‘The measure of our humanity is our ability to care for people unlike us, who are not in our clique, gang, church, on our team, side, who are not our color or our kin and who are not near to us in spatial distance as well as in affinity.’ (from The Guardian)
I posted this on Instagram the other day, and it became my most popular post (and the tanto said she would use it in her talk this week). I was honoured to meet Rebecca Solnit a few times over the years at Zen Center, and while she represents for me a particular face of what we might now call ‘the old San Francisco’, she also consistently writes in a way that represents the best of humanity.
Shundo David Haye 
While I am sure to be genuinely compassionate to those that I percieve oppose me, I still find myself getting snippy and snooty about it often as well. It is not so much as I dislike the person as I want to say ‘what are you doing’. Still I feel that there must be a way to wake people up about their contribution to oppression without being loud about it. So I keep returning to compassion, trying to evoke Avaloketeshvara Bodhisattva in me and in others realizing that I need go wake up as well. Lord help us.
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