Priming The Pump Of Gratitude

Hey everyone,

This is Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 373.

And sorry for that delay.

It looks like Zoom changed the settings on the sound.

So I don't know if you could hear that bell,

But we'll work that out for next time.

I just wanted to let you all know about next time that it's Thanksgiving.

So on Native American Heritage Day,

I'm going to take the week off next week and the following week.

So after today,

I'll see you in two weeks.

Today I wanted to step away from the paramitas,

Not really,

Since we're practicing them all the time,

Right?

But today just to spend a little time with gratitude,

Tis the season and all that.

And I ended up thinking about gratitude and practicing with gratitude.

So there are a few things that come to mind.

And one is this inquiry from Brother David Stendel Rast,

Who wrote that wonderful book,

If you don't have it,

Called Gratitude,

The Heart of Prayer.

And he has what feels to me like a realistic approach to gratitude because he says,

You know,

Can we be grateful for everything?

And he lists the parade of horribles in the world,

War and violence and sickness.

And he says,

No,

You know,

We can't be,

We can't be grateful for everything.

But what he says is we can be grateful in every moment.

And to me,

This is more or less the lesson of mindfulness,

Kind of the fundamental lesson of mindfulness that,

You know,

Here 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,

And with courage,

And with grace,

We notice that things are not the way we want them to be.

And it may be that we're just not getting what we want or something's happening that we really don't want to have happening.

Or somebody is challenging a point of view that we hold close to our heart or the world is doing that.

And,

You know,

Maybe our candidate lost or came too close for comfort,

Maybe the systems that we've taken for granted our whole lives are not taken for granted,

Are feeling shaky,

Maybe there's systems that we would like to have feel shaky and don't feel shaky enough.

Maybe there are systems that we want to keep in place that feel like they may not always be in place in a way that maybe we thought they would be before.

Some part of our identity that we cherish could be being challenged or we're judging ourselves,

We're finding ourselves to not be the person we wanted to have become by now,

You know,

Maybe we said or did something we regret,

Or we feel remorse,

Or regret for something we said or did a long time ago.

Or maybe something happened to us,

We lost a job,

We got negative feedback.

Maybe we feel unloved.

Maybe we feel unsafe.

In this moment,

Generally unsafe in the world.

Maybe we're unwell,

Or we're no longer able bodied or never,

We never were able bodied.

Or we might be dying.

Well,

We're all dying,

But we might be actively dying or we've just lost someone or we're anticipating that,

You know.

So there are so many moments in life when we notice that things are not the way we want them to be.

Yeah.

And so mindfulness invites us to be present in those moments too,

You know,

Not just for the joyful moments,

But to turn towards those difficult moments or circumstances or people with this real courage and also this abundance of self-compassion and love and tenderness.

And to just see these moments for what they are.

Hard times.

Sure,

Impermanent changing,

But still hard times,

Suffering,

Being human,

You know,

This being human.

Yeah.

To see that and also to remember to look so that we can see that we're not alone,

Right?

Nobody's circumstances are exactly like mine for sure,

But everyone has hard times.

And then in seeing that,

To just not take things so personally and feel so beleaguered and alone,

Right?

And to what takes solace in the company of strangers.

You know,

I'm not the only one to lose someone I love,

To get ill,

To be disparaged or attacked for who I am.

Not the only one to fail.

You know,

Hard times are just part of the package.

So mindfulness invites us to not only to see all of this and to remember that we're in it together,

But also to see how each moment of hard times and good times too,

But especially hard times is a teacher.

The invitation to turn towards that,

You know,

Is always being talked about in the mindfulness world.

It's not based on,

You know,

Some strange sadistic notion that turning towards hard times,

Hard moments is a good idea because we want to wallow in our pain.

Or we should somehow learn to bear the unbearable.

No,

It's not about that.

It's about the true fact,

At least in my experience,

That there's always something to learn.

You know,

When I don't get what I want and I turn towards that moment,

There's something for me to learn.

Maybe it's that I just see the anger or the resentment or the fear that comes up when I don't get what I want or actually feel them.

Maybe that's all it is just to feel what it is that's going on and to do that without judging myself for having those emotions because we all have them,

Right?

Like we're not alone.

And so not only not judge,

Right,

But go further and to relate to them in this curious,

Loving way.

Because then I can see these moments as teachers,

Right?

Anger is my teacher.

Resentment is my teacher.

Fear is my teacher.

They're all here in the room with me to guide me to two things.

Guide me to what lies beneath,

Which is invariably caring.

And also guide me to the wisest path forward,

Right?

That moment of seeing what's here and letting wisdom come up.

Letting wisdom come up because it will,

Because it's there.

It's right there.

It's right there when we take a moment,

When we turn towards.

So turning towards,

Knowing we're not alone,

Knowing things will change,

But still taking a loving,

Tender attitude towards whatever is there,

Right then.

And this,

All of this leads to insight,

Right?

The insight that this being human is hard and is still the best way to wake up,

The best way to see and understand.

And Plato either said this or didn't say this.

There's some controversy.

Be kind for everyone is fighting a hard battle.

Be kind for everyone is fighting a hard battle.

So 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 a teacher.

So the Dalai Lama is always saying,

Be kind whenever possible,

It's always possible.

And maybe gratitude invites us to 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.

Okay,

So let's do a gratitude practice together.

Yeah.

For this practice,

Just finding a comfortable posture,

You can lean back in your chair or lie down,

Close the eyes if that's available to you,

Comfortable for you.

Take a few breaths.

Relax into this present moment.

Notice that you have a body.

Relax into your body.

And just start with your ears and hearing and the gratitude,

Just being grateful for ears and for whatever measure of hearing you have,

Grateful to be able to hear.

Maybe this meditation,

Maybe birds,

If it's morning where you are,

Maybe music,

Maybe voices of people you love nearby,

People you don't love nearby.

And then just take a sniff of anything that's in your environment right now.

Just breathe in through the nose and grateful for having a nose and whatever amount of smell that you have.

The ability to smell cookies,

Baking or pies baking next week maybe,

To smell flowers,

To smell the morning air,

That particular smell of morning or of the sea or the mountains.

Even the smell of a city street,

Grateful to be able to smell.

And for a mouth,

Whatever measure of taste you have,

Whatever taste you may have in your mouth,

Maybe coffee or tea if it's early morning where you are or maybe toothpaste if you just brushed your teeth.

But mouth is the ability to taste and not just to taste,

But to give someone a kiss,

To receive a kiss,

To speak and make yourself heard.

And grateful for your eyes and whatever measure of sight you have,

Able to see color,

Shapes,

The face of a friend,

Face of a pet,

Photograph of someone no longer with us,

To see nature,

To see art,

To see the city where you live or the countryside where you live,

To read in order to learn,

To see the sunrise in the morning and the sunset at night.

And for this whole body,

Whatever abilities you have,

This body that's alive right now in this moment,

Grateful for the body and for the embodiment of who you are right now.

And inside the body or all around the body,

Your own good loving heart that allows you to love yourself and others and also to feel sorrow,

To feel pain,

A heart that knows sorrow as the inevitable consequence of love.

And then grateful for other people,

Family,

Friends who are easy to love,

People who are not as easy to love,

People who make your life just a little bit easier out in the world,

Clerks at the store,

People who drive trucks,

Bringing food in from the farms,

Farmers,

People who clean your office or who sweep the streets,

Whoever is running all the servers so that we can be here together on Zoom and whoever designed all of that and who put it all together in a factory or who made your clothes or your desk or your chair.

And also all of the teachers in your life who have shared something with you,

Something valuable,

Grateful for them.

And grateful for the spiritual figures in your life who sustain you,

Maybe who have sustained you and your ancestors and those ancestors as well back as many generations as we humans go and whose DNA runs in your veins,

Grateful,

Grateful for all the ancestors and for the elders who are alive now and carry the wisdom of long lives lived.

Grateful for the elders and for the children and their innocence and their hopefulness and their joy.

Grateful for the communities you're part of that embrace you,

That have lifted you up and nourished you and held you and sustained you.

And for the animals who walk on the earth and the fish who swim in the waters and the birds and the insects and the amphibians who fly above or burrow beneath or move between land and water,

All the creatures we can see and all the creatures we can't see and the trees and the plants and the flowers and the water itself and the fire itself and the earth herself,

Especially the earth,

Grateful for the earth.

And these teachings about how to be present and to cultivate a loving and compassionate heart and about how to be grateful.

Grateful to be able to be grateful.

And then taking all of that gratitude and just pointing it back towards yourself and thank yourself for your practice.

Thank you everyone for being on the wake up call.

Have a safe and joyful couple of weeks.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Happy Native American Heritage Day and I will see you two weeks.

Wait,

Is that right?

No,

Three weeks from today.

I'm going to take two weeks off so I'll see you three weeks from today.

Or I'll see you in the EML course online if you need those CLE credits or if you want to go in depth a little bit.

Come to the course,

It's on the website.

I think it's on your blast as well.

All right everybody,

Take care.