Calendar of Activities

July 4th - Diana Kaiyo Gerard

Diana Kaiyo Gerard began her Buddhist practice in 1974, at Samye Ling Tibetan Center in Scotland, where she lived and practiced for four years. She has lived at the San Francisco Zen Center's three practice centers for the last fifteen years. She was ordained as a Soto Zen priest in 1998 by Tenshin Reb Anderson. In 2004, she spent three years as director of Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, before moving two years ago to City Center. She currently manages the Zen Center's bookstore and library.

July 11th - Jisan Tova Green

Jisan Tova Green is a Zen priest ordained by Eijun Linda Cutts in 2003. She works as a hospice social worker and co-founded the San Francisco Zen Center's LGBT group, Queer Dharma. Tova was also one of leaders who helped bring the Buddhist Peace Fellowship to the forefront of American Engaged Buddhism. Tova is also a cellist and a lover of poetry.

July 18th - Jana Drakka

"Gengetsu Junsei" received Dharma Transmission in the Soto Zen Buddhist Lineage from Zenkei Blanche Hartman, the first woman in this lineage. Jana's nonprofit organization, Jana Drakka's Community Services, provides a wide range of services including support groups, workshops, classes and talks. Jana’s community work is based in Harm Reduction Principles -- a way to meet everyone with complete acceptance and allows for a client-centered modality. Among her many activities, Jana leads a meditation group at Glide Memorial Church on Monday evenings and facilitates an ongoing peer support group for the case managers at Tenderloin Housing Clinic where she runs a mindfulness group, grief/stress support group and gives one-on-one counseling to staff and clients.

July 25th - Michael Ryuei McCormick, Nichiren School/Faithful Fools Zendo

"Ryuei" has practiced Buddhism since 1985 with various Nichiren groups and the Korean Won school. In 1995 he joined the San Jose Nichiren Shu temple and in 1997 became a disciple the temple’s then head minister, the Ven. Ryusho Matsuda, receiving the Dharma name "Ryuei." He was fully ordained as a Nichiren Shu priest in 2001 after completing the final 40-day monastic training at Kuonji temple, Mt. Minobu, Japan. He assists at the San Jose temple, helps with study material translations at the Nichiren Buddhist International Center in Hayward, and leads the Nichiren Buddhist Sangha on Sunday afternoons at the Faithful Fools Zendo in the Tenderloin.

August 1st - Jeffrey Schneider, "Drugs and Alcohol"

This is not a 12-step meeting. Jeffrey will discuss, in a

Buddhist  context, the use of drugs and alcohol in the

LGBT community.

Jeffrey Schneider has been practicing at San Francisco Zen Center, where he is a priest, since 1978. He began the Meditation and Recovery Group at Zen Center in 2000 and has led retreats on Buddhism and Recovery in a variety of venues. He is a member of the California Association for Alcohol/Drug Educators. Jeffrey is also the Volunteer Coordinator for the San Francisco Zen Center as well as the Coordinator of the Prison Outreach Program, which includes our GMBPN (Gay Men's Buddhist Prison Network) for Prison Correspondence. Jeffrey also is one of the trainers for volunteers who teach mindfulness and meditation in our local prisons.

August 8th - Steven Tierney, "Sex and Desire"

How can Buddhist Practice help us to embrace our sexuality and rejoice in opportunities for intimacy.   What does Buddhism offer to those for whom sexual behavior has become unmanageable and obsessive.   We will use our time together to think about sexual health with openness and precision; accepting the possibilities of rich spirituality and sexuality -  together in our lives and community.

Steven Tierney, Ed.D., is a Professor and Program Director in the Community Mental Health Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Steven has worked in community mental health since 1980 and specialized in issues of adolescent and transition age youth; specifically addiction and HIV. Dr. Tierney is a member of the Public Health Commission for the City and County of San Francisco. He has presented nationally and led retreats on mindfulness and mental health and on "keeping the community in community mental health." He also teaches basic counseling skills at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Steven practices Buddhism at the San Francisco Zen Center.

August 15th - Trip Weil, "Craving From a Buddhist Perspective"

The Buddha pointed to craving, or attachment to desire,

as the cause of suffering.  Looking through the lens of our

own experience, we will explore how craving causes suffering.  We'll also consider how we can use Buddhist teachings to work skillfully with craving as it arises in our own lives in the context of addiction and addictive behaviors.

Trip Weil has been practicing Buddhist meditation since 2004.  He is a participant in the Community Dharma Leader Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and a past participant in Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioners Program.  Formerly an attorney, Trip is a psychotherapist in private practice in San Francisco.  In his life and work he's very interested in exploring the intersection between therapy and spiritual practice as fertile ground for healing.

August 22nd - Tom Baker,"The Science of Addiction"

According to research in the field of neuroplasticity, thinking, learning, and acting actually change both the structure and function of the brain from top to bottom; thus, the brain is able to change itself through addiction, and also through meditation. We will examine the medical (disease) model of addiction, and how meditation can help in recovery from addiction.

Tom Baker RN is a lay practitioner and member of the San Francisco Zen Center. He took the Buddhist precepts in September 2009 with Mark Lancaster. He is a member of the Meditation in Recovery Sanghas at SFZC and HSZC.  A graduate of San Francisco City College, Tom worked in Traumatic Brain Injury and Stroke Rehabilitation and now is a community based RN Case Manager at UCSF.

August 29th - Scott Hunt

Scott has been a Buddhist for 30 years, studying in the Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions. It is part of his practice to shake things up, question tradition, such as debating the Dalai Lama about sexuality and writing inTricycle that we should not import ancient Buddhist rivalries and worn-out traditions. Scott was ordained to teach Buddhism by his root teacher His Holiness Mindrolling Trichen, Supreme Head of Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism and one of the most renouned yogis of the modern era. He received teachings from the Dalai Lama in India, Thich Quang Do in Vietnam, Maha Ghosananda in Cambodia and Ajahn Jumnien in Thailand. Scott has taught at a number of monasteries and Buddhist centers, and was an instructor of Buddhist philosophy and practice at UC Berkeley's extension school. He has written for a wide array of magazines, authored an award-winning book, The Future of Peace, and appeared in the New York Times.