Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace [Paperback]

Bernie Glassman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 1999

Zen practitioner and non-profit community developer Bernie Glassman offers powerful teaching stories that illustrate ways of making peace one moment at a time. Each chapter focuses on an event or person and demonstrates how a particular peacemaker vow is put into practice. Through these stories and Glassman's personal testimony we come to understand the essence of peacemaking.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In January 1994, as Zen teacher Bernie Glassman marked his fiftieth year, he did something special, founding the Zen Peacemaker Order. This order would comprise a community of activists, both organized and individual, and would provide them with a center from which to share stories and information. Yet, most important, the order's core would be spiritual--a universal spirituality. Glassman, who has been very active in social service activities, founding entrepreneurial ventures in economically blighted communities as well as spearheading the founding of some of this country's first AIDS hospice centers, is not new to spiritual action. He brings a centered, even, and balanced perspective to what one might do to better the current state of social affairs. Through the people Glassman meets and ordains as Peacemakers, the reader gathers a sense of what it means to devote oneself to the universal task of making peace with the here and now and, most important, past. Raul Nino --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Publisher

Bernie Glassman has always been known as a maverick in the Buddhist world. I sometimes call him a loose Buddhist cannon! But theres nothing loose about the way in which he puts his principles into practice. The Buddhism Bernie teaches is grounded in whatever difficult moment he or his students are facing. He encourages everyone to be present without importing any of our preconceived ideas into the situation. Only then will we be free to move in a new direction and resolve the problem. Zen Peacemaker priests may find themselves in fiercer circumstances than the rest of us but the teaching to be found in Bearing Witness is effective whether we are at home, at work, or at war.
--Toinette Lippe, Bell Tower, Editorial Director --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Harmony/Bell Tower (June 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609803913
• ISBN-13: 978-0609803912
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #441,310 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll never snub a panhandler again, January 14, 2001

By 

Mark Meyer (Buffalo, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace (Paperback)

This book is a masterpiece because Bernie Glassman's life and work is a masterpiece. His activism is truly awe-inspiring.

This book will touch your heart and make you think deeply about life, your own comfortable life with heat and light and computers, versus the dirty, cold, unsafe life on the streets.

There are just too many things to praise about this book that I can't write them all. Suffice it to say that all of it is a jewel, a gem, a lotus flower blooming from the mud of everyday life.

Buy it, read it, let it seep into you!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Peacemaker's Manual, February 15, 2000

By 

Gary W. Janka (Santa Barbara, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace (Paperback)

For anyone interested in making peace both within and without, or who is interested in combining spiritual practice with social action, Roshi Glassman's book is a "must read." He does a fine job of articulating and describing the spititual foundations of peacemaking in a very clear and straightforward manner. I found them both moving and helpful in my own search for a peacemaking path.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bearing Witness, January 20, 2000

By 

Diane Butler (Boulder, Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace (Paperback)

Glassman Roshi stands out as one of the foremost leaders in engaged spiritual practice. His sense of vision, personal journey and earth-level insight is clearly tangible in this recent publication. Glassman shares his heartfelt experience while also clearly reflecting the diversity of the Zen Peacemaker Order.