 Pete Shimazaki Doktor is an Okinawan & German Jewish-American communtiy organizer and educator, graduating from San Francisco State University in Social Sciences with minors in Global Peace Studies and Philosophy & Religion, and helping co-found the Bay Area Okinawa Peace Network. After teaching in Japan and Okinawa, Pete pursued a Master’s in Education the University of Hawai`i. Since then, he has been an active volunteer and organizer, particularly with CHOICES, an alternatives-to-military grassroots organization with the American Friends Service Committee, receiving a 2005 Faith in Action Award. He is a co-founder of Hawai`i Okinawa Alliance, and O`ahu co-coordinator for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. He is a member of Veterans for Peace- O`ahu, and a volunteer counselor for the G.I. Rights Hotline-Hawai`i. He was a co-founder of the social justice music collective Aloha Liberation Front, and currently plays with Kahuli, writing original music for peace & social justice. He currently teaches at Hawai`i's "inner city" high school. More of Pete's story and his experience as a soldier-turned-peacemaker can be found on BPF's Ask-a-Dharma Vet page.
 Born and raised in Thailand, Anchalee Kurutach has lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1988. Anchalee has been involved in socially-engaged work both in Thailand and in the U.S. for the past 25 years. She is fortunate to have had a great many opportunities to learn about social justice and humanity and to develop compassion for fellow beings, starting from her college work with poor rural farmers in Thailand, her after-college career as a teacher at a refugee camp for war-torn Southeast Asian refugees, to her 15 years of work with refugees and immigrants in the U.S. Currently Anchalee works as a community outreach and educator for Survivors International, an organization that provides services to survivors of torture from around the world. In addition, she is involved with several other community activities such as serving on an advisory council for a domestic violence training program and co-founding an internationally-known socially active Thai group called Siam Sewana. Anchalee also teaches Thai at a Thai Buddhist temple in the Bay Area. Finally, Anchalee is working on her dissertation for a doctorate study in education.
Phyllis Oscar has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 1989 in Thailand, India, and the U.S. and has completed Spirit Rock's Dedicated Practitioner's Program. Phyllis currently serves as Co-Chair of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship's Board of Directors and is involved in addressing diversity issues at BPF. Phyllis lives in Bernal Heights (SF) with her partner, Tatiana, and their tall, orange cat, Sydney.
 Susan Suntree is a writer, performer, and teacher whose work investigates the dynamics of science, art, and spiritual philosophies as they engage contemporary life. She has presented her poetry and performances nationally and internationally, and has published books of poetry, biography, and translation, as well as essays, reviews, and book chapters. She is the founder and Artistic Director of Theatre Flux which has produced many of her performances and plays. Her recent one-woman performance and forthcoming book, Sacred Sites/Los Angeles, explores the prehistory and sacred geography of Los Angeles, where she lives. She founded FrogWorks, an eco-political street theater troupe, and is co-director of Earth Water Air Los Angeles, a giant puppet trek connecting and telling the story of endangered open spaces. An environmental activist and a long-time Zen student, she currently teaches at East Los Angeles College.
 Azara Turaki has has been practicing Buddhism for about 10 years. She started with Kwan Um School of Zen (Providence, RI) and lived at the Cambridge Zen center (Cambridge, MA) for 3 years. She is currently practicing in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hahn in Washington, DC.
Azara graduated from Wentworth Institute of Technology with a degree in Architectural Engineering. She recently graduated from University of Rochester with an MBA. Azara has recently worked at M&T Bank as a financial analyst and then at WACIF (community development financial institution) as a loand office and community development officer.
She founded the International Students Organization at Wentworth, attended the 2000 National Summit for Africa, and has served as the Public Relations Officer of the International African Students Association, where she organized the annual conference and started regional IASA chapters. Azara has also produced plays by Wole Soyinka to teach Africans and Americans about African art. She was a co-founder and treasurer for LYNX (Linking Youth in Nigeria through exchange) a non-profit catered toward youth civic leadership in Nigeria for five years.
Marian Urquilla is the Executive Director of the Columbia Heights/Shaw Family Support Collaborative, a network of neighborhood organizations and community leaders working to support low-income families in northwest Washington D.C. The Collaborative combines an innovative strengths-based approach to family services with community building and leadership development efforts. Under Marian’s leadership, the Collaborative has pioneered the use of family group conferencing in a community based setting and developed a model partnership to address issues of youth violence at the neighborhood level.
Marian has worked in the fields of community education and organization for almost 20 years. She has served as a staff member and consultant for a wide range of organizations, including Roadwork, the Association for Community Based Education, the Washington School, Stand for Children, and the NGO Forum on Women, and is a board member of a number of local and national organizations, such as the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness and stone circles. She currently serves as consulting senior policy advisor for the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Children, Youth, Families and Elders of the District of Columbia.
Drawing on her scholarly interest in the fields of race and gender studies, she is also an experienced trainer in the areas of cross-cultural communication and community-based leadership development. Marian has been a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities and a Rockerfeller Foundation Next Generation Leadership Fellow. She is a member of All Souls Church Unitarian,where she serves as a member of Building the Beloved Community,” the congregation’s multicultural growth taskforce.
 Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey is a writer, artist, brother, and son currently holding it down in Holyoke, Massachusetts. As supporting director of stone circles, he helps document the efforts of activists who are integrating spiritual practices and principles into their work for justice. He worked for two years at the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society helping to research and convey the story of the use of contemplative practices in organizations dedicated to social change. He is involved in developing a program of community-based cultural activism in his hometown using oral history and storytelling through graphic, written, and digital techniques. Jesse is a Buddhist practitioner.
Chris Wilson has been practicing Buddhism since 1967, primarily in the Harada-Yasutani lineage of Zen Buddhism. He has studied under Taizan Maezumi Roshi, Genpo Merzel Roshi, Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche, Robert Aitken Roshi, Joseph Bobrow Roshi, Joan Sutherland Sensei, John Tarrant Roshi, and David Weinstein Sensei. A lay practitioner and family man with four grown children, Mr. Wilson has been an attorney, investment banker and software executive. He has long been active in the U.S. civil rights movement, including work with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1964. He began his professional career as an Assistant Public Defender in Oakland, California. He later entered private practice, where he specialized in employment discrimination law, and served as Consulting Attorney and Trainer for the American Indian Lawyer Training Program, a national American Indian-run non-profit group. He has a JD from Yale Law School and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business Administration.
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