Thanksgiving, a particularly American holiday, is coming up on Thursday.
What are we giving thanks for? What am I grateful for? What are you grateful for? These kinds of questions get asked a lot around this time of year. I try to compose a gratitude list almost every day, but I won't do that here--I figure it is a pretty common practice among beliefnet readers and is/will be/has been much discussed in many other beliefnet blogs.
Since One City is a buddhist blog, I'd like to look at gratitude from the viewpoint of a couple of buddhist teachings. Since Thanksgiving is an American holiday, I'd like to look at how American and buddhist intersect around the holiday for me this year.
1) Gratitude reflection #1:
From the Tibetan tradition, I'm familiar with an interesting list of 10 (or 18) conditions necessary for practicing the dharma.
Starting from the good fortune of "precious human birth," the teaching
moves from describing the eight other ways one could have been born, to
listing ten necessary aspects: being born human, in a region of the
world where the Buddha's teachings are accessible, with intact sensory
organs, without false views, with natural trust in the dharma, in times
when a buddha has appeared, in times when a buddha has given teachings,
when those teachings have been preserved and are accessible, with the
ability to grasp and practice the teachings, and so on.
I can understand that list. What strikes me on this very American holiday is how grateful I am for a very American freedom: the freedom to access buddhist teachings and the freedom to practice them.
Being born in the USA has given me a whole world of freedom to practice that I give thanks for every day. It gave me freedom to convert to a religion other than the one I was born in. Freedom to practice as I please. Freedom of religion and worldview is not exclusive to the USA, but it is by no means universal. And being born at this time, when buddhist thought and teaching is growing and more accessible in the USA every day (to an almost bewildering degree, as Greg Zwahlen has so well discussed in his perceptive and learned One City posts) is pretty amazing.
Grateful for freedom of religious and spiritual observance and practice, yup. I put it on my T-day table.
2) Gratitude Reflection #2:
From the Tibetan tradition, I'm also familiar with a body of mahayana teachings called lojong, or mind training. These are practices for those on the boddhisattva path, those trying to wake up. The popular buddhist teacher Pema Chodron has written extensively on various aspects of lojong and its associated meditation practice, tonglen.
Lojong practice, which involves contemplating and applying about 56 diff slogans, arose from Eight Verses on Thought Transformation*, three of which run as follows:
4. Whenever I meet a person of bad nature
Who is overwhelmed by negative energy and intense suffering,
I will hold such a rare one dear,
As if I had found a precious treasure.
5. When others, out of jealousy,
Mistreat me with abuse, slander and so on,
I will practice accepting defeat
And offering the victory to them.
6. When someone I have benefited
And in whom I have placed great trust
Hurts me very badly,
I will practice seeing that person as my supreme teacher.
*Geshe Langri Tangpa (1054-1123), student of Drom Tonpa, a chief student of Atisha
These practices are all ways of loosening our attachment to our concept of a solid, unchanging self. They are hard. They are completely inimical to our general way of being "I." They can be easily misunderstood. They are by no means the whole of practice!
And they give rise to the giving-thanks lojong slogan: "Be Grateful to Everyone."
How apropos for Thanksgiving. Be grateful to everyone, even the people who irritate me, since they reveal to me that I can be irritated. They rub up my sore spots, where I might think I'm all fine and dandy but still nurse grudges, and attachments, and pride, and jealousy, and ego-clinging, and all the rest of that mucky stuff.
So what strikes me on this very American holiday is how grateful I am for another American freedom: freedom of speech.
Private bodies may fire their employees for certain kinds of speech, a torrent of public abuse may rain down upon speakers, but we do have freedom of speech. We can, and do, argue, as Americans. All the time.
And how apropos of my friend Jerry's post on this blog last week, about politics. I am grateful for freedom of expression in America. Am I grateful for what happened in the comments section? Notsa much. I am grateful we can disagree. Can I practice being grateful to those who disagree with me, those who arouse my ire? I can. They show I've still got ire to work on; they show I can't fool myself. I am human. Humans think like this, like me, like you.
What do we do about it, working from and toward a compassionate heart?
That discussion, and the subject of Jerry's post, turned up a nest of muck and hatred and concept that astonished me with its virulence, force, and explicit threats of violence. Do I have hatred in me? Did anyone's comments arouse a response? I feel sorrow at the pain expressed and inflicted by comments; what is that? That is all stuff to look at, a big spotlight on human thinking, my thinking, your thinking, our thinking. The Buddha taught four mindfulnesses, common to all traditions. And mindfulness of feeling requires some feelings to go on. Mindfulness of thinking requires some thinking.
Feeling and thinking are something to be grateful for.
"I am grateful to be human. I am grateful to everyone." That's a lot on the Thanksgiving plate.
My best wishes to everyone for a peaceful and heart-opening day on Thursday, whatever thinking or feeling is going on.
I can understand that list. What strikes me on this very American holiday is how grateful I am for a very American freedom: the freedom to access buddhist teachings and the freedom to practice them.
Being born in the USA has given me a whole world of freedom to practice that I give thanks for every day. It gave me freedom to convert to a religion other than the one I was born in. Freedom to practice as I please. Freedom of religion and worldview is not exclusive to the USA, but it is by no means universal. And being born at this time, when buddhist thought and teaching is growing and more accessible in the USA every day (to an almost bewildering degree, as Greg Zwahlen has so well discussed in his perceptive and learned One City posts) is pretty amazing.
Grateful for freedom of religious and spiritual observance and practice, yup. I put it on my T-day table.
2) Gratitude Reflection #2:
From the Tibetan tradition, I'm also familiar with a body of mahayana teachings called lojong, or mind training. These are practices for those on the boddhisattva path, those trying to wake up. The popular buddhist teacher Pema Chodron has written extensively on various aspects of lojong and its associated meditation practice, tonglen.
Lojong practice, which involves contemplating and applying about 56 diff slogans, arose from Eight Verses on Thought Transformation*, three of which run as follows:
4. Whenever I meet a person of bad nature
Who is overwhelmed by negative energy and intense suffering,
I will hold such a rare one dear,
As if I had found a precious treasure.
5. When others, out of jealousy,
Mistreat me with abuse, slander and so on,
I will practice accepting defeat
And offering the victory to them.
6. When someone I have benefited
And in whom I have placed great trust
Hurts me very badly,
I will practice seeing that person as my supreme teacher.
*Geshe Langri Tangpa (1054-1123), student of Drom Tonpa, a chief student of Atisha
These practices are all ways of loosening our attachment to our concept of a solid, unchanging self. They are hard. They are completely inimical to our general way of being "I." They can be easily misunderstood. They are by no means the whole of practice!
And they give rise to the giving-thanks lojong slogan: "Be Grateful to Everyone."
How apropos for Thanksgiving. Be grateful to everyone, even the people who irritate me, since they reveal to me that I can be irritated. They rub up my sore spots, where I might think I'm all fine and dandy but still nurse grudges, and attachments, and pride, and jealousy, and ego-clinging, and all the rest of that mucky stuff.
So what strikes me on this very American holiday is how grateful I am for another American freedom: freedom of speech.
Private bodies may fire their employees for certain kinds of speech, a torrent of public abuse may rain down upon speakers, but we do have freedom of speech. We can, and do, argue, as Americans. All the time.
And how apropos of my friend Jerry's post on this blog last week, about politics. I am grateful for freedom of expression in America. Am I grateful for what happened in the comments section? Notsa much. I am grateful we can disagree. Can I practice being grateful to those who disagree with me, those who arouse my ire? I can. They show I've still got ire to work on; they show I can't fool myself. I am human. Humans think like this, like me, like you.
What do we do about it, working from and toward a compassionate heart?
That discussion, and the subject of Jerry's post, turned up a nest of muck and hatred and concept that astonished me with its virulence, force, and explicit threats of violence. Do I have hatred in me? Did anyone's comments arouse a response? I feel sorrow at the pain expressed and inflicted by comments; what is that? That is all stuff to look at, a big spotlight on human thinking, my thinking, your thinking, our thinking. The Buddha taught four mindfulnesses, common to all traditions. And mindfulness of feeling requires some feelings to go on. Mindfulness of thinking requires some thinking.
Feeling and thinking are something to be grateful for.
"I am grateful to be human. I am grateful to everyone." That's a lot on the Thanksgiving plate.
My best wishes to everyone for a peaceful and heart-opening day on Thursday, whatever thinking or feeling is going on.
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Great post, well put together, and timely. Thanks for bringing sharing these reflections with us.
Cheers,
Miche
Nice post! I remember hearing a short podcast about a year ago that quickly summarized the research showing that people who keep a regular practice of being thankful tend to be happier and healthier on average.
link: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=eat-exercise-and-be-merry-08-11-24
I know it can be easy to get bogged down in the stress and demands in life but - as your post pointed out - we can be incredibly thankful for just being human and really we can be grateful for everyone we meet. Anyone can be our teacher.
Thanks!
Thank you for these contemplations this week, especially the lojong. You're reminding me I need to seriously revisit and spend some time again with my bodhisattva vow.
WOW what a great article!! I am grateful for writers like this that show us that we can be grateful for everyone and everything in our lives even if we are irritated by them. :) I wish everyone a peaceful and heart-opening Thanksgiving Day!! :)
beautiful blog, thanks so much for sharing with us.
Might be a little late, but here are some nice vegetarian holiday/ Thanksgiving recipes for anyone interested:
Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipes
http://vegkitchen.com/recipes/vegetarian-thanksgiving.htm
http://www.theveggietable.com/recipes/thanksgiving.html
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/vegetarian-thanksgiving-recipes-recipe.html
Some Vegan Recipes
http://vegweb.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=5b3fb2dc1848c3df9eb9861dc882b8b1&board=761.0
64 Vegan Holiday Recipes
http://www.ivu.org/recipes/holiday/
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