1. Bernie Glassman was an American Zen Buddhist roshi and founder of the Zen Peacemakers, an organization established in 1980.
12 Facts About Bernie Glassman
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Bernie Glassman was known as a pioneer of social enterprise, socially engaged Buddhism and "Bearing Witness Retreats" at Auschwitz and on the streets with homeless people.
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Bernie Glassman was born to Jewish immigrants in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York in 1939.
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Bernie Glassman attended university at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and received a degree in engineering.
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Bernie Glassman first encountered Zen when he was assigned Huston Smith's The Religions of Man for an English class in 1958.
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Bernie Glassman found Taizan Maezumi in Los Angeles, California and Glassman became one of the original founding members of the Zen Center of Los Angeles.
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Bernie Glassman received Dharma transmission in 1976 from Maezumi, who intended to create an inka shomei ceremony for him in 1995, shortly before Maezumi's death, conferring the influences of his own main teachers to Glassman.
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In 1982 Bernie Glassman opened Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, New York, which initially provided jobs for the Zen students and evolved into an effort to help alleviate the widespread homelessness in the area.
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Bernie Glassman retired from the Greyston Foundation in 1996 to pursue socially engaged Buddhist projects through the Zen Peacemakers.
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In 2012, Bernie Glassman founded The Stone Soup Cafe in Greenfield, MA together with Academy-Award-winning actor Jeff Bridges, his Zen student.
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Bernie Glassman died on November 4,2018, from complications of a stroke, in Springfield, Massachusetts, at the age of 79.
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Bernie Glassman appointed several "senseis" and "roshis" in traditional zen, and established the non-hierarchical roles of 'Steward' and 'Circle Dharmaholder' as coordinators and visionholders to continue the Zen Peacemaker Circles model.