
Photo by Sara Tashker
Dear Sangha,
I’ve been aspiring these days to the practice of kindness. Kindness in defiance of cruelty, in refusal of the pull towards cynicism and numbness. Kindness as an expression of awakening, as a celebration of the intimacy and mystery of this being alive together with all beings and things. Kindness as an expression of our innate deep vow; kindness that flows up from the core of our being.
I feel that our historical moment, our Zen practice, and our own hearts are calling us to this: ongoing, deep-rooted and dynamic kindness. A shallow kindness, plastered over a heart that believes it’s separate, will be crushed under the great waves of cruelty and chaos. A stagnant or habitual kindness will be just an idea, a moral instruction floating in our head, and will miss the actual, alive opportunity of each unique, embodied moment.
We need ongoing, deep-rooted, dynamic kindness. Ongoing means it has no gap. Deep-rooted means its source is tended. Dynamic means it is intimate with real situations and contexts, with our actual life right now.
How do we water the deep roots of our kindness? One way is to do as the great bodhisattvas do, in the words of the Heart Sutra, and “practice deeply the perfection of wisdom.” Looking closely at how things actually are, bodhisattvas come to know clearly, to their bones, our utter intimacy with everything. Practicing and realizing zazen mind, they forget everything they think they know, let fall away everything that can fall away—be it eyes, ears, views, language, body, or mind. Forgetting everything, they receive a fresh clear living moment that reveals the boundless oneness of what is. Then their kindness flows as the natural activity of that wisdom, and thus is rooted so deeply that not even the waves of hell can uproot it.
How will we nourish the dynamism of our kindness? I have found it helpful to consider kindness not as a reaction to some object that appears, but as an ongoing posture, established before something appears. This kind of kindness isn’t: “me over here, thing over there, me applying kindness to it.” Rather, this kind of kindness is a posture before there is any separation, a posture that is already intimate. This kindness doesn’t chase to catch up with something—this kindness is the field that the something arises into.
How will we care for this ongoing kindness? We know the lovely slogan of His Holiness the Dalai Lama: “My religion is kindness.” We might think that we too can be like him if we just practice simple kindness. And perhaps it is so—that is part of the power of the slogan. But consider His Holiness himself, and look for a moment at how he tends the bottomless deep roots of his kindness! Each day he spends long hours in meditation and study and ritual. He hasn’t just willed himself into kindness, he has tended the kindness, through consistent, sincere practice over decades. Every day, year after year, decade after decade, when it has felt good and when it hasn’t felt good, he has devoted himself to watering those roots of wisdom and compassion. We can do the same, each in our own way.
Beloved Sangha, let’s tend ever more sincerely to the soil of our wisdom, that it may sprout as real kindness in our lives. Let’s tend ever more completely to our posture of kindness, established firmly even before anything difficult arises. Let’s not dream that we can will ourselves to kindness without organizing our lives to take diligent care of our whole practice of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.
There is much to do in these coming days, weeks, and years of crisis and global upheaval. May we leap to meet it, and to fully express the truth of our life and the truth of the Dharma, with our kindness firmly rooted.
May our sangha be a refuge for the cultivation of kindness, and may each of us, in our own way and in our actual lives, be lamps of this real kindness.
Abbot Jiryu
Green Dragon Temple
2/24/25
To view a Dharma talk by Abbot Jiryu on this subject see “Real Kindness.” on our YouTube page.
0 Comments