Green Gulch Farm Zen Center

For an establishment that practices zen, the ego is off putting. Horrible yoga retreat experience. I much appreciated the intention of the community, the culture, the location, the lifestyle, the seshens and the facilities but the attitude of the retreat’s yoga instructor, Patricia, was very ‘unzen’ and overlooked all those highlights. She was very reactionary and biased… lacked zen etiquette and created an uncomfortable environment to communicate. Her knowledge and experience of yoga was very helpful and applicable but her judgement, communication and ego made the learning process miserable. Like myself, any student or retreat goer who is uncomfortable in a situation it’s not always going to be on their A game and the discomfort with the instructor was apparent. And like myself, any student who is eager to learn and find zen in a ‘zen’ community, should have access to an instructor who is approachable and practices zen, herself. Having an instructor who is unapproachable or has an ego which permits them to communicate their own biases and judgements, has taught me a lot about zen. Her reactions and actions to all of the individuals in the retreat varied from rude to cynical to sarcastic to nice, all depending on the person. From the yoga retreat experience, I’ve learned zen by experiencing what it isn’t. The one star goes to the yoga retreat instructor. 5 stars to reminding me why I should stop wasting my money on retreats. If it weren’t for the yoga retreat experience, I would have given Green Gulch a review score of 4.

8 days as a guest student in late Aug-​early Sept 2015. This is what I learned:
1. I can work in a commercial kitchen and not maim myself: after leaving GG, I began COOKING & BAKING for the first time in my life — to my surprise, preparing food (gf, mostly vegan, no dairy, low salt, no processed sugar) is actually a meditative/​relaxing experience and for this, I thank the kitchen manager (Miyoyo) who sat down with me during dinner one night and told me his story of how he came to be at GG and also praised my efforts, which gave me the self-​confidence to start cooking on my own. Loved how organized the kitchen was and strict clean up protocol as well as safety protocol, when choosing a knife, hold blade edge towards you and say loudly, «Knife, Knife» several times and make sure people know you are holding a sharp object when crossing from one end of kitchen to the other. When working the juicer or other machine with a loud noise, say «Noise» loudly to alert people working next to you so they won’t be startled when you turn machine on. The regular kitchen workers warmed up to me after I worked there for two days and I appreciated how focused and tight knit they seemed to be. Note: you can store food in the student fridge. Don’t store food or eat in dorm room (attract ants).
2. Pancakes (gf + vegan) — BEST I ever ate. (got recipe, made it at home and substituted honey for sugar and my omnivore partner liked them too). REALLY appreciated Exec Chef Anna who provided a no garlic/​onion or gf/​vegan or no dairy option at most meals. Also many thanks to the head baker Mick who allowed me access to his sample of gf/​vegan bread (too expensive to serve to residents; bakes it to sell at the farmer’s market).
3. Bread — BEST I ever ate. I accidentally ate one slice thinking it was gf. It wasn’t, but it was heavenly. Wednesday is «rolls» day. Fresh bread is served on some days. I thought the bread at the Land of the Medicine Buddha was terrific — this is even better — with more variety.
4. Bartlett pears — BEST I ever ate. From GG’s fruit trees. Everything on the farm is grown organically. They even stable horses to use their manure. The horses, by the way, are very friendly and will go right up to you (expecting treats).
5. Soups — BEST ever. Had multiple bowls of soup at lunch.
6. Dining Room — always open for tea/​coffee/​snacks. You will not see a more impressive tea/​coffee bar in any establishment — the variety of honey, sugar, molasses, liquids available to add to tea/​coffee are impressive. There is a snack bar to one side with a countertop of fruit and/​or fresh bread. Brown Rice Cakes available (gf/​vegan) — oddly, I never ate rice cakes during my stay but 3 weeks afterwards, I tried one and now I eat them. The first 10 min of each meal are silent (until you hear a «clack!» sound of wood on wood) and if you make it to meals on time, there is an opening ceremony that involves saying a prayer and bowing. There is a Silent Table in the front for people who do not wish to talk (I sat here twice, it felt fine, not weird– other people also sitting and not speaking). The dining room is ALWAYS open and there are many plastic containers (mostly large yogurt containers — residents consume copious amounts of yogurt) for you to scoop food from buffet table (always buffet style, put hands together, bow in gratitude, pick up a plate, and scoop food as you move along from one end to the other; exit through kitchen door to get gf/​vegan/​non-​dairy/​no garlic options).
7. Walking/​Yoga/​Pilates/​Core exercises does not prepare you for 7+ hours of manual labor each day (and I was able to work in kitchen/​office/​bookstore instead of garden or fields due to my allergies). I thought I was in «shape» until I stayed here. Nope. My roommie (the amazing and lovely M.S.) had done significant time in resto’s and SHE lifted heavy dishes, racks, boxes, etc. like a pro. I was so tired each day, I would be in bed by 7p and asleep by 8p. Slept 3x longer than I do at home. My duties consisted of the following: 1. AM Soji — 15 min cleaning temple (sweeping floors, cleaning bathrooms) after AM meditation/​ceremony, 2. AM staff meeting at the picnic table/​formerly pool area, 3. AM guest student ceremony in dining room (we bow in before doing the bfast dishes — I liked this tradition, someone reads a page from Suzuki Rushi’s Zen Mind, Beginner Mind, lights incense, we bow to the Buddha 3x then bow to each other, then put on work aprons). 4. breakfast dishes 5. lunch dishes 6. commercial kitchen or bookstore or office.
8. You can manage people by showing kindness and consideration. Stephen, guest student manager, was terrific.
9. You don’t need a phone to tell you time. Life is governed by bells or «knocks» (wood on wood) or «clacks» at the Zen Center.
10. If your sleeping bag is rated for 42 °F — get one rated for 25F– mine wasn’t warm enough. Froze each night.
11. Gloves r awesome — brought heavy duty non latex gloves for wet work, gloves for dry work.

Green Gulch Farm is part of the San Francisco Zen Center, the founding teacher is Suzuki Roshi, author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s MInd. Men and women can be priests. Priests can marry and have families.
I came here for a two week guest student stay mid to late February. I drove here from Southern California. I drove across the San Francisco Bridge for the first time, it took about two hours to go from San Francisco into Marin County because of heavy traffic, but it was worth it.
At Green Gulch Farm, I shared a room with two roommates inside Cloud Hall. The meditation room is part of Cloud Hall. Each morning and evening we have sitting meditation. In the morning, there is 45 minutes of sitting, 10 minutes of walking, and another 45 minutes of sitting meditation. After the morning sit, we do soji, or cleaning for about 15 minutes. This is cleaning the bath/​shower rooms, meditation hall, and around Cloud Hall. We all wear black, or other neutral toned down colors, and some wear robes during sitting meditation and ceremonies. But then everyone wears usual clothing, otherwise.
There is an organic farm and garden. The food is vegetarian but very satisfying. On the free day, Wednesday, the kitchen makes light and fluffy buttermilk pancakes which are so good! We were lucky to have fresh baked bread almost everyday.
There are a lot of nice hiking trails. There were golden poppies in bloom. It is about a 20 minute hike to the beach. The creek has been recently restored and there have been endangered species, salmon, sightings.
There are a lot of different types of stays here. There are Guests, who are kind of like on vacation and do not have to do any manual work while at GGF, Guest/​Practice Stay, who do some manual work, Guest Student, like me, who do a lot of monastery maintenance and cleaning, and Retreatants/​Conference Attendees– there was a Google Retreat, A Children’s Authors’ and Yoga Retreat during my stay.
On Sunday, Green Gulch Farm is open to the public. There is a dharma talk, tea and muffins/​bread/​flowers for sale, and lunch ($ 15 donation).
Bonus: There is an Alan Watts Memorial here!

Stayed in the guest house while on retreat. Beautiful grounds. Friendly people. Great food. Muir Beach is an easy 20 minute hike away. This is a great place in which to come back home to yourself.

When you hike from Tennessee valley over to Muir beach you pass thru the Green gulch Farm Zen Center. If you have ever been to the farmers market on Saturdays at the Ferry plaza you will know Green Gulch. Green gulch sells their flowers, vegetables, and greens at the ferry plaza.
What is really cool is you can hike thru their fields of Kale, lettuces, swiss chard, and wild flowers. Most people take for granted what they eat or are somewhat disassociated from the process… Like Me!!. Well here you can see your next meal growing!!!
If you want you can stay in the two cabins (more like buckminster fuller geodisic dome) you can do that and check out the zen part of this place.
This is part of the Tassajara group.
Very nice place.

Seems strange to «review» a religious center, but this is one of the most beautiful, peaceful and grounding places I’ve been in the Bay Area — which is really saying something, given that we live in a part of the world that is so stunning.
Green Gulch Farm Zen Center serves multiple purposes: it is a place of training for Buddhists seeking a safe place to do so; it is a place where the larger community can come to learn, meditate, and appreciate; and it is a functioning farm. They offer classes, lectures, workshops, & meditation retreats, and you can book a room here for 1 night or longer (class schedule here:
). There’s a public program on Sundays that includes a meditation period, lecture, tea and lunch. Seems like people on Unilocal review the food more than anything else, which is odd; but it comes largely from the farm, consists of soup, salad, and bread, & costs $ 10 – 15. The Sunday lectures, also known as Dharma Talks, feature a wide range of Zen practitioners and vary in subject matter (Sunday schedule here:
). They are donation-​based. Apparently there will not be any public lunches in the coming months, as they are in the process of construction.
GGF is situated in a valley next to Muir Beach, and it is simply stunning. There are a number of trails that weave through the Zen Center and its grounds if you want to go hiking. On site, the gardens are a beautiful place to sit and relax, go for a meditative walk, and watch the hawks wheel overhead. Great place to study and learn, or just to readjust your head.

(Sunday meditation introduction)
Four stars for location, produce, muffins, and kindness. Minus one star for weirdness.
This is a very particular type of meditation (Soto Zen) and for those who are coming for the meditation and not just the tea time, be aware that the ritualism could be distracting. I meditate daily and just assumed that a zen temple would be bare bones and simple, but I found all the gongs, bowing, and posture rules to be distracting. I realize I’m in the minority but I just wanted to put it out there for folks like me who are church-​phobic don’t like a lot of sauce with their fries.
One thing that *was* bare bones was the lack of heat. It’s very cold in the mornings, so be prepared. I noticed a lot of the veterans brought blankets. Also there seems to be a serious lack of signage, but maybe this is on purpose (just get there early and follow people your first time, it’s a long-​ish walk from parking to the zendo).
Still, it’s a beautiful location with great trails. The option to buy fresh farm veggies afterwards was also a nice treat.

How about the specialness of this location, eh? In a gulch that leads to the beach in Marin with little to no vehicle traffic to disturb the focus. It’s lovely, albeit not as magical as Tassajarra it surely is more accessible. My favorite moments here are nearly all auditory — think clacking wood and bellowing metal riding through the gulch while you reflect on the nature of emptiness.

If you stay overnight in one of their rooms, you should know that they wake you up with a drum when it’s still dark in the early morning. It’s a call to meditation that we weren’t part of. They failed to tell us that when we rented the room. And it’s a drum the goes, then stops then goes, so if you make it back to sleep, you’ll get woken up again. Besides that, the place was great, but I needed a rejuvenative sleep. This was awhile back.

Awesome and very unique place. Just remember that people live here and it’s their home — so be respectful. Great programs for the public. I also recommend taking a walk through the farm area to the beach — it’s beautiful!

My job hosted our staff retreat here recently, I never knew this place existed! Secluded and peaceful, it was the perfect place to host a day of ‘self care’ for me and my colleagues.
The room we had for the day had large windows allowing nature to spill into the room and a wonderful wood burning stove kept us warm and toasty all day (the sun came out by lunch time). Lunch was provided by the center – vegetarian soup, salads and fresh bread. Towards the end of the day we took advantage of the location and walked through the grounds (they have the most beautiful gardens) and over to Muir beach.
By the end of the visit most of us felt recharged, connected to each other and believe it or not, our work.

This is a wonderful place to go to on a Sunday. The people who live there are awesome.
Blessings to all.

The perfect Sunday
An early morning hike on the grounds, followed by darma talk, lunch and a take home loaf of fresh bread… Ahhh!

My friend took me here and I’m glad she did. The drive is a bit out of the way from the city so I’m thankful I had a ride. The temple lies in a gulch at the foot of Mt. Tamalpais and a short hike away from Stinson Beach. The property is huge, filled with fresh farm veggies, fruits, horses, hiking trails, and Stinson Beach at the end of your trail.
I came for the Sunday meditation. Unfortunately, I was so overwhelmed by all the beautiful and natural things that it was hard for me sit still and meditate for 40 minutes. Next time, I know what to expect and hopefully I will be successful. After meditation, there was a Dharma talk which is very interesting with different speakers each week. That is followed by tea and socializing in the garden.
This place is thee place to go if you want to quiet your mind from the city noise and lights. It didn’t feel like I was in California when I arrived. Everyone was so peaceful and serene. I can’t wait to go again.

Serene and placid, a place to center yourself.
It’s all about returning back to the simplicity of things which are so moving. I love to smell clean air, admire the greenery, marvel at the gardens, walk the trail to the beach.
This was my second time at the Green Gulch Zen Farm. I went on a day-​long yoga retreat led by *amazing Deb Burkman* (check my old review). I’ve yet to take advantage of the Sunday meditation classes, but I sincerely look forward to returning regularly. Their vegetarian lunch is simple and hearty, and they even have a quaint and lovely library.
The center is a gem, and even if you’re not into yoga /​meditation /​spirituality, it’s worth taking a day to make the trip. Only 35 minutes away so how can you miss?! *You might just see things from a different perspective :) *
Last piece of advice: The drive into Stinson beach area is pretty curvy, so be CAREFUL!
Green Gulch Zen Center is a TREASURE for which I’m grateful to have nearby.

I heartily recommend Green Gulch — and especially the Sunday morning sessions — to anyone looking for a special Bay Area experience.
The fragrant Eucalyptus tree-​lined driveway welcomes you at the turn-​off from Hwy 1. It leads you down into the gulch, where you’ll find simple, solid, quaint structures that might remind you of the Smurfs’ village.
Take a walk through the gorgeous vegetable garden. Read, meditate, or just hang out on one of the garden benches. Or follow the path a mile out the back gate, past the horses, and all the way to the beach.
Come back in time for the 9:15am «sitting» in the rustic meditation hall. There are zafus and zabutons for your comfort. When the bell rings, take a short break and then come back for the dharma talk. The speakers rotate, and while they all have different styles they are all down-​to-​earth and they are often humorous. When the dharma talk is over, join the small crowd outside for fresh muffins and tea!

Green Gulch is a bay-​area treasure.
Actually, it’s more like a national treasure.
The best day to visit is Sunday, for the meditation, talk, tea, veggies/​bread for sale, and lunch ($ 8 – 10 donation). The best way to visit is to come stay for a few days, maybe do a program.
Info about Sunday’s program is here:
Or, their website homepage:

My cousin invited me to this place, and I am completely amazed by the beauty of this place. If you live in the city and need a quick relaxing getaway, this is it. It’s so nice just walking around the gardens, the farm, and the beach. You can meditate just about anywhere here. You don’t even have to be in meditation pose, and you will still feel a natural high. I definitely want to come back in the spring, and just lay in some of the grass areas. I absolutely love this place.

In the Zen Center parlance, a bow to my worthy fellow reviewers, who’ve done a great job describing the charms of this place. I’m finishing up a two-​night retreat here and I’m just about certain I’ll be back.
The place is gorgeous, tranquil and surprisingly easy to navigate after a day or so of getting acclimated. Everything is clean and well maintained, though I’ve made the odd discovery that not all outlets work. Well, they don’t all work at my place either.
I came in time to catch the Sunday Program, which at a $ 5 suggested donation (I think) is a bargain. You get meditation instruction, actual meditation time, a dharma talk, tea session, and question-​and-​answer period before lunch.
Speaking of food, it’s just really terrific here. Everything’s veggie, organic, thoughtfully made, satisfying. I had one lunch that was only middling, but that’s in comparison to the rest, so they’ve really set the bar high for themselves.
Green Gulch has several levels of guest: Student, Guest Practice Retreatant, and Guest. I chose the Guest stay because, at $ 85 per night, it was a great bargain for getting a lot of writing work done and also being able to participate in the community without structure or obligations.
I love the trails here. As mentioned by others, Muir Beach is only 20 – 25 minutes away. Pair that with Pirates Cove or another trail and there’s no need to leave the Zen Center to go to the gym. Why would you want to, anyway?
A few things that you may or may not find helpful: Mealtimes are communal and there’s a silent table, which is nice if you’re like me and don’t like to make small talk while I eat. However, it does get a little loud since everyone’s in there at the same time.
Also, there’s wifi, which is great. However, it only works in the Wheelwright Center and Library areas, so if you’re staying in the Guest House, as most people do, you won’t be able to access it from your room.
One thing I didn’t know until I got there: None of the rooms have locks, so if you’re planning to bring valuables, you might want to bring something to tie them down (such as a computer lock for your laptop) if that gives you peace of mind. I felt very secure, but you do never know who’s around, unfortunately. Seeking spirituality doesn’t necessarily mean you ain’t got a case of kleptomania.
One last small thing: I’d booked two nights in the Wheelwright Center. The first was great — private bathroom and everything, though I hadn’t realized it was $ 15 extra — but they’d mucked up my reservation and I wound up switching rooms halfway through my stay. It’s not that big a deal, but I guess I’m not yet Zen enough to not be at all irritated. However, by my big five-​star review, I guess you can tell I wasn’t irritated enough not to return to this gorgeous place.

Life getting you down?? If you need to get in touch with your inner self seek out some kind of non judgemental spiritual retreat? You should visit Green Gulch. I’m not a practicing buddhist but I can appreciate this place as a sanctuary for urban survival. Last fall, I volunteered there fof five days and it was incredible. I met anamazing community of folks who practice Buddhism. I usually visit on Sundays, Sunday at Green Gulch when they offer a public program, which includes zazen instruction, a lecture, tea, and a public lunch ($ 8).