Our Practice
Our practice has two complementary points of emphasis, sitting meditation (zazen) and our real lives in the world. As a Soto congregation (sangha) in the lineage of Eihei Dogen and Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, we share with other groups in that lineage a special fondness for silent sitting in the simple, straightforward manner called shikantaza ("just sitting"), focussing on the body and on the breath in order to bring our consciousness to the present moment and to truly engage with the reality of our lives. In our practice outside of the meditation hall, we consider how to be caring, helpful, humble, and as little harmful as possible, cherishing the bodhisattva precepts passed down to us from Dogen and Suzuki Roshi.
Our connections
Soto Zen is one of the two main divisions of Zen in Japan, and we are associated with the Soto School through the San Francisco Zen Center, founded by one of the most important Japanese masters to bring Zen to the West, Shunryu Suzuki, the author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind among other books.
Our guiding teacher, Zoketsu Norman Fischer, poet and founder of the Everyday Zen Foundation, is a former abbot of San Francisco Zen Center. He is a third-generation dharma heir to Suzuki Roshi through his teacher, Sojun Mel Weitsman, founder of the Berkeley Zen Center and one of Suzuki Roshi's most prominent direct disciples.