Category: News

Fugan Eugene (Gene) Bush began formal Zen practice in 1982 and received Dharma transmission from the late Rev. Katherine Thanas in 2010. Gene serves as one of the Practice Leaders of Santa Cruz Zen Center.

He also became a teacher for the Arcata Zen Group in 2013, with occasional forays to Hartford Street Zen Center and to Queer Dharma at San Francisco Zen Center.

Join us for zazen (seated meditation) at 6:30am and/or 9:30am, with the Dharma talk to follow at 10:30. We offer in-person distanced attendance, and we also will continue to offer a Zoom web conferencing for video and/or audio presence for the scheduled events.

A period of zazen is typically 40 minutes, and it’s ok to adjust your sitting posture as needed. The Dharma talk includes time for questions and answers, occasionally followed by a particular ceremony such as the celebration of Buddha’s Birthday. We enjoy tea and cookies together afterwards. . Please click here to be routed to our Zoom gathering 

And as always, you can contact us to arrange an introductory session ~8:45am if you are a beginner. As a reminder any week you do not see a speaker announced it is our Abbot, Rev. Myo Lahey.

Zenshin Greg Fain got his first introduction to Zen at San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC) when he was 19, and has been training closely with Sojun Mel Weitsman Roshi, the Abbot of Berkeley Zen Center, for over 20 years. He was ordained as a Zen priest in 2002, and received Dharma Transmission in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi from Sojun Roshi in April 2012. Additionally he is the spouse of another SFZC Priest Rev Shinchi, Linda Galijan. A cute article about them is here.

Join us for zazen (seated meditation) at 6:30am and/or 9:30am, with the Dharma talk to follow at 10:30. We offer in-person distanced attendance, and we also will continue to offer a Zoom web conferencing for video and/or audio presence for the scheduled events.

A period of zazen is typically 40 minutes, and it’s ok to adjust your sitting posture as needed. The Dharma talk includes time for questions and answers, occasionally followed by a particular ceremony such as the celebration of Buddha’s Birthday. We enjoy tea and cookies together afterwards. . Please click here to be routed to our Zoom gathering 

And as always, you can contact us to arrange an introductory session ~8:45am if you are a beginner. As a reminder any week you do not see a speaker announced it is our Abbot, Rev. Myo Lahey.

A Sōtō-shū International guest speaker from Japan September 23, 2023

Rev. Kosai Ikeda

“Practicing the Buddha way wherever and whenever”

It is always an honor to welcome our brothers & sisters from some distance and especially from our Buddhist path’s homeland in Japan.

Please join us for this special event and visit.

“…I have been serving as a Buddhist chaplain of the local correctional facility for the last 15 years helping the inmates with their rehabilitation and re-entry programs.  Regardless of circumstances, those who have aroused the mind to study the Way all equally have the eyes reflecting their sincere dedication.

Repenting their own shortcomings, their mind and heart are seeking the teaching of truth. While practicing the Buddha-way, I have been learning Kendo (Way of Sword) and teaching it to children.

Kendo was something I also briefly shared with people in San Francisco, where I realized that moments of empathy and awes transcend the barriers of languages. I see this is also exactly the same among those who walk on the Buddha-Way.

It is a great honor for me to visit temples overseas for the first time on behalf of the head priest of Soto Zen school in Japan. I hope you will kindly accept me as a sangha friend who shares the same aspiration.”

Please read more about Rev. Kosai Ikeda by clicking here.

Join us for zazen (seated meditation) at 6:30am and/or 9:30am, with the Dharma talk to follow at 10:30. We offer in-person distanced attendance, and we also will continue to offer a Zoom web conferencing for video and/or audio presence for the scheduled events.

A period of zazen is typically 40 minutes, and it’s ok to adjust your sitting posture as needed. The Dharma talk includes time for questions and answers, occasionally followed by a particular ceremony such as the celebration of Buddha’s Birthday. We enjoy tea and cookies together afterwards. . Please click here to be routed to our Zoom gathering 

And as always, you can contact us to arrange an introductory session ~8:45am if you are a beginner.

Steven Tierney (Kai Po Koshin) is a Dharma transmitted teacher in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi. Steven practices with: Meditation in Recovery, Great Spirit, SFLGBTQA, and Dragons Leap Sanghas in addition to the Harford Street Zen Center. Steven believes that we can find wisdom, compassion and awakening wherever good people come together for practice, healing, service and joy. Tierney is a psychotherapist in private practice and Professor Emeritus in Counseling Psychology at CIIS.

We hope you can join us!

Join us for zazen (seated meditation) at 9:30am, with the Dharma talk to follow at 10:30. We offer in-person distanced attendance, and we also will continue to offer a Zoom web conferencing for video and/or audio presence for the scheduled events. There’s an earlier sitting at 6:30am, in addition to the later one at 9:30am (you can log into the conference starting at 9am to socialize). A period of zazen is typically 40 minutes, and it’s ok to adjust your sitting posture as needed. The Dharma talk includes time for questions and answers, occasionally followed by a particular ceremony such as the celebration of Buddha’s Birthday. We enjoy tea and cookies together afterwards. Please click here to be routed to our Zoom gathering 

And as always you can contact us to arrange an introductory session ~8:45am if you are a beginner.

At around 11:30am after our normal Saturday program and Dharma talk we will have our annual observance to commemorate his life and life’s work, a loved and missed member of our Sangha. Please join us to remember and celebrate this wonderful human life and you can even hear one of his talks at HSZC by clicking here.

We hope you can join us!

Join us for zazen (seated meditation), with the talk to follow, we offer in-person distanced attendance; We also will continue to offer a Zoom web conferencing for video and/or audio presence for the scheduled events. there’s an early session at 6:30am and then the more popular 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, followed by a ceremony if applicable, then tea and cookies in person after that. Please click here to be routed to our Zoom gathering 

And as always you can contact us to arrange an introductory session ~8:45am if you are a beginner.

Obon (お盆) or just Bon (盆) is a fusion of the ancient Japanese belief in ancestral spirits and a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one’s ancestors. This Buddhist–Confucian custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ancestral family places and visit and clean their ancestors’ graves when the spirits of ancestors are supposed to revisit the household altars. It has been celebrated in Japan for more than 500 years and traditionally includes a dance, known as Bon Odori.

Āsāḷha Pūjā(Thai: อาสาฬหบูชา) is a Theravada Buddhist festival which typically takes place in July, on the full moon of the month of Āsādha. It is celebrated in Indonesia, Cambodia (ពិធីបុណ្យអាសាឡ្ហបូជា), Thailand, Sri Lanka, Laos, Myanmar and in countries with Theravada Buddhist populations. In Indonesia, the festival is centered at Mendut Temple and Borobudur Temple, Central Java.

Asalha Puja, also known as Dharma Day, is one of Theravada Buddhism’s most important festivals, celebrating as it does the Buddha’s first sermon, the “Sermon in the Deer Park” at Sarnath, in which he set out to his five former associates the doctrine that had come to him following his enlightenment. This first pivotal sermon, often referred to as “setting into motion the wheel of dhamma,” is the teaching which is encapsulated for Buddhists in the Four Noble Truths: there is suffering (dukkha); suffering is caused by craving (tanha); there is a state (nibbana) beyond suffering and craving; and finally, the way to nirvana is via the Noble Eightfold Path. All the various schools and traditions of Buddhism revolve around the central doctrine of the Four Noble Truths.

This first sermon is not only the first structured discourse given by the Buddha after his enlightenment, it also contains the essence of all his subsequent teaching. At the end of the talk, one of the five participants recounted his understanding of what had been said and asked to be received as a disciple, a request the Buddha granted, thus establishing the first order of monks.

The day is observed by donating offerings to temples and listening to sermons. The following day is known in Thailand as Thai: วันเข้าพรรษา Wan Khao Phansa; it is the first day of Thai: พรรษา vassa, the Theravada rains retreat.