Zenefit 2026: A Night of Sonic Exploration and Deep Listening, GAMH 11/13

Friday, November 13, 2026
Doors open at 6:00 pm
Event starts at 7:00 pm and ends by 11:00 pm

Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell St, San Francisco

In November of 1966, San Francisco Zen Center launched a series of fundraisers to help purchase Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. For nearly a year, local musicians, poets, thinkers, and spiritual leaders held events across the Bay Area to help raise enough money to purchase the old hot springs resort located deep in the Ventana Wilderness that would soon become our beloved monastery.

It’s in this spirit, exactly sixty years later, that we bring back the Zenefit to support Tassajara in this time of challenging fires and critical infrastructure repairs.

In a single, magical evening, Zenefit 2026 will bring together experimental musicians, poets, historians, and spoken-word and visual artists for an immersive night of live performance and unexpected collaboration. Psychedelic folk, improvisational soundscapes, beat poetry, meditative spoken word, and a liquid light show—all set against the ornate backdrop of the Great American Music Hall.

All proceeds support San Francisco Zen Center and the Tassajara Fire Recovery Fund, helping sustain the future of practice and community at Tassajara.

$60 General Admission
$160 VIP Balcony Seating

Get Your Tickets!

Featuring

• Preshow with Brian Perrino, Zen student, farmer, musician, and teacher who shares his practice, music, stories, and experiences of his time while living at Tassajara, and Philip Toscano is a Chicago-born, San Francisco-based musician who also performs with the moody garage-blues rock band, The Bribes.
• Welcome from Peter Coyote (MC): one of the founders of the Diggers, actor, director, screenwriter, author, narrator, and an ordained Zen Priest.
• Lonely Parrots San Francisco queer folk-pop duo Michael Martinez and Max Embers, known for their harmonies and acoustic sound.
• Colleen Morton Busch Bay Area poet and author of Smolder and Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire.
• Dōshin Dan Gudgel is a sound artist and currently serves as Director of Online Content for SFZC.
• Dennis McNally Author, historian, and former publicist for the Grateful Dead.
• Chuck Gould An original member of the Diggers, a Soto zen priest ordained in the Suzuki Roshi Lineage, and photographer who documented San Francisco’s 1960s counterculture.
• Marc Lesser Zen teacher, author, former Tassajara director, and mindfulness educator in the SF Bay Area.
• Resonance is a music+mindfulness offering created by contemplative artists Nkechi Njaka and Tauwoo, exploring sound, deep listening, presence, and collective connection.
• Ben Gustin Nor Cal musician whose “Zen Buddhist Campfire Songs” began at Tassajara and the Avatamsaka Collective is a Post Punk Buddhist Gospel Rock Opera, telling the story of the Buddha’s defeat of Mara under the Bodhi Tree.
• Roger Hillyard Pioneer of 1960’s psychedelic liquid light shows and immersive visual environments using analog techniques and Christine Marie, a pioneer in 3D stereoscopic art.
• Christopher Robin Gallagher Bay Area poet and host of Not Poems!
• Born I DC-based hip-hop artist, author, mindfulness teacher and Zen practitioner. Creator of Hip-Hop Soundbath – an immersive experience blending meditation, sound healing, and live hip-hop.
• Devendra Banhart (DJ set) Singer, songwriter, visual artist, and unique voice in contemporary psychedelic folk.

The Story of Zenefit

Zenefit has its roots in a remarkable moment in San Francisco history.

On November 13, 1966, San Francisco Zen Center launched a fundraising campaign to purchase Tassajara Hot Springs and establish a mountain monastery. Musicians, poets, artists, and members of the city’s emerging counterculture came together to help make it happen. A benefit concert at the Avalon Ballroom featured the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and others. Additional benefits and gatherings happened for many months following. See this wonderful collection of old benefit posters on the Cuke.com website for details.

November 13, 2026 (exactly 60 years later) Zenefit returns in that same spirit of connection—where music, art, practice, and community meet. One night. One legendary room. A collision of sound, poetry, improvisation, and contemplative practice to support Tassajara’s recovery.