Taking the idea of gratitude seriously: seeing everything as a gift.

While I am a fan of Gratefulness.org and its founder, Br. David Steindl-Rast, an orientation to life based fundamentally on gratitude is something with which I struggle. Several says ago I was thinking and my train of thought led me to the old parable, The Gift of Insults. I will update it to a distinctly American form for those not familiar with it:

A famous gunslinger became tired of a life of violence as he became older, so he decided to retire to a nice quiet town where he became quite a celebrity to many of the local boys. A new gunslinger was on the rise, challenging anyone and everyone and seeking to make his own reputation by gunning down those who were already respected and feared. This young gun learned that the old gunslinger was still alive and still quite handy with a pistol, so the young gun tracked him down to call him out. The young gun was very perceptive and very fast on the draw. All he needed was for his opponent to make the slightest move and the young gun could outdraw anyone. He never missed. The old gunslinger saw the young gun arrive in town and stood unflinching as the young gun taunted him and mocked him. The young gun wanted to provoke the old gunslinger, because there was no glory in shooting someone who wasn't even trying to defend himself. But no matter how vile and vulgar the young gun was, the old gunslinger remained cool and confident. Finally, after an hour or so, the young gun left, feeling defeated and humiliated.

Some of the boys from town ran up to the old gunslinger and wanted to know why the young gun left looking so ashamed and more importantly, why had the old man just stood there while being so insulted. Why wasn't it the old man who had been shamed? And even if he would have lost, why didn't the old gunslinger at least try to draw on the young gun and defend his honor? The old gunslinger sat down and grinned at the boys. He told them that neither his piece of mind nor his manhood had been harmed, while the young gun was the one who had actually spoiled his own reputation and looked the fool. The boys could sense that was true, but they couldn't understand how it had happened. The old gunslinger leaned back in his chair and asked the boys, "If someone offers you a gift, but you don't accept it, is it yours?" The boys all shook their heads. The old gunslinger continued, "That's right, it still belongs to the one who offered it, and everything we say and do to someone else is like a gift. If someone tells you that you're ugly, that alone doesn't make it so, does it?" The boys again shook their heads. "But if you accept what they say about you, you might as well beat yourself with an ugly stick." Some of the boys giggled. "So now, that young fellow tried to give me a full bushel of meanness and ugliness, didn't he?" One of the boys blurted out "And how!" The old gunslinger nodded, then continued, "So boys, if I refused to accept his gift, who does it belong to?"

The challenge of grace and gratitude

English: A butterfly perching on a leaf at a butterfly garden in St. Martin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What do you think of when you hear things like "Everything is sacred" or "Each moment is only one moment expressed in infinite ways" or "Every day, every experience, is a gift, even if we don't always appreciate it or know what to make of it." (Yes, I came up with these particular examples of the sentiment myself, so smirk if you wish.)

A common reaction in Western (-influenced) societies is to be cynical. It sounds like nice pop psychology for the naive and the desperate or soft spiritualism for the well-healed. But for the savvy individual who lives in "the real world" of work, pain, and disappointment, it can come across as just so much nonsensical overly optimistic fluff.

The irony is that such thinking is precisely what such phrases and their underlying presumptions are directly challenging. That isn't "the real world" into which the cynics and the hopeless are plugged. That is the false world, the delusion. It is sustained by mutual assent. If everyone else acts as if something is true, people will tend to adapt their beliefs and behaviors to reflect this assumption as the new set point for their "is/ought" system.


This isn't strictly about religion per se. 

So you think can be inspirational

From tonight's premier of Fox's So You Think You Can Dance, judge Nigel Lythgoe has this reaction to routine by a young woman with thoracic chondrodysplasia (the cartilage which would become her thoracic vertebrae didn't form properly, leaving her too few vertebrae and her head essentially sticking out of her shoulders)...

"The bravery that you have to come on a show, like this, is stunning to me. I mean it just--It is one of those things, that -- I mean you've grown up with it all of your life. You've grown up with it so whatever you've had to face, you faced it, and you've moved on in your life. Not only have you moved on and accepted it you've said 'Right, well I'm going to push this body I've been given in ridiculous areas. I'm going to go dancing, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.' For the people in this life that sit on their asses and say 'I can't do this', 'I can't do that', 'I can't do the other', they should look at you and be inspired by you."

In a world of anger and hatred we are privileged

In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.

-Henri Nouwen



We must not wish for the disappearance of our troubles but for the grace to transform them.

-Simone Weil

Little bird on my doorstep

When I got home there was a little bird sitting on the doorstep of my building. It wasn't standing and ready to hop or fly. It was sitting, as if in a nest. During the day the left side of the front double door is left open, and the little one was sitting right where the door would be if it closed. The other door is latched from the inside, so there was no way around the bird. I wondered if it was hurt, and I tried to look without getting too close. Eventually I stepped over it, and it flew up the stairs in a short burst. Seeing that I live upstairs, I waited for the bird to move again. Now there is nothing really too odd about a little bird behaving that way, and even odd behavior doesn't mean there is some hidden significance to such an occurrence. It's just a bird. Then there are those who take it as a glorious sign and manifestation precisely because it is a bird, and view that in and of itself as a sufficient wonder.

How do you see it?

Do you take notice of such things and have a deep sense of appreciation or are they relegated to the domain of casual observation?

May we "get over" ourselves

May Buddhists "get over" Buddhism. May Christians "get over" Christianity. May Hindus "get over" Hinduism, Taoists over Taoism, Jains over Jainism, Jews over Judaism, Muslims over Islam, Pagans over Paganism, Wiccans over Wicca, Mormons over Mormonism, and Humanists over Humanism. May theists "get over" theism, may agnostics "get over" agnosticism, and may atheists "get over" atheism. One cannot fully appreciate what wisdom, in truth and in folly, is to be found in Buddhism until you are "over" Buddhism, what wisdom there is in Christianity until you are "over" Christianity, and the same for all the rest. How much is missed by such nonsense. Anything one can call "God" that one can choose to "accept" or "reject" cannot be "God". So why impose that limited dichotomy on the Divine? Why impose similarly absurd limits on anything else such as charity or compassion? Just because one uses images or language from one tradition to express an experience or insight in another doesn't automatically mean the other is being watered down. Just because someone else doesn't seek purity of the heart the same way another does isn't cause for despair or disgust. That way of thinking betrays a view of spiritual traditions as cold and dead, wrapped in the burial linens of traditional teachings and liturgies. Such a corpse is either propped up and dissected as an intellectual philosophy for reducing conflict and existential anxiety or dressed up as a magical friend from the land of make-believe.

Gate! Gate! Paragate! Parasamgate! Bodhi, Svaha!

Thanks a million

Thanks for all the kind thoughts, words, and deeds you have extended or accepted throughout your life. Thank you for the chants, the prayers, the moments of silence and peace, as well as the prostrations, the bows, and other signs of recognition of and devotion to some kind of higher calling. That calling came from your family, your friends, your enemies, and total strangers. From distant stars and clouds of dust and from the sun, the sky, the trees, and the little dog that peed one your foot that one time. And it came from me. Thank you for responding - for continuing to respond. I am returning that call from you as well. Peace Unto You/God Bless. Shalom Aleichem. As-salaamu Alaikum. Om Shanti/Namaste. Om Mani Padme Hum. Namu Amida Butsu. Namu Myoho Renge Kyo.

Tomorrow is a new day

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

One flower includes everything

If you can just appreciate each thing, one by one, then you will have pure gratitude. Even though you observe just one flower, that one flower includes everything.

-Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, Branching Streams Flowing in the Dark

One flower is made of the whole cosmos. We cannot say that the flower is less than this or more than that. When we extinguish our ideas of more and less, is and is not, we attain the extinction of ideas and notions, which in Buddhism is called nirvana. The ultimate dimension of reality has nothing to do with concepts.

-Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ

Peonies bloom on peony trees. A cat doesn't become a chicken. Tulips are tulips, not roses. Why can't we realize this true fact? That to be me is great. I don't have to be anyone but me. I am blooming as I am in my life, just as a peony blooms on a peony tree. Further, a beautiful peony flower does not worry about when it will wilt and fall to the ground. It does not compete with the flower next to it; rather it blooms with its whole self.

-Rev. Koshin Ogui, Zen Shin Talks