NEWS

Helsinki Zen is now an Apartheid Free Zone (AFZ). We commit to the boycotts of the international BDS movement and support the Palestinian struggle for human rights, equality and freedom.
Read more about the campaign: www.sumud.fi

Helsinki Zen cofounder Mikko Ijäs is now a certified Zen teacher (sensei). He received his dharma transmission (shiho) in a ceremony at the end of Peacemaker Retreat in Helsinki in 19 June 2025.

Hybrid-meditations hosted by Helsinki Zen from Kallio D-Asema via Jitsi Meet on Thursday’s at 5:30 to 6:15 PM (Finnish time EET / UTC +2). Program continues in August 21. READ MORE

Are you interested in becoming a Member or a Patron? READ MORE

English Newsletter SIGN HERE
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Email: helsinkizen [at] proton.me

Our priest and sensei Mikko Ijäs is always available if you need to ask questions:

Social media: Mastodon @helsinkizen & Bluesky @helsinkizen.fi
Instant messaging and Video calls for Mikko Ijäs: Signal @mikkoijas.12

Helsinki Zen – Peacemakers Finland has dedicated to study and develop practices which honor the inseparability of the transformation of the self and the world, and to study spiritual practices where compassion and a deepening realization of our radical interconnectedness helps us to live in solidarity with all life.
Although we live in a time of ecological and social crisis, creative and sustainable future is possible. Such a future depends upon transformation of both our values and consciousness, and the socio-economic forms that condition both the individual and our society.

The goal of our actions is to support radical change, to transform insights and understandings into a lived reality – from the spiritual to the social, the political to the personal, and the imaginative to the inspirational.
Helsinki Zen offers open meditation teaching, a place for meditation, retreats and workshops.
Helsinki Zen’s workshops and retreats are open for everyone. We encourage artists, activists and all kinds of people to use meditation to ground and transform social action into a spiritual path of service to the community and to the Earth.

ABOUT US

Helsinki Zen – Peacemakers Finland is an official regional Affiliate Group of the Zen Peacemakers International. We are a Helsinki based collective practicing socially engaged work, silent reflection, and serving their local community in the spirit of the Three Tenets of the Zen Peacemakers which are:

1. Not-Knowing, by giving up fixed ideas about ourselves and the universe.
2. Bearing Witness, by listening and opening your heart to the joy and suffering of the world.
3. Loving Action that arises from Not-Knowing and Bearing Witness.

Members the Helsinki Zen are encouraged to offer themselves into environmental activism, volunteers to local social projects, and to explore their possibilities to work together with NGO’s and social institutions. The members will be also assisted and encouraged to use all ingredients of their life and their professional skills to engage with their own communities, and to listen how to serve their communities by taking action, by raising awareness, by engaging in activism, volunteering, campaigning, and making donations, building projects, arranging events and exhibitions.
The members of the Helsinki Zen are encouraged to take part in local and international trainings that will help them to be more efficient and healthier Peacemakers. Members are encouraged to good care of their own health by engaging trainings and activities that will improve mental and physical health, and improve their nondual communicational skills.Members of the Peacemakers are encouraged to explore their personal role as an integrated element of the interconnectedness of all life, and serve their communities through the Three Tenets and other core practices of the Zen Peacemakers.

PAST EVENTS

Helsinki Zen has organized international retreats and workshops in Finland since 2017. We invite invite international teachers and professionals to support our practice as peacemakers. 

Bearing Witness to Finnish Civil War Prison Camps
Clowning workshop (in Finnish)
Art Workshop (in Finnish)
Street Retreat

LINKS

Website of Zen Peacemakers International https://zenpeacemakers.org 
More about Three Tenets

Helsinki Zen on Zen Peacemakers online membership platform ZP Hive

Finnish article on Bearing Witness Retreat organized in 2018 (YLE)
Finnish article on Bearing Witness Retreat organized in 2018 (Kirkko&Kaupunki)
Link to the international community of EcoSattva’s: One Earth Sangha