Deer Park Monastery Competitors

Located on over 400 acres in beautiful West Marin County just north of San Francisco, Spirit Rock offers a refuge from everyday life where it's truly possible to quiet the mind, soften the heart and see life in a new way. The caring teachers, staff, and volunteers, create a supportive environment for turning inward and letting go of the struggles that get in the way of experiencing the freedom and joy that are inherent in every moment of life. Spirit Rock’s mission is to provide practitioners with teachings to manifest wisdom and compassion in all aspects of their lives, for the benefit of all beings. The vision of spiritual practice includes preserving the depth of traditional wisdom and teachings, while also developing an integrated and openhearted life of engagement in the world. The nonprofit organization was founded to create an enduring dharma retreat, practice, community, and study center rooted in the Buddhist tradition. It offers a range of residential meditation retreats, non-residential programs and dharma training programs for new and experienced students from diverse backgrounds. The teachings of the Buddha (Dharma) and the practices of Insight Meditation (vipassanā) and lovingkindness meditation (mettā) are at the heart of all the programs. A Spirit Rock staff position is a wonderful opportunity to explore work as practice in a kind and considerate environment. In conjunction with the organization’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiative, Spirit Rock honors and celebrates different ideas, voices, perspectives, and backgrounds that help create a robust and innovative multicultural organization. Spirit Rock strives to create a workplace culture that reflects the communities it serves and empowers everyone to bring their full and authentic selves to its teams. All employees have the responsibility to treat fellow employees with the utmost respect and dignity, at all times.

San Francisco Zen Center was established in 1962 by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi (1904-1971) and his American students. Suzuki Roshi is known to countless readers as the author of the modern spiritual classic, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. The purpose of San Francisco Zen Center is to make accessible and embody the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha as expressed in the Soto Zen tradition established by Dogen Zenji in 13th-century Japan and conveyed to us by Suzuki Roshi and other Buddhist teachers. Our practice flows from the insight that all beings are Buddha, and that sitting in meditation is itself the realization of Buddha nature, or enlightenment. Today, San Francisco Zen Center is one of the largest Buddhist sanghas outside Asia. It has three practice places: City Center, in the vibrant heart of San Francisco; Green Gulch Farm, whose organic fields meet the ocean in Marin County; and Tassajara Zen Mountain Center—the first Zen training monastery in the West—in the Ventana Wilderness inland from Big Sur. These three complementary practice centers offer daily meditation, regular monastic retreats and practice periods, classes, lectures, and workshops. Zen Center is a practice place for a diverse population of students, visitors, lay people, priests, and monks guided by teachers who follow in Suzuki Roshi's style of warm hand and heart to warm hand and heart. All are welcome. Zen Center programs also reach out to the community, helping prisoners, the homeless, and those in recovery; protecting the environment; and working for peace. See our outreach program for details. Suzuki Roshi's disciples and students of his disciples now lead dharma groups around the country.

Founded in 2003, the Garrison Institute is a not-for-profit, non-sectarian organization exploring the intersection of contemplation and engaged action in the world. The mission is to apply the transformative power of contemplation to today's pressing social and environmental concerns, helping build a more compassionate, resilient future. We seek to create conditions for positive, systemic social and environmental change through a collaborative endeavor of science and spirituality.