By San Francisco Zen Center
Dharma Talks given at San Francisco Zen Center
10/14/2023, Tenzen David Zimmerman, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, on the occasion of SFZC’s Members and Volunteers Appreciation Day, central abbot Tenzen David Zimmerman speaks to the value and place of Sangha in...
10/18/2023, Steve Weintraub, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. In this talk, Senior Dharma Teacher Steve Weintraub explains that our practice is a big help to us; but it may not be a help in the way we usually think....
07/10/2023, Ryushin Paul Haller, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, Ryushin Paul Haller discusses how taking refuge from the afflictions of desire, aversion and confusion, supports our commitment to take refuge in the wholesome...
04/10/2023, Ryushin Paul Haller, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, Ryushin Paul Haller discusses the three Refuges, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, which are the first three Bodhisattva precepts. They express the shift from a...
10/01/2023, Sonja Gardenswartz, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. In this talk, Sonja Gardenswartz, a 30-year resident of SFZC illuminates the three pillars of her practice: zazen, impermanence, and awe.
09/30/2023, Zesho Susan O'Connell, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, Susan O’Connell discusses how the joy of practice can support us when, as always seems to be the case, “there’s a lot going on.”...
09/27/2023, Eli Brown-Stevenson, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, Eli Brown-Stevenson discusses what happens when you apply the components of a practice period to a sabbatical. Whether sabbatical or practice period, when we take...
09/24/2023, Tenshin Reb Anderson, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. In this talk Senior Dharma Teacher Tenshin Reb Anderson invites us to notice that our ancestors' samadhi is the simple practice in which just sitting is offered to all living...
09/23/2023, Kiku Christina Lehnherr, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, Kiku Christina Lehnherr explores both the equinox and ordination ceremonies as invitations for EVERYONE to live our daily lives for the benefit of all beings;...
09/17/2023, Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. In this talk, Jiryu explores Yunmen’s statement “Everyone has a light” (from Blue Cliff Record Case 86) and expresses the how the simple practice of sitting still with eyes open can...
09/16/2023, Sozan Michael McCord, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, Sozan Michael McCord explores how each of the precepts come with an intention of living so as to avoid ending up in a place to...
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. Roger...
09/10/2023, Zoketsu Norman Fischer, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. This talk is about the uncertainty of the effects of climate change, and how the practice of zazen can help us to be prepared for uncertainty.
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 close...
09/03/2023, Eijun Linda Cutts, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. The practice of Upright Speech touches every aspect of our life. How do we cultivate it and include all beings and the Great Earth in this practice?
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...
08/30/2023, Dawn Neal, dharma talk at City Center. In this dharma talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, San Francisco Zen Center, Dawn Neal discusses the Mahayana Buddhist ethical precepts, with a particular focus on how to bring these precepts to life in...
08/27/2023, angel Kyodo williams, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Rev. angel Kyodo williams concludes a three-day retreat with this Dharma talk remiding us that past and future are contained in Now. We must Just Return.
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.
08/23/2023, Anshi Zachary Smith, dharma talk at City Center. The most striking feature of the famous Koan recorded as Case 1 of the Blue Cliff Record and entitled, in Cleary’s translation, as “The Highest Meaning of the Holy Truths” is...
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.
08/19/2023, Jisan Tova Green, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, given as part of a one-day sitting, acting tanto Jisan Tova Green discusses what we can learn from a fictional elephant about slowing down and...
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.
08/06/2023, Zenki Mary Mocine, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. I confess my hatred and ask about the fears underlying it. How do I work with this fear so as to respond from a generous place?
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...
07/30/2023, Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. In this talk, Jiryu encourages the practice of “Silent Illumination” from the Song Dynasty Chinese Chan teachings that the SFZC Soto Zen style of practice emerges from.
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 conditions.
07/23/2023, Ango Sara Tashker, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. An exploration of gratitude and the precept of not killing life - what does it mean?
07/16/2023, Furyu Schroeder, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. A discussion of Dogen Zenji’s instructions to the Head Cook with examples from our own kitchen practice here at San Francisco Zen Center.
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...
07/12/2023, Tenzen David Zimmerman, dharma talk at City Center. In this dharma talk from Beginner's Mind Temple, Central Abbot Tenzen David Zimmerman shares the heartbreaking yet ultimately inspiring story of Patacara, one of Buddhism's first female ancestors, to illustrate how we...
07/09/2023, Dojin Sarah Emerson, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Ritual is a way to heal ourselves, each other, and the earth.
07/08/2023, Hozan Alan Senauke, dharma talk at City Center. Hozan Alan Senauke, abbot of Berkeley Zen Center, in this dharma talk from Beginner’s Mind Temple, discusses the teacher-student relationship, using stories of Sojun Mel Weitsman and Suzuki Roshi. This rememberance and...
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,...
Shundo David Haye, in this dharma talk from Beginner’s Mind Temple, discusses a story between the Third and Fourth Ancestors in China, and offers ways to be free to meet the present moment without being caught up in our karmic...
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 keep...
06/25/2023, Furyu Schroeder, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. This talk is about radical kindness and warm hearted candor, freed from malice of any kind. Inspired by the conjoining of Zen and Quaker values.
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...
06/18/2023, Wendy Johnson, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. In this time of climate challenge and unrest, the engaged practice of Dharma and Ecology offers a grounded response.
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 receiving...
06/14/2023, Sozan Michael McCord, dharma talk at City Center. Sozan Michael McCord, in this dharma talk from Beginner’s Mind Temple, explores what freedom means, and asks whether we really know that we are free.
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 it...
06/10/2023, Kyoshin Wendy Lewis, dharma talk at City Center. Kyoshin Wendy Lewis, in this dharma talk from Beginner’s Mind Temple, considers liberation from the humanist perspective as a poignant, balanced understanding and perception of the world and the human condition. Freedom...
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...
06/04/2023, Eijun Linda Cutts, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. The Avatamsaka Sutra says that everyone without exception is endowed with the wisdom and virtue of the Buddhas, however because of of delusion and attachments they do not realize it. The...
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."
05/27/2023, Chimyo Atkinson, dharma talk at City Center. Chimyo Atkinson, in this dharma talk from Beginner’s Mind Temple, explores the nature of our delusions, and how to apply Buddhist teachings and work skillfully with delusion, using stories from her own life...
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.
05/20/2023, Chimyo Atkinson, dharma talk at City Center. Chimyo Atkinson, in this dharma talk from Beginner’s Mind Temple, uses Dogen’s “Instructions to the Cook” (Tenzo Kyokun) and her own work experience to frame a discussion of work, compassion and the...