What are the opening hours?

Monday 6:20am - 7:45am 4pm - 5:10pm Tuesday 6:20am - 7:45am Wednesday 6:20am - 7:45am Thursday 6:20am - 7:45am 4pm - 5:10pm Sunday 8am - 11:30am

Stone Creek Zen Center

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Stone Creek Zen Center

Stone Creek is a Buddhist practice center in the Soto Zen tradition. Zazen (meditation), Dharma talks, community. All are welcome.

Stone Creek Zen Center is a practice center in the Soto Zen Buddhist tradition. Offerings of zazen (meditation), Dharma talks, teaching, and community are available to all.

08/16/2026

This Monday, 22 sangha members will begin a five-day sesshin in the hills above Danville, gathering hearts and minds to support all beings.

The Japanese Zen term sesshin is written with the kanji 接心 (or alternatively 摂心 / 攝心). It translates as “touching the heart-mind” or “bringing the mind together,” and is commonly understood as "gathering the heart-mind.”

We will encounter one of the most important texts in the Soto Zen tradition: Eihei Dogen’s Fukanzazengi, often translated as “Universal Recommendation for Zazen.”

Dogen was writing not only for monks, scholars, or gifted practitioners. He recommended zazen because, in his view, the Way is available wherever we are. The practice is universal because it directly concerns the life we are already living.

Practice will continue at Stone Creek, so we will all sit together—whether in sesshin, or at the zendo, or at any Zen center around the world: countless Bodhisattvas joining in the noble endeavor to relieve suffering in this saha world: the world of joy and sorrow, good and evil, requiring patience and spiritual strength to overcome ignorance.

Wherever you are, please join us as we gather hearts and minds for the benefit of all beings.
🙏
In deep appreciation for your practice,
Myogen Kathryn
Head Priest

08/13/2026

Next Gen Zen is a group for people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. Come join us on Monday nights at 6 PM for meditation, contemplation, and cookies.
Photo taken on a field trip to Osmosis Day Spa.

For more info, Stone Creek Zen Center's website. https://stonecreekzencenter.org/next-gen-zen/

08/02/2026

"The usual understanding is that worldly life is based on instincts and desires, and that religious life is based on some pure mind that is completely different from these worldly desires. In Buddhism we accept the instincts and desires that we actually have. We cannot deny that we have various desires...they are part of the truth that we should accept. If we see ‘things as it is’ we have to accept our desires as part of that…we should have the desire to take care of the desires, to take care of ourselves, and to take care of others. That is our vow as Buddhists.” Suzuki Roshi, Becoming Ourselves

Suzuki Roshi’s teaching opens directly into working with our shadows: the instincts, desires, and difficult feelings we would rather deny are not obstacles to practice, but truths to be met. Acceptance does not mean being ruled by them; it means bringing them into care, where honesty can become compassion and awareness can begin to transform.

Modern life teaches us to curate ourselves toward brightness: competence, confidence, productivity, ease. We hide confusion, grief, envy, exhaustion, and fear, yet what is hidden does not disappear. It becomes the shadow we carry. Practice asks us not to cut away what feels unacceptable, but to include more of the truth.

This inclusion is not indulgence. It doesn't mean obeying every impulse or romanticizing every wound. It means transformation begins with honest contact: we cannot soften what we refuse to feel, repair what we refuse to see, or become whole by exiling the parts that most need compassion; a person need not be flawless to be worthy of tenderness.

We do not conquer imperfection; we learn to relate to it. We do not defeat the shadow; we listen for its rhythm. The movement is subtle: from resistance to participation, from judgment to curiosity, from isolation to shared humanity.

To care for the shadow is not to celebrate suffering for its own sake. It is to discover that suffering can be held within a wider field of life, where pain may become tenderness, patience, and insight. We may then know "things as it is."
🙏
Myogen Kathryn
Head Priest

07/25/2026

Somewhere someone needs help.
Send love.
It matters.

These are the first lines of a poem by Carrie Newcomer (full poem below), which has deep personal meaning for me. As a hospice chaplain, I often shared it with my patients and their families or caregivers. When someone approaches the threshold between life and death, life seems to narrow — or perhaps open — toward what matters most. Again and again, I saw that at the end of life, love is what matters most. Even amid broken relationships and complicated family dynamics, death can bring clarity to life’s deepest truths. After my catastrophic car accident, when I woke days later from an induced coma in the ICU and saw the people I love gathered around my bed, all I wanted to say was, “I love you.”

In these complicated, harrowing, challenging, and frightening times, sometimes love is all we have left to offer. Send love. It matters.
🙏
With love,
Myogen Kathryn
Head Priest
❤️
Somewhere someone needs help.
Send love.
It matters.

If you can’t get there yourself,
then take a deep breath.
Breathe in the weight of their troubles.
Breathe out and send all those burdens
into the Light
where sorrows can be held
with the most tender and infinite grace.

Breathe in what you can do.
Breathe out what you can’t change.
Spool out a thread of connection,
send courage and calm.
For the nights can be long
and filled with shadows,
and sometimes terrible
unexpected waters will rise.

Somewhere someone needs help.
Send love.
It matters.

©2022 Carrie Newcomer

07/23/2026

Next month, we have the opportunity to enter into residential practice at San Damiano Retreat Center, where we will take up Dogen Zenji’s Fukanzazengi. This essay on the practice of zazen (meditation) invites us to settle into upright sitting, disengage from busyness, and directly encounter the Way that is already present.

Dogen’s fundamental question, “What is the use of going off here and there to practice?” is a question many may struggle with. Yet, sometimes we need to leave home for practice, to find out that we didn’t need to escape where we already are. Sometimes it's necessary to step back from everyday life to settle the self on the Self.

Spaces are still available for the retreat. I warmly invite those who are able to join us. For those new to Stone Creek, please email [email protected] for information.
🙏
Myogen Kathryn
Head Priest

07/16/2026

Join Stone Creek for a 4-night, 5-day sesshin at the scenic San Damiano Retreat Center, nestled in the hills above Danville. This sesshin is an opportunity for people serious about meditation to experience multiple days in deep, silent practice. If you are new to Stone Creek, you need to have sat at least one full-day, preferably more.

San Damiano's tranquil setting provides the perfect environment for deepening practice and connecting with nature. Each participant will enjoy a private room and bath, ensuring comfort and space for personal reflection.

Throughout the retreat, we will spend our days in silence, engaging in sitting zazen and walking meditation, including outdoor walking on the beautiful grounds and hiking paths, offering a chance to experience mindful movement in nature. We will share Oryoki meals, fostering a sense of community and mindfulness around eating. Dharma talks will be offered, providing guidance and inspiration for our practice.

If you are interested, please email [email protected] for more information. We hope to hear from you!

07/15/2026

This week, Stone Creek Zen Center was honored by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors with a Gold Resolution, marking our 30th anniversary and our commitment to service in the community.

We thank the county greatly for this recognition. 🙏 Here's to another 30 years of service.

Receiving this honor on behalf of the Sangha were Head Priest Kathryn Stark, Priests Jesse Brunette and John Mack, Board Member Jude Kreissman, and Member Steven Cahn. Presenting the resolution were Board Chair Rebecca Hermosillo, West County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, and Board Members Chris Coursey and David Rabbitt.

07/12/2026

Sesshin Bakes the Cake🪷🥮
Each of us who practices Zen has our own mix of zazen, dharma talks, services, precepts, dokusan, study, teacher-student relationships, volunteer work, affinity groups, friendships. To have a settled practice, all of these parts need to come together and integrate inside us, cooked. It's sesshin that bakes the cake.

Sesshin isn’t just one more practice to add the mix, it’s about how the mix comes together. Sesshin is the primary way for us to experience continuous practice beyond thirty minutes of zazen. Sesshin, literally “collecting the mind,” is several days of ongoing practice. We sit, eat, chant, sleep – one continuous movement, bringing a coherence to our life that is precious.

You can bake a cake at a very high temperature, or at a moderate temperature that doesn’t dry it out. I have always felt that we can best do an intensive practice like sesshin when we are well rested. Stone Creek sesshins include a good night’s sleep, satisfying meals, and breaks, so you can take a nap or go for a long walk. The beauty is that all these activities are sesshin.

The deep practice of sesshin is a treasure of Zen, so it’s important to take part. You will be surprised at how the continuity of living Zen twenty-four hours a day supports your life.

Bows to you all,
Jisho
🙏

07/08/2026

Saturday, July 18, 8 AM - 12 PM
You're invited to join a half-day sitting suited both for beginning and experienced meditators. There will be alternating periods of zazen (seated meditation, usually 30-minutes) and kinhin (walking meditation, usually 10 minutes). Cushions and chairs available.

Please sign up ahead of time if you can, but you may also just show up. Sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds. If you have questions, please email [email protected].
🙏
Myozen Barton Stone discovered Buddhism and poetry during his college years. In 1960, he participated in the first sesshin at Sokoji temple led by Suzuki Roshi. Throughout his life, Barton has embraced goddess religion and cultivated a deep awareness of interspecies life, enriching his spiritual journey and activism. He received Dharma transmission from Jisho Warner Roshi.

07/07/2026

*30th Anniversary Celebration 1996 -2026*
Last Saturday we celebrated Stone Creek's 30 Anniversary in a joyful gathering of Sangha members and friends, both old and new. We enjoyed music, a performance of Taiko drummers, food, speeches, and conversation in our beautiful garden, sharing memories.

Jisho was gifted a new rakusu sewn by the loving hands of over 30 sangha members.

Our deep gratitude to the many sangha members who helped put this event together under the excellent direction of Jude Kreissman.

Thank you for your past and ongoing support of Stone Creek Zen Center. May we continue to nourish one another, our community and the greater world by our commitment to ease the suffering of all beings through the Buddha Way.
🙏

Address

2999 Bowen Street
Graton, CA
95444

Opening Hours

Monday	6:20am - 7:45am
	4pm - 5:10pm
Tuesday	6:20am - 7:45am
Wednesday	6:20am - 7:45am
Thursday	6:20am - 7:45am
	4pm - 5:10pm
Sunday	8am - 11:30am

Website

http://www.stonecreekzen.org/

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