The Power of Storytelling in Troubling Times
A Conversation with Dharma Teachers
Paula Arai and Sokaku Kathie Fischer
A Benefit for Stone Creek Zen Center
Sunday, November 8, 2026 | 3:00 – 7:00 PM
Glaser Center | 547 Mendocino Avenue, Santa Rosa, CA
3:00-4:00: Doors open for tea and cookies, Stone Creek store, silent auction, and conversation.
4:00-6:00: Main Event
6:00-7:00: Mingling, book signing, Stone Creek store, closing of silent auction.
Paula Arai
(Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies, Harvard University) holds the Eshinni & Kakushinni Professor of Women and Buddhist Studies chair at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, California. She is author of Women Living Zen; Bringing Zen Home; Painting Enlightenment; The Little Book of Zen Healing; and Of Mud & Lotuses: Dreaming the Lives of Buddhist Women. She also co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice. Under the tutelage of Aoyama Shundō Rōshi, she did Zen training at the Aichi Senmon Nisōdō nunnery in Nagoya, Japan. Steeped in ethnographic research, she takes an embodied approach to her work and finds poetic immersive storytelling a potent medium for conveying the experiences of transformative healing she researches. An active public speaker, Arai also leads workshops on healing rituals. Website: Zenhealing.org
Sokaku Kathie Fischer
began practicing Zen in 1971 with Sojun Mel Weitsman at the Berkeley Zen Center. She was ordained a Zen priest at San Francisco Zen Center in 1980 by Zentatsu Richard Baker, and continued residential practice at Zen Center for 15 more years. Kathie also studied and practiced with Maurine Stuart MyoOn Roshi. She received Dharma transmission from Sojun Weitsman in 2011 while in the midst of her 28-year career as a school teacher in Mill Valley. Since retiring from teaching science to adolescents she has turned her attention to studying and teaching Dharma. Kathie and her husband Norman are parents of adult twin sons and grandparents of three children.
Sponsorship Opportunities
We invite both businesses and individuals to partner with Stone Creek Zen Center in bringing this special event to life. Your sponsorship directly supports our mission of cultivating mindfulness, community, and compassion—while offering meaningful visibility and recognition among our sangha and wider community. All sponsors will receive 2 tickets to the event, be recognized on our website, in our newsletter, on our printed program and at the event.
To learn more, discuss how your support can make an impact, or pay via check, please contact admin@stonecreekzen.org
Your contribution at any level supports Stone Creek Zen Center to continue to be resource for clarity and compassion and a refuge of peace for people in Sonoma County and beyond.
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