True compassion does not come from wanting
To help out those less fortunate than ourselves,
But from realizing our kinship with all beings
Pema Chodron
My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness
The 14th Dalai Lama
Hello TTS members and Friends,
This is the end-of-the-year letter asking for your continuing support of Three Treasures Sangha. Every year it seems I point out that we all appear to be riding in a hand-basket heading you know where. This year this journey feels to be picking up speed with more vitriol, incivility, meanness, sorrow, and suffering worldwide. I struggle with how to get beyond the anger, apathy, and cynicism that seems to arise and what I can do to not take sides, reduce harm, and show respect to all I engage with. I am finding that being open to both receiving and conveying kindness is both the practice itself as well as the fruit of our practice. We can lean into our practice, experience our deep communion with all, and act accordingly.
Zazen has been shown empirically to be a way we can forget ourselves and let go of our conditioned concepts, ideas, and categories, and directly experience our kinship and intimacy with all beings. Acts of kindness are the actualization of that realization. The mountains, rivers, trees, clouds, and stones all touch us with a kindness that imbues us with a deep sense of belonging and empowers us to pay this kindness forward.
The words kinship and kindness come from the same root word meaning “family”. When we act with kindness, we treat all beings with the care we have for our own family. Kindness comes forth with ease when we completely realize that there are no “others”. Kanzeon shows the way—she who with multiple arms, hands, and eyes perceives the sounds and cries of the world, does not ignore the suffering, and responds appropriately. This is true compassion. Denying the experience of intimacy has dire consequences, as we know from the past and are witness to in current events. Aitken Roshi pointed this out in a talk given on his 90th birthday:
The denial of compassion and the exclusion of others are often
Quite benign and productive, but ultimately and inevitably it leads
To war, mass imprisonment, torture and murder.
The mission of TTS is to provide a sitting space, spiritual guidance, and companionship along the way as we seek to understand who we are at the core and to realize our kinship with all beings. To this end we continue to provide daily, weekly, and monthly opportunities for zen practice. This year we sponsored both a residential retreat and an in-city retreat. We have started a book club and continue with on-going discussion groups. Most of these activities are offered both in-person and via Zoom. We are planning another residential sesshin with Lee Shields and Jack Duffy as teachers in March 2026. Check out our website for more information on any of these events. I am asking for your support once again so that we can keep sangha dues low, provide scholarships for sesshin, help maintain our in-city center, Dharma Gate, and provide cost-of-living increases for our teachers.
On the backside of this letter is a poem on kindness by Naomi Shahab Nye from which come these three concluding lines.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. . ..
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
Thank you! Do Good, Avoid Evil, Save All Beings
–Larry for the TTS Board
Send donations to TTS, PO Box 12542, Seattle, WA, 98111, or through PayPal on our website.
Kindness
Naomi Shihab NyeBefore you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.