Bernie Glassman

Bernie Glassman (1939–2018) was a student of Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi and one of the most innovative and controversial Zen teachers of the modern era, whose career was defined by the conviction that authentic Zen practice must engage directly with social suffering. He received dharma transmission from Maezumi in 1976 and was a co-founder of the White Plum Asanga, the lineage organization of Maezumi's heirs. In the 1980s, he moved beyond the conventional Zen center model by founding the Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, New York, a social enterprise that employed homeless and marginally housed individuals, demonstrating that a Zen-inspired business could be both economically viable and socially transformative.

Glassman's most distinctive innovation was the street retreat, in which participants — often experienced Zen practitioners — spent days living on the streets with no money, no identification, and no shelter, directly encountering the reality of homelessness and poverty. He also led bearing witness retreats at Auschwitz and other sites of historical trauma. In 1996, he co-founded the Zen Peacemaker Order (later Zen Peacemakers), articulating three tenets that became its foundation: not-knowing (dropping fixed ideas), bearing witness (opening to the joy and suffering of the world), and loving action (the response that arises from not-knowing and bearing witness). His approach expanded the boundaries of what Zen practice could encompass and challenged the tendency toward insularity in Western Zen communities.