Spiritual Basis of the Zen Peacemakers Social Action Endeavors

Summary

The Zen Peacemakers is a global network that integrates Zen practice, social action, interfaith work, and the arts.

The first of the Four Great Vows in Zen Buddhism is to save all sentient beings. That includes not just those coming into the meditation hall (zendo.) Those coming into American zendos now are by and large middle-class Caucasians, men and women. They are not disenfranchised minorities such as African-Americans or Hispanics. Nor are they the poor, the homeless, displaced war veterans, or ex-cons. There are exceptions, of course, but by and large it's hard to find members of America's vast sector of impoverished and disadvantaged families and individuals in American zendos. This is very unfortunate. The Dharma is immense and profound. Its teachings regarding suffering and an end to suffering have had immeasurable value for many millions of people across different countries, continents and cultures. Yet here, in this country, it is not spreading to those people with the greatest need.

What do we mean when we talk of spreading the teachings of the Dharma? Do we mean bringing more people into zendos? Do we mean having more people who formally affiliate themselves with Zen Buddhism? Or do we mean bringing the teachings of the Dharma to all walks of life, to all areas of endeavor, and making them relevant to all segments of the American population?

Bernie Glassman has been working with the latter premise all his life. He has served as abbot of three very large Zen centers and, through his successors, has founded a lineage of many teachers and many more Zen centers and groups. But his biggest challenge has been to teach the Dharma outside the meditation hall, in the worlds of business, social action, conflict resolution, and environmental stewardship.

This work calls for the creation of new upayas, or skillful means, that bring people to directly experience the interconnectedness of all life within the context of everyday behavior. It calls for new structures, new earth forms.

In social enterprise and the business world, Zen teachings promote the "triple bottom line:" profit, social transformation, and environmental stewardship. This approach is exemplified in the hugely successful Greyston Mandala, founded by Roshi Bernie Glassman, a network of for profit and not for profit ventures in Yonkers, NY that includes a for-profit $6 million gourmet bakery as well as not-for-profits building homes for homeless families and providing various support services, including a licensed day care center, as well as housing and medical services for people with HIV/AIDS.

The creation of a social enterprise itself calls for new kinds of corporate and organizational structures, big enough to connect and respond to the needs of both for-profits and not-for-profits. But that is only the first step. The project's most important goal is that all those we serve homeless families, ex-cons, low-income families will have some experience of the oneness of life as they participate in this new Mandala of activity. The Mandala Itself becomes the meditation hall, with a mission of not only providing homes , jobs, and support services, but also helping people realize the essence of the Dharma, which is that we're all One, all interconnected. An important means towards this end is the PathMaker Program, which is a requirement for every single program participant and all staff.

The PathMaker Program

The Zen Peacemakers unique approach to working with homelessness is based on "PathMaking," an idea developed from two key Buddhist concepts: mandala (wholeness) and path (transformation). A mandala represents integration and unity at a given point in time. The concept of path recognizes that individuals and communities evolve over time, and that the different aspects of the mandala - body, heart, mind, spirit and self - are linked in their development. The PathMaker Program will help people determine what their individual path is in life, not just in the world of work but also the world of relationship, family, community, and the arts. While it will utilize traditional human services processes, it will be based on the Zen Peacemakers' Three Tenets: Not Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Loving Action. These Tenets will be taught to program participants in very concrete forms, as a healthy, workable approach to dealing with the worlds of family, jobs, and community.

PathMaker Services help individuals gain greater clarity on their path in life. Using specifically-designed tools and measurement instruments, PathMaker Services help individuals focus on specific areas in their life where personal or professional development might help them move towards greater self efficacy.

The PathMaker Program approach joins community development with personal growth. The Sanskrit word mandala, meaning circle, indicates that PathMaker Services address the needs of the whole community and of the whole person within it. The PathMaker Program aims to create a healthy, vibrant and diverse community in which its clients, residents and staff are supported on paths to self-sufficiency.

PathMaker Program Details

The PathMaker Program utilizes a personal life path developmental model based on the ancient Buddhist Teaching of the Five Wisdom Energies. These five energies or fields comprise a mandala (circle of life) that graphically depicts the wholeness of life.

The five spheres of energy operating in a person's life are broken down into the following five categories and each category and its associated aspects are developed and enhanced trough training in the PathMaker Program:

1. Spirituality

The aspects highlighted in this sphere are:

• Training in regard to the essential wisdom that is our true nature and how to tap into this innate wisdom that is called by many names: God, The Devine, True Self, Big Mind, Universal Self, Boundlessness, Groundlessness, and so forth (wisdom that is the essence of all life.)
• Training to appreciate the uniqueness (differences, diversity) that characterizes the myriad forms of life and learning to tolerate, appreciate and celebrate the diversity that is present in all of life and step away from prejudice and hatred of those who are different from our selves.
• Training to recognize the harmonious functioning of wisdom and compassion, sameness and difference and how to function effectively as a member of a community of people that supports and sustains one another.

2. Study and Learning

The aspects here are:

• Life skills and education that each individual needs to acquire in order to realize their true potential and function in the world.
• Communication skills and conflict resolution abilities, including the training of deep listening skills and the ability of each person to speak their own truth.
• Training to learn the array of available services to low-income individuals and acquisition of problem solving and decision-making skills for understanding and negotiating the social service system that provides those services. Participants will actively learn to access services for which they are eligible and utilize those services to bootstrap their personal development along their individual life path.

3. Resources

The aspects are:

• Training in personal ethics and how the consequences of our actions create the reality we live. Individuals will train to understand the dynamic of personal cause and effect, self-reliance and the importance of taking responsibility for one's own actions and the shaping of one's own future.
• Training in personal health and care of the body including routine medical and dental care, nutrition, exercise, rest, relaxation, etc. Training in effective techniques for managing stress and the avoidance of the detrimental effects of using drugs and alcohol as stress reduction strategies.
• Training in financial literacy and money management including budgeting, saving, spending and how each individual understands the use of money and its flow and place in their life.
• Training in workforce preparedness skills in order to access job opportunities and the financial resources needed to become financially self-sustaining.

4. Relationships

The aspects are as follows:

• Training in forming and maintaining relationships with others including learning to work with difficult emotions, distress tolerance skills, and the boundaries between self and other.
• Training in human sexuality including an understanding of one's own sexual nature and how to express it without harming one's self or others.
• Artistic and creative expression. In this aspect, individuals explore creative expression as a way to access and express their own innate energies in relationship to the expression of self and others.

5. Service

The aspects highlighted here are:

• Training in right livelihood skills including filling out job applications, job interviewing skills, effective work behavior in the work place, etc, and seeing how the work one does concretely serves other people and oneself.
• Training in the importance of strong citizenship skills such as volunteerism, advocacy, community involvement, environmental protection, etc.
• Training to practice and appreciate everyday acts of kindness, seeing the countless moments for generosity and tapping in to one's own experiences of suffering as a source of compassion from which to assist others struggling on the path.

Core Values

Guided by a belief in the oneness of life, the ocean of wisdom/ compassion expressed through the diversity of life and the harmonious interdependence of all creations, program participants will learn the three tenets of the Zen Peacemakers: not knowing, bearing witness and loving action. Via the 10 practices and five commitments of the Zen Peacemakers, program participants will strive to actualize the perfection of wisdom as outlined below:

Generosity: Learning to be kind and giving to oneself and others as well as forgiving of oneself and others.

Discipline: Learning to follow a life path that is guided by a set of functional life values (the 10 practices of the Zen Peacemakers) that brings peace, joy and happiness to oneself and others.

Forbearance: Learning to embrace the totality of one's experience including all of the ups and downs that characterize the processes that lead to maturity.

Enthusiasm: Learning to make a joyous effort in the process of embracing life's challenges.

Awareness: Learning to look deeply into oneself and one's world to see the perfection in each moment and all things.

Wisdom: Relying on the truth of one's experience as an important teacher for one's life journey.

Compassion: Learning to embrace the wholeness of life and express empathy and support for all those who suffer including oneself.

Aspiration: Seeing one's life path clearly and setting goals that are aligned with one's core values and beliefs.

Empowerment: Learning to take full responsibility for one's own life.

Knowledge: Learning what is most needed in each moment and taking the necessary action required by the situation at hand.

Engaged Spirituality

A major focus of this activity is to develop program participants who have a basic commitment to the practice of engaged spirituality for the betterment of all life. Accordingly, program participants shall have the opportunity to participate in the many programs available through the Maezumi Institute and the Zen Peacemakers Mother House programs. Individuals and families who have taken up the PathMaker journey will have opportunities to participate in relevant workshops, retreats and performances that are offered via the Maezumi Institute's programming in the areas of Zen study; peacemaking and social action, social enterprise, multi-faith study, as well as programs offered through the Maezumi Institute Council for the Arts.

Click here to see mural drawn by folks served by Greyston.

In 1996 Bernie Glassman expanded his award-winning model of the Greyston Mandala outside of Yonkers, New York. He reasoned that the challenges we face war in the Middle East, AIDS in Africa, environmental depredation Ð are complex and systemic and that piecemeal solutions will not help to solve them. What will? Comprehensive, cross-issue solutions calling for partnership and collaboration among activists, businesses, government, and NGOs. Peacemaker Circle International organizes and connects these parties around specific projects, creating powerful and democratic coalitions in the process. Zen Peacemakers not only brings the pieces together, it brings together as many different pieces as possible in order to produce more different pieces as possible in order to produce more different creative thinking and a more broad-based and inclusive approach. Members learn to replace isolation and competition with shared ideas, ideals and experiences, confronting global issues with integrated instead of fragmented solutions.

Zen Peacemakers also link each coalition with its peers in other part of the world through on-line technology, democratic representations in regional and global coalitions, and gatherings and conferences. As a result, participants work locally, but quickly experience the regional and global implications of their efforts.

A Peacemaker Circle consists of individuals and organizations who come together to share information and explore how they can help each other and work collaboratively, based on their understanding that when they are connected and linked to other activists—especially those acting from diverse and even opposing viewpoints—the result can be more holistic, integrated, and effective action.

The focus of peacemaker circles is collaborative action that comes out of listening to all the different and disparate voices in the circle. The circle model has the following objectives:

• Encourage deep listening on the part of all members and therefore bigger thinking on the issues that arise;
• Foster collaboration and cooperation among the various members of the circle;
• Focus on a "local" consciousness, but also foster consciousness on regional and global implications of one's local work; and
• Link the circle members with other members of circles that are in the same area or on the other side of the world, providing not just communication but also a self-governing structure to this global partnership.

One result of this process is that organizations and individuals begin to work together in their local area. A second result is that an international coalition of members begins to form and works together. And the biggest result by far is a transformation in the consciousness of activists and peacemakers around the world.

Did you know Zen principles can be applied in business?

Zen Peacemakers develop new social enterprise structures that are self-sustaining, holistic and address important individual and community needs. Beginning with the Greyston Mandala of social service companies in 1980 in Yonkers, New York, we have built innovative nonprofit and for-profit enterprises that integrate individual transformation along with community growth and that function interdependently to create a balanced and harmonious whole.

What Is a Social Entrepreneur?

"Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry."- Bill Drayton

Just as entrepreneurs change the face of business, social entrepreneurs act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss and improving systems, inventing new approaches and creating sustainable solutions to change society for the better. However, unlike business entrepreneurs who are motivated by profits, social entrepreneurs are motivated to improve society. Despite this difference, social entrepreneurs are just as innovative and change oriented as their business counterparts, searching for new and better ways to solve the problems that plague society.

Social entrepreneurs are:

• Ambitious: Social entrepreneurs tackle major social issues, from increasing the college enrollment rate of low-income students to fighting poverty in developing countries. These entrepreneurial leaders operate in all kinds of organizations: innovative nonprofits, social purpose ventures such as for-profit community development banks, and hybrid organizations that mix elements of nonprofit and for-profit organizations.
• Mission driven: Generating social value-not wealth-is the central criterion of a successful social entrepreneur. While wealth creation may be part of the process, it is not an end in itself. Promoting systemic social change is the real objective.
• Strategic: Like business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs see and act upon what others miss: opportunities to improve systems, create solutions and invent new approaches that create social value. And like the best business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs are intensely focused and hard-driving-even relentless-in their pursuit of a social vision.
• Resourceful: Because social entrepreneurs operate within a social context rather than the business world, they have limited access to capital and traditional market support systems. As a result, social entrepreneurs must be exceptionally skilled at mustering and mobilizing human, financial and political resources.
• Results oriented: Ultimately, social entrepreneurs are driven to produce measurable returns. These results transform existing realities, open up new pathways for the marginalized and disadvantaged, and unlock society's potential to effect social change.