Berkeley Zen Center

Berkeley Zen Center is a Soto Zen Buddhist community, offering a practice whose center is daily zazen or meditation. It was founded as a lay practice center in 1967 by Sojun Mel Weitsman, with the support of his teacher Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, author of Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind. For more than fifty years BZC has maintained a full program of meditation, sesshin or retreat, study, work practice, and meetings with its teachers. 

Zazen, sitting in stillness, is the center of our practice, following and adapting the traditions of Soto Zen Buddhism. At BZC our everyday activity, as it extends from zazen, is the field where practice finds its full expression.

The books available at this site comprise a core collection of Zen and basic Buddhist texts and commentaries by respected ancestors and elders, along with contemporary works by BZC community members. For your convenience, you can purchase the books here, and a portion of the sales goes to benefit BZC. For information about BZC see our website: https://berkeleyzencenter.org