We’ll celebrate the annual memorial for Rev. John King tomorrow, Saturday, 18 August, following the usual 10:15 a.m. Dharma talk. Everyone is invited to attend.
NEW Saturday Sangha Check-In Time
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!
Save the Date – OCTOBER 7, 2012 – Castro Street Fair!
11 August 2012 (at 12 noon) – In Memoriam
A Taste of Zen: Brown Bag Retreat, 4 August
Sangha Council Meeting – 28 July, 12:30PM
The Hartford Street Zen Center Sangha is continuing its Council group. 
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. 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!
Guest Speaker, Sat. 21 July: Rev. Jana Drakka
Come to HSZC this Saturday for a talk by Rev. Jana, priest-ordained at 
San Francisco Zen Center. Jana has been very involved with Religious Witness for the Homeless and other outreach programs for the disenfranchised, and received Dharma Transmission from retired Abbess Blanche Hartman.
We’ll have 9:25 a.m. zazen, of course, then the talk at 10:15, and tea-and-cookies after.
All are welcome.
A Taste of Zen: Brown Bag Retreat, 4 August
We’re planning on a longer retreat day on the first Saturday of August (Aug. 4). We’ll start at 9:25 a.m. and be finished by 5 p.m. To reduce the necessary preparations and planning, each participant may bring a brown-bag lunch, which we’ll take together in silence around midday. There’ll be a Dharma talk as usual at 10:15 a.m., plus the monthly Full-Moon Bodhisattva ceremony. The day will conclude with a guided loving-kindness meditation, followed by the monthly memorial service for founding Abbot Issan Dorsey. We’ll need to know how many participants we’ll have, so please sign up ahead-of-time, either by email to hszc108@yahoo.com, or a phone message left at (415) 863-2507. Everyone is welcome to participate, and we can accommodate practitioners at all levels of experience. Click here to see the day’s schedule!