Please Join us this Saturday for a Dharma talk offered by Kōnin Cardenas, a nun ordained in the Soto Zen Buddhist tradition who began practicing Zen in 1987 and was ordained in 2007.
Kōnin is currently working as a Spiritual Care Counselor for Pathways Hospice in the East Bay area (near San Francisco), and the Dorm Manager for the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley. Also the leader of “Dharma en Español,” a Spanish-language Zen study group at San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC) and co-chair of the SFZC Cultural Awareness and Inclusivity Committee and an amateur calligrapher and sumi-e painter, occasionally giving classes in sutra copying. During the past 10 years Kōnin has been primarily engaged in Buddhist monastic practice, inter-faith chaplaincy, non-profit development, and volunteer management. In previous roles she served as a finance professional, Kōnin was a Mortgage Banking Subject Matter Expert, educating residential lenders on reinsurance structures, and a Vice President at a boutique investment bank executing middle-market software mergers and acquisitions with an MBA from University of California, Berkeley and the mother of a wonderful 23-year-old woman.
Her long-term vision is to found a women’s residential center that integrates Buddhist study and zazen with community service and socially-engaged leadership training.
Every Saturday we offer early morning zazen (seated meditation), morning service, a brief drop-in meditation instruction at 8:30 am. And again zazen at 9:25 am. We wrap up with a Dharma talk at 10:15 am (followed by ceremony if applicable) and then socializing, tea and cookies.