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The Three Jewels of Gratitude, Peace, and Community

Abbot Tenzen David Appreciates Tova Green’s Wholehearted Way

Dear Branching Streams Community,

I’d like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Jisan Tova Green, who retired on Dec. 31st, for her wholehearted leadership and support of the maha sangha as our Branching Streams Director. For nearly eight years, Tova has met with many practitioners, leaders, and teachers from the approximately 75 Zen Centers around the globe affiliated with Shunryu Suzuki Roshi’s lineage. Whether in person or online, Tova has touched the lives of myriad Bodhisattvas with her warm enthusiasm, boundless heart, and dedicated practice. Also appreciated have been her kindness, creativity, and generosity in offering a listening ear. (And let’s not forget her fondness for poetry.)

During her tenure, Tova supported Branching Streams members by offering Dharma talks and classes, assisting with ceremonies and sewing, and responding to sundry questions about Zen practice, meditation, and sangha leadership. With assistance from an advisory committee, Tova helped to organize The Gathering ─ a biennial meeting of Branching Streams members that serves to connect, inspire, and rejuvenate sangha members. While in this role, Tova also highlighted the many efforts of many practitioners to serve their friends and neighbors by writing and compiling a newsletter and contributing many articles to Sangha News Journal.

Thank you, Tova, for being a beacon of selfless service and making the Three Jewels shine even brighter. We are truly grateful for your leadership, practice, and devotion to The Way.

With all good wishes,

Rev. Tenzen David Zimmerman

Central Abbot/San Francisco Zen Center


A Practice of Quiet Walking, Carrying Prayers in Our Hearts for Peace 

More than 75 people joined Red Cedar Zen Community for their Feb. 1 Interfaith Peace Walk.

The Red Cedar Zen Community in Bellingham, WA, held its first interfaith peace walk on Sunday, Feb 1st. Because of it was so successful and uplifting, they’ve decided to host another walk on Sunday, Feb. 15thBelow is an accounting of the walk by Zen priest and sangha member Seishin Mitsuzan:

Our recent Peace Walk in Bellingham was deeply beautiful—rain-soaked, quiet, and unexpectedly powerful. About 75 people gathered at a small waterfront park and walked about three miles into the city center, passing beneath Bellingham’s Arch of Reconciliation, which honors the municipality’s past harms, before the group returned to the park. Many likely heard about the walk through outreach to local organizations such as Indivisible Bellingham and Bellingham Troublemakers. 

Of course we were inspired by the venerable monks currently undertaking a long peace walk on the East Coast. In Bellingham, I was profoundly moved to see so many people join in silent walking prayer. The walk grounded me, strengthened my heart, and deepened my commitment to justice. In difficult times, action rooted in spiritual practice feels essential for individual healing and collective peace. 

We’re planning a longer 27-mile walk from the US-Canadian border through a rural town where the ICE detention facility is and back into Bellingham. We hope this will happen in the next two months.


Suchness Ocean, Sangha Source

Marta Dabis, Nyokai Sōgen (Suchness Ocean, Sangha Source), received Dharma transmission from Shinjaku Koji Dreher on Sept. 18, 2025 at the Clouds and Water Zen Center in Saint Paul, MN, where Koji is the tanto(head of practice). Koji also serves as the guiding teacher of Cedar Rapids Zen Center in Iowa, and the co-guiding teacher of the Nebraska Zen Center in Omaha. While a lay practitioner and hospital chaplain, Marta joined with founding member Greg Zeke Keith to start a sitting group in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi in September 2016. The community has since grown into Jisso Ji Zen Center in Ann Arbor, MI. Great congratulations to both student and teacher. 🙏🏼 


Mindful Management for Your Zendo

Organize practice schedules, coordinate service positions, and empower your sangha—all with the simplicity and clarity that reflects your practice.

ZenServe is a volunteer coordination platform built specifically for Zen centers and sanghas. This platform was developed by a member of the Seattle Soto Zen CenterZenServe helps communities manage the weekly rotation of traditional service roles—Doan, Jisha, Tenken, and more—so practitioners can easily see what positions are open and sign up to serve. Designed to remove administrative friction while honoring the contemplative spirit of practice, ZenServe lets your community spend less time coordinating and more time practicing. Free onboarding assistance is available to help get started. For more information visit the ZenServe website.


“Be here, Be Awake, Be Fully Alive Together” at Tassajara This Summer

Sessei Meg McNeil, Head of Practice and Ashley Ng, Director

There’s no place like Tassajara.


I first drove over the road and entered this deep valley more than 30 years ago, just as I was making big decisions about life, called by the sense that there was something important to understand, something that the world as I knew it wasn’t addressing.

What I discovered was a profound and beautiful practice pointing directly to that longing: the question of who we are, what’s happening here really, and how to be a true human being in a world of suffering and change. And so I stayed, and I keep coming back.

This summer, we’re welcoming students to join the Tassajara community for residential practice and work. If something here speaks to you, I encourage you to consider applying.

The place itself is extraordinary: a narrow valley in the heart of the Ventana Wilderness, right on Tassajara Creek, with natural hot spring baths, a full-length swimming pool, plenty of hiking trails, and some of the darkest, starriest skies you’ll ever see. But beyond the physical location, Tassajara embodies depth of practice, stability of tradition, and the power of community.

All the layers of life here—the wake-up bell rung by a student running through the valley in the early morning dark, the chanting after morning meditation, the gathering at work circle, the sounding of the great bell at the close of night—are continuously calling us to be here, be awake, be fully alive together in the miracle of this moment.

Maybe you are in transition and wondering what’s really important. Maybe you’re opening to new possibilities after years of work or caring for family. Maybe you’re longing for a season of simplicity, time in nature, and the chance to develop a regular meditation practice. Wherever you are in your life, Tassajara is here for you.

Coming for the full summer, if you can, gives you time to truly arrive. The regular practices of sitting, ceremony, Dharma talks and study, and caring for the temple begin to shape you in ways you may not fully see at first, but that will stay with you as you take the experience back into your life. A summer here may also become the gateway to further practice, as through this time of service you can receive credits for practice periods at SFZC temples.

As I write this from the cold quiet of winter at Tassajara, the creek is flowing strongly and the tree branches are bare against a pale sky. But already the daffodils are emerging. If you feel inspired by this invitation, please listen. We look forward to practicing with you this summer.

Wishing you well,

Sessei Meg McNeil, Tanto (Head of Practice) 
Tassajara Zen Mountain Center