Bearing Witness Quotes

“Bearing witness is not something to be done only at Auschwitz. When we bear witness to the unfolding of our daily lives, not shrinking from any situation that arises, we learn. We open to what is. And in that process, a healing arises.”
― Bernie Glassman, Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace

“In honoring our diversity, we discovered our oneness. By accepting our differences, we came together as one people.”
― Bernie Glassman, Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace

“Our actions—whether they make peace or war—reverberate throughout this universe.”
― Bernie Glassman, Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace

“Adolf Hitler had also wanted a one-people event. His way of doing it was to eliminate diversity. He created hundreds of places like Auschwitz and Birkenau where he could destroy diversity and create one people who looked the same, thought the same, lived the same. But he couldn’t do it. Because the one thing we ultimately have in common is that we’re all different.”
― Bernie Glassman, Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace

“We yearn to find things that are common to all human beings, around which we can come together. But underlying that yearning is the desire for people to be the same, to be the same as us, to affirm our way of seeing things. And that’s the trap.”
― Bernie Glassman, Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace

“The thing we have in common is our diversity.”
― Bernie Glassman, Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace