September 30, 2015
Retreating and Resetting at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center

Article by Jack Chang from the Sacramento Bee

In this article for a Sacramento newspaper, published earlier this month, Jack Chang describes his stay at our temple in Marin County, where he fell into the experience with beginner’s mind:

(c) Sacaramento Bee / Manny Crisostomo

(c) Sacaramento Bee / Manny Crisostomo

It was easy to feel like a beginner there as I adjusted myself to the pared-down surroundings and the unfamiliar but precise routines. I flipped the page: “If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.”

A few moments later, the sharp tapping of a mallet on a block of wood echoed through the forest outside, its rhythm quickening like a marble bouncing to rest on tile. The afternoon call to meditation, said my neighbor, an elderly woman from Israel, who was pulling on her shoes beside the sliding door to the walkway.

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On Forgiveness

In this letter to the sangha, Central Abbot Tenzen David Zimmerman writes about forgiveness and repair in his own life, and how SFZC is working with former Abbot Richard Baker to reconcile a difficult past and move forward together.