Peacemaker Circles UK

We've started to hold regular trainings in Zen and Buddhist meditation in Leicester now, inviting people to Zang and Laura's bungalow in Glenfield for individual or group practice. Monday nights will be a weekly Great Heart Circle similar to Manchester's last year. Starting at 7.30 each week, people are invited to share in relaxation, Zen meditation, simple movement exercises and a weekly mini-feast to end! The first weekly meeting was tonight (Monday 6th April) and began in a good spirit with friendly, warm-hearted people coming along for the first time. I hope this will be the beginning of a creative and supportive Zen community here in Leicester, to link with the ones growing in Manchester and Leeds.

On Sunday in Tim's house in Chorlton, Manchester, we held the third multi-faith peacemaker circle, now titled the 'Multi Faith Peace Action Network'. Representatives from three different Buddhist traditions were present- Nicherien, Zen and Theravadin, plus an Anglican Christian vicar and a Roman Catholic. John and Frankie had prepared an excellent and thoughtful presentation on Martin Luther King Jr to mark the anniversary of his death, and we had a discussion following this. Then we held a Council Circle as used often in Zen Peacemakers meetings, which was much appreciated by all I think, giving the opportunity to speak deeply from the heart. The next meeting will be 7-8.30pm on Saturday 30th May, to be held in Withington in Howard Bamforth's house following the Zen Peacemaker Circle the same day.

We had a Peacemaker Circle meeting in Howard's house on Saturday. Howard, John, Dannie, Bea, Suleyman, Simon and Zang were present. By popular demand we began with guided relaxation meditation as used in the weekly Great Heart Circle group followed by a short checking-in council circle. Then John gave an excellent presentation on Martin Luther King Jr, heped by Simon and Bea. This prompted lively discussion! After a shared lunch, we had a session of Zazen, followed by listening to a recording by Marsall Rosenberg, founder of Non Violent Communication, explaining the outlines of his approach to conflict resolution. This also prompted lively discussion! We finished with a final council circle and arranged the date for the next meeting as Sat 30th May, to be held in Howard's once again...

From Zang: This weekend I was invited as one of three guest speakers at the annual Quaker Universalist Group conference. It was held in the beautiful Roman Catholic pastoral centre, Hinsley Hall, just outside Leeds city centre, and was attended by about 45 people from all over the country- mostly Quakers or regular attenders at Quaker meetings. The theme of the weekend was "The Roots of Peace and Justice", and I led a theatre-based workshop based on the techniques of South American activist/director Augusto Boal. The aim was to allow people to explore their sense of injustice and peaceful solutions in an intuitive and physical way, to compliment the excellent conceptual ideas presented by the two other speakers (Prof David Cadman and Prof Joseph Milne). We used a sequence of exercises learning to "sculpt" another person's body into an image of "peace", "violence" and "injustice", and then in larger groups we created bigger images th...

This is a rough report of the basic outlines of what we discussed and what we would like our next steps to be at the next meeting. We met at Anna's. Many thanks for her kind hospitality and lovely coffee and herbal teas and fruits and nuts. We first of all had a quick check in. We then had a discussion on whether we should have set practises or not looking at the advantages and disadvantages of this or a more spontaneous approach. I won't give an account of the discussion because I haven't checked whether this is ok or not but we decided that at the end of each circle we would decide what practise we would do next time around and we decided this time that Anna would lead a "mystery" meditation ! I think we also decided that we'd do nembutsu at the next circle too (I could be wrong about that but I hope we do !) We then had a discussion around the subject of "intention" (again I won't go into the discussion) and we decided at the next circle we...

We had the second multi-faith meeting arranged jointly with the Zen Peacemakers and local members of Soka Gakkai (Nicherien tradition of Buddhism) It was a very friendly and constructive meeting, mostly focussing on plans for a full meeting to be held on April 5th, to which we'll invite new people. The plan is to invite people from different spiritual and religious backgrounds to dialogue about practical means for peacemaking in society. Since it's the weekend of Martin Luther King's anniversary in April, we'll have some readings and reflection about him too.

There was a small Zen Peacemaker Circle held in Leeds on Saturday at Anna's house, studying the material brought by Barbara Wegmueller on her visit in Deceember. Another Circle is planned for March, and possible themes are: further study of Barbara's material, the place of inspiration and faith in spiritual practice, and different types of "council circles".