San Francisco Zen Center Dharma Talks

The Practice and Manifestation of Beneficial Action

09/13/2023, Roger Hillyard, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, Roger Hillyard explores the Boddhisattva's Four Methods of Guidance - a fascicle from Dogen Zenji's Shobogenzo on how to help all beings move toward awakening. ...

Practicing With Common Illness

09/06/2023, Dan Gudgel, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, Dan Gudgel discusses practice lessons and methods of practice that emerged around the experiences of having COViD, and having a common head cold. Dan suggests ...

Reading the Dharma

09/02/2023, Marcia Lieberman, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, Marcia Lieberman explores the connection between books and practice. When reading the Dharma, listening to talks, or visiting websites, there is no guarantee that there ...

The Spirit Of Community

08/26/2023, Gendo Lucy Xiao 玄道, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, Gendo Lucy Xiao 玄道 explores the meaning of community with stories of her experiences living within San Francisco Zen Center, and in China.

The Ox Herder And The Ox

08/20/2023, Fu Schroeder, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. In this talk, Senior Dharma Teacher Fu Schroeder concludes a 3-day sesshin with a review of the ten ox-herding frames and how they relate to our life.

Just Sitting as Radiance

08/13/2023, Tenshin Reb Anderson, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Senior Dharma Teacher Tenshin Reb Anderson illuminates Zen and why we sit. We are conversation; we are always in conversation.

How Do We Live In This World?

08/05/2023, Ryushin Paul Haller, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, Senior Dharma Teacher Ryushin Paul Haller explores how we can live and continue to be upright, while being fully involved in the messy business ...

Coming Home To Your True Self

07/29/2023, Doshin Mako Voelkel, dharma talk at City Center. Abiding Abbot Doshin Mako Voelkel, in this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, discusses everyday Zen practices and teachings for finding a fundamental belonging to oneself beyond the confusion of causes and ...

Belonging: Beyond "In" and "Out"

Inviting Meditative Ease: Steps to Access

In this dharma talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, Shosan Victoria Austin asks: How do we approach barriers and obstacles to meditation, to invite steadiness and comfort in these times? How do we serve our varied abilities and needs to establish ...

Healing As Zen Practice

07/09/2023, Dojin Sarah Emerson, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Ritual is a way to heal ourselves, each other, and the earth.

Zen Teacher Tushita's Three Barriers

07/02/2023, Kokyo Henkel, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Three barriers to pass through, from Case 47 in the Gateless Barrier koan collection: where is your buddha-nature right now, how can you be free of birth and death when dying, ...

Being in the Moment is the Basis

06/28/2023, Ryushin Paul Haller, dharma talk at City Center. Senior Dharma Teacher Ryushin Paul Haller, in this dharma talk from Beginner’s Mind Temple, discusses shikantaza (just sitting) and how this practice of awareness can be expressed in everyday activity. To ...

Queer Dharma for Pride Weekend

Rev. Dr. Wakoh Shannon Hickey, BCC, in this dharma talk from Beginner’s Mind Temple, describes a 1984 encounter with Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority that provoked a crisis leading her to come out as lesbian, to enter the path ...

"In Faith That We Are Buddha" - Creating Ceremonial Space

06/17/2024, Keiryu Liên Shutt and Jisan Tova Green, dharma talk at City Center. Keiryu Liên Shutt and Jisan Tova Green, in this shared dharma talk from Beginner’s Mind Temple, investigate what jukai (also known as lay ordination, Bodhisattva initiation, or ...

Coping With Our Problems

06/11/2023, Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Jiryu shares teachings on continuously welcoming our problems as our practice, by exploring Suzuki Roshi’s comment that “if your everyday life is not based on this kind of spirit of repeating ...

Like the Front and Back Foot in Walking

06/07/2023, Chikudo Catherine Spaeth, dharma talk at City Center. Chikudo Catherine Spaeth, in this talk from Beginner's mind temple, investigates how communal relationships are affected by and can perpetuate or interrupt shame, envy and disappointment. Featuring excerpts from Shunryu Suzuki's ...

Being Time

05/28/2023, Thiemo Blank, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Exploring our habitual concepts of time in relation to science and Dogen's fascicle "Time being."

Being the Mountain, Being the Flame

05/24/2023, Chimyo Atkinson, dharma talk at City Center. Chimyo Atkinson, in this dharma talk from Beginner’s Mind Temple, discusses impermanence, interbeing, interdependence and finding joy, using stories from her time in Japan. Featuring a poem by Zen ancestor Keizan Jokin.

Deciding to Step Off the Hundred-Foot Pole

05/17/2023, Chimyo Atkinson, dharma talk at City Center. Chimyo Atkinson, in this dharma talk from Beginner’s Mind Temple, explores renunciation and the intersection of monastic practice and everyday life, using a selection from Dogen's Shobogenzo Zuimonki and the story of ...

Don’t Avoid What Is

05/10/2023, Chimyo Atkinson, dharma talk at City Center. Chimyo Atkinson, in this dharma talk from Beginner’s Mind Temple, explores her personal experience of emptiness, the theme of the May practice intensive.

Living Wholeheartedly

04/30/2023, Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. In this talk, Jiryu explores the fundamental Zen practice of "total exertion" or "burning completely up" in every activity, a practice of living fully in each moment, marshaling the whole body, ...

Embracing Aversion to Open Our Hearts

04/26/2023, Heather Shoren Iarusso, dharma talk at City Center. Heather Shoren Iarusso, in this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, examines aversion, one of the mental afflictions the Buddha calls The Five Hindrances, which hinder our ability to experience calm and ...

Love for the Natural World

04/22/2023, Doshin Mako Voelkel, dharma talk at City Center. Abiding Abbot Doshin Mako Voelkel, in this Earth Day talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, examines how Zen practice encourages and supports continuous care for our natural environment.

Then Bring Me The Rhinoceros!

04/16/2023, Furyu Nancy Schroeder, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Using the koan called Rhinoceros Fan, this talk focuses on fear and how powerfully it keeps us from leaving the nests of our habitual views.