One Time, One Meeting

Over the past year we have heard a great deal about collective anger. During the run-up to the midterm elections, the news media provided daily reports on the anger of the American electorate, and it would appear that many took their anger to the polls. However, amidst all the expressions of anger, political and otherwise, words of gratitude have been in short supply. Now that the season of thanksgiving is upon us, where shall we find those words?

The world’s great spiritual traditions abound in expressions of gratitude, and if you are affiliated with one of those traditions, you may already have all the words you need. If you are not, however, or if you would like to refresh your sense of gratitude, you may wish to explore three practices from the Zen and Vipassana traditions.

The first practice concerns the body, which many of us take for granted. If our organs and limbs are functioning normally and causing us no discomfort, we often give them scant attention, sometimes at the expense of our well-being. To counter that tendency, Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh recommends that we sit still, follow our breathing, and silently recite verses such as these:

Breathing in, I know that I have two good eyes

Breathing out, I feel joy

– – –

Breathing in, I am aware of my heart

Breathing out, I am grateful for my heart

Proceeding through the various parts of our bodies, as a doctor might, we acknowledge the normal functioning of our lungs, stomach, liver, and so on. We express our gratitude that each is serving us well. The purpose of this exercise is not to cheer ourselves up or convince ourselves that we feel something we don’t. Rather, it is to put us in touch with our latent capacity for gratitude, which may have yet to manifest in conscious feeling. In Vipassana meditation, such practices are known as bhavana, or mind/body cultivation, and they are an essential component of meditative discipline.

A second practice is the meal chant. Comparable to grace-before-meals in the Judeo-Christian tradition, this practice raises our awareness of the nature and origin of the food we are about to eat. Here is Thich Nhat Hanh’s translation of one traditional text, known in Zen as the Five Contemplations:

This food is the gift of the whole universe: the earth, the sky, and much hard work.
May we live in mindfulness so as to be worthy to receive it.
May we transform our unskillful states of mind and learn to eat with moderation.
May we take only foods that nourish us and prevent illness.
We accept this food so that we may realize the path of understanding and love.

In Zen centers and monasteries around the world, these lines and others like them are chanted or recited in unison before each of the daily meals.  For secular Westerners, group recitation may be impractical, but anyone can silently recite the Five Contemplations before tucking into a meal, whether the food on the table be a red-lentil curry or turkey with all the trimmings. Practiced wholeheartedly, meal chants can change our relationship, gradually but radically, with the food we consume.

The third practice is the most general of the three. Formulated by the Vipassana teacher Jack Kornfield, it is a kind of litany, which expresses gratitude not only for our bodies and our food but for our very presence in the cosmos:

With gratitude I remember the people, animals, plants, insects, creatures of the sky and sea, air  and water, fire and earth, all whose joyful exertion blesses my life every day.
With gratitude I remember the care and labor of a thousand generations of elders and ancestors who came before me.
I offer my gratitude for the safety and well-being I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the blessings of this earth I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the measure of health I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the family and friends I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the community I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the teachings and lessons I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the life I have been given.*

Although this text is particularly apt for the Thanksgiving holiday, it really knows no season. It can be recited, singly or collectively, at any time or place, and its cumulative effect can be transformative.

The late John Daido Loori Roshi once remarked that if we voiced our gratitude rather than our complaints every morning, in a year’s time we would become grateful people. That is a lot to ask, especially when anger is so pervasive, and when there is so much to fear and complain about. But as a succinct reminder, here is a poem by the twelfth-century Japanese poet Saigyo:

GRATITUDE

Whatever it is,

I cannot understand it,

although gratitude

stubbornly overcomes me

until I’m reduced to tears.**

If this poem speaks to you, you might post it on your fridge. Or perhaps above your TV.

_____________________________

*Jack Kornfield, The Wise Heart (Random House, 2008), 399-400.

**Translated by Sam Hamill, Gratitude (Boa Editions, 1998).

The dish pictured above is Curried Red Lentil and Barley Soup. The image is taken from the website The Joy of Mindful Cooking (http://mindfulcooking.org/) and is used with the kind permission of Eve Heidtmann.