For Women Who Saw Combat, a Place to Find Inner Peace
In The New York Times, Samuel G. Freedman reports on retreats for female veterans at the Tassajara Zen Buddhist monastery in California. The annual retreat was first developed in 2008 by Zen priest Chris Fortin and Zen adherent Lee Klinger Lesser, and its attendance and visibility has grown year-by-year. Although the pairing of pacifist Buddhism and military veterans may seem strange at first, Fortin says, “Our paradigm is to welcome people back to their own humanity.”