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My experience of the bearing witness retreat on Lampedusa in 2016 was in many ways a turning point in my life.

The direct contact with the concrete evidence of the mass suffering of people fleeing their unsafe, but loved, home country became very tangible, became a lived experience instead of a distant news report. In that year we all felt, standing on that rocky island in the Mediterranean, that what had happened so far was just the beginning. Indeed, various conflicts in the world have led since to waves of refugees to Europe that few people could have imagined.

It was equally touching to speak to those on Lampedusa that had been involved in rescue operations of refugees shipwrecked at their coast, shipwrecked often on purpose by the people traffickers. The compassion of the inhabitants of Lampedusa for those that arrived from far away was for me a warm experience compared to the hostile reactions of the population of many European countries towards refugees.

Our zen peacemakers group, under the spiritual guidance of Frank de Waele, provided me with a safe home when we shared our experiences in the not-knowing circle meetings, and whenever we spend time together during the meals, meditations, meetings, walks, and ceremonies.

The whole experience has led for me to deep understanding and wisdom about conflict and refugees, while still not knowing often what to do, and lasting personal friendships. I am looking forward to renew this experience on the Ecoretreat in Germany in 2022.

Ruud Baanders
Oxford

More about Ruud Baanders see on his website: https://www.mahakaruna.org.uk

Picture by Ruud Baanders

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Lampedusa – pictures and reflections by Ruud Baanders (2016) Read More »

Evi Gemmon Ketterer wrote these lines after her Bearing Witness retreat in Auschwitz Birkenau with the Zen Peacemakers in 2013. It was published later in the book „Pearls of Ash and Awe“. The book includes some testimonies and reflections from other retreat participants and gives some background. This is in appreciation of the 20 years of Bearing Witness in Auschwitz with Bernie Glassman and Zen Peacemakers.

Auschwitz – a Place of Cruelty and Hope

by Evi Gemmon Ketterer

In 1942

none had the vision

that in the gas chamber at Auschwitz

a German Zen Buddhist woman

would take an American male Rabbi

in her arms

till he stops crying and comes back to life.

In 1944

none had the vision

that an American male Rabbi

and a German Zen Buddhist woman

would sit behind the fence together

both sobbing and bearing witness

to those inside the fence

exposed to the new victims arriving

seen as prisoners while they knew the destiny

of those walking on the road of death.

In 1945

none had the vision

that an American male Rabbi

would comfort a German Zen Buddhist Woman

in her heartbreak about those liberated

who had to find a way back to life

by telling her stories of his family history

and their mastery of survival.

In 2013

it happend.

Let´s not deny the evil and cruelty of this place

nor the good and love that arises here.

We would deny humanity.

(2013)

More about Evi Gemmon Ketterer see on her website: https://brunnenhofzendo.ch/

The book “Pearls of Ash & Awe” is published by Edition Steinrich

http://edition-steinrich.de

Auschwitz – a Poem Read More »

Bearing Witnessa - a reflection by Evi Gemmon Ketterer

“I, Gemmon, practice to devote myself to not-knowing. I will practice to open myself to the insight, that the ungraspable life is always more than the power of my eye of study and practice can see.
I practice to devote myself to bearing witness. I will practice to realize that the ungraspable life manifests itself in ungraspable many expressions. Therefore I will encounter all creations with respect and dignity and allow myself to be touched by the joys and pain of the universe.
I practice to devote myself to healing. I will practice to be in relationship with everything, to strengthen my capacity to love and acceptance and to use my life and love for healing myself, the earth, humanity, and all creations.”

That’s what I vowed in 2001. I changed some wording, yet, the intention is an unbroken line until today. I added “devotion” as it is the heart of all three tenets. Devoting the everyday experience of my small self to the greater Self of the source of life which I am an expression of – ass far as my eye of study and practice is able to see. But as this self sees just such a small section of what life itself is, I practice to get deeper, so I will be more able to strengthen my capacity for love and healing. Bearing witness is the tool to bridge the tenet of not-knowing and healing.
As we are mammals, our brain is inclined to survive by running away, fight or playing dead when discomfort arises. A pure survival strategy, that granted your species to survive a view thousand years. It taught us for generations, that our small life is threatened if we trust the wrong way. Just those of our ancestors survived that had the capacity to fear at the right time. And yet, we went beyond of the boundaries of what is needed. Fear created hatred and greed and now we are in a position, we are the thread. We created a vicious circle and now we run away from ourselves inside and out.
Bearing witness is to face the thread, to widen our insight of the Oneness of life, including all we fear and all we love. Going beyond, we realize that there is no such thing as a small, separate self that lives out the deluded idea, that we will survive by subduing everything else.
Sitting in Auschwitz, Lampedusa, Srebrenica and now the coal mine in Germany, we sooner or later realize this delusion. By facing the outcome of our survival strategies, we are able to hear the cry of mother earth and of the victims of ignorance. We strengthen our capacity to stay and see, to widen the circle of what our eye of study and practice is able to see.
As we run away from this crying, we also run away from the beauty and love this life offers. In my opinion, this is the reason, why at one side we experience in bearing witness the heaviness of our hearts and at the same time the deep interconnectedness of all. At the end, we might feel a much deeper sense of true compassion and our vows to enlighten might see, that diversity and oneness are just the two sides of the same token. Therefore Bearing witness is the bridge between radical openness and healing.
And maybe, one day, maybe even through our small death, we might be able to realize, that all we see and have will end, but the oneness of life will find ungraspable new ways of expressing itself. It would be sweet and loving, if we would realize it now and be able to devote the life of this small self to interconnectedness of all life.

More about Evi Gemmon Ketterer see on her website: https://www.brunnenhofzendo.ch

Picture by Peter Cunningham

Bearing Witness – a reflection by Evi Gemmon Ketterer Read More »

A Poem by Mary Oliver

The poem is like a reminder of bearing witness to life.

A summer day

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean – the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down – who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

A summer day – Poem by Mary Oliver Read More »

Pearls of Ash and Awe

I wrote these lines after my first Bearing Witness retreat in Auschwitz Birkenau with the Zen Peacemakers in 2014. It was published a year later in the book „Pearls of Ash and Awe“. The book includes some testimonies and reflections from other retreat participants and gives some background. This is in appreciation of the 20 years of Bearing Witness in Auschwitz with Bernie Glassman and Zen Peacemakers. The editor is Kathleen Battke. Thank you Kathleen for your effort in compiling this!

 

Matzes of Humanity. Fragments of Life

by Svenja Hollweg

First the fear, then the war, now annealed into our Human cells: the seemingly eternal mode of attack no defense.
So much, so convinced of something,
That we turn blind for what is, for the human being, the situation that is present.
Concealment through predominance of concepts.
The unconceivable hell is possible. As man.

Suddenly, in the middle of acting.
Like frozen.
Missend – missed as a human being.
Remaining stock-still.
Incomplete.
Silent.
In the middle of a breath humanity is
halted –
extinguished –
paused –
fixed
…
Breathing out is missing.
Deep cultures are slowed down. Peoples ´soul full of pain.
Human-Culture fragmented Frozen in the middle of a breath.
Giving space to the stories of the past. Listening to the stories of now.
A call for breathing out:
Breathe, humans!
Breathe for all these humans
Out with them
So that time gets moving!
„We ´ve all eben together before
Dancing in starlight upon the same shore
Soul weavers of sound and light
Gather together once more“ *
Peace-making – parts and the whole.
And in this ist is as of I ´d walk the ground of my Self.
Everything inside of me
Through me, through
In Auschwitz-Birkenau I picked up an acorn.
During the retreat I held it in my hand, in my coat pocket.
After a couple of days, the acorn burst open.
The Skin.
Through warmness.
Will to live, tender vitality, joyfull forwardness
One might think that in a place like this, nothing would eher grow again,
And now there ´s a green sprout, insistently welling up from its paring.
What now? This sprout indeed wanted me to act
I gave it a pot, gave it garden mold and water
And surprisingly – I now take care of a little oak tree
Promising a whole forest
Peace-making – parts and the whole.
I will dare to advance further into the mazes of humanity.
I believe it is worthwhile, because I sense there ´s more than just a confusing labyrinth.
A new culture, in case.
In silent days I can see it grow and hear it breathe
Breathe humans!
Breathe for all human beings
Out with them
So that time gets moving!

*a Song from Hawaii

 

More about Svenja Hollweg see on her website

https://svenjahollweg.de

The book “Pearls of Ash & Awe” is published by Edition Steinrich

http://edition-steinrich.de

Matzes of Humanity. Fragments of Life Read More »

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