About
Rev. Tova Green is a Zen practitioner and teacher in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. She was ordained in 2003 by Eijun Linda Cutts and received Dharma Transmission in 2015. Green is a resident of San Francisco Zen Center, where she serves as a practice leader and Development Director. She co-founded and leads the Queer Dharma group at SFZC. She has worked as a hospice social worker, sitting with people who are dying and their families.
Teaching focus
Rev. Tova Green's teaching focus, drawn from the source profile, sits in the Zen and Mahayana traditions. Several threads come up: dharma applied to social and collective suffering; dharma for LGBTQ practitioners;. On talks, the style is closer to thinking-along than presenting. Rev. Tova Green works with whatever shows up in the room rather than reading from notes, which is part of why these talks land as conversational instead of scripted. Short pauses, longer sits, and questions that come back to direct experience are usual. Listed specialties on the source profile include LGBTQ+, grief. The bigger move Rev. Tova Green keeps making is back toward attention itself: what's happening, how it's being held, and what gets in the way. That keeps the teaching close to practice rather than drifting into commentary about practice. For talks, schedules, and longer essays, the affiliated organization's page is where the live material lives. Rev. Tova Green's sessions tend to keep returning to the body, to breath, and to the felt quality of attention as the steady ground that the rest rests on. Rev. Tova Green's sessions tend to keep returning to the body, to breath, and to the felt quality of attention as the steady ground that the rest rests on.
Background
Rev. Tova Green teaches in the Zen and Mahayana traditions. The teaching home is East Bay Meditation Center. From the teacher's own profile: Rev. Jisan Tova Green is a resident of San Francisco Zen Center, where she is a practice leader and works as SFZC's Development Director. She was ordained in 2003 by Eijun Linda Cutts in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and received Dharma Transmission in 2015. Tova co-founded and leads the Queer Dharma group at SFZC. She has sat with people who are dying and their families and friends as a hospice social worker. In a Zen container, what Rev. Tova Green offers is steady, mostly silent practice with short pointed teachings. The form is the teaching as much as the words are. Sitting, walking, work practice, and the relationship with a teacher all carry weight. Rev. Tova Green's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Rev. Tova Green's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Rev. Tova Green's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Rev. Tova Green's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Rev. Tova Green's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Rev. Tova Green's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Rev. Tova Green's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography. Rev. Tova Green's page on OMP collects the publicly available bio, the listed affiliations, and any talks tracked through the source archive, and is meant as a directory entry rather than an authorized biography.
Lineage
Rev. Tova Green teaches as a monastic teacher in the Zen and Mahayana traditions. The institutional home, per the source listing, is East Bay Meditation Center, and that's where most of the public teaching schedule and any retreat offerings will be posted. The Zen lineage frame here, where stated, is what authorizes a teacher to lead practice, and the source page usually names the dharma teacher or root teacher when relevant.
What to expect
On a class or retreat with Rev. Tova Green, the basic shape is short instruction, longer sittings, and some Q&A. The container is shaped by East Bay Meditation Center, so format details, fees, and access policies follow that organization's norms. Expect plenty of silence, less talking-at-you than you might think, and an emphasis on letting the practice do its work rather than chasing experiences. For exact dates, registration, and any sliding-scale or scholarship information, There's usually a short Q&A window and, on retreats, optional teacher interviews where students can bring specific questions about their practice.
