Our Sejiki, or food-offering, ceremony is an opportunity to call forth the spirits of those who have passed this way before, offering them solace and acknowledging our ongoing connection to them. If you would like the name of a loved one who has died during the past year, recited in the ceremony, please send the full name of […]
Rev. Parāvṛtti Doralee Grindler Katonah will present a dharma talk in person at the Dharma Center. She serves as Ino, or head of the meditation hall. She studied in the Soto Zen lineage with Sojun Diane Martin, founder and guiding teacher of Udumbara Zen Center in Illinois and Rev. Val Szymanski, Head Priest of Bamboo […]
Rev. Myō Lahey, Valley Streams' guiding teacher, joins us online via Zoom from Hartford Street Zen Center in San Francisco, where he is Abbot. He previously served as Practice Leader at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. He is a Dharma heir of Tenshin Reb Anderson. Our Monday night programs begin with zazen (sitting meditation) followed by […]
Shi Shin Brendan O'Brien has been a member of the Valley Streams community for the past three years. He is also a member of the Hartford Street Zen Sangha in San Francisco. Recently, in October, he received the Bodhisattva precepts from Rev. Myō Lahey and Rev. So'On Jim Hare. Brendan is a student of history […]
Rev. So'on Jim Hare serves as Tanto, or head of practice. He lived in the San Francisco Zen Center community from 1980 to 1984, and was lay ordained by Tenshin Reb Anderson in 1985. He served as Head Student at Green Gulch Farm during the spring 2002 practice period, and was priest ordained by Rev. Myo Lahey […]
Susan Moon is a writer, editor, and lay teacher in the Soto Zen tradition. She is the author of a number of books about Buddhism, including the humor book The Life and Letters of Tofu Roshi and This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity. For many years she was the […]
Celebrate the winter solstice with your sangha friends. After a 35 minute meditation and service, we will gather to entertain each other on this long winter night with instruments, song, favorite poetry new and old, stories and skits. Bring your creativity and share your hidden talents. *Zoom link for this program: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82008.151977
Entering a New Year is an auspicious time to "commune with the source" and ask what specific mind habit or pattern is in the way of our enlightenment practice. "Relinquish" means to renounce or surrender something - to let go of your grip on something, to give something up that is no longer needed, to desist […]
Rev. So'on Jim Hare serves as Tanto, or head of practice. He lived in the San Francisco Zen Center community from 1980 to 1984, and was lay ordained by Tenshin Reb Anderson in 1985. He served as Head Student at Green Gulch Farm during the spring 2002 practice period, and was priest ordained by Rev. Myo Lahey […]
On Retreat Night we offer an opportunity to settle into your meditation practice with two or three 25-minute periods of zazen, interspersed with walking meditation (called kinhin). Turning the light inward we explore the causes of suffering and what can end it. This invitation is extended to everyone. *Zoom link for thisprogram: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82008151977
Photo: Ralph Abernathy (L), James Forman, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Rev S. L. Douglas, and John Lewis during a protest march to the courthouse on March 17, 1965. Sarah O'Gara shares how she became a racist; learning these habits of mind from her family and the white supremacist culture into which she was born. […]
Shuji Cody Miller began practice in the Soto Zen lineage of Shunryu Suzuki at the San Francisco Zen Center in 2015. He was lay ordained in 2016 through Anshin Rosalie Curtis and began practicing with the Valley Streams Zen Sangha in 2020. When not working at the clinic as a Doctor of Chiropractic, he loves […]