Zen Is All of Life Remembering Roshi Bernie Glassman
ROSHI BERNIE GLASSMAN never did anything by half. An aeronautical engineer turned pioneering American Zen teacher, he threw himself into mastering Zen’s many sutras, liturgies, and customs. Then, unsentimentally, he abandoned everything in Zen he felt didn’t fit him or the Western mind and broke open our ideas about Buddhism, showing us that it isn’t separate from social engagement.
Of course, Glassman threw himself headlong into that too, as he found innovative ways to feed the hungry, care for the sick, and bear witness to the world’s pain. He was the founder of the Zen Peacemakers and the Greyston Foundation, and it was his brainchild to take retreats out of the zendo and right into the pain of the world—into the streets with the homeless and to the sites of genocide in Auschwitz, Rwanda, and Wounded Knee.
But Glassman was also a clown—literally—and he was always keen to don his clown nose, even while giving a dharma talk or talking politics. After all, something simple and silly like a red nose can change the whole tone of a room. Fierce and funny and freewheeling. Kindhearted and whip smart. That was Roshi Bernie Glassman, a man who was larger than life.
Early in the morning on November fourth, Glassman, aged seventy-nine, died of sepsis. His body was brought home, washed with water scented with herbs, and dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, jeans, and suspenders. They were his favorite clothes, which he’d been unable to wear since he’d suffered a stroke in 2016. Someone put a clown nose into one of his cupped hands, while his widow, Eve Marko, placed his wedding ring in the other.
Glassman’s mourners were many—Buddhist and non-Buddhist, in America and abroad. “He was the primary force of dharma and social action in this country,” says Frank Ostaseski, the guiding teacher of Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco.
