Hartford Street Zen Center | Issan-ji temple
A Sōtō Zen temple for the LGBTQ+ community, friends and allies in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood
Don’t forget that you’re invited to our traditional New Year’s Eve event on 31 December, starting about 7:30 p.m. PLEASE NOTE, however, that there won’t be the usual morning or evening zazen sessions on the 31st. Afterwards the zendo will be closed all day Tuesday and Wednesday 1 and 2 January. Happy New Year to all!
Please rejoin us for our regular schedule as of Dec 27th and have a safe and equanimous few days or if you celebrate… Holiday!
HSZC will house a pot luck dinner on December 25th for those who are around. Please see our facebook page post on Dec 16th for details!
This coming Saturday, we’ll have a 40-minute period of zazen beginning at 8:30am, in place of the Saturday early morning schedule (see link) which ordinarily 
begins at 6:30am. While there won’t be the 8:30 a.m. instruction period that day, the 9:25 a.m. period of sitting and the 10:15 a.m. Dharma talk will take place as usual. Following the Dharma talk, we’ll celebrate the monthly Full-Moon Bodhisattva ceremony. Every one is welcome to attend, of whatever level of practice experience. Don’t miss this occasion to anchor your weekend firmly in body-and-mind study of the Buddha Way.
Starting this coming Saturday and continuing for at least the next few weeks, we will gather as a sangha after tea-and-cookies time around 11:45 (or later if the dharma talk goes longer) to discuss how things are going with the temple and how people feel about the community and their place in it. This is sort of like a mini-council in which one person speaks at a time and we maintain a mindful and compassionate atmosphere so everyone feels comfortable speaking their mind.
The next few weeks will be a trial run to see if we want to make this a permanent fixture in the schedule, so please come and contribute if you can!
