Zen Out In San Francisco

Why meditate on a boring old rock when you can purchase little meditation kits, complete with fancy little candles and a CD of ocean sounds?

Meditate while taking this long-pose-intensive class. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to slip into your happy place with a foam brick under your back and your legs straddled up against a wall.

Go to the community gardens here, where city kids till little plots of bonafied soil. If you feel inspired, add your name to the 5 year waiting list to claim a patch of your own!

Go here for the real deal.

I’m a sucker for this place. Somehow it seems justifiable to spend my lunch money on exfoliating walnut scrub, since so much of it is made in-house, and it’s much cheaper than the name brands. Besides, they even let you bring in your old bottle to refill it. How San Franciscan!

The first time I went to the Japanese tea garden, a young and unthreatening student of Buddhist thought sat me down on a rock and tried to convince me into taking a cat tranquilizer, citing that it would make me able to have a lucid conversation with myself. Perhaps this is why I feel this little tea garden is worth the $5 entry fee (particularly on days when there isn’t a visiting tour bus from Air India). ***FREE every first Wednesday of the month.

Your quintessential incense-smelling, toasted rice tea-steaming hippie store. They won’t even get mad if you come in, eat a free rice cracker, meditate in their little shrine room and leave without so much as trying on a pair of yoga pants. That meditation stuff must REALLY work!

They also have a free meditation room here.

Remember that time when your crazy new age godmother bought you an hour in a sensory deprivation tank for graduation, even though all you needed was money for rent or a gift certificate to Ralph’s? But then you tried it, and you weren’t even really that mad at her anymore?

All you can perceive is the sound and feeling of your own heartbeat in these things. Astonishing!

Achieve momentary englightenment as you graze this collection of odd flytraps, bonsais and shrimp ecosystems. Don’t forget to give the store bulldog a little pat on the bean. Warning: May induce buyers’ remorse later on in the day.