• Mikko Rakushin Kendō Ijäs explores the complexities of human existence, emphasizing the paradoxes of innovation, dissatisfaction, inequality, and environmental crises. His writings, informed by diverse experiences from academia to Zen practice, argue against reliance on outdated economic measures. By embracing…

  • By Johan van Mol A few weeks ago, I lived on the streets for a couple of days with an inter-faith group of Peacemakers in Helsinki. We did this without money, without phones, begging for food, and sleeping on cardboard…

  • Text by Kees HagenaarTranslated from Dutch by Mikko IjäsPictures by Stan Weyns I knew nothing about the Finnish civil war, which lasted from 27 January to 15 May in 1918. I only heard about it when I took part in…

  • I met Maija Kaunismaa at the Zen Center of Los Angeles in 2018 when I was a Resident student and she was working as Artist-In-Residence. Maija wrote much of her latest album, The Pine House Songs, at the Center and…

  • Johanna Hammarberg’s “Lost Letter” is an audio play installation based on twelve fictional letters describing the fates of the suspected Reds from Kotka area who were convicted in 1918 civil war prison camps. Scriptwriter, director Johanna Hammarberg (born in Kotka)…

  • Blog post by Mikko Ijäs, retreat organizer We held our first Bearing Witness retreat here in Helsinki in late June 2018. The context of the retreat was set around the prison camps of the Finnish civil war of 1918. One…

  • In 2017 Roshi Frank De Waele asked Mikko Ijäs to organize a Street Retreat in Helsinki, Finland. For four days they were immersed in the Zen Peacemakers’ Three Tenets: Not Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action; they begged for food…

  • The Bosnian retreat organized by the Zen Peacemakers Europe was a very different kind of a retreat compared to the previous retreats organized by the Zen Peacemakers International, like the ones in Auschwitz, Rwanda and Black Hills. The Zen Peacemakers…

Join 900+ subscribers

Stay in the loop with everything you need to know.

Sign up