Category: News

Please join us for a way seeking mind talk offered by  Rev. Daigan Gaither.

Daigan began Buddhist practice in 1995 as a Vipassana practitioner, and began to study Zen in 2003 with Ryushin Paul Haller. He received Lay Ordination in 2006 and Priest Ordination in 2011. His work and practice include many hours devoted to community service as one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (since 1995) and a volunteer caregiver with Zen Hospice Project (since 2003). He has spoken nationwide on sex, sexuality, queer identity, and gender and has sat on a number of boards of community organizations serving marginalized communities. He has lectured at colleges as well as conferences and is featured in Sex, Sin and Zen by Brad Warner.

Please join us for this wonderful event! 

Saturday mornings we 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 10:25am, followed by Q&A as well as an opportunity to check in and see how you are doing. — If you have a full series of vaccinations and can and do wear a mask while inside the temple you can also join us in-person. —  Please click here to be routed to our Zoom gathering.

*** If not otherwise noted in our update section, Saturday Dharma talks will still occur and the Speaker will be our Abbot Rev. Myō Lahey***

Please visit our current offerings page here to stay abreast of the temple protocol.

Thank you, and we hope to see you soon and for health, safety and wellbeing to engulf the world in the near future.

Rev. Keiryu Liên Shutt is a Dharma Heir of the late Rev. Zenkei Blanche Hartman in the tradition of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Born into a Buddhist family in Vietnam, she began her meditation practice in the Insight tradition of Spirit Rock.

She is a founding member of the Buddhists of Color in 1998. Her Soto Zen training began at Tassajara monastery where she lived from 2002-2005, after which she practiced monastically in Japan, Thailand and Vietnam. Based at San Francisco Zen Center, Liên also teaches at East Bay Meditation Center and other Bay Area groups.

Saturday mornings we offer in-person distanced attendance for those vaccinated fully + 2 weeks; 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 10:25am, followed by Q&A as well as an opportunity to check in and see how you are doing. Please click here to be routed to our Zoom gathering.

We wanted to take a few moments to recognize and celebrate in our hearts & minds that our Abbot: Rev. Myō Lahey began a new decade of life devoted for much, maybe all in encouraging and teaching the Dharma. A very special congratulations to Myō and our gratitude for your loving guidance. – Happy Birthday! –

Here is a pre-Myō share, guess is pre two decades?

Kim is an artist organizer, community builder, radical inclusion specialist, deeply devoted Buddhist practitioner and soon to be ordained Zen Buddhist priest. She brings an interdisciplinary background in science and theology with a strong focus on justice, equity and community building.

With skills as a faith leader, a creative, a writer and a trailblazer, Kim has successfully implemented many projects that bring multiple faiths into conversation with one another towards healing and social justice. She trained for 8+ years as a Buddhist monastic and has extensive experience teaching meditation, designing and facilitating group dialogue, coaching, programming, and digital marketing.

Her strengths include storytelling, organizing for community power, managing teams, collaboration, thoughtful attention to detail, and creative thinking. She is an energetic and empathetic community builder and spiritual mentor.

Saturday mornings we offer in-person distanced attendance for those vaccinated fully + 2 weeks; 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 10:25am, followed by Q&A as well as an opportunity to check in and see how you are doing. Please click here to be routed to our Zoom gathering.

This Saturday we are excited to welcome clergy vising from the formal Sōtōshu to deliver materials for celebration of 100 years of Sōtō Zen in Northern America.

We will need to adjust our schedule a bit for their 10am arrival, just this upcoming Saturday back to our recently changed schedule of Zazen from 9:30am to 10am. A break for their visit and the the talk around 10:25am roughly.

Thank you for your flexibility so we can welcome these guests to help us celebrate the 100 year anniversary.

visit here for our zoom and new schedule we will resume next week.

We will adjust the Saturday morning zazen back to 40 minutes. Please see our schedule post on details

As usual if no guest speaker listed, the talk will be offered by Rev. Myō Lahey

And please have a great holiday!

From our temple who has long been a refuge and celebration space for the LGBTQ+ community bowing deeply to our differences and need to have equality, Happy Pride! The Hartford Street Zen Center, temple name Issan-ji, mountain name Myō shū zan in 1981 as a space acquired for a Gay Buddhist club on the day of Buddha’s enlightenment, inaugurated the new zendo in the basement, and the Hartford Street Zen Center began to form to serve its community including our allies.

Issan-ji was in the middle, beginning in the 1980s, of a health crisis that swept through and devastated the Castro district community. In 1987 the group opened the Maitri Hospice for those dying of AIDS. And now we have so many years later carried through a pandemic and began reopening our doors again to the community that continues to make our place in our society, one breath at a time.

Please find a safe and joy-filled way to celebrate this time in recognition of where we have been and where we are going, carrying the love of those we lost on our continued interconnected existence. May your life be filled with love and great joy tempered in equanimity regardless of your identity and any societal label you accept or decline, embracing the way with body, speech and mind.

Happiest LGBTQ+ Pride to you as we carry forward this ancient, vital, necessary and still very relevant way.