San Francisco Zen Center Dharma Talks

Central Abbot Tenzen David Zimmerman addresses some of the misconceptions we might have about renunciation, including that it means foregoing altogether both worldly pleasures and our freedom.

In a talk given after completing dharma transmission, Shundo David Haye reflects on the generosity of the ancestors in ensuring that the dharma continues to be available to us and those to come.

Central Abbot Tenzen David Zimmerman uses ancient water analogies and parables to unpack the concept of paramita, which can be translated as “perfection” or “transcendent,” as well as “crossing over to the other shore.”

Jiryu Rutschman-Byler shares the story from Dogen Zenji’s chapter "Jinzu" about the “great supernatural accomplishments” of the Zen ancestors Guishan and Yangshan, as they spend a morning together expressing the heart of Zen practice through their ordinary, everyday care and intimacy.

Rinso Ed Sattizahn presents a commentary on the koan, Case 19, from the Gateless Barrier with a sidebar on practicing with impermanence.

Central Abbot Tenzen David Zimmerman provides an overview of the structure of a traditional “ango” and how it serves as a supportive, intensified practice container. He then introduces the topic of study for the ango, the transcendent virtue or practices of the Six Paramitas: generosity, ethical conduct, patience, diligent effort, meditation, and wisdom.

Doshin Dan Gudgel offers gratitude to our Buddhist and personal ancestors, who have made it possible for us to practice, and who were just human beings like us.

Anlor Davin examines the Zen teaching of “not knowing is most intimate” and from her perspective as an autistic Zen priest, adds that not-knowing is also friendly.

Gengyoko Tim Wicks explores the experience of awe, the Satipatthana Sutra—an important Theravadan sutra—and the relationship of both awe and this sutra to Zen practice.

Gengyoku Tim Wicks explores the Satipatthana Sutra, an important Theravadan sutra and its relationship to Zen practice. How does Shikantaza, "just sitting" make use of this early Buddhist technique?

Shoren Heather Iarusso discusses the koan story about avoiding heat and cold, pointing out what we learn when we look at our preferences and stay with our discomfort.

Sozan Miglioli examines key moments in the history of our practice: Mahakashyapa's smile, Vimalakirti's thundering silence, Dogen's teaching on “Dotoku" (the capacity to speak from realization), and Katagiri Roshi's two books. The question running through all of it: does something, spoken or unspoken, come from realization or from concept?

Hokyo Lorenzo Garbo examines how gossip can either protect or damage communities, arguing that harmful speech has lasting consequences while mindful communication strengthens trust and compassion.

Jiryu Rutschman-Byler discusses and appreciates Suzuki Roshi’s teaching that: “We should understand ourselves in two ways: as a particular person and as someone who has no name, no body, and no mind.”

Roger Hillyard explores how we need not travel from teacher to teacher or temple to temple to receive the dharma, we must be present where we are.

Dr. Paula Arai explores the question that drives her book Of Mud & Lotuses: Dreaming the Lives of Buddhist Women: How do we wield liberating power in a context with oppressive institutions, teachings, and practices?

Kokyo Henkel explores three classic Zen sayings by Ninth Century Chinese Zen Ancestor Changsha: the entire world is the radiant light of our true self; that we need to take a step forward from the top of a hundred-foot pole; and that when an earthworm is cut in two the buddha-nature can't be divided.

Jiryu Rutschman-Byler reflects on Suzuki Roshi’s encouragement to “not lose these points: how to be kind to others and how to be one with others,” and offers practices and stories to support these inter-related practices.

Odo Ellen Simpson explores the nature of spiritual friendship in the context of Buddhist life is a support to our practice and a joyous component of our lives together.

Dan Zigmond explores attention itself as a form of generosity: dana, the first of the Buddhist perfections and, as he puts it, the ground floor of the whole path.

Kika Hellein discusses the relationship between interior and external realities.

Dr. Jan Willis discusses the life of eighth-century poet and philosopher, Shantideva, and what it can teach us about genuine bodhisattva practice.

Myogen Kathryn Stark talks about Shantideva, his work on the Way of the Bodhisattva, and how we apply this to our own lives.

Eijun Linda Ruth Cutts explores how caring with wholehearted attention to what is before us and within us realizes the practice of expressing the True Reality of All Things.

Central Abbot Tenzen David Zimmerman offers three analogies related to light as supportive practices for zazen, noting that in Zen, light serves as a powerful analogy for awareness.

Doshin Dan Gudgel explores joy as a fuel for practice and shares a practice for connecting with joy during daily meditation.

So-on Eli Brown-Stevenson explores a practice that rejects nothing, wastes nothing, and reveals how transformation begins when everything belongs through stories from Green Gulch Farm, Zen teachings, and an ecological view of dependent arising.

Odo Ellen Simpson explores the depth and complexity of Soto Zen ancestor practice in the context of monastic and lay life with consideration of cultural and family trauma perspectives.

Central Abbot Tenzen David Zimmerman speaks to the loss felt by the fire that destroyed the Tassajara Zendo in March 2026, and particularly the damage to the 1800-year-old Gandharan Buddha stone statue that had been on the altar (with slide accompaniment).

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel Osho shares the experience of being a student and learning from a Zen teacher. What is needed? Are you prepared to have a teacher? What happens when you’re from different cultures?

Gengyoku Tim Wicks explores Dogen Zenji's famous teaching, "To study the Buddha way is to study the self," through the lens of recovery, trauma, and meditation practice.

Abbot Jiryu Rutschman-Byler shares some of Suzuki Roshi’s views on WWII, America and Japanese nationalism, and shares a story of Suzuki Roshi’s practice of “shining one corner” during the war.

Horin Nancy Petrin reflects on the ‘settled self’ inspired by Suzuki Roshi’s lecture ‘Be Kind with Yourself” from the collection “Not Always So.”

Shundo David Haye reflects on the role and value of practice in imbuing us with inner integrity, in this age of social media and AI.

td {border: 1px solid #cccccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;} Jisho Lisa Beth Hoffman, in this Queer Pride weekend talk, asks “How do we practice so the poignant truth of impermanence deepens our experience of ‘just this’ – the life and moment before us?”

td {border: 1px solid #cccccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;} Chan Teacher Guo Gu speaks of the significance of the "gulch" in Green Gulch, connecting it with the qualities of being the “valley"—open receptive, responsive, hollow yet luminous qualities.

Shōren Heather Iarusso explores the intersection of Buddhism, gender fluidity and the PRIDE movement using a rainbow as a metaphor.

Nyokai Kristin Diggs talks about the difference between the zazen of Soto Zen and styles of sitting practice that aim at attaining an ideal or special state of mind.

Tenmyo Dojima 堂島典明 reflects on interfaith dialogue in Italy and lessons learned through injury and recovery, and invites us to slow down, breathe, and rediscover the ordinary miracles of daily life.

Kim Kōgen Daihō Hart, who was raised in apartheid South Africa, explores themes of accepting what is unacceptable and what our practice asks of us.

Sozan Michael McCord teaches that when we look at the cause of suffering, we see that it is grasping and clinging or aversion and not accepting what is. We have known since the Industrial Revolution, very clearly, but now have it even more greatly elucidated in the age of artificial intelligence: if a human being equates their value to production, they are obsolete.

Anshi Zachary Smith examines the "doing nothing” of zazen, and how much it actually does.

Ryotan Cynthia Kear shares Darlene Cohen’s core teachings on the importance of cultivating concentration, personal koans, transformation of suffering and vow.

Shosan Victoria Austin, in this Earth Day lecture, invites us to contemplate how practicing ethics protects both us and the world.

Nyokai Kristin Diggs talks about zazen as a practice of realizing the non-separation of body and mind, and about the dynamic relationship that is the body-mind.

Chikudo Catherine Spaeth teaches that a whole world of forms catches us up in personal emotions and stories, and when we see through them there can be a feeling of heartsickness. How, in our illness, does emptiness use emptiness to liberate us in true feeling?

Sokaku Kathie Fischer examines examines Case 32 of the Mumonkan (The Gateless Gate), likening this story to Suzuki Roshi's teaching that if you want to control your cows, give them a really large field.

Gendo Lucy Xiao 玄道 explores the dynamic interplay between our awakened nature and the ongoing cultivation of practice within the conditions of our lives, by drawing on the story and teachings of Zen Master Dongshan.

Sozan Michael McCord takes a deep dive into the motivations behind acceptance and rejection, and the many ways they play out in everyday life.

So-on Eli Brown-Stevenson uses somatic meditation, the image of the hand, and Zen teachings on non-separation, to explore how we move from contraction and self-protection toward a more open participation in reality, compassion, and ordinary mind.

Jiryu Rutschman-Byler explores and invites the practice of profound ease, which we can touch by exhaling completely enough to “let go of hundreds of years,” and which can feel like, as Suzuki Roshi teaches, being back in the lap of our mother, or of the Buddha.

Gendo Lucy Xiao 玄道 explores the theme of the Spring Practice Period and explores the relationship between “nothing lacking” and “continuous practice”.

Kiku Christina Lehnherr teaches that cultivating generosity, patience, tolerance, compassion, gentleness and steadfastness are essential to create, and be in intimate relationship with our body. Taking care of it is simultaneously taking care of all existence.

Ben shares from his new book “Inside the Flower Garland Sutra, Huayan Buddhism and the Modern World.” Ben illustrates the teachings with stories and lessons from his recent involvement with an array of nonviolent community responses to the violence ICE brought to his hometown Minneapolis in 2026.

Doshin Dan Gudgel expresses a hope for lasting peace in this world, based on deep belief in interconnection and impermanence, and the incredible cosmic rarity of life itself.

Rinso Ed Sattizahn reflects on the meaning of Jizo’s staff and comments on David Chadwick and the Shunryu Suzuki teaching story “Everything Changes.”

Hondo Dave Rutschman explores how we enter a ritual space with our effort and intention, without attempting to control the outcome.

The talk discusses the significance of the Platform Sutra in Zen practice, highlighting its role in the exploration of sudden versus gradual enlightenment and the inherent purity of the mind. The discussion also emphasizes the historical continuity of Zen teachings through the teacher-student lineage, notably the transmission from Bodhidharma to his disciple Huike, and the subsequent teachings encapsulated in the Platform Sutra during the Tang Dynasty. The talk underscores the importance of direct experience and mindfulness in daily activities as a means to realize liberation from suffering. Platform Sutra : Explores sudden vs. gradual enlightenment, emphasizing the inherent purity of the mind, and the unity of all things. Lankavatara Sutra : Referred to as the mind-only sutra, it discusses the manifestation of all phenomena from the mind and relates to the central Buddhist theme of transforming suffering through mindfulness. Dhammapada : An early Buddhist text illustrating the precedence and influence of the mind on lived experience and suffering. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki : Explores the importance of having a beginner's mind, which allows for many possibilities, as opposed to an expert's mind, which is more limited. Lineage of Bodhidharma : Chronicles the teacher-student relationship which maintains the Zen tradition, beginning with Bodhidharma as the first ancestor bringing Chan (Zen) to China. Koans : Referenced to illustrate important Zen teachings, such as the dialogue between Huike and Bodhidharma about pacifying the mind.

04/08/2026, Dan Zigmond, dharma talk at City Center. Dan Zigmond explores how the "monkey mind" the Buddha diagnosed 2,500 years ago is exactly what today's algorithms are engineered to exploit, drawing on nearly thirty years of building attention-capturing technology at Google, Facebook, Apple, and Headspace, alongside four decades of Zen practice.

04/04/2026, Marc Lesser, dharma talk at City Center. Marc Lesser weaves together personal stories, Shunryu Suzuki, Dogen, and the Enneagram, in an exploration of how we interpret our identities and the world.

04/01/2026, Henzan Roger Hillyard, dharma talk at City Center. Roger Hillyard explores how Dogen's most poetic sutra, Mountains and Rivers, can help us practice with tragedy and lead us towards equanimity.

03/18/2026, Doshin Patti Mitchell, dharma talk at City Center. Doshin Patti Mitchell shares how meditation and community helped her face suffering, expectations, and self-judgment. Speaking about the importance of honesty, gratitude, and spiritual friendship, she also honors the teachers and practitioners who supported her along the way.

03/15/2026, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel Osho expands the teachings of Buddha from tools held in our hands (in our control) to a way of living that is wider than we can imagine.

03/14/2026, Doshin Mako Voelkel, dharma talk at City Center. Abiding Abbot Dōshin Mako Voelkel explores the life and lessons of Mahapajapati—the first Buddhist nun, and foster mother of the historical Buddha—after City Center’s annual ceremonial celebration for this first of our Buddhist women ancestors.

03/07/2026, Jeannie Linam and Myoju Erin Merk, dharma talk at City Center. Jeannie Linam and Myoju Erin Merk explore how our individual body is inseparable from the living Earth.

02/28/2026, Grace Dammann, dharma talk at City Center. Dr. Grace Dammann shares her journey through medicine, Zen practice, disability, and spiritual awakening.

02/08/2026, Marc Lesser, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Marc Lesser explores awareness, compassion, and the idea that nothing in the universe is truly hidden.

03/08/2026, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel Osho, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel Osho explores stillness and silence as a response to the great suffering we are facing today. Can we trust the discovery promised in a practice of silence to lead us to resolve or peace?

03/04/2026, Shosan Victoria Austin, dharma talk at City Center. Shosan Victoria Austin explores love as an internal posture, rather than a feeling. A stable base for our posture of love is awareness and patience with the negative emotions that often come up without our noticing them.

03/01/2026, Abbot Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Jiryu Rutschman-Byler reflects on the classical Zen teaching "the ten thousand things are one body," exploring how understanding that truth plants seeds of peace in our hearts and in this world of confusion and violence, in which we see the "left hand" and "right hand" of this "one body" choose again and again to go to war with each other.

02/25/2026, Hokyo Lorenzo Garbo, dharma talk at City Center. Hokyo Lorenzo Garbo reflects on full presence as direct, embodied, moment-to-moment awareness beyond judgment or self-narrative, illustrated by a wordless encounter with a newborn and cultivated through zazen as “practice 24/7.”

02/22/2026, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel Osho, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel Osho speaks to the fear of being consumed by great suffering while being turned towards the expansion of life at the same time.

02/21/2026, Kiku Christina Lehnherr, dharma talk at City Center. Kiku Christina Lehnherr explores meeting everything that presents itself to our awareness with tender and gentle attention.

02/20/2026, Hokyo Lorenzo Garbo, sesshin dharma talk at City Center. Hokyo Lorenzo Garbo explores how lifelong, internalized expectations—shaped by personal history and conditioning—distort perception and create suffering by separating us from present-moment experience.

02/19/2026, Kiku Christina Lehnherr, sesshin dharma talk at City Center. Kiku Christina Lehnherr explores how resting our attention on our breath coming in and going out for a while, unites body and mind, calms them and brings them into the present moment.

02/15/2026, Heather Shoren Iarusso, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Heather Shōren Iarusso discusses an encounter with a rattlesnake when, in the flash of danger, there is no “Heather,” no narrative, no arising mental formations—only pure perception and appropriate response.

02/14/2026, Gendo Lucy Xiao, dharma talk at City Center. Gendo Lucy Xiao 玄道 invites us to welcome the Lunar New Year by settling into inner stability and ease—remembering that peace is not something we chase outside ourselves, but something we can return to right where we are.

02/11/2026, Gengyoko Tim Wicks, dharma talk at City Center. Gengyoko Tim Wicks speaks about the history of the robes we wear (Buddha's Robe) and how it follows the geographic travel of Zen Buddhism.

02/07/2026, Onryu Mary Stares, dharma talk at City Center. Onryu Mary Stares explores how external stimuli can act as a gate to practice if we use intention and curiosity.

02/01/2026, Thiemo Blank, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Thiemo Blank guides us towards awakening to "the one who is not busy" in everyday activity.

01/28/2026, Hokyo Lorenzo Garbo, Shuso Way-Seeking Mind talk at City Center. Hokyo Lorenzo Garbo unpacks the shuso’s way-seking mind by framing practice as an everyday exercise of holding internal conflict without fixing it, allowing harmony to arise naturally, and walking one’s vows through ordinary activities.

01/24/2026, Kiku Christina Lehnherr, dharma talk at City Center. Kiku Christina Lehnherr explores how the body is completely and inseparably intertwined and interconnected with the mind and with everything in this universe, and how the practice of slowing down a fraction in all our activities can support us in becoming intimate with our body.

01/17/2026, So-on Eli Brown-Stevenson, dharma talk at City Center. So-on Eli Brown-Stevenson reflects on Dr. King’s legacy as a practice of staying human in the face of fear, polarization, and fatigue. Through Zen teachings on virya or joyful effort, we explore how commitment, courage, and hope can be sustained without hardening the heart.

01/14/2026, Doshin Dan Gudgel, dharma talk at City Center. Doshin Dan Gudgel discusses our human experience of feeling like a completely distinct and separate self, and unpacks the fundamental Buddhist teaching of ‘no fixed self’ that answers this experience.

01/10/2026, Mushim Patricia Ikeda, dharma talk at City Center. Mushim Patricia Ikeda asks how is our Zen Buddhist practice showing up within the "burning house" of global "forever wars," environmental crisis, and U.S. global and national actions in 2026? What might different forms and schools of Zen be able to learn from one another?

01/07/2026, Sozan Michael McCord, dharma talk at City Center. Sozan Michael McCord explores how waiting is not necessarily patience. And it is not a passive default. In this talk, the subject of patience is explored as one of the Buddhist "paramitas" (perfections) that are both fruits of practice and an area of one's life that is actively cultivated.

01/04/2026, Nyokai Kristin Diggs, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Nyokai Kristin Diggs addresses the importance of reflecting upon ourselves as storytellers and our practice of zazen as "just looking" at the stories that we tell, as an entry point to recognizing the truth of our interdependent, inconceivable lives.

12/20/2025, Gyokuden Stephanie Blank, dharma talk at City Center. Gyokuden Stephanie Blank considers Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol as a dharma story that reveals the transformative power of illumination, intimacy, and karmic fruition.

11/22/2025, Thich Nu Thuan Tue, dharma talk at City Center.

12/27/2025, Nyokai Kristin Diggs, dharma talk at City Center. Nyokai Kristin Diggs talks about the non-separation of feeling, sensing, and thinking as they relate to giving, as a whole-being practice and a state of mind that reflects the always-unhindered, underlying truth of our undivided lives.

12/17/2025, Shundo David Haye, dharma talk at City Center. Shundo reflects on two recent deaths in his family, and what our practice can teach us about facing death and cherishing life.

12/13/2025, Keiryu Liên Shutt, dharma talk at City Center. Keiryu Liên Shutt presents an informal comparison of Soto Zen and Insight practices within the context of The Three Marks of Existence.

12/07/2025, Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Abbot Jiryu Rutschman-Byler reflects on a line from the Song of the Trusting Mind, “If you want the Way to manifest, then hold no opinion for or against,” by drawing on five aspects of practice in Suzuki Roshi’s teaching: posture, breathing, warm heart, empty mind, and oneness with things.

11/16/2025, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel Osho, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel Osho teaches that sometimes it is necessary to be for or against but there is a broader context in which this is not always necessary.

10/26/2025, Sessei Meg Levie, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Sessei Meg Levie reflects on Suzuki Roshi’s dedication to zazen, his work with early students in San Francisco, and the creation of the San Francisco Zen Center.

11/02/2025, Gyokuden Stephanie Blank, dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm. Gyokuden Steph Blank honors the effort and awakening of our ancestors and calls on us—the living—to rise up in support of Decency, Dignity and Awakening.

11/01/2025, Zenshin Florence Caplow, dharma talk at City Center. Zenshin Florence Caplow offers stories and teachings from her life as both a Zen practitioner and person with chronic illness, and readings from her new book, “Tend to Your Spirit: Mindful Living With Chronic Illness.”