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Peacemaker Institute executive director, Fleet Maull leads an annual Street Retreat in Denver, Colorado in early March. Our friend and colleague, Grover Genro Gauntt also leads street retreats in many U.S. and Canadian cities. And Fleet and Genro some times lead street retreats together. Sensei Fleet and Sensei Genro were both trained and empowered to lead street retreats by the renowned social activist and Zen master, Roshi Bernie Glassman.
The Street Retreat was developed by Bernie Glassman as a deep plunge into not knowing, bearing witness and loving action, the Three Tenets of the Peacemaker Community and as a training for social activists and those involved in or aspiring to various forms of urban ministry and peacemaking. Bernie saw the Street Retreat as a powerful alternative to the traditional Zen sesshin (meditation intensive) that could quickly plunge participants into not knowing or what has been called beginners mind, or only don't know mind by other Zen masters. In one way or another, all inner practices are designed to some how access not knowing or to free of us our usual conditioning, to move beyond conditioned mind into direct, naked experience of things as they are. The Street Retreat actually has roots going back through Bernie Glassman's close friend and colleague, The Reverend James Morton, former Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Harlem, New York, who told Bernie about a plunge training he had been involved in as a young man in Chicago, where new priests and ministers, fresh out seminary, were sent out on the streets for a week, with only a dime in their pocket, to sink or swim, and hopefully acquire some "street smarts" in the process.
Participants on our Street Retreats engage in the practice of "raising a mala" [make that a link], enrolling family, friends and others to buy a bead on the mala (rosary) and both sponsor their retreat and join the retreat in spirit. The mala funds raised are contributed to organizations and agencies supporting and advocating for the homeless in the cities where are Street Retreats take place. In this way we have raised more than $25,000 in the past five years for such organizations.
 Homelessness in our cities in the U.S. and around the world is a very difficult and challenging problem with many tangled roots and causes ... lack of affordable housing, social and economic injustice, addictions and mental illness, wars, racism and the drug ward and prison industrial complex among others. By leaving the relative comfort and security of our more privileged lives and going out on the streets and into the unknown, we are bearing witness to these complex social problems and to the lives, stories and inherent value and dignity of the human beings who find themselves on the streets without the resources that many of us take for granted most of the time. This practice of bearing witness inevitably stirs the human heart to action, and at the very least transforms forever our relationship to homelessness and the people we meet on the streets ... we can no longer look the other way, pretending not to see.
While we make every effort to blend in with the street community during our time on the streets in order to experience the streets in the most ordinary and direct way we can, we do not pretend to be truly homeless. If anyone asks who we are or what we are doing on the streets, we simply tell the truth ... that we are social activists and peacemakers living on the streets for a number of days as part of our training and to learn more about the challenges people face when they experience homelessness. We do not stay in shelters as there are nowhere near enough beds for the truly homeless in our cities. We spend our time wandering, begging, looking for places to eat, places to use a bathroom, and for somewhere to sleep at night on the streets. We gather together three times a day for meditation and council (listening) circles; and through sharing our inner and outer experiences of the street with each other, weave a powerful and profoundly transformative gestalt of our shared experience. One of the revelations for many street retreat participants is the level of caring and generosity they experience among and receive from the community of those living on the streets. We invite you to join us in experiencing both the challenges and the generosity of life on the streets.
Upcoming Street Retreats:
Denver Street Retreat
with Sensei Fleet Shirnyu Maull and Sensei Grover Genro Guantt
Dates March 2 - 6, 2009
Registration and Logistics
Peacemaker Institute Street Retreats raised money that was donated to Denver and Austin, Texas homeless services providers.
2006: $7,500
2007: $4,500
2008: $4,500
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