San Francisco Zen Center Dharma Talks

Given by Rinso Ed Sattizahn at Green Gulch Farm on April 12th, 2026 Rinso Ed Sattizahn reflects on the meaning of Jizo’s staff and comments on David Chadwick and the Shunryu Suzuki teaching story “Everything Changes.”

Given by Hondo Dave Rutschman at City Center on April 11th, 2026 Hondo Dave Rutschman explores how we enter a ritual space with our effort and intention, without attempting to control the outcome.

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.

03/08/2026, 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?

03/07/2026, 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.

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 w...

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

02/25/2026, 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.

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

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.