Ease in Sitting: Posture Support with Shosan Victoria Austin

Join Shosan Victoria Austin for a supportive zazen posture workshop.

Grounded in more than forty years of practice at San Francisco Zen Center, as both a Zen teacher and longtime Iyengar yoga teacher, Victoria offers a warm, practical approach to finding steadiness and ease in sitting.

Together, participants will explore how posture, structure, and breath can support meditation without strain. Victoria’s teaching draws on her own experience of over-effort in practice and a lifelong inquiry into meeting the body with patience and care.

This workshop will offer accessible ways to work with common challenges in sitting—including discomfort in the knees, back, neck, or a general sense of unease—while honoring each person’s body and conditions.

Rather than aiming for a perfect pose, students are invited to discover a more balanced, sustainable, and alive way to sit zazen.

Shōsan Victoria Austin started practicing Zen in 1971, and is a Dharma heir of Sōjun Mel Weitsman. To help increase the accessibility of Zen practice in the West, she became an Iyengar yoga teacher in 1988. She has served in many roles at San Francisco Zen Center’s urban temples and Tassajara monastery, including President, Head Cook, and Tanto (Head of Practice). Victoria currently teaches meditation and yoga in diverse settings throughout California and serves as an International Teacher (Kokusaifukyōshi) of the Sōtō School.

Next Gen Zen is an affinity group for zen practitioners, meditators in adjacent traditions, and zen-curious newcomers who are in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. We meet at Stone Creek every Monday night from 6-7:30

Each meeting starts with a circle in the zendo and a brief check in with another participant. Then we sit Zazen for twenty minutes, including brief meditation instruction. Afterward we read a short Buddhist writing together and break into small groups to discuss. To close out the evening we have tea and cookies in the Sangha room. The small group format of our discussions allows dharma wisdom to arise collectively from the group, and often the deepest insights arise from an offhand comment over tea.

This weekly meeting provides a safe and consistent space for silent reflection and a chance to discuss the challenges of juggling all the demands of this phase of life with peers. There have been occasional social events as well, the most recent being potluck dinners and a movie night.

The group is open and newcomers are always welcome.

Please reach out to info@stonecreekzen.org with any questions, or to be added to our group email list and Discord channel.

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

Get Tickets

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.

Get tickets or sponsor

Unable to attend but would like to donate?
Make a gift here: DONATE

Ongoing Yoga Classes

Wednesday 9:30 – 11:00am
In Person and Online

Corina Stoicescu teaches classes in the Viniyoga tradition that focuses on meeting the unique condition of the individual. Using breath centric movement and pose adaptations, she helps students find integrity in all the poses. Classes are accommodating to a large variety of people and designed so students learn about their own bodies and minds and how the tools of yoga can serve them.

Every month when possible, she offers a series where students can experience the cumulative effect of going deeper in a particular subject.

Please, purchase a ticket before coming to class.

REGISTER HERE

Corina Stoicescu first started teaching yoga in 2005. After a bicycle accident, she discovered Viniyoga and and used Buddhism to help heal her body and heart. She is certified as both a 300 hour Viniyoga Wellness Instructor and 500 hour Viniyoga teacher. In 2020, she completed 1000 hour Yoga Therapy training and is certified by the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT). Yoga therapy can address specific health and healing needs like preparing for surgery, post surgery care, osteoporosis, digestive issues, Parkinson’s, allergies, trauma, etc. using through the full spectrum of yoga tools. She has been practicing meditation and daily life mindfulness practice since 2002 and uses both the Buddhist and Yogic understanding to inform her perspective.

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