Yunmen’s Every Day is a Good Day.
09/04/2021, Rinso Ed Sattizahn, dharma talk at City Center.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoZenCenterPublicLectures/~4/4bBNV4Ud2L8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

Appreciate Your Life

Shuso Talk by Bert Dyer on November 7, 2013 at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center.

SFZC Live

You Are Beautiful

10/16/2022, Tenshin Reb Anderson, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Paying homage, praising, and making offerings to great compassion with all our actions of body, speech, and mind.

Homage to Great Compassion

2014-03-08 Eijun Linda Ruth Cutts Dharma talk at City Center

Call Out My Name

12/10/2024, Chikudo Catherine Spaeth, dharma talk at Tassajara.

The Womb of Emptiness and the Paramitas

12/14/2024, Zenki Mary Mocine, dharma talk at City Center. Zenki Mary Mocine asks: How should we practice with dis-ease, fear and even anger? Remember your connection with and compassion for all beings, including yourself.

In This Dark Time, Cherish All Beings, Including Yourself

01/18/2025, Jisan Tova Green, dharma talk at City Center.
This talk by Jisan Tova Green weaves together themes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s sermons, teachings of Zen ancestor Eihei Dogen and the late Hozan Alan Senauke, and stories from Tova's life.

Embracing Our Connectedness

02/01/2025, Sozan Michael McCord, dharma talk at City Center.
Sozan Michael McCord uses the lens of "The Harmony of Difference and Equality" by Shitou Xiqian, to unpack the relevance of remembrances such as Black History Month and how such events are not in conflict with our ultimate truth, that we are all one interconnected humanity.

Black History Month

02/02/2025, Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Abbot Jiryu Rutschman-Byler suggests that to meet the current moment, we might practice a deep-rooted kindness, like the kindness of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, whose imperturbable compassion is born of the study of perfect wisdom.

Real Kindness

02/08/2025, Doshin Dan Gudgel, dharma talk at City Center.
Doshin Dan Gudgel offers suggestions and principles for providing and engaging in online practice, and celebrates the connection between ‘sacred’ and ‘everyday’ activities in Soto Zen.

Online Zen Is Real Zen

02/19/2025, Anshi Zachary Smith, dharma talk at City Center. Anshi Zachary Smith asks “How can we study and engage with memory and mind processes in such a way that it allows for skillful, discerning activity?”

Mind, Memory and the Fire

02/16/2025, Tenzen David Zimmerman, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm.
Abbot Tenzen David Zimmerman explores the nature of the commitment that a priest makes, shares his own journey to ordination, and describes the responsibility that comes with the archetypal role.

The Path of Priest Ordination

02/22/2025, Dōshin Mako Voelkel, dharma talk at City Center. Abiding Abbot Dōshin Mako Voelkel explores the dharma teachings of the past year-plus of renovation work, community cooperation and trying new forms.

Renewed Space, Timeless Practice

03/05/2025, Teah Strozer, dharma talk at City Center. Teah Strozer speaks about Eihei Dogen Zenji’s text “Tenzo Kyokun (Instruction to the Cook)” as part of the March 2025 intensive focus on kitchen practice.

Dogen’s Kitchen

03/08/2025, Zenki Mary Mocine, dharma talk at City Center.
Zenki Mary Mocine speaks about Eihei Dogen Zenji’s text “Tenzo Kyokun (Instruction to the Cook)” as part of the March 2025 intensive focus on kitchen practice.

Dogen in the Western Zen Kitchen

03/15/2025, Sozan Michael McCord, dharma talk at City Center. Sozan Michael McCord looks at Zen kitchen practice and work practice generally, connecting to the joy of activity, learning to care and venerate all things, and how to have a broad vast mind for holding what arises.

We Are Always Cooking

03/22/2025, Onryu Mary Stares, dharma talk at City Center. Onryu Mary Stares speaks about Eihei Dogen Zenji’s text “Tenzo Kyokun (Instruction to the Cook)” as part of the March 2025 intensive focus on kitchen practice.

What is the Shape of My Mind?

03/01/2025, Edward Brown, dharma talk at City Center.
Edward Espe Brown shares teachings from Eihei Dogen’s “Tenzo Kyokun”, and stories from practicing as tenzo (head cook) at Tassajara under the guidance of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi.

You’re the Cook

03/19/2025, Judith Keenan, dharma talk at City Center.
Judith Keenan explores the relationship between temple kitchen work and other types of work practice, and presents a short video interview with Sojun Mel Weitsman.

Rolling Up Your Sleeves

03/28/2025, Doshin Dan Gudgel, dharma talk at City Center.
Doshin Dan Gudgel explores the idea of a ‘caretaker’ as it relates to the Parental Mind that Dogen encourages in his Tenzo Kyokun text.

Be a Caretaker

03/29/2025, Abbot Dōshin Mako Voelkel, dharma talk at City Center.
Abiding Abbot Dōshin Mako Voelkel explores how the spirit of Dogen’s “Tenzo Kyokun” extends beyond sesshin, inviting us to discover how zazen mind manifests in our homes and workplaces.

Nothing in the Entire Universe Is Hidden

04/02/2025, So-on Eli Brown-Stevenson, dharma talk at City Center.
So-on Eli Brown-Stevenson examines the rich intersection between Zen practice and artistic expression—not as a pursuit of perfection, but as a way to return to our true nature.

The Art of Just This

03/02/2025, Kokyo Henkel, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm.
An introduction to this ancient Zen poem that is often recited at SF Zen Center and Soto Zen temples around the world. The metaphor of a mirror and its reflections to clarify buddha-nature and the world of experience is offered by the Buddha in various sutras, and by many Zen ancestors as well.

Jewel Mirror Samadhi

03/09/2025, Abbot Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm.
Abbot Jiryu Rutschman-Byler explores the practice of seeing the present moment, just as it is, as “the mystic peak” of spiritual fulfillment, with reference to Suzuki Roshi’s comments on case #23 of the Blue Cliff Record.

Here is the Mystic Peak

03/16/2025, Kokyo Henkel, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm.
Stories of our Chinese Zen Ancestor Dongshan, and his poem about nonduality: our life is like facing a jewel mirror - form and reflection behold each other. Both our sense of subjectivity and sense of objectivity are merely changing reflections on the unchanging mirror of buddha-nature.

You Are Not It, In Truth It Is You

04/13/2025, Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Abbot Jiryu Rutschman-Byler reflects on comments from Suzuki Roshi’s talks on Case #36 of the Blue Cliff Record, exploring lines like “Buddhists resign from the world of suffering in order to live in the world of perpetual joy” and “human beings prefer the unreal to the real.”

Freedom from Spring and Autumn

04/16/2025, Shundo David Haye, dharma talk at City Center. Shundo David Haye reflects on the upcoming lay ordination ceremony at Beginner's Mind Temple, and talks about how a teacher sees a student: both how they are right now, and the potential of who they will become through practice.

Like Spring Arising In Everything

05/07/2025, Kim Kōgen Daihō Hart, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk Kim explores where we find the sacred. She considers the foundational Buddhist teaching of the Three Marks of Existence and considers how they might influence what we hold as sacred.

Is Anything Sacred?

05/14/2025, Tatsudo Nicole Baden, dharma talk at City Center. Tatsudo Nicole Baden explores two foundational Buddhist perspectives: that everything changes (impermanence) and that everything is interconnected (interdependence).

How Views Shape the World

Tenzen David Zimmerman, dharma talk at City Center. Central Abbot Tenzen David Zimmerman takes up Case 12 from the Book of Serenity, titled ‘Dizang Planting the Fields’, which touches upon a number of key practice questions that can be beneficial to consider as we encounter and navigate the distressing state of the world.

What Do You Call the World?

05/21/2025, Monitsu Pamela Weiss, dharma talk at City Center. Monitsu Pamela Weiss explores the theme of True Refuge as reorientation and wholehearted dedication to awakening, truth and love.

Finding True Refuge

05/24/2025, Monitsu Pamela Weiss, dharma talk at City Center. Monitsu Pamela Weiss explores the twin themes of refuge and compassion in Cases 4 and 54 of the Book of Serenity.

Two Zen Stories: Sanctuary and Compassion

11/11/2017, Frank Ostaseski, dharma talk at City Center.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoZenCenterPublicLectures/~4/FUodciCaKJc" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

The Thin Line Between Life and Death

The Bodhisattvas' Six Modes of Going Beyond

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

The purpose of San Francisco Zen Center is to make accessible and embody the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha as expressed in the Soto Zen tradition established by Dogen Zenji in 13th-century Japan and conveyed to us by Suzuki Roshi and other Buddhist teachers. Our practice flows from the insight that all beings are Buddha, and that sitting in meditation is itself the realization of Buddha nature, or enlightenment.

San Francisco Zen Center

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