“Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden,
not in the bare soil itself. But if you want to have a good harvest,
the most important thing is to make the soil rich and cultivate it well.
Buddha was interested in the ground from which various gardens will appear.
For him, everything is holy.”
- Suzuki Roshi, Not Always So
Zen Center was founded on the non-dualistic principle of humans and environment being one body. This naturally leads to sustainable practices of living in harmony with all beings and earth. As advocates for healthy relationships with all parts of the whole, many of the original practitioners who built Tassajara and Green Gulch and who collectively shaped the culture of all three temples, continue to find Zen practice expressed in their engaged environmental and social activism.
Join us as we celebrate sustainable milestones here at City Center: the solar panels installed in 2005 (which have paid for themselves and now enable us to receive credits from PG&E), the symbiotic relationship of our temple with organic farming (our food waste has for decades been a staple ingredient in the organic compost of Green Gulch Farm and more recently for Hayes Valley Farm), and our rooftop bee colonies (who share over 200 pounds of their honey with us each year!).
Earth Week 2013 is an opportunity for us to restate our commitment to sustainability and explore together with our wider urban sangha how we can continue to enhance our community’s ecological practices as well as our individual practices in an urban environment.
How –in an urban environment—do we honor Earth and recognize body as earth, earth as body? We welcome you to join the dialogue at City Center during Earth Week 2013: