Theravadin tradition, studying with experienced meditation teachers there! His new name is Cattamaro Bhikkhu - sitting front right on this photo... Thanks once again for everyone who helped out financially or with good thoughts to Cattamaro's wish to train over there. The Thai meditation tradition is very valuable and beautiful, and I'm delighted we're able to be connected to them in this way. With love, Chris Zangtsal Starbuck UK Zen Peacemakers

Last night we held our monthly Great Heart Circle in Leicester. It was a relaxed gathering of five regulars, beginning with guided relaxation led by Natalie and peaceful walking meditation in the chapel garden. As a theme, we talked about the subtle approach to life called 'Malamati', the 'Path of Blame', which underlies Rumi's sufi tradition and is very close to what we're trying to do in our Zen practice. The name comes from a mischievious saying of the Prophet Muhammed - "I am among the foremost of the people of blame", or something like "I'm one of the best at being modest"! Which is a lovely clue to something very beautiful... We held a period of Silent Sitting shikantaza meditation, then ended once again with an enjoyable sacred feast! Natalie's home-made cake was especially appreciated...

This evening we held our monthly meditation training circle in Leicester. It was a warm Summer's evening, and the big trees in the chapel garden were lovely and green and alive. We talked about two poles of leading a spiritual life- the need to create spaces of refuge and peace for ourselves and others, and the need to plunge headfirst into the messiness and pain of life and be with it lovingly. Once again, a great celebratory feast was enjoyed at the end. Here is a poem written recently by Mike Petterson, one of our regulars: Invigilation To hear the broken silence With every sense of being To see the confusion of the moment And feel the stillness of the soul To penetrate the barriers of division And fuse the hopes of today To live life's essence every second And see truly disappointment and joy The dot of the i, the dash of the t The red of light and greys of night Blood and bone, sinew and flesh, atom and particle The details missed, part of you, part of me To really trav...

We held a Zen Peacemaker Circle Day in Steve Suleyman Hart's house in Leeds on Saturday. We began at lunchtime with some excellent home-made stew (by Steve). Then we spent a relaxing hour listening to sounds of nature and wild-life from Ayre's Rock in Australia, on an album called the 'Experience of Uluru' from www.listeningearth.com. After that we began discussing another of the Five Buddha Energies, following on from the last meeting. This discussion didn't get too far however, because several people expressed that they didn't really want to study a new system of ideas and symbols, but would rather focus on simple meditation practices. This led into a Council circle where we explored what our underlying reasons for coming together are, which was very frank and honest. We had tea and biscuits to finish, and discussed the possibility of offering two halves to the day next time- in the morning, study (such as Five Buddha Families) for those who would like to ...

I'm delighted to let everyone know that on Easter Sunday, 24th April 2011, Barbara and Roland Wegmueller were given Dharma Transmission as "Sensei" by Roshi Bernie Glassman in the Zen Peacemakers lineage, flowing down from the Japanese lineage of his teacher Taizan Maezumi Roshi. The Wegmuellers, based in Switzerland, are our senior link to the Zen Peacemakers here in Europe... The rite of passage of becoming a Sensei marks full entry into life as an independent (but interconnected!) teacher in the Zen lineage. Since Barbara and Roland also focus on the Zen Peacemaker Circles, Bernie's experiment in less-hierarchical Zen, the role will I imagine also function as something like "Great Elder" for those of us training in Circle Zen. The Wegmuellers are already Circle Dharmaholders (visionholders and teachers) in Circle Zen, and Zen Buddhist Preceptors, empowered to pass on the Buddhist lineage. The ceremony took place in New York during one of Bernie's ...

On Thursday's monthly Great Heart Circle we were lucky to have some live meditation music played by Mike Petterson and his friend Richard. They used wooden flute, guitar, tabla and bells. To link into this, we had a short workshop on 'Whirling', the dance of the Mevlevi dervishes from Turkey, exploring how this relates to Zen meditation. We learned a simplified form of the movement together, then tried it out during the live music. It was a good evening- the music was great, I hope we have it again!

This evening we had our monthly Great Heart Circle for training in Zen meditation. It was a small, friendly group. We began with relaxation and walking quietly in the beautiful garden, then we discussed the idea of "the good heart", used famously as the title of a book by the Dalai Lama. We thought the good heart is a useful idea in life, and relates to underlying motivation and practical outcomes- as long as we don't think of 'goodness' as something to feel guilty about not living up to. We talked about the value of living life creatively, with growth and happiness at its heart. We ended with a session of silent Zen meditation and a shared meal once again. Next month we hope to have some live reflective music during the meeting, played on guitar and tabla.

The first North of England Zen Peacemaker Circle of the year was held 10am-5pm in Leeds on Sat 5th March, in Steve Suleyman Hart's house in Rothwell. The theme for the day was "The Vairochana Buddha Energy", the central symbol in many versions of the Mandala of the Five Buddhas, and often used in the Zen Peacemakers as a symbol of spirituality, of a practice that opens a heart-space which can include everything. The day included zazen meditation, study of the chapter on Vairochana from the book "Meeting the Buddhas" by Vessantara (a member of the Tri Ratna Sangha, formerly the FWBO), Council Circle, Chanting of the Nembutsu (from Pure Land Buddhism) and a little exploration of using the symbol of Vairochana Buddha in devotional practice. The next day event will be in Manchester, date to be arranged, in April or May. The theme this time will be Amitabha Buddha and the "Integration" Buddha energy in the Zen Peacemakers.

At this evening's Circle, Natalie (pictured above eating delicious red peppers at the end), told a great story: When she was younger and drunker and staggering home one night from a club, a homeless beggar asked her for a cigarette. This was a man often seen begging in an intimidating fashion in the city centre during the day. Natalie told the beggar she didn't have any left, except the one she was smoking at that moment. She was inspired to offer him half of that one... ... The homeless man, touched by this, asked her how she was getting home. She said she was walking. 'It's not safe for you', he said, and then produced a little money from his pocket, which he'd got by begging earlier. 'I'd just spend this on booze or something', he said, 'you have it'. And he walked with Natalie to a taxi rank, waited with her (in a big curious queue!) for the taxi, and gave the driver his money to take her as far as it would get her home. She saw hi...