Wake Up Call #373: Priming the Pump of Gratitude
Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 373. Next week is Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Day, and I’ll be taking that week and the following week off.
Today, let’s step away from the paramitas - although not really, since we’re practicing all the time – but today, let’s spend some time with gratitude.
I’ve been thinking about gratitude, practicing gratitude. And there are a few things coming to mind.
One is an inquiry from Brother David Steindl-Rast, who wrote a wonderful little book called, Gratitude, The Heart of Prayer. He has what feels to me like a realistic approach to gratitude. He asks: “Can we be grateful for everything - for war, for violence, for sickness?” And he answers honestly that no, we can’t be grateful for everything. But, he says, we can be grateful “in every moment.”
This is the lesson of mindfulness – the fundamental lesson.
There we are, on our cushion, in our chair, meditating. Or there we are, out in the world, being mindful. And as we pay attention on purpose moment to moment, with courage, with grace, we notice that things are not the way we want them to be.
Maybe we’re not getting what we want. Maybe something’s happening that we really don’t want to have happen. Maybe someone is challenging a point of view we hold close to our hearts, or the world is doing that. Maybe our candidate lost or came too close for comfort. Maybe the systems we’ve taken for granted our whole lives – or not taken for granted – are feeling shaky.
Maybe some part of our identity that we cherish is being challenged. Maybe we’re judging ourselves and finding ourselves to not be the person we wanted to have become by now. Maybe we said or did something we regret, or we feel remorse or regret for something we said or did long ago, or maybe we lost a job or got negative feedback or just feel we could have done better. Maybe we feel unloved.
Maybe we’re unsafe in this moment or we generally feel unsafe in the world.
Maybe we’re unwell, or are no longer able-bodied or never were. Or we’re dying, or we’ve just lost someone or are anticipating that.
There are so many moments in life when we notice things are not the way we want them to be.
Mindfulness invites us to be present in those moments, too, not just for the joyful moments: to turn towards those difficult moments or circumstances or people, with courage and an abundance of self-compassion and love and tenderness. And to see them for what they are: hard times. Impermanent, changing, but still, hard times. Suffering. Being human.
And to also see – remember to look, so we can see – that we’re not alone. Nobody’s circumstances are exactly like ours, for sure, but everyone has hard times.
And in seeing that, to not take things so personally and feel so beleaguered, and alone. And instead, to take solace in the company of strangers, as it were. We aren’t the only ones to lose someone we love, to get ill, to be disparaged or attacked for who we are, to fail. Hard times are just part of the package.
Mindfulness invites us not only to see all of this, and to remember we’re in it together, but to also see how each moment of hard times – and good times, but especially hard times – is a teacher. The invitation to “turn towards” isn’t based on some sadistic notion that turning towards hard times in order to wallow in pain is a good thing, or that we should learn to bear the unbearable.
The invitation to turn towards hard times, hard moments, is about the true fact that there’s always something to learn. When I don’t get what I want and turn towards that moment, I can see anger and resentment and fear – I can actually feel them. And when I do that without judging myself for having them – because we all have them, right? (again, we’re not alone) – and relate to them in a curious, loving, way – then (and pretty much only then) I can see them as teachers: anger, resentment, fear, come to guide me: to what lies beneath, and to the wisest path forward.
So, turning towards, knowing we’re not alone, knowing things will change but still, taking a loving attitude towards whatever is there right then? This leads to insight: the insight that this being human is hard, and is still the best way to wake up – the best way to see, and understand, that as Plato did or didn’t say (there’s some controversy there apparently), “be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle.”
That’s my personal foundation for gratitude. That’s what I understand Brother David to mean when he says: “Can we be grateful for war, for violence, for sickness, for everything? No, not for everything, but in every moment.” Grateful for each moment, no matter what it brings, because at the very least, it’s our teacher. Like the Dalai Lama saying, “be kind whenever possible. It’s always possible,” maybe we could say, “be grateful whenever possible, it’s always possible.” Be grateful for this moment, and this one, even if they don’t bring glad tidings. Be grateful because we’re here to experience it and as my 86-year-old dad always says, it’s better than the alternative.
…
Let’s do a gratitude practice together.
Grateful for the Body & its Senses
· Grateful for ears and whatever measure of hearing you have, to hear - this meditation, birds, music, voices of the people you love
· Grateful for a nose and whatever measure of smell you have – the ability to smell cookies or pies baking, flowers, morning air, sea
· Grateful for a mouth and whatever measure of taste you have – the ability to taste food, give someone a kiss and receive a kiss, speak and make yourself heard, speak kind words to others
· Grateful for eyes and whatever measure of sight you have – to see color, shapes, the face of a friend or a pet, nature, art, skyscrapers, recipes to cook good food, books to help you learn, the sun in the morning
· Grateful for your body and whatever abilities it has, at the very least that it’s alive in this moment and is the embodiment of who you are
· Grateful for your own good and loving heart, that allows you to love yourself, and others, and also to feel sorrow and pain: a heart that knows sorrow as the inevitable consequence of love
· Grateful for whatever measure of health you have, whatever that is right now
Grateful for the People in Our Lives
· Family and friends who are easy to love. Thank them for being in your life.
· People who have made your life easier or just more pleasant - store clerk, truck driver, farmer, cleaner in your office, person who sweeps the streets, person who keeps the servers going so we can be here together on Zoom, person who designs electronics, person who puts them together in a factory, person who made your clothes (maybe you, thank yourself!), person who made your desk, your chair. Possibilities are endless.
· Teachers who have shared something new, something valuable
· Spiritual figures who sustain you
· Ancestors back 1,000 generations, whose DNA runs in your veins
· Elders who are alive now and carry the wisdom of long lives lived
· Difficult people who have taught you something
· Communities that have lifted you up, held you, nourished you, sustained you
· All humans - gratitude for all humans, their love, the difficulties they bring, the lessons it’s possible to learn
Grateful for the Natural World & the Earth
· Animals who walk on the earth
· Fish who swim in the waters
· Birds and insects who fly above the earth and insects who walk on the earth or burrow into it
· Amphibians
· All the small creatures we can’t see
· Trees, plants, flowers
· Water
· Fire
· The earth herself
Grateful for the Teachings & Lessons
· Teachings about how to be present
· Teachings about how to cultivate a loving and compassionate heart
· Teachings on patience and equanimity
· Teachings on courage and grace
· Lessons that have been difficult and lessons that have been easy
Grateful for This Present Moment
· That you’re alive, practicing gratitude
· That you are able to be grateful - grateful to be able to be grateful
Hands in Namaste
When all is said & done,
and we’ve sat with the 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows
so many times that the commentary has run its course,
what can we do but be grateful?
Grateful for the law,
and that our democracy held up one more time.
Grateful for whatever bounty we have.
Grateful for whatever peace we have.
And, grateful for seeing, over and over,
that this being human isn’t easy;
that all difficult things will pass, one way or another,
and that we’re all in this together.
[Play the John Lennon Imagine video at the end of the Paramitas – whenever that is! (It’s bookmarked under Music.)]