Hello and thank you for finding my GoFundMe page! I will be attending the Zen Peacemakers Bearing Witness retreat in Auschwitz and Birkenau in November 2025. Some of you may also know me by my Tibetan refuge name, Jampa Sengmo.

Many years ago, when I first heard about the Zen Peacemakers annual Bearing Witness retreat in Auschwitz and Birkenau, I felt that this was something that I must do. But only now, after a year of training at Zen Mountain Monastery, do I feel that my heart is ready to open to such heartbreak and suffering. And with my commitment to begin the two-year Buddhist Chaplaincy Program at Upaya Zen Center in March of 2026, I recognize that to be a healing presence is to continually turn toward and open to this beautiful catastrophe of life with all its joys and sorrows; that by opening myself to my own trauma and unintegrated pain, I am better able to support others to do the same; and that together we create a growing momentum of health and healing for all beings, because ultimately, there are no 'others.'

Zen Peacemakers encourages us to gather support from all our connections in recollection of our interdependence and fundamental unity. I invite you to join in this journey of enlarging the circle of concern and bearing witness to the great suffering and heartbreak of Auschwitz and Birkenau so that healing can arise and connection be restored to ourselves, our friends and families, and to all those we come into contact with. May it ripple out to heal every hurt and fracture in our world and bring true and lasting peace to all beings.

As is the tradition within Zen Peacemakers, I will create a mala of beads – each representing those who travel with me on this journey of healing to Auschwitz, Birkenau, and beyond. I will wear it knowing the power of our commitment together: that the tears that fall and healing that ripples out is something that we are doing together and that although we may never live to see the beautiful world that we know in our hearts to be possible, it is our privilege to walk this path as warriors of love like all those who have gone before us and will continue where we leave off.

“Our actions—whether they make peace or war—reverberate throughout this universe. Since we're all interdependent, nothing is small, trivial, or inconsequential. Not even a string of beads.” (Bearing Witness by Bernie Glassman, p. 46)