Dear Members and Friends of the Maria Kannon Zen Community,

As we celebrate the beginning of a new year, I would like to invite each of you to join me in renewing our resolve to affirm what is at the heart of our Zen Practice: the cultivation of compassion.

In this connection, I would like to call your attention to a movement addressed to all people of good will, inviting all of us to place compassion at the center of all of our lives. This is called “The Charter of Compassion,” affirmed by a growing numbers of individuals, including leaders and members of the world’s religious traditions, and now gaining momentum globally. The charter opens with the following statement:

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect. (http://charterforcompassion.org)

If you find yourself agreeing with this statement, please open the webpage indicated above, and consider being one of the signatories of this Charter for Compassion, following the instructions given there. It will help also to look at the inspiring testimonies of individuals who have been empowered by acts of compassion, as presented in that webpage.

But more importantly, whether you go on to sign the Charter or not, the question is posed to each of us: can we continue our sitting practice in a way that enables this dynamic power of compassion to take hold of and shed light on every aspect of our lives? Our own community logo, Maria Kannon Zen Center, as you well know, is built upon this very theme and principle. (Please review the essay on “Maria Kannon” in this webpage.)

My hope for this new year is that we, each in our own way, take steps to help one another in reactivating this power of compassion in concrete aspects of our lives, as a community of spiritual practice, and as individuals living in a global society marked by woundedness on so many levels. As we learn to bear one another’s wounds, and at the same time acknowledge our own woundedness, we may awaken that Power in us that we may offer in our own humble way as a balm for the world.

Yours sincerely, with palms joined,

Ruben Habito