The SFZC Family Sangha welcomes you onto the tender and transformative path of family practice.
Rooted in the Soto Zen lineage of Suzuki Roshi and grounded in everyday family life, the SFZC Family Sangha offers an evolving network of practice spaces. These include seasonal daylong retreats at Green Gulch Farm, online spaces for parents and caregivers, gatherings to honor grief and loss, and summer retreats at both Green Gulch Farm and Tassajara. Together, these offerings invite families to set forth on a shared path of connection, contemplation, and collective healing.
Seasonal daylong retreats at Green Gulch may include time outside on the farm and in the gardens, sangha building in the yurt, and/or visits to the kitchen and zendo. Lunch is included and the day ends with a dedication circle in the Jizo Garden.
Our longer retreats at Green Gulch and Tassajara bring forward the wisdom of children and explore family practice as a path for healing our ancestral lineages. We share the Dharma through connection with nature, baking, gardening, and being in the zendo. Families practice together, and there is also time for parents and caregivers to enjoy adult practice time while the children are in separate groups.
Family Sangha Online is a space for adults raising children to receive the nourishment that family practice makes necessary.
The SFZC Family Sangha welcomes multi-generational families, parents, caregivers, self-partnered people, those caring for their elders, grandparents, aunties, uncles, siblings and niblings, foster parents, children of all ages, and anyone dedicated to healing their family lineages.
Upcoming Dates
Meet Our Team
Family Verses
Three Lamps Children’s Verses
I vow to develop a kind heart.
I vow to develop a clear mind.
I vow to honor the Triple Treasure.
Dogen Verse
Body like a mountain.
Heart like the ocean.
Mind like the sky.
Waking Up Verse, by Thich Nhat Hanh
Waking up this morning, I smile.
Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.
I vow to live fully in each moment,
and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.
Bedtime Verse, by Meikyo Chelsea True, inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh
Turning out the light,
I entrust myself to the moon and stars.
The moon and stars entrust themselves to me.
Closing my eyes,
I entrust myself to Protector Bodhisattva Kanzeon.
Protector Bodhisattva Kanzeon entrusts herself to me.
SFZC Family Sangha is supported by dedicated Zen practitioners, many of whom also practice with Dharma Heart Zen, a Branching Streams sangha in Sebastopol, California, under the guidance of founder and senior Dharma teacher Hoka Chris Fortin. We offer this Dharma Heart Zen Statement Affirming Our Bodhisattva Vows as a shared commitment to practice.