Hartford Street Zen Center | Issan-ji temple
A Sōtō Zen temple for the LGBTQ+ community, friends and allies in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood
Join some of us and fellow SF Queer and Allies, and Buddhist organizations in general. You can contribute and walk with us, contribute alone or just join us for the walk and to meet others and tour the temples or centers and support the effort and intention. This walk will tour many Buddhist temples in SF including the city’s oldest and one housing a Buddha Relic that wil be open for vieiwng and will end at SFZC. View the link (click on above image) for more details. We hope to see you there!
Rev. Jordan Thorn describes what happens when one sits zazen and how to deal with the challenges that arise from doing so. There is an unexpected opportunity for interfaith dialogue partway through as a Christian minister attempts to interrupt the talk to speak out against “false doctrines.”
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Please come and join us this Saturday for a Dharma talk by Shokan Jordan Thorn. Jordan has been at SF Zen Center for 30 years. Ordained by Richard Baker in 1977, later received Dharma Transmission from Zoketsu Norman Fischer, he lives at SFZC’s City Center. He came to SF Zen center as a result of the beat poetry movement that was of interest to several Zen students in it’s early years and he even played in a rock band briefly with a famed beat poet (being in a rock band an area of interest his daughter carries on touring and perfoming currently). He has lived at all three practice centers, has served in a variety of roles on senior staff and as an officer, and was shuso at Tassajara. Recently he served as City Center Tanto (Head of Practice) and became SF Zen Center’s Treasurer/CFO in September 2011 and he is the teacher of a few of the HSZC Sangha. Zazen will precede as usual at 9:25, then the talk at 10:15, and the ever-popular tea and cookies will follow. All are welcome.
We’ll have the monthly Full-Moon Ceremony renewal of our Bodhisattva vows Saturday morning. 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 of the Bodhisattva Way.
Sunday 7 October – Castro Street Fair
please join us as a volunteer at this fun*draiser to help raise funds for HSZC, but also spend an enjoyable day with our Sangha!
Rev. David Zimmerman reads from the book And There Was Light by Jacques Lusseyran, a blind French resistance fighter during World War II, and relates his description of interacting with the world without sight to Buddhist teachings of interdependence, mindful awareness, and compassion.
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Please join us this Saturday for a Dharma talk by Kansan David Zimmerman. David has been practicing Zen for 20 years, over half of which have been in residence at San Francisco Zen Center. He was ordained in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi by Rev. Teah Strozer in 2006, and spent eight years at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, where he held a number of positions including monastery director and Head Monk (Shuso). David is now Program Director at City Center/SFZC and also serves on the SFZC Diversity and Multiculturalism Committee, is a co-facilitator of Queer Dharma, and supports Dr. Lee Lipp with classes and workshops on “Transforming Depression and Anxiety”. Zazen (seated meditation) is at 9:25 a.m., the talk to follow at 10:15, and, as (almost) always, top-drawer tea and cookies afterwards. Everyone is welcome.
