Bernie Glassman at Upaya Roshi Bernie Glassman: Making Peace—The World as One Body 2012 (Part 6 of 8)
Aug 7, 2018
Roshi Bernie Glassman, an American Zen teacher who blended Zen practice with social action, reflects on householders and sangha in everyday life. He contrasts monastic training with bringing practice into workplaces and cafés for the homeless. He urges engaging unfamiliar communities, making the world the training ground, and balancing oneness with responsibility.
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Build A Sangha As APractice Laboratory
- Create a local sangha or community because consistent practice and relationship work require a shared place and forms to learn interpersonal skills.
- Bernie Glassman recounts Yasutani Roshi's counsel: “you have to start a place with a sangha,” and likens it to the Jewish minyan requirement for communal practice.
Carpool Vision Turned Monastic Mission Into World Work
- Bernie describes a transformative carpool vision of the world's hungry spirits that made him vow to 'feed all of us' and shift his venue from monastery to world.
- That experience propelled him to move to New York, create a Zen community, and combine business and social action.
Make Wherever You Are Your Household
- Treat each venue as your household and adapt appropriate forms rather than seeing practice and life as separate domains.
- Glassman: when in business, make the business your zendo; when in social work, let that be your household.