Maitri changes upset co-founder
When Issan Dorsey and I founded Maitri Home and Hospice for People with AIDS over 30 years ago, it was our clear intention to create a place for Buddhist practitioners and others to die in a home-like and caring environment connected to Hartford Street Zen Center ["Maitri shifts as face of AIDS changes," December 26]. Maitri is Sanskrit for loving-kindness. Each resident had their own room, surrounded by their possessions and cared for by Buddhists who meditated at the Zen center. The hospice was an extension of our spiritual practice, not just another AIDS nonprofit. As time passed the Maitri board of directors and staff has made one inauthentic decision after another based on careers, size of income, and budgets, not wisdom and compassion. And so the organization is what it is now. It does not need to continue. It is time to close the chapter on this AIDS-related hospice. Please move on.
Daishin Sunseri, Zen priest
San Francisco