In Gratitude

Giving Thanks - a beautiful practice.  A practice that can bring us closer to the abundance in our life, closer to our loved ones, closer to our true selves.  I have tried in the past to practice giving thanks everyday.  Even Rishi and I have taken the time to express gratitude each day to each other, though, as busy as life gets, it tapers off and isn't done as often.  I think that we should take more than just one day out of the year to stop and express our deep gratitude for what we have in our lives and those loved ones we have to share it with.

At the same time, though there is much that I am grateful for, I struggle deeply with the holiday that is before us - Thanksgiving!  I love gatherings of people that I love and even more so when there is great food involved.  But just as I believe that we must look deeply at our own personal pain and suffering, I believe the same is needed to look deeply at the pain and suffering that exists in the history of this country.  Over the past decade and a half, as I've learned the stories that make up the beginning of this nation, stories of it's formation that are the foundation of all the systems, processes and deeply held attitudes and beliefs, I see tragedy, betrayal, lies, deep suffering and much much more.  We must acknowledge that this holiday, even though it presently embodies family togetherness, deep gratitude, warm connections and sharing and love, and wonderful food, it is based on a dark, greed filled tragedy and masacre of the native people who were living here when the founders of this country arrived.  If we do not embrace the true nature of this holiday, we cannot embrace ourselves wholly.  I will link to a few other blogs and articles that explain in much more detail, not for the faint of heart, so that we can face and embrace the truth that lies beneath the sugar coated holiday we all know about.

I do NOT mean that we cannot enjoy being with our loved ones, enjoy delicious food (in mindful moderation!) and create fabulous memories on Thanksgiving.  BUT, I think a great practice, even if it's just our own personal practice is to take a few moments of silence or in meditation, giving deep thanks to the millions of souls that lost their lives tragically as part of the formation of this country.  I also plan on expressing hope for the souls in the present day who are currently forming this country into what it will become to find deep mindfulness.  Ultimately, I think having conversations with our families and others about the true history of Thanksgiving will lead to a transformation of consciousness that could ultimately lead to a transformation in how we honor our past.

I am grateful for everyone who takes the time to read this blog!  For my amazing husband and daughter!  My parents and sisters.  The family that I gained through my wonderful marriage!  My extended family!  I have so much gratitude for our house, my husbands employment, the food on our table and the love in our hearts!  I give thanks for the universe and all the gifts I have received!

Breathe.  Remember.  Embrace.  Love.  Give Thanks!

In Gratitude, to the native people of this land who lost their lives, their land and part of their heritage and spirit as it was stolen.  In Gratitude to the African slaves torn from their homeland forced to work to build this country from the ground up.

This is one of the best articles I found that express and explain what I am referring to in this post:  http://www.serendipity.li/hr/cohen.htm

You could also check out Howard Zen's A People's History of the United States.

The image for this post is from Michelle Meiklejohn's profile on Free Digital Photos.

On Suffering - Cultivating Our Inner Garden

It often seems so easy to focus on our suffering, our anger, our hurt feelings, our sadness, our frustrations, etc. And in my reading of Thich Nhat Hanh's books and attending his retreats I have heard him speak on the importance of acknowledging our suffering and looking deeply at it, it's origins and how it manifests in our mind, body and behaviors. As I mentioned in a previous post, Thay suggests that it's good to cradle our suffering as we would a sad or hurt child, offer it our love and a warm smile so that it can be heard and understood. Then I like to imagine symbolically giving my suffering what it needs to be release from within me. This may be thinking of an image or lighting a candle or writing a simple message and then burning the paper so the request can be released into the universe. In this way, we can learn to let go of our attachment to our suffering. Of course, for severe depression, I think these techniques can support formal counseling but shouldn't be used in the place of professional counseling.

If we ignore our suffering, then it can grow and feed on our lack of looking deeply and take the "control" seat in our minds and it can influence our behaviors, thoughts, perceptions, attitudes and words. Then we can start to feel as if we are, at our core, our suffering, we are anger, we are sadness, we are jealousy. That is is who we intrinsically are as a being. But we are not our suffering. We may have feelings related to our suffering but they are impermanent feelings - even if they seem like they are around us all the time, if we look deeply, they come and go. We can laugh and smile and feel moments of happiness even during sad times. My father-in-law passed away recently and during the days following his death, there were moments my husband and I would catch ourselves laughing about something and for those moments we were outside of the suffering that we felt from our loss and in a moment of joy.

Thay has a quote, "The seed of suffering in you may be great but don't wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy." For me, this reiterates the idea that suffering is impermanent, coming and going and that in between those moments of suffering, whatever the type of suffering we may have, are moments of true joy that we often don't notice. If we look deeply enough at the causes of our suffering, we can see that they lie more in our perceptions and beliefs about how we think things "should" be as opposed to seeing things for how they truly are. There may be days when we feel terrible and our normal reaction may be to call someone and wallow in our suffering or to go out and maybe make others feel our suffering too or to just distract ourselves from our suffering so that we can try to ignore it but Thay suggests that this is the perfect time to stay in, look deeply within ourselves to understand the nature of our suffering, where it has come from and what it needs so that we can calm the energy of our suffering and begin to allow those moments of "non-suffering" to stay with us in a more true and everlasting way.

Thay talks about these seeds that are in our "store consciousness" which basically are the potential for any kind of behavior, feeling, attitude, perception, etc that lies within what we call our subconscious. We all have seeds of anger, sadness, jealousy, greed, confusion etc within us but we also have the seeds for joy, happiness, peace, love, clarity etc and it is up to us to decide which of these seeds we want to water and nourish into beautiful flowers for the garden of our conscious mind. Meditation is one of the greatest ways open our awareness and water the seeds of joy.

I love Thay's analogy of a compost pile. We must meditate to help transform our internal garbage into rich fertile soil where we can grow the most beautiful garden.

Breathe. Smile. Compost. Tend to your garden. Be Patient. Love.

Photo for this post is from Nuttakit's portfolio on Free Digital Images.

Our Appointment with Life by Thich Nhat Hanh

I just finished reading, well almost finished reading, a short but really powerful book by Thich Nhat Hanh - Our Appointment with Life. It is one of his more Buddhist text books rather than his mindfulness books as it does discuss some of the sutras or religious text from the Buddha's time.

But it really sums up so much good stuff that I would LOVE to share with you: Letting go (no attachment), Present Moment, Internal Formations, Community.

Letting go (I have chosen the words letting go) in this book is described as living alone, but not in the sense of the word as we know it- we must learn to not let our attachments to things, our obsessive negative feelings, our thoughts even ideas overwhelm us and keep us from being present in the moment. So I had a hard time with the idea of not being attached because I thought, when I first learned of the practice of no attachment, that it was a perfect excuse for people to not care for others around them. But this is completely NOT what it means. Think of your favorite something that you have. Let's say car or an expensive electronic device. Sure, we should do our best to take care of it so that it continues to work and help us get to work or do our work. But the moment that we feel so attached to it that we constantly worry that someone will steal it or how terrible it will be if it gets dinged up or scratched then we are overwhelmed by our attachment to it. Our attachments are considered one of the "Internal Formations" - desire, hatred, pride, ignorance, stubborn views, attachment, doubt, jealousy and selfishness. If we are distracted by our thoughts, emotions, beliefs surrounding these "Formations," then we are not able to be clear in the present moment. So, then we are living with them, therefore not living "alone," in the sense of the word according to Buddha. So living alone really meant being mindful of our Internal Formations, their influence on us, so we can be present in the moment. So the next great point of the book, The Present Moment.

Our life only exists in the present moment. This is not to say that we should forget the past or never plan for the future. If we forget our past, then we can never learn from our mistakes. But we shouldn't dwell on it or beat ourselves up and not take action or responsibility for our past actions. We can try to look back at the past, the good and the bad, for purposes of learning, healing and improving. Thay (Thich Nhat Hanh) says that the ghosts of the past that we allow to follow us into the present are then also part of the present. But if we can observe them deeply and understand them clearly we can transform them and ourselves.

As for the future, Thay says we must of course make plans, but not to get lost in daydreams that steal us away from the present. We must stay clear and grounded in the present as we plan for the future. If we are unhappy in the present, for whatever reason, our minds, thoughts and feelings can get lost into the future daydream we have that helps us run from the present moment discomfort, pain or suffering. It's soooo important for us to recognize our suffering and to look deeply at it. Thay often says to take your fear, sadness or whatever negative feeling that you have that burdens you and hold it, recognize it and soothe it so that it can calm down and no longer drag you along on its rampage or destructive thought pattern. Our feelings are valid but getting lost in them and letting them take control only leads to more suffering. Thay has a beautiful metaphor where he draws up an image of a lotus flower that grows out of the mud in a pond - the mud is our suffering and out of it, if cultivated properly, grows a most beautiful lotus flower. We cannot have true happiness without looking deeply at our suffering, understanding it and transforming it into our own lotus flower.

When talking about not getting lost in the future, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about what happens in the future but that we should focus much of our attention on the manner in which we live in the present moment as it will soon become the future. And if we use any regret we have of the past to heal the present moment, then our remembrance of the past has served a positive purpose. Mindfulness can help us see deeply that which causes us suffering and help us to heal it in a conscious, positive and transformative way.

Finally, this living alone idea doesn't really mean to live alone - but to live free of our "formations" while also engaging in our community. It is so much easier to stay strong when we have a community that supports us. And we can feel so much stronger when we give back to our communities AND when we can receive support from our community. I think community is a very fluid being and can manifest in different ways for different people. The most important thing I have found is to stay connected in the way that makes sense for me while trying to be there for others in the way that is positive for everyone.

Long post today - thanks to Anjali sleeping for 2 hours... :-)

Breathe. Stay Present. Breathe. Smile. :-)

picture is ZenbyDan - http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Nature_g38.html