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Zen Master Bernie Glassman
Founder
Spiritual Director
President
Bernie Glassman is a world-renowned pioneer
in the American Zen Movement and a leading creative
figure in socially engaged Buddhism. He is the founder
and co-spiritual director of the Zen Peacemakers. He
has extended Dharma practice from the meditation
hall to the arenas of social service, business,
environmental stewardship and conflict resolution. He
has been honored with numerous ethics, service and
achievement awards. |
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Sensei Eve Myonen Marko
Head Teacher
Mother House Zendo
Montague Farm Zendo
Eve Myonen Marko is a Founding Teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order and currently the resident teacher at the Montague Farm Zendo, the Motherhouse Zendo of the Zen Peacemakers. With her husband and teacher, Roshi Bernie Glassman, she co-founded Peacemaker Circle International, which linked and trained spiritually-based social activists and peacemakers around the world. During that time she helped develop coalitions of Civil Society activists in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. During the 1980s she worked in the Greyston Mandala, a Buddhist-inspired network of for-profits and not-for-profits in Yonkers, New York. |
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Karen Kisui Werner
Zen House Director
Montague Farm Zen House
Karen Kisui Werner, Ph.D., is a sociologist and community activist living in Montague, MA. Her research, teaching, and activism focus on social welfare and community economies. She co-founded the North Quabbin Time Bank, a community currency based in Orange, MA. Karen has been on the faculty of Goddard College for 8 years and has degrees from Brown, Harvard, and Brandeis. She has been practicing zen at the Montague Farm Zendo with Sensei Eve Myonen Marko since 2006. |
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Ari Pliskin
Assistant to President
At Wesleyan University, Ari completed an interdisciplinary social studies program. He recruited for Teach For America, managed a team of canvassers campaigning to defeat George W. Bush in 2004 and directed a new residential academic summer camp for three summers. After teaching, Ari spent most of the next two years in South America, exploring Argentina. In addition to participating in local Catholic events and Andean gatherings, he stayed at a Hindu ashram and also lived in a Zen temple. Returning to the United States, Ari attended and graduated from the Zen House Seminary and then completed his internship at the Haley House in Boston, where he helped introduce meditation practice to the community. |
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Kellie Kersten
Zen House Director
Appalachia Zen House
Kelle Kersten is a humane educator, organic farmer and inspector, youth worker, and activist for sustainable communities. For the past three years Kelle has run a summer camp for children and youth with the purpose of enhancing the connection of young people with the earth, plants, animals, and each other and of teaching ways of maintaining these interconnections in the midst of materialistic and individualistic influences. Kelle has over 15 years experience as an organic farmer and currently manages a small market garden. Since 2004 she has been an organic farm inspector. In 2008 she began to inspect organic processors. Kelle has over 9 years of experience working with troubled children and youth. |
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Steve Kanji Ruhl
Director
Resident Training Program
Steve Kanji Ruhl is a novice Zen House Minister in the Zen Peacemakers and a graduate of the Maezumi Institute's Zen House Seminary for Socially Engaged Buddhism. He is a longtime Zen practitioner with experience in both shikantaza and koan work. He has trained in Japan at Taiyo-ji Soto Zen temple with Watanabe Roshi; at Zen Mountain Monastery in New York with John Daido Loori Roshi; at Mount Equity Zendo in Pennsylvania with Dai-En Bennage Roshi; and at Springwater Meditation Center in New York with Toni Packer. Currently he trains with Zen Master Bernie Glassman and with Sensei Eve Myonen Marko of the Zen Peacemakers. Kanji grew up in the Appalachian Mountain region of central Pennsylvania, home to his family of farmers and mill workers for many generations. In 2008 he received his Master of Divinity degree from Harvard University, where he co-chaired the Harvard Buddhist Community. In 2005 he received his B.A. in Religious Studies, with high distinction and Phi Beta Kappa, from the Schreyer Honors College of the Pennsylvania State University. |
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Jessica Bruno
Bookkeeper
Jessica is the bookkeeper for the Zen Peacemakers. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from Southern Vermont College and majored in Accounting and Environmental Studies. She has worked as an accountant for over 10 years gaining experience in corporate, public, and non-profit sectors. In 2007, she started her own business, ACT Solutions- Accounting, Computer and Tax Service. Some of Jessica’s interests include martial arts, entering competitive obedience competitions with her dog Kuma, and hiking in the mountains with her husband Mike. |
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Laurie Smith
Ass't to Res. Dev. Dir./Registrar
Laurie has lived in Western Massachusetts all her life. She graduated from Greenfield High School, then attended Greenfield Community College, majoring in Business Administration. She loves the outdoors, especially fishing with her husband, Scott. Laurie has a passion for weaving baskets, and she has been weaving for almost 25 years, using many different materials such as, willow, grape vine, red osier dogwood, rattan reed, and most recently waxed linen thread. |
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Rosalind Jiko McIntosh
Head Gardner, Head Cook
Rosalind Jiko Kisan McIntosh is a graduate of the Zen Peacemaker Zen House Seminary for Socially Engaged Buddhism. She grew up in New Zealand, and received her Ph.D. from Cambridge University in England. She had 9 years full-time training and practice as a monastic at Zen Mountain Monastery, Mount Tremper, NY, after a 35-year international career as a medical researcher, professor and consultant.
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Tim Raines
Caretaker
Tim has lived in Massachusetts his whole life, and is married with
three children. He has done extensive work at Zen Peacemakers for a
number of years involving construction of the Maezumi Institute, general
maintenance and groundskeeping. |
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John Kealy, M.D.
Medical Director
Montague Farm Zen House
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Sally Sonen Kealy
Coordinator: Zen Peacemaker Sangha
Sally worked in several job capacities within the Greyston Mandala in Yonkers. She took the lay Buddhist Precepts in 1986, and became a Novice Priest in 1993. She took a five year period to study Zen in the Kwan Um School of Zen under Wu Kwang Zen Master Richard Shrobe. At this time she also received a Masters in Social Work from NYU, and certified in a four year post graduate Gestalt Training program in Manhattan. Sally returned to Japanese style Zen, received Priest Vows in 1997, and is a student of her root teacher, Zen Master Bernie. |
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