By Tova Green

Tabreez Govani, a City Center resident, has been on a journey of exploration around how he might help address the challenges of the unhoused in our society. “I didn’t know much when I started other than what I saw in the streets and heard in the news, so learning about what was happening was my first step.” Tabreez chose volunteering as one of the ways to learn more and start contributing.

Tabreez first discovered San Francisco Zen Center through Guest Practice at Tassajara in the summer of 2015. Five years earlier he had stepped away from the religion he grew up with, a sect of Shia Islam, which offered meditation practice every morning at 4:00 am. “When I was deciding what my new practice would be, meditation was still very mysterious to me, but I was intrigued by it and started meditating at home.”

Then in 2020, Tabreez took a year off from his job in the tech industry, where he had worked for fourteen years, and “just roamed around the US,” exploring an unplanned life. He saw a posting for a Green Gulch Farm Practice Period and jumped in, staying at GGF for three months. “When I was at Green Gulch, everything was a big shift—the schedule, living in a sangha, the forms, working on general labor, doing dishes, and cleaning, which I had tried to avoid previously.”

Six weeks into the practice period he had an “aha moment.” “All of these different pieces were bringing up difficulties and at the same time providing space and support to work with them. The speed at which I was learning about myself was much faster than before. I wanted more of that.”

Also during his year off, he realized he felt a growing energy “to work on the unhoused challenges our society has.” He briefly volunteered at a homeless shelter in Austin, and joined an outreach effort in Seattle. Then while living at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, that energy continued to grow. He thought, “I hope people on the streets know they are loved. After six months at Tassajara I needed to explore how I could be useful in this challenge.”

That’s when Tabreez became a resident at City Center. “Discovering City Center residency was a blessing. I could live at City Center staying very connected to and supported by this practice and at the same time explore this growing energy and potential new area of work.”

Since beginning his exploration, Tabreez has been “engaging and continuing to learn in different ways” such as:

• Volunteering with St. Anthonys, the dining room at Martin de Porres, and SFZC/SF Night Ministry’s Open Sangha event
• Supporting the Coalition on Homelessness (CoH), which organizes and advocates for people who are currently or formerly unhoused
• Taking classes on topics such as How to Build Affordable Housing (offered by the San Francisco Interfaith Council), Trauma Informed Workplace and City Budgeting (from the CoH), and looking deeply at privilege (with Poor Magazine).
• Looking into the causes and conditions of homelessness and possible solutions by reading studies, looking at history, going through city and state programs and plans, and learning what different organizations are doing and their results.

In response to Tabreez’s interest in volunteering, a friend who was familiar with organizations in San Francisco recommended St. Anthony’s in the Tenderloin. Tabreez began in their Free Clothing Program, then turned to volunteering at St. Anthony’s Tech Lab, where he has been going weekly for over a year. “It’s a good fit for my tech background and it gave me a chance to sit with people for an extended period of time, working with them on something tangible that they needed.”

Tabreez wrote several reflections about his experiences in the Tech Lab. Two were published by St. Anthony’s in their newsletter. Here is an excerpt:

“While volunteering at St. Anthony’s, I have been surprised by the powerful self-reflection that’s taken place in me. Initially it was seeing my own beliefs and aversions arise when working with some of the guests who have different communication styles, hygiene habits, abilities, or behaviors than what I’m used to. Seeing my thoughts and feelings helped me keep an open mind, enabling me to experience the person I was working with directly through their expression in the present moment rather than through my beliefs about them.

“As I continued to work with guests in this way, I saw more deeply and was reminded of how similar we all are, though the particulars of our situation may be different: similar in our hopes and dreams of experiencing joy, being at peace, and making a life for ourselves; similar in how our life experiences have shaped the way we look at the world and our habitual reactions; similar in our needs of basic survival like food and shelter, but also our deep longing for dignity, love, and connectedness.”

Tabreez finds that his Zen practice supports his volunteer work. “Practice has helped with patience, especially when I feel aversion or discomfort. I can see the stories about the people I meet as the stories arise, so I don’t believe them to be true. I look at someone and watch the thoughts go by without believing that the story is the full knowledge of what’s happening.”