Peacemaking as Rocket Science

This post explores the peculiar life of American aeronautical engineer‑turned‑Zen teacher Bernie Glassman (1939–2018). It follows his transition from designing the first crewed mission to Mars at McDonnell Douglas in Huntington Beach, California, to founding the Zen Center of Los Angeles and later the socially‑oriented Greyston Bakery in New York. It also examines the philosophical underpinnings of his “peace‑making” practice, the influence of teachers such as Maezumi Hakuyū, and the broader cultural reception of his ideas within contemporary Zen discourse.

One day in 1965, the American aeronautical engineer Bernie Glassman (1939–2018) sat silently in his garage and was startled by the disappearance of his own sense of self. Glassman’s task at the time was to plan the first crewed journey to Mars. He served as unit leader at the McDonnell Douglas plant in Huntington Beach, California, just south of Los Angeles. Glassman was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of Jewish refugees who had fled Eastern Europe. He became interested in Buddhism during the 1950s in New York.

Shaken by his terrifying experience, Glassman sought a teacher at a Zen‑Buddhist temple in the Little‑Tokyo neighbourhood of Los Angeles. There he met a young Japanese monk named Hakuyū Taizan Maezumi (1931–1995). Maezumi had been born at the Kirigayaji Temple in Tokyo, but moved to the United States for missionary work in 1956. His father, Baian Hakujun Kuroda, ordained him as a monk at the age of eleven. Glassman became Maezumi’s first disciple. Maezumi continued to study with his own Japanese teachers, whom he also invited to the United States to lead retreats. Consequently, Glassman was able to study under Maezumi’s teachers as well. Glassman was installed as a Zen teacher in 1974.

Bernie helped his teacher Maezumi build and develop his own Zen temple in Los Angeles’ Koreatown. This centre, founded in 1967, still operates today as the Zen Center of Los Angeles (ZCLA), temple name Buddha Essence Temple. Initially, Bernie was a strict and demanding instructor. The writer and Zen teacher Peter Matthiessen (1985, p. 125) recorded how Bernie experienced a sudden awakening during a retreat led by Japanese master Osaka Kuryu at ZCLA in May 1970. Bernie himself was frightened by the experience; afterwards he stood in the centre’s courtyard drying his tears. He described looking at a tree standing in the yard:

“I didn’t feel I was the tree, it went deeper than that. I felt the wind on me, I felt the birds on me, all separation was completely gone.”

Nevertheless, this experience did not as itself force him to act for the benefit of everyone else. He continued to work solely for his own Zen community, often neglecting the needs of his family and children through his prolonged absences due to his responsibilities as a full time aeronautical engineer and zen priest. One morning at the end of 1976, on a car pool ride to his work, Bernie realised that the world was full of hungry ghosts that needed feeding. They thirsted for fame, power, drugs, money, sex, etc. Bernie saw how these these ghosts were also aspects of himself. The insight was so obvious that Bernie wept and laughed simultaneously throughout his work day.

Bernie’s experience is important to the work he dedicated himself to. However, it can also be seen to exemplify a phenomenon that American Zen teacher Brad Warner (2013) calls “enlightenment porn”. In a sense the term is justified: if the core of any spiritual practice is a personal realisation of the true nature of one’s true self, then another person’s experience cannot tell you anything about your own. Narrating such experiences about one’s own awakening is also a taboo in many spiritual circles. This attitude of explainin heroic awakening stories entered Zen Buddhism via the American‑edited volume Three Pillars of Zen (1967) by Philip Kapleau. Zen master Dōgen describes his own awakening very tersely: “I dropped both body and mind. That’s it.”

One could defend Bernie by saying he is a product of his era and culture. He even recounts reading Kapleau’s book just before his second awakening. Bernie eventually left his job in Los Angeles and devoted himself fully to a career as a Zen teacher. In 1979, Bernie Glassman founded his own Zen community north of Riverdale, New York. Some years after establishing the community he sold a donated mansion and used the proceeds to acquire a dilapidated building in Yonkers, a short walk from his own home. They opened the Greyston Bakery in 1982. The bakery produced cheesecakes and brownies for restaurants and shops across New York.

Glassman believed that, rather than practising traditional Japanese Zen, the community should strive to deal with problems caused by addiction and violence—homelessness, unemployment and the AIDS epidemic. According to him, realisation does not arise solely from conventional forms such as temple décor, incense, ceremonies, scriptures or robes, but from personal insight and awakening. Although the methods Glassman developed may not look Japanese, he trusted that they would help Western people experience the core at the heart of Zen practice, which is the realisation and actualisation of oneness of life.

Glassman taught that the Buddhist ideal of the Bodhisattva, i.e., the peacemaker, is one of Buddhism’s most important teachings. The peacemaker has a personal glimpse of what oneness of life is, and what liberation from dissatisfaction might mean. They then cultivate this insight to the best of their ability. They also feel that their ultimate liberation depends on the liberation of all other forms of life (not only humans); therefore they will do everything they can to give every being the chance to free itself from dissatisfaction and delusion. This work, done for the benefit of all, cultivates the peacemaker’s own spiritual growth, which in turn enables them to continue acting on behalf of others.

This work is not done through preaching and trying to make eveyone see the same way they do. Actually it is quite the opposite. The peacemaker is a servant. The work is done through their own example, and through the practice of the Three Tenets of the Peacemakers. These are 1) Not-Knowing 2) Bearing Witness, and 3) Loving Action, which arises from Not-Knowing and Bearing Witness.

Glassman’s vision for the Greyston bakery was that it would employ anyone who applied, through a concept of open hiring. That means no interviews, no background checks, and no resumes are required to get a job. Recognising that employment is just the first step toward self-sufficiency, Greyston quickly expanded into several social and community services areas.

Workers needed many things to survive their jobs: a home, childcare and a clinic for those living with AIDS. All of this was provided collectively. Greyston helped its employees refurbish derelict houses, allowing them to obtain their own homes. The AIDS clinic “Issan House”, founded by Greyston, was one of the first AIDS clinics in the United States. Issan House is a 35-unit facility offering housing to 40–to–50 formerly homeless individuals annually. All residents are living with HIV/AIDS, and many also are struggling with mental health issues and substance abuse.

Greyston expanded rapidly, acquiring new premises and services. Today the Greyston bakery continues to operate on the same principles and supplies brownie pieces for Ben & Jerry’s ice‑cream. Their open hiring policy and the book describing it (Glassman & Fields, 1996) are studied in economics courses at Yale and Harvard. The foundation that runs alongside the bakery still occupies the former convent that Glassman purchased.

Bernie Glassman’s life illustrates how the rigor of aeronautical engineering can inform a disciplined Zen practice, and how that practice can be transformed into concrete social action. His model of “peacemaking” bridges personal awakening with systemic change, offering a template for modern spiritual social entrepreneurs who wish to address concrete issues such as homelessness, addiction and health crises without sacrificing the depth of their inner work.

Conclusion

Bernie Glassman’s journey—from designing interplanetary rockets at McDonnell Douglas to building the Zen Center of Los Angeles and establishing the socially innovative Greyston Bakery—demonstrates a rare synthesis of organisational skills, spiritual insight, and social entrepreneurship. By recognising the “hungry ghosts” within himself and society, he created institutions that feed both material and spiritual needs. His legacy challenges contemporary practitioners to move beyond isolated meditation and to embody the Buddhist ideal of a Bodhisattva: cultivating personal awakening while actively serving and saving all beings.

References

Glassman, B., & Fields, R. (1996). Instructions to the cook: A Zen master’s lessons in living a life that matters. Harmony.
Kapleau, P. (1967). The three pillars of Zen. New York: Anchor Books.
Matthiessen, P. (1987). Nine-headed dragon river: Zen journals 1969-1982. Shambhala Publications.
Warner, B. (2013). There is No God and He is Always with You: A Search for God in Odd Places. New World Library.