Claim OwnershipSan Francisco Zen Center Dharma Talks
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Description
Public lectures given at San Francisco Zen Center
586 Episodes
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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.
12/27/2025, 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.
12/20/2025, 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.
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.
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great talk!