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On Saturday November 29th, together we’ll bear witness to the continuing genocide against the Palestinian people, and how each of us are touched by this.
This day of practice is offered in the spirit and tradition of Zen Peacemakers (https://zenpeacemakers.org/), a socially-engaged Buddhist and inter-faith/conviction organisation founded by Bernie Glassman, Roshi. The Three Tenets of Zen Peacemakers offer a way of turning towards deep suffering in the world. These tenets are: Not Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action that arises. They will provide a guiding framework for our time together.
Alongside mindfulness in sitting and walking, our main practice will be council circle. These are ‘listening circles’ in which we’re gently facilitated to speak and to listen from the heart, taking turns to share our personal experiences and stories rather than opinions.
On the day, we’ll gather at the Mindfulness and Compassion Centre for meditation, our first council circle, and then we’ll have lunch together before joining the protest march at 1pm. After an hour’s walking in the march with mindfulness we’ll return to the Centre for our final council circle and closing.
Bearing witness offers us a way to honour our experiences, to stand in solidarity with those who are suffering, and to support and learn from each other.
Contribution:
€40 or €80
Donations welcome if you do not wish to attend
All funds raised will be donated to Médicins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) (https://www.msf.org/) who are currently working in both Gaza and Sudan.
Participants are asked to bring outdoor wear for walking in the protest march and to bring something for lunch. Tea and coffee will be provided.
Facilitator:
Niamh Barrett is a mindfulness teacher, student of the Way of Council and a member of Zen Sangha Belgium (https://www.zensangha.be/), a sangha led by Niamh’s teacher, Frank De Waele, Roshi, which is affiliated with Zen Peacemakers International.
In May 2025, Niamh and Frank Roshi co-led the first five-day Bearing Witness retreat in Ireland, Bearing Witness to Ireland’s Mother and Baby Institutions (https://www.showingup.ie/).
Photo: Andrew Murphy
On Saturday November 29th, together we’ll bear witness to the continuing genocide against the Palestinian people, and how each of us are touched by this.
This day of practice is offered in the spirit and tradition of Zen Peacemakers (https://zenpeacemakers.org/), a socially-engaged Buddhist and inter-faith/conviction organisation founded by Bernie Glassman, Roshi. The Three Tenets of Zen Peacemakers offer a way of turning towards deep suffering in the world. These tenets are: Not Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action that arises. They will provide a guiding framework for our time together.
Alongside mindfulness in sitting and walking, our main practice will be council circle. These are ‘listening circles’ in which we’re gently facilitated to speak and to listen from the heart, taking turns to share our personal experiences and stories rather than opinions.
On the day, we’ll gather at the Mindfulness and Compassion Centre for meditation, our first council circle, and then we’ll have lunch together before joining the protest march at 1pm. After an hour’s walking in the march with mindfulness we’ll return to the Centre for our final council circle and closing.
Bearing witness offers us a way to honour our experiences, to stand in solidarity with those who are suffering, and to support and learn from each other.
Contribution:
€40 or €80
Donations welcome if you do not wish to attend
All funds raised will be donated to Médicins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) (https://www.msf.org/) who are currently working in both Gaza and Sudan.
Participants are asked to bring outdoor wear for walking in the protest march and to bring something for lunch. Tea and coffee will be provided.
Facilitator:
Niamh Barrett is a mindfulness teacher, student of the Way of Council and a member of Zen Sangha Belgium (https://www.zensangha.be/), a sangha led by Niamh’s teacher, Frank De Waele, Roshi, which is affiliated with Zen Peacemakers International.
In May 2025, Niamh and Frank Roshi co-led the first five-day Bearing Witness retreat in Ireland, Bearing Witness to Ireland’s Mother and Baby Institutions (https://www.showingup.ie/).
Photo: Andrew Murphy
BA Hons, Post-grad Dip. Journalism, Certificate to teach MBSR (IMA)
Niamh began her training in teaching Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in 2007 with a foundation year at the University of Bangor in North Wales, and completed her training with the Institute for Mindfulness-Based Approaches (Germany), graduating in 2010. Prior to this, her working life was in documentary film and television production, latterly as a director on the environmental programme, 'Eco Eye'.
In 2010 she began teaching the MBSR programme in Kilkenny and Waterford and since 2013 she's offered it in Wicklow, Dublin city and online. She is also a mindfulness-teacher trainer and supervisor. Niamh has been a committed meditator for twenty years and regularly attends silent retreats and further training, receives supervision while teaching and adheres to the Good Practice Guidelines.
For a number of years she has been exploring the intersection of mindfulness and social engagement through her own practice, retreats and teaching. Beginning in summer 2019 she facilitated a group through a six-month, long-form mindfulness and social engagement project, showing up. In 2019 the showing up programme engaged directly with the ongoing housing and homelessness crisis in Ireland. With the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, these offerings moved online to facilitate mindfulness and 'connection circle' sessions to groups of foster carers, healthcare workers, school principals and members of the general public who wanted to connect in a mindful and meaningful way with others during the pandemic. The project continued online with anti-racism study groups and broadened to offer mindful engagement with the ecological emergency once back in-person.
Since 2017, Niamh has been participating in council circles and studying the Way of Council. Since 2023, she has organised council circle workshop training weekends in Ireland with trainers Jared and Ann Seide of U.S. organisation Beyond Us & Them.
Niamh is a student of Frank De Waele, Roshi in the tradition of Zen Peacemakers. In May 2025, along with Roshi Frank, she will co-lead a Bearing Witness retreat in Ireland on the theme of the Ireland's mother and baby homes.
