Austin Street Retreat: Final Report

Fleet Maull, foreground left, and other participants in the Buddhist street retreat cross the Pfluger pedestrian bridge on their way to Blues on the Green in Zilker Park on Wednesday night. The concert was close to where they would spend the night.


Having completed the street retreat, my friend and co-leader Genro Gauntt and I are back at the Austin Zen Center relaxing after a hot shower and good meal. This street retreat has left a profound impression on me as they always do ... the impact of a major pattern interupt and the intimate experiences with all the men, women, young people and children we shared the streets with this week, there faces, expressions and words swimming around in my consciousness as I sit here typing.


We see so much suffering and with the heat index at 108 degrees experience so many physical challenges ourselves. And in the midst of all that struggle and suffering, we also see and experience so much joy, community, good humor and no small amount of irony.
I often wish I could record and share the profound sharing by the participants in our councils. In many ways these councils are the heart of the retreat. The councils are held in complete confidentiality though, so I can only describe them in general terms. The struggles, doubts, confessions, insights, and both painful and joyful experiences the participants, all sitting in the fire of transformation, share inevitably leave me feeling deeply grateful, humbled and inspired. Spending time with others in the crucible of genuine transformation is perhaps the greatest gift, among the many gifts provided by the streets.
Roshi Bernie Glassman who founded the Zen Peacemaker Community and this particular form of street retreats, often speaks of the "generosity of the streets." This week the streets of Austin and all the people there provided us with all we needed and then some, the including the supreme gift of our own humanity, discovering our own dignity as human beings through experiencing the dignity of every human being we encountered. When all else is stripped away, the truth of the basic goodness of all beings shines through with unmistakeable clarity.


I am every thankful to all of our spiritual ancestors and to Roshi Bernie Glassman for articulating the timeless wisdom represented in the three tenets of the Zen Peacemaker Community's work: Not Knowing, Bearing Witness and Loving Action. Once again the streets have take my understanding of these tenets to and entirely new level.
Peace and many blessings,
Fleet Maull


The Austin Street Retreat was sponsored by the Austin Shambhala Center, the Austin Zen Center and the Colorado Peacemaker Institute. Many thanks to Hope Malkan, a Peacemaker Institute Integral Peacemaker Training (IPT) graduate and Austin Shambhala Community member, who envisioned and organized this retreat. Many thanks to the others members of the Austin Shambhala Community and the Austin Zen Center who participated in and/or supported the retreat; and as always, many thanks to Kate Crisp, who coordinated things for the Colorado Peacemaker Institute.

Any a very special thanks to the organizations, staff and volunteers who fed and supported us on the streets from the Trinity Center at the King David Episcopal Church, the Salvation Army, the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless, Caritas, the Austin Baptist Chapel's Angel House, the University United Methodist Church, and the Mobile Loaves and Fishes.