The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We explored how gratitude enriches our lives. It helps us to hold our joys and sorrows. Shared gratitude brings us together and helps us respond to life’s challenges.
We continued to draw from Oren Jay Sofer’s book: Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love. In his chapter on gratitude, Oren reminds us that “injustices may never end, we must stop, now and then to celebrate to renew ourselves connect with one another and keep going. Gratitude forms the foundation of this renewal.”
Oren quoted Dr. Bayo Akomolafe – a philosopher, psychologist, professor, and poet. Dr. Akomolafe is a Global Senior Fellow of University of California’s (Berkeley) Othering and Belonging Institute, where he guides Forum members in rethinking and reimagining the collective work towards social justice. Bayo reminds us that “genuine gratitude opens the heart to all of life – the hurt and grief alongside the blessings.”
Our guided meditation included Brother David Steindl-Rast’s prose for Living a Grateful Day.
Guided Reflection
Welcome. Last week we explored wonder. In wonder we are open and deeply connected to the present. We can appreciate the miracle of life and be moved to change. We can moved to feel gratitude. Oren examines the many ways gratitude moves through our lives. He writes:
Gratitude is being thankful . . . Gratitude teaches us to appreciate goodness. It nurtures presence, creates energy and opens the heart. Gratitude has many flavors: from gentle happiness to pervasive joy, from sincere humility to deep fulfillment. . . .
When we face how quickly the years pass and how radically everything can change at any moment, we appreciate the immense gift of being alive.
Hearing this reminder of our impermanence, I am grateful for the BIG all inclusive blessings like:
The emergence of life on Earth – the improbable and incredible unfolding of causes of conditions that made this possible.
The ever growing appreciation and understanding of our inter-being.
The many bodhisattvas who have dedicated themselves to the flourishing of all beings.
I am grateful for the BIG personal blessings like:
Ancestors, caregivers and teachers.
Family, human and more than human friends
Access and time to appreciate culture and learning
I recognize that these many blessings come with love and loss. We grieve because we love.
Oren quotes Bayo Akomolafe who said:
Ultimately, gratitude is not just sharing one’s appreciation, it is . . . touching the conditions of our passing away. . . . When gratitude is reconsidered in the context of loss, we come to grace. . . . In this way, grief embodies our humanity even as gratitude allows us to embrace pain and hardship. . . . genuine gratitude opens the heart to all of life – the hurt and grief alongside the blessings. . . .
I am thinking about the grief that surfaces around personal and collective suffering. Both forms seem to have different doors – my personal sorrows help me to feel empathy. They create the conditions for compassion to arise. My sorrows over the collective suffering of the world feel overwhelming at times. These are the times I turn to my compassionate friends. We offer each other solace and support. We lend encouragement and inspiration.
In our mediation this morning I will incorporate Brother David Steindl-Rast’s guidance for living a grateful day. I invite you to adjust your posture so that you can open to the gratitude of being alive. Allow yourself to settle. Breathe in ease. Breathe out calm. Sense yourself just as you are. There may be heaviness or lightness; movement or stillness. You might soften any hard edges of tension. How is it to let this moment, this breath be enough? Breathing in, accepting being in this moment. Breathing out, feel the flow of Life moving through you. Let the quiet awareness inside be alive. You might call on this light of consciousness to be willing and present. Perhaps a sense of gratitude for simple things emerges.
You might reflect on Brother David’s thoughts on what it is to have a grateful day:
You think this is just
another day in your life?
It’s not just another day.
It’s the one day
that is given to you today.
It’s a gift.
It’s the only gift
that you have right now,
and the only
appropriate response
is gratefulness.
If you learn to respond
as if it were the first day
in your life
and the very last day,
then you will have spent
this day very well.
I invite you to tune it to the miracle of breathing by savoring this in-breath and relaxing with this out-breath. And now consider Brother David’s encouragement:
Begin by opening your eyes
and be surprised
that you have eyes you can open.
That incredible array of colors
that is constantly offered to us
for pure enjoyment.
Look at the sky.
We so rarely look at the sky.
We so rarely note
how different it is
from moment to moment
with clouds coming and going.
Open your eyes.
Look at that.
Perhaps your inner eyes imagine the ever changing colors of sky. I invite you to tune it to the miracle of having eyes and vision as you breathe in and breathe out.
We can sense each other’s presence as we share these moments of grateful awareness. Brother David asks us to :
Look at the faces of people
whom you meet.
Each one has an incredible story
behind their face,
not only their own story,
but the story
of their ancestors.
All that life from generations
and from so many places
all over the world
flows together
and meets you here
like a life-giving water
if you only open your heart
and drink.
Rest for a moment and let your heart open to the many faces emerging from your present and past, from here and other places. Each face, each place meeting you in life-giving water. Again, Brother David:
Open your heart
to the incredible gifts
that civilization gives to us.
You flip a switch,
and there is electric light.
You turn a faucet,
and there is warm water
and cold water,
and drinkable water.
It’s a gift that millions
and millions
in the world
will never experience.
Rest in this heart opening moment of gratefulness for the many gifts that nourish and sustain your life. Sitting, breathing, being present, we are in harmony with Life. Finally receive Brother David’s wishes for our continued well-being:
And so I wish you
that you would open
your heart
to all these blessings
and let them flow through you,
that everyone
whom you will meet on this day
will be blessed by you,
just by your presence.
Let the gratefulness overflow
into blessing all around you.
And then it will really be
a good day.