Zen Master (Roshi) Bernie Glassman is a world-renowned pioneer in
the American Zen Movement. He is a spiritual leader, published author,
accomplished academic and successful businessman with a PhD in Applied
Mathematics. Dr. Glassman currently teaches and travels, giving talks
and workshops on spiritual practice, socially responsible business and
international peacemaking. He is the founder and co-spiritual director
of the Zen Peacemakers.
Personal and Education
Bernie Glassman was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1939. His parents
were immigrants from Eastern Europe and he grew up in a Jewish family
with a strong socialist orientation. After graduating from Brooklyn
Polytechnic Institute, he went to work for McDonnell-Douglas in
California in 1960 as an aeronautical engineer, concentrating on
interplanetary flights. He also obtained a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics
from UCLA in 1970. Currently Bernie has two grown children and one
grandson.
Zen Training and Teaching
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
Glassman. 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.
Social Enterprise
Bernie became a social entrepreneur in 1982, articulating a vision
that socially responsible businesses can have a double bottom line:
generating profits and serving the community. The Greyston Bakery was
the first such venture, but it was merely one piece of a larger socially
responsible business model which he developed, known as the Greyston
Mandala (the Sanskrit mandala can be loosely translated as circle of
life), a network of for-profits and not-for-profits working together to
improve the lives of individuals and the larger inner city community of
southwest Yonkers. Greyston, which celebrates its 25th anniversary on
June 11, 2007 (during which time it will honor its founder), provides
permanent housing, jobs, job training, child care, after-school programs
and a host of other supportive services to a large community of formerly
homeless families, advancing the principles of empowerment, empathy, and
responsible action. Its main components are:
Greyston Bakery. Founded in 1982 in the southwest
corner of Yonkers, a poor neighborhood beset by high unemployment,
violence and drugs, the bakery began to hire people that conventional
businesses had deemed unemployable It trained its employees in bakery
crafts and soon they were producing some of New York's most expensive,
high-end cakes and tarts sold in the city's fanciest eateries. In 1990
it began to produce brownies for Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream and its
revenues shot up dramatically. Since its humble founding, the bakery
grew into a successful $6 million business with more than 75 employees.
Its hiring remains to this very day "First come, first served," and much
of its profits are recycled into seed money for its sister
not-for-profits, thus making the entire network more sustainable and
financially independent.
Greyston Family Inn. This is
Greyston's housing and support services arm. Since 1986 it has
developed hundreds of low-cost permanent apartments for homeless
families, a large child care center, and tenant support services as well
as after-school programs, providing wraparound support to families
trying to come out of the cycle of unemployment, homelessness, and
public assistance.
Maitri Center and Issan House. Opened
in 1997, Maitri is a medical center serving 150 people with
AIDS-related illnesses. It was among the first facilities in the
country to provide alternative care therapies to people with HIV/AIDS.
Issan House provides housing for many of Maitri's patients.
The entire Greyston Mandala (as of 2007) hires 175 people and serves at least 1200
men, women and children annually in southwest Yonkers. Its model of
integrating for-profits, not-for-profits, and spirituality has been
studied by many other nonprofits and cities across the country as well
as in universities. Bernie Glassman served as Founder and President/CEO
of Greyston from 1982 till he left it in 1996.
Spiritually-Based Social Action
and Peacemaking
In January of 1994, while leading a bearing witness retreat in
Washington, DC, on the occasion of his 55th birthday, Bernie decided to
create the Zen Peacemaker Order, for Zen practitioners dedicated to the
cause of peace and social justice. Subsequently, the concept was
broadened to become an international, interfaith network called the
Peacemaker Community, stressing the integration of spiritual practice
and social action through Three Tenets:
Not-knowing, thereby giving up fixed ideas about ourselves and the universe;
Bearing witness to the joy and suffering of the world; and
Loving action for ourselves and the world.
Together with his wife and co-founder, Sandra Jishu Holmes, Bernie
left Greyston in the end of 1996 and became President of this large
community of spiritually-based activists. He took a leave when his wife
died in 1998, but from 2000 till 2004 he continued serving as President,
devoting his energy to developing the Peacemaker Community and
supporting various social action and peacemaking projects in Europe, the
Middle East, Latin America, and the United States. This organization is
now known as Zen Peacemakers.
In 2004 Bernie Glassman began to develop a training campus to teach
people the skills of spiritually-based social enterprise and peacemaking
called the Maezumi Institute, in Western Massachusetts.
Awards
Bernie was awarded the Ethics in Action Award by the Ethical Culture
Society of Westchester and the E-chievement Award by Toms of Maine. He
was named Man of the Year by the Westchester Coalition of Food Pantries
and Social Entrepreneur of the Year by Business Week in 1993. He is a
founding board member of the Social Ventures Network, a network of
businesses committed to social change, and continues to serve as one of
its spiritual leaders. In 2007, he was honored as a Purpose Prize Fellow given to
those over 60 with the passion and experience to discover new opportunities, come
up with new solutions, and make lasting changes
Publications
Bernie is the co-author, with Rick Fields, of Instructions to the
Cook: A Zen Masters Lessons in Living a Life that Matters (Bell Tower,
April 1996), and the author of Bearing Witness: A Zen Masters Lessons
in Making Peace (Bell Tower, May 1997) and Infinite Circle: Studies in
Zen (Shambhala Publication, 2002).
For more information on his books and on films made about him, please link here.
Photo History of Roshi Bernie
Prepared by Peter Cunningham (Most Photos by Peter)
Chris Panos, a Dharma Holder in the Zen Peacemakers,
is currently a founder and principal of Fundamental
Investment Advisors. Over the past 25 years, he has
founded several other successful businesses. Chris founded the Bay Area Peacemaker Circle, has been extensively involved with Tibetan refugees, and serves as
Dr. Robert E. Simpson, Jr., DSW, MPH has had a long
and distinguished career in healthcare as a clinician,
educator and administrator. He is serving as the
President and Chief Executive Officer of Retreat Healthcare in Brattleboro, Vermont, a not-for-profit
mental health and addictions treatment center.
Board President of Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco.
He
has been a lead administrator at many other major
hospitals in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
Zen Master (Roshi) Bernie Glassman is a world-renowned pioneer
in the American Zen Movement and a leading creative
figure in socially engaged Buddhism. He is the founder
and co-spiritual director of the Zen Peacemakers. He
has extended Dharma practice from the meditation
hall to the arenas of social service, business,
environmental stewardship and conflict
Francisco "Paco" Genkoji Lugoviña is a Buddhist priest
and founder of the Hudson River Peacemaker Center
- House of One People in Yonkers.
Paco has launched several successful housing
development businesses since 1968. Paco served as
Chairman of the State of New York Mortgage Agency,
was Bank Regulator on the New York State Banking Board for
resolution. He
has been honored with numerous ethics, service and
achievement awards. His spiritual successors include
dharma teachers, Zen priests, preceptors and entrepreneurs,
Christian clergy, Rabbis, Sufi Sheiks and multi-faith peacemakers.
nine years, and was Chairman of the National Hispanic Housing
Coalition. He is a founder of the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and
served on numerous business, philanthropic, arts and service
organization Boards.
David W. Young is an Emeritus Professor of
Management at Boston University’s School of
Management, and has been a faculty member for the
past 29 years at Harvard University’s School of Public
Health. He has been the lead faculty member for the
past three years in the Alliance for Academic Internal
Medicine -
Jim worked for 17 years at Father Flanagan’s Girls
and Boys Town, in Boys Town, Nebraska.
In 1990, Jim founded Girls and Boys Town of New
England. Jim has served as the Director of Child and
Adolescent Residential Services for McLean Hospital,
Director of Family-Based Services for the Northeast
Center for Youth and Families,
Merck Executive Leadership Program.
Professor Young
served a 3-year term as a Gubernatorial-appointed
commissioner and chair of the Massachusetts Hospital Payment
System Advisory Commission.
Professor Young has authored several seminal texts, received numerous academic and business honors and is an internationally sought visiting professor and organizational consultant.
Executive Director
of the Kolbourne School, Senior Administrator at Alternative
Behavioral Services, and Vice President of Residential Services at
Brightside for Families and Children.
He has published numerous research articles, has presented at
national, regional and local human service conferences, and has
served on numerous child welfare, mental health and educational
boards.
Some of Tony’s corporate clients include and have
included: Hilton Hotels, El Paso Energy Ventures,
Berkshire Physicians and Surgeons, RedFlex Traffic
Systems, Bally’s, AT&T, Verizon, The Sisters of Providence Health
Systems, Tennessee Gas, Aspen Reality, Six Flags New England,
Mass Mutual and Peter Pan Bus Lines, The Dewey Square Group
and Bally International. Personal public relations and advance services have
Sheila Jinen Hixon is a Zen Teacher and a Founding
Multi-Faith Peacemaker in the Zen Peacemakers.
She has been a guiding force in the Zen Peacemakers
and has played a major role in the development and
planning for the House of One People in Montague
Massachusetts.
She serves on the board of Tricycle and her family’s charitable foundation.
included work for: Muhammad Ali, Bob Hope, Curtis Jackson - aka 50 Cent, The New England Patriots, Tipper Gore, Al Gore (environmental work), President Bill Clinton and numerous members of the U. S. Congress and the governors of several states.
Tony is a veteran of many political campaigns. He served on Springfield’s Racial Balance Committee and as an elected member of the Hampden County Charter Commission
David Mager is a scientist, inventor and entrepreneur
who was one of the organizers of the first Earth Day.
In the intervening 38 years, he has worked with
hundreds of large public companies to help them
profitably become "greener," including General Motors,
General Electric, IBM, and numerous others.
He is a lead auditor,
Fleet Maull, M.A., Ph.D. candidate, was a senior student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and is an ordained priest and Sensei (Zen Teacher) in the Zen Peacemakers. Fleet currently serves as the Director for Peacemaker Community Colorado and Co-Director of Colorado Peacemaker Institute.
Fleet is the founder of two national organizations,
representing the US at the UN, helping
develop
standards forEnvironmental Management Systems, and was
Director of Environmental Standards at Green Seal. Enamored
with the Roshi's ‘Franciscan' style of Buddhist activism, David
has been a supporter of Roshi Bernie since the early days of the
Greyston Foundation in Yonkers.
Prison Dharma Network and the National Prison Hospice Association, which promote contemplative spirituality and compassionate end-of-life care for inmates. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Naropa University. In addition, he works as a management consultant and executive coach.
Roshi Gerry Shishin Wick is President and Spiritual
Leader of Great Mountain Zen Center. He became a
Dharma Successor of Taizan Maezumi Roshi in 1990.
Gerry has worked as University Professor, science
writer, journalist,
oceanographer, software developer,
and technical manager. He is adjunct Professor of Religious Studies at Naropa University, where he leads frequent
classes and retreats. He is the author of books and numerous
articles on Buddhism, physics and oceanography.
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