Green Gulch Zen Center

Photographs in this collection have been produced by Alison Lowrie, Heather Do, Liz Dolinar, and Adriana Haro at request of Michael Ashley for the UC Berkeley Anthropology 136e class, Spring 2011. The purpose was to digitally document the cultural heritage of Green Gulch Zen Center with the objective of gaining better insight into the Zen Center’s cultural history through the use of photographic technology.

Green Gulch Farm Zen Center (Latitude 37.86657, Longitude -122.56528), also referred to as the Green Dragon Temple, is located in Marin County, CA in a beautiful coastal valley overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Green Gulch, approximately a 10 mile drive north of San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge, is located on 115 acres surrounded by hundreds of acres of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Green Gulch is a cultural heritage site constituting of one of the three centers that form the San Francisco Zen Center founded by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi [1]. In 1972, Green Gulch was purchased from George Wheelwright, co-founder of Polaroid, as a part of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi’s vision to obtain a farm near the San Francisco Bay area where a community of Zen Buddhist practitioners could communally live and practice in accompany of one another [2] [3]. Part of the Wheelwright’s stipulation of the sale to the San Francisco Zen Center was that the farm must forever remain open to the public, as well as partake in agricultural awareness [4]. Green Gulch now serves as a Buddhist practice center in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition, were their endeavor is to awaken the people residing, working, and visiting the center in the bodhisattva spirit-the spirit of kindness and realistic helpfulness [1]. Green Gulch is compromised of a temple (the Zendo), organic farm and garden, guesthouse, and conference center. The center offers training and practice in Zen mediation through workshops and retreats, as well as apprenticeships emphasizing meditation practice, Buddhist teachings, and organic g