Author: TetsuGen KeiDo

Next Saturday is the annual observance of  Mahapajapati‘s life after the Dharma talk. A great opportunity to celebrate women, the mothers of all with focus on Buddhism through the first female nun. We recent had International Women’s day and so the timing is ideal.

Mahapajapati Gotami, the first woman to be ordained from the Buddha and to join the Sangha. She was the Buddha’s maternal aunt and adopted mother after her sister, Queen Maya (Mahāmāyā), the Buddha’s birth mother, died.

Every Saturday we offer early morning zazen (seated meditation), morning service, and again zazen at 9:30 am. We also will continue to offer a Zoom web conferencing for video and/or audio presence for the scheduled events. 9:30 zazen (you can log into the conference starting at 9am to socialize) for 40 minutes and a Dharma talk at 10:30am, followed by Q&A as well as an opportunity to check in and see how you are doing and tea and cookies in person after that. Please click here to be routed to our Zoom gathering.

Please join us this Saturday for this celebration and we hope to see you often!

Please join us for a Dharma talk Saturday, May 15th by Koshin Steven Tierney, Ed.D. LPCC, who is Professor Emeritus of Counseling Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, as well as a psychotherapist in private practice in San Francisco. Steven has been studying and practicing Buddhism for more than 25 years and was ordained by Michael Wenger in 2013, serving as Shuso in 2014.

Steven’s commitment is to a community-based Buddhism and he has spent the last twenty years extending Buddha’s teachings to those living with addictions, in recovery and those facing serious physical and mental health challenges.  A certified addiction specialist, he is the Co-Founder of the San Francisco Mindfulness Foundation providing training, consultation, psychotherapy mindfulness-based mental health services to individuals and families.

Join us for zazen (seated meditation), with the talk to follow, we offer in-person distanced attendance for those vaccinated fully + 2 weeks and with mask for those unvaccinated; We also will continue to offer a Zoom web conferencing for video and/or audio presence for the scheduled events. 9:30 zazen (you can log into the conference starting at 9am to socialize) for 40 minutes and a Dharma talk at 10:30am, followed by Q&A as well as an opportunity to check in and see how you are doing and tea and cookies in person after that. Please click here to be routed to our Zoom gathering.

A gentle and warm greeting with a reminder

We wanted to reach out to send warm and supportive intentions. We are again at a changing state of pandemic, there is aggression and violence in the world and the environment has reached a very disheartening point of damage by humanity. In addition, mental health issues are spiked in volume and severity and due to lack of human connection and community we are seeing kindness not always leading the way. Our support is with you and each other.

And we want to remind you that we have a practice that was realized to manifest kindness, compassion and live in grace with all of the above mentioned. We are back in person, and will stay on zoom, but remind all who can, in person sangha is far more potent and beneficial than on a computer screen.

Please continue to stay up to date on hszc.org for schedule and availability, updates and activities and most importantly please come by as soon as you can to join us in our way to prepare to engage and hold the world as Bodhisattvas in good, difficult and even bad times. This as are all times, is the time for Bodhisattva activity that best manifests with preparation in quiet abiding, teachings and community.

Join us Saturday for  a talk at 10:30am offered by  Rev. Daiko Tanzen, David Bullock; one of our current connection to the early days of Hartford Street’s Zen Center founding, the garden’s long term friend, current Board President and many other capacities past and present of HSZC (as well as the past Maitri); and he was ordained by the temple’s founder – Rev. Issan Dorsey.

Join us for zazen (seated meditation), with the talk to follow, we offer in-person distanced attendance for those vaccinated fully + 2 weeks and with mask for those unvaccinated; We also will continue to offer a Zoom web conferencing for video and/or audio presence for the scheduled events. 9:30 zazen (you can log into the conference starting at 9am to socialize) for 40 minutes and a Dharma talk at 10:30am, followed by Q&A as well as an opportunity to check in and see how you are doing and tea and cookies in person after that. Please click here to be routed to our Zoom gathering.

Black History Month is an annual observance originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month. It has received official recognition from governments in the United States and Canada, and more recently has been observed in Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

Please take some time this month to celebrate and educate on the many Black leaders, innovators, and influential people in the Black American community who have lived or live in the United states and beyond.

Welcome to the year of the TIGER.

Thank you for joining us on this twisted and turning pandemic journey we are on together. As of February 2022, the SF local government powers have stated that we can gather as vaccinated individuals without the need of masks.

We invite vaccinated individuals to join us in person with or without, as their comfort dictates, masks. We do apologize if this impedes on your personal body or beliefs, comfort or choices to have to be vaccinated to join us, but this is the requirement we have for in-person attendance. Otherwise you are still very invited to continue to join us on zoom.

Thank you and we look forward to a post pandemic world and state. Please be prepared to show vaccinated evidence if you attend in person and have it on you.

Dogen was born in Kyoto on January 2nd (January 26th in the solar calendar). On January 26th, two ceremonies are held in many Soto Zen temples in celebration of his birth, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. In the morning ceremony, a scroll with a painting of Dogen is hung in the Lecture Hall (Hatto). A pail is placed in front of the painting containing holy hot water in which such incense as aloes, sandal wood have been boiled. In the afternoon is the ceremony of appreciation (Ho-on Koshiki). Special shomyo Buddhist music is chanted as an expression of gratitude.

The image is from a film depicting his life with historical and fictional aspects.