05/03/2025, Yogetsu Akasaka, dharma talk at City Center. Yogetsu Akasaka discusses ikigai, a Japanese concept that refers to having a purpose in life.

Finding Your True Self

09/17/2025, Kim Kogen Daiho Hart, dharma talk at City Center.
Kim Kōgen Daihō Hart explores her personal journey through anxiety to the realization that it is our own, all too real human struggles that light the path to liberation.

The Struggle Is the Medicine

09/21/2025, Hoka Chris Fortin, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm.
Hoka Chris Fortin asks: How do we—individually and as one—not turn away but bear witness, and respond to the suffering of the world with clear-hearted wisdom and compassion as we awaken together to our True Nature and shared humanity.

Engaged Buddhism

07/12/2025, Sozan Michael McCord, dharma talk at Tassajara. The world has so many issues that need people's time and attention yet we squester ourselves for days or weeks on end at Tassajara.  While it may seem indulgent or even escapist to retreat to practice in the wilderness, it is surviving vital purpose for these times.

The Unique Role Tassajara Plays in the Times We Live

09/14/2025, Sokaku Kathie Fischer, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm.
Sokaku Kathie Fischer examines the Xin Xin Ming (Faith in Mind, or Trusting the Mind), a text by the third Chinese Chan (Zen) ancestor, Jianzhi Sengcan.

How Can We Not Pick and Choose?

09/20/2025, Tenmyo Dojima 堂島典明, dharma talk at City Center.
Tenmyo Dojima 堂島典明 shares how her early struggles with depression led her to rediscover Buddhism in the U.S., begin monastic training in Japan, and continue the joy of walking the Buddha Way—together with others, rooted in connection.

A Journey Toward Boundless Connection

09/27/2025, Chikudo Catherine Spaeth, dharma talk at City Center.
Chikudo Catherine Spaeth teaches that zazen shows us what to care for, and leads the way in our request to study the precepts with a teacher. In this caring we become a good friend to our practice.

A Request for Jukai

10/05/2025, Tatsudo Nicole Baden Roshi, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm.
Tatsudo Nicole Baden explores how Zen practice literally shifts the architecture of our experience — from a narrow, biographical “here” into a living, embodied field of contact.

A New Here: How Practice Opens Different Worlds

10/11/2025, Shosan Victoria Austin, dharma talk at City Center.
Shosan Victoria Austin teaches that we can deepen our understanding of the causes and cures of dispute, and practice with a unifying value of kindness that has the power to transform our conflicts to occasions for mutual curiosity, intimacy, and growth.

The Power of Non-Retaliation

10/12/2025, Eli Brown-Stevenson, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm.
So-on Eli Brown-Stevenson uses the image of bubbles and the teaching of the Three Marks of Existence to explore how Zen practice helps us meet impermanence, suffering, and no-self in the body, not through ideas, but through presence.

Perception and Practice

10/18/2025, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel Osho, dharma talk at City Center.
Zenju Earthlyn Manuel Osho teaches that when we remain in the mode of discovery we open to new portals to engage and activate in tending to today’s suffering.

Expanding How We See Things

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.