08/28/2024, Shundo David Haye, dharma talk at City Center.
In this talk, given at Beginner's Mind Temple, Shundo reflects on a recent visit to Tassajara, which included the monthly Full Moon Ceremony and the Obon Ceremony. He encourages us to remember our place in the ongoing lineage of Buddhas and Ancestors.

It Is Always Our Own Effort, And We Are Always Supported By Others

07/03/2024, Gendo Lucy Xiao, dharma talk at Tassajara.

A Journey Along The Path

08/21/2024, Shundo David Haye, dharma talk at Tassajara. In this talk, Shundo explains the elements and significance of the Full Moon Ceremony to those who had participated in it on their arrival day at Tassajara, and encourages everyone to understand their role in creating and sustaining the monastery and the community.

Sustaining The Buddha Field That Is Tassajara

08/27/2024, Jan Willis, dharma talk at Tassajara. In this talk, Jan Willis discusses the conditions around the time of Buddha's lifetime, and how the Buddhist community was created.

Aryan Society and Culture in 6th century BCE India

08/28/2024, Pamela Weiss, dharma talk at Tassajara.

Mountains Are Mountains

08/30/2024, Chikudo Catherine Spaeth, dharma talk at Tassajara.

Prajna Paramita - A History Of The Feminine In Our Liturgy

08/31/2024, Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, dharma talk at City Center.
In this talk, Abbot Jiryu describes the fundamental Zen practice of "welcoming everything," and emphasizes the posture - grounded belly, upright spine, and clear mind - that we can care for in order to fully embody and actualize that practice.

The Posture of Welcoming

09/07/2024, James Ishmael Ford, dharma talk at City Center.
This dharma talk was given at Beginner’s Mind Temple’s pop-up zendo at Unity Church on Page Street, by visiting teacher James Ishmael Ford. In the talk, Roshi Ford tells a story from his latest book, “The Intimate Way of Zen: Effort, Surrender, and Awakening on the Spiritual Journey.” In his book James addresses the arc of a spiritual life. He uses the 12th-century Zen verses of Kuoan Shiyuan's Ox Herding Pictures as a scaffolding for an exploration of the winding path of spiritual exploration as well as the twin projects of waking up and growing up. He says the story that he shares here, which comes from the end of the book, and is based in a traditional Indian tale, summarizes the whole thing: who we are, and who we might become.

A Thief of the Heart

09/14/2024, Gengyoko Tim Wicks, dharma talk at City Center.
In this dharma talk, given at Beginner’s Mind Temple by tanto (head of practice) Gengyoko Tim Wicks, Tim speaks about working with everything that arises in zazen including grief and difficult emotions, for it is all a part of being awake.

Practicing with a Broken Heart

09/15/2024, Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm.
In this talk given at Green Gulch Farm, Abiding Abbott Jiryu Rutschman-Byler continues to explore four core elements of zazen practice: low belly, upright spine, clear mind, and wide-open welcoming. He focuses in particular on the practice of "clearing the mind," using teachings of the Buddha and from the Platform Sutra to discuss the dynamic between, on the one hand, welcoming everything including thought, and on the other hand, the fact that without a clear, empty mind the practice of welcoming often feels inaccessible to us.

Clearing the Mind

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.

A Thief of the Heart

San Francisco Zen Center

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