Hartford Street Zen Center | Issan-ji temple
A Sōtō Zen temple for the LGBTQ+ community, friends and allies in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood
HSZC can house your wedding and has multiple spaces including a back yard garden. Rev Myo Lahey can also perform your service! We’ve had our first Same Gender marriage and look forward to joining more couples in the future!
Please drop by during our public open hours, call or email us to discuss further in person! Congratulations to our first same gender, legally wed couple Richard and Al!
We’ve formed council with the intention and hope of building a forum to continue to talk of and discuss with each other – and with the sangha at large – for issues, concerns, questions and conflicts which have been challenging – or downright hard to talk about. This time and space is also a time for expressions of gratitude and conversations of most any HSZC sangha matters. We’ll use a practice model of working with each other with the most skillful speech we can access. This is a great opportunity also for those who haven’t been around lately to reengage and be a part of the present and future Hartford Street!
The scaffold we’ll be working from is based on the Council process developed by the Ojai Foundation.
Our next meeting will be on Saturday 12:30pm to 2:30pm, for 120 minutes (with a break included).
You do not need to have an ‘issue’ or overt concern to attend. Council is sangha building and healing. All are welcome!
Please come and join us this Saturday for a Dharma talk by Tova Green. Priest-ordained by Green Gulch Farm Abbess Jiko Linda-Ruth Cutts, Tova presently lives at Beginner’s Mind Temple at 300 Page St. and is a former director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, leads the Queer Dharma group at SFZC and is serving as Vice President of SFZC. A regular past speaker at HSZC it has been since August 2012 since we have had her give a talk at Hartford Street.
Every Saturday we offer early morning zazen (seated meditation), 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 tea and cookies.
Laura Burges is a lay entrusted teacher in the Soto Zen tradition. A teacher of children for 27 years, her work has been featured in the PBS special The Digital Divide and in the book Teach Our Children Well. She is active in bringing mindfulness practices into elementary classrooms. Laura co-founded the Sangha in Recovery program at the San Francisco Zen Center and lectures and leads retreats at different practice centers in Northern California.Every Saturday we offer early morning zazen (seated meditation), 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 tea and cookies.
June 30th at roughly 9am: 
The San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC) has a parade contingent in every annual Pride March in San Francisco and this year we have even more reason to celebrate! SFZC is always seeking more to join us to represent the compassionate love and support of the Zen community. They always look to and extend this to the HSZC (Hartford Street Zen Center) Sangha to join in and march with them. If you are available please DO join us.
Happy LGBTQI – Month and weekend festivities and celebrations to all!
We’ll have the monthly Full-Moon Ceremony renewal of our Bodhisattva vows Saturday morning after the Dharma talk. According to the Farmer’s Almanac this is the full strawberry moon.
The ceremony takes about a half-hour and involves some thirty full prostrations, but simple standing bows are also all right if prostrations are too strenuous.
Everyone is welcome to take part in this celebration.
