Bernie Glassman at Upaya

Part 5: “I live my life according to experiences, not according to the commentary.” This last half of the final panel traverses: projection in student-teacher relationships; how Roshi Joan’s and Bernie’s relationship has changed over the years; whether it’s true that “you can’t be friends with your students;” distinctions between resilience and “getting over yourself” […]

Part 4: A song and questions. After Alan leads everyone in song, the panel takes open questions and jams. They consider: are there any restrictions on what people do with this liturgy when they leave? How does the joy in breaking boundaries dance with respect for boundaries? How do you feel about the word “death” […]

Part 3: Dialogue ensues! The question of feeding hungry spirits what they want versus feeding them what they need engages many voices. This leads on to: what is the difference between bearing witness and the reflex to get rid of, to “heal?” In Bernie’s opinion Bearing Witness retreats are all about fear, going to what’s […]

Part 2: Feeding everyone. Bernie explains the inner logic and dramatic progression of the liturgy’s several pieces. It proceeds through loving invitations and invocations, magic work to actualize energies and feed everyone; through giving teachings; and climaxes with giving and taking the Buddhist precepts. Shingon condenses the five precepts into two: “Now I have raised […]

Part 1: An open-hearted overhaul. Bernie spins a lively history of the Gate of Sweet Nectar liturgy, from an early version (mythically attributed to Shakyamuni) to Menzan’s tantric innovations to his own open-hearted overhaul. Maezumi Roshi gave Bernie remarkable permission to remake the Gate (and by extension Zen) in an American grain: “He didn’t try […]

Part 8:  “Everything is opinion.” In this last dialogue, Bernie — with a little help from Roshi Joan and Sensei Alan — fields questions about whether the view that “everything is opinion” closes or opens dialogue; about the Greyston model; about the five Buddha families as a model for social entrepreneurship; about assassinating Hitler.

Part 7: Q&A. The teachers complete the Q & A session.

Part 6: Feminism, liturgy, and clown noses. After a song led by Sensei Alan, the panel conducts a Q & A period to close out the day. Topics covered include liturgy, feminism, teacher-student relationships, clown noses, street retreats and the meaning of radical chaplaincy.

Part 5: The practice of zazen. Concluding the third session of the retreat, Roshi Bernie continues his dialogue with retreatants, answering questions about the stages of “bearing witness,” telling stories from the “Bearing Witness Retreats,” and discussing the practice of zazen.

Part 4: Bearing witness retreats. Roshi Bernie describes the Zen Peacemakers Order and the approach of “Bearing Witness Retreats” with homelessness in New York and genocide at Auschwitz and in Rwanda.

Part 3: Listening without preconception. In the second part of the session, Roshi Bernie talks about the actualization of an “Indra’s Net” connecting impoverished communities by responding to the various groups’ needs by listening without preconception and acting on what arises within and between. Among other cases of skillful means, he cites his own work […]

Part 2: Indra’s Net. After Sensei Alan Senauke opens the session with a guided meditation song, Roshi Bernie offers his opinions on “non-dual communication” on interdependence and Indra’s Net, reincarnation, koan study, the Eightfold-fold path, social activism, education, and many other images, models, and practices.

Part 1. Nonduality. Bernie-Roshi reflects on three periods of his life, each marked by stepping beyond limited “clubs” into ever wider and less sure circles of caring engagement. He speaks of nonduality as not-knowing, freedom to think and feel outside grooved categories — a state provoked both by Zen koans and by “plunges” into deeply […]

“Have you seen The Big Lebowski?” In this final session, Bernie continues to answer questions posed by the retreat participants. One person asked: “How can one go about distributing homemade soap to the homeless without offending them?” Another person asked Bernie to talk about his transition from being an engineer to a Zen student and then on […]

Being on the street. This session continues where the previous left off, with Roshi Bernie taking a number of questions from the participants. The first question concerns Indra’s net, which leads Bernie into a discussion on the possibility of escaping the space-time continuum. The next question concerns “going deeper and deeper.” Which for Bernie means […]

Amazing stories of forgiveness. In this Saturday afternoon session, Roshi Bernie discusses forgiveness using the Rwandan genocide as a backdrop. During a 100 day period starting in April of 1994, between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Tutsis were slaughtered by the Hutus. In light of extremely horrific, unimaginable atrocities, Bernie offers a number of amazing and beautiful […]

Bearing witness retreats. In this session, Roshi Bernie answers questions from the audience. Questions include: “Are there Bearing Witness Retreats in Hiroshima or Nagasaki?” “What is the status of the Lakota Retreat?” “How should one work with a person that has a tremendous amount of guilt over their past actions?” “What is the hardest thing […]

Rejoice! In this Saturday morning session, Roshi Bernie opens by answering a couple of questions posed by the audience. “What is the most important element in bringing about change?” “What should you do if you don’t know what to do?” Rejoice! Bernie then moves on to the main topic of the session, the Auschwitz retreats that […]

Honoring the interconnection of life. During the second half of the final retreat session, Roshi Bernie invites the gathered retreatants to share what they will take away from their time together. Retreatants then share thoughtfully and movingly on the transformations that have taken place for them over the past two days. Roshi Bernie then wraps […]

Bearing Witness. The session begins with Roshi Joan Halifax informally reflecting on her deep affection and respect for Roshi Bernie Glassman and their long collaboration in the dharma. Roshi Bernie then shares profound teachings gleaned from his long involvement in the bearing witness retreats at Auschwitz.

Householders and sanghas. Roshi Bernie Glassman grills the audience on what one might mean by being a “householder” or by participating in a “sangha.” He then illustrates his understanding of householders and sanghas by reflecting on his long training at the Zen Center of Los Angeles, telling the story of the values he inherited, questioned, […]

The practice of council. How do actions arise from bearing witness? Bernie fields various questions including how to practice not-knowing in the context of running an organization. He also explores at length what it means to participate in the Zen tradition, whether it means continuing the forms as they’re handed down or innovating a series […]

The Three Tenets of the Peacemaker Community. Roshi Bernie, with contributions from Roshi Joan Halifax, applies the practice of training in the Three Tenets of the Peacemaker Community to the current ecological crisis. Bernie also takes questions from the audience, including questions about sexual ethics in the Zen community and how to bear witness while […]

Street Retreat beginnings. Roshi Bernie looks at how humans develop what he calls “clubs” and the consequences of this behavior, applying insights from his bearing witness retreats both at Auschwitz and living on the streets. During the second half, he gives an engrossing history of how the street retreats got started and what they involve.

Attachment. Roshi Bernie talks about attachment in relation to meditative states and in relation to preferences and opinions. He also considers how to be in relationship with those of differing opinions, particularly family members.

Going out into the world. Roshi Bernie Glassman introduces Zen Peacemaker tenets by sharing the story of watching his daughter, son-in-law, and newborn son interact. He fields a question from an audience member at length about how to apply the experience of oneness when interacting with an infant to experiences of “going out into the […]

Episode Description: Bearing witness to yourself. Bernie answers more questions on socially engaged Buddhism, and talks about his Street Retreat practice, Zen Peacemakers, and the waiting room of the Staten Island Ferry.

Episode Description: That’s life! “My boss, Shakyamuni Buddha, said everything is change, but we don’t necessarily want it, so we have these expectations and out of that comes, guess what? Suffering! I do not expect that we would not have expectations and then we would not be suffering.”

Episode Description: Hope and expectations. Bernie invites an audience member to speak about her own path of service and how to overcome the well-meaning help we get. He talks about the origins of Greyston—an experiment of social engagement on a large scale in the early ’80s, that looked at homelessness, jobs, and permanent housing. “I […]

Episode Description: Get out of the way. Another way to define bearing witness, Bernie says, is to get out of the way, and reminds us that zazen is a major practice for letting go. He reflects on the origins of using the phrase “bearing witness” for the first time and discusses the word shikantaza, (the emphatic […]

Episode Description: The depth of enlightenment. Roshi Bernie answers some of the questions, ideas, thoughts, and doubts from last night’s discussion. Dissecting Kōbōdaishi’s quote, “The way you can tell the depth of a person’s enlightenment is how they serve others,” he compares “realizing the oneness of Bernie,” to a new mother in service to her child, […]

Episode Description: What’s the deal here? In the first of this six-part workshop, Bernie Glassman asks, What does spirituality bring to social engagement? And, in particular, what does the experience of Buddhism bring? Bernie reflects on the basic tenet of Buddhism which is the energy of the interconnectedness of life, and defines “grokking” as bearing witness. Questions […]