Please join me in offering the merits of today’s meditation to the parents, relatives, communities of 215 children some as young as 3 years old whose remains were found last week in an unmarked grave site on the grounds of the Kamloops residential school in British Columbia; 

to the estimated 3200 other Canadian children whose remains are yet to be recovered from unmarked graves at 120 residential schools that operated across canada until 1996;

to the 150,000 indigenous Canadians who were kidnapped from their families and forced to attend these schools;

to 4,000 missing and murdered Indigenous Canadian women whose names we will hold inside our hearts;

to Joyce Echaquan, who died in hospital after filming her own racist abuse by medical staff on Sept 18 2020. 

We acknowledge this land is the Home of all indigenous peoples from whom it was stolen and who continue to suffer systemic abuse and cultural genocide in Canada.  We ask for their forgiveness for not appreciating the depth of their suffering. 

We grieve with them because these are our children also; our daughters, wives, mothers; part of the Canadian family, and the human family.  

Our hearts are broken. We come together with humility, to offer a healing balm of compassion and loving kindness. May they find peace.