Nov 19, 2014 excerpt A Year of Gratitude

November 19, 2014 Wednesday, Open Night with Aaron (partial transcript)

An Invitation to a Year of Gratitude: Saying Thank You To What Comes

Aaron: Good evening. My love to you all. I am Aaron. Thank you for joining me on this snowy evening. You are approaching your holiday of Thanksgiving, one day a year set aside as a time to give thanks. I would like to invite not a day of Thanksgiving but a year of Thanksgiving, because if you become accustomed to giving thanks over the time of a year, by the end of the year it will be a well-established habit.

Right now, it's not. It's easy to say thank you when something is pleasant. How do we say thank you when something is unpleasant and truly mean it?Why would we say thank you when something is unpleasant? Somebody hands you a rattlesnake. You don't really want to say thank you. Your roof leaks–thank you? Somebody rear-ends your car–thank you? And yet these are the times when gratitude can be the most powerful force in supporting your open heart.

When something negative arises, the normal reaction for the human is to close down. The heart closes, anger comes up, the whole body energy field contracts, and there's a strong sense of, "I don't want that!"

Everything that comes into your life, pleasant and unpleasant, is a teacher. Some teachers are pleasant, some are unpleasant. Yes, with practice you can learn to invite more wholesome teachers and not get into the habitual pattern of inviting unpleasant and negative teachers. But many of you have not mastered that yet, so what comes is sometimes unpleasant. You are also part of what I would call group conditions. You may not have invited that severe rain shower but maybe others did. You're part of the group. Don't expect that there's going to be a big ray of sunshine right on top of your head while it's pouring everywhere else.

We want to invite loving response to ourselves–to invite people who are kind to us, generous, patient with us, appreciative, but this is not always what we get. So there are two parts to this. When we don't get what we want, we close up and we suffer. When we do get what we want, we hold on to it, attach to it with fear that it may be lost, and then when we do lose it we're very unhappy.

At the recent meditation retreat on Lake Michigan, several people had their meditation shawls go missing from the room, and they were saddened by the losses. We asked the staff, people looked everywhere. I think 7 shawls disappeared in the course of the week. Barbara had a white wool shawl that she's had for over 20 years, which was a gift, and she had a brand new, very beautiful shawl given to her by a man from another country whose mother brought it back from that country. A Sufi prayer shawl. She loved it. It was beautiful. And she loved the gift of it, that somebody had loved her enough to bring this back from a far-away land for her.

She was not fully paying attention to the fact that shawls were disappearing. It would have been wise to take her shawls to her room every night, but it's hard for her to carry a lot of things. She had to climb two flights of stairs and with her walking sticks. So she just left them folded neatly on her chair. And on the next to last morning, they weren't there. Anger came up. She was not paying that much attention to other people saying, "My shawl! My shawl! It's gone!" But suddenly hers was gone. "MY shawls! They are gone! Not fair! Who took my shawls? I want my shawls." Feeling sadness, feeling loss, betrayal, vulnerability.

Now, Barbara's at a stage of her life where she doesn't hold on for that long. She let it go. She felt some sadness. The next to last day went on. She thought maybe they would turn up the last morning, but they didn't. Finally it was time to pack up and go home.

She arrived to her home, and the first morning when she was sitting without her meditation shawl, she said, "I want it." She could feel the anger in her. So she softened a bit. She said, a very conscious, "These two shawls have left me for a reason. There's some gift in this loss. Thank you." Putting her hand over her heart. "Thank you. I don't know what the gift is. It doesn't mean I don't feel sad about the loss. But as long as I'm so engrossed in the loss that I can't see beyond it, I can't receive the gift. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." Opening the heart. "Thank you, thank you."

For about a week she simply wrapped herself in an old blanket. It was sufficient. It was warm. It wasn't pretty. Then she thought to herself, "Okay, I am going to invite something lovely into my life." So she began to look at websites for meditation shawls. "Where is the shawl that wants to come to me?" She also began to envision both of these beautiful shawls that were lost, somebody wrapped in them, really appreciating them; somebody who perhaps had never been able to afford to have a beautiful prayer shawl. Mudita, joy for others. Really envisioning that person enjoying this gift, even if it's the person who stole it. Envisioning them enjoying it. Envisioning herself enjoying these people having the shawls.

She thought of the people who had given her these two different shawls, one twenty years ago and one just a few months ago. She envisioned a beautiful shawl, these two faces, seeing their faces with her eyes closed, and handing her a beautiful shawl. Energetically, it would come from these two friends.

She browsed the internet and found something that looked beautiful. She ordered it from India, I believe. She is eager to see it and to feel it as the continuation of the gifts of the missing two shawls.

So what was she learning? What was she allowing herself to learn? First, you can see that if she stayed grumpy and closed, even if she ordered a new shawl there would just be clinging to it. "I'm not gonna lose this one," and would feel resentment about the person who took her shawls and the other ones. So she is gaining the ability to give lovingly to others, to let go. The gift of non-attachment.

She hasn't seen the new one yet, but I asked her, if it's beautiful, are you going to be able to be non-attached to it? Could you give it away? She said, "Easier than I could have given the other two away." Here is the skill of letting go and inviting something new into her life. Inviting loveliness into her life, not just a lovely new shawl but the loveliness of the open heart, the loveliness of generosity, the loveliness of not clinging, of the spacious heart.

Some things are harder than others to say thank you for. Loss of material object, it's just a material object. How do you say thank you, and mean it, if you break your leg? From where can thank you come when somebody you love dies? How do you say thank you if your house burns down? We practice on the smaller things. It's a skill that you can learn. If you have not repetitively said thank you for the smaller things, you can't do it for the big ones.

Someone told me the story recently. She was driving her car. She had dropped her child off at pre-school, so the child's car seat was empty. She had a green light through an intersection when a car going very fast ran its red light and smashed into her. She was seat-belted and her airbag went off. The child's car seat in the back seat, which had been unstrapped to let the child out, literally flew through the windshield. She was very shaken at first. Then she said, "Out of the depth of my practice, Aaron, it was beautiful. I looked at myself and that I was not dead. I was not even seriously injured. My baby was not in the car. And I just said, thank you."

It wasn't even a yellow light, it was a full red light, and it was a young driver, it turned out, and not insured. She said there would have been so much rage at this driver. What has she gotten? She's alive. Her baby is uninjured. Nothing is seriously wrong. Yes, her car was totally destroyed. Cars can be replaced. Thank you, I am alive. Thank you that I have learned not to hate somebody who does something hurtful to me. That's a big one, not to store that hatred and anger.

Here's another one. A friend who was at the workshop, who lives in another state, wrote to Barbara that just after the workshop she was getting something from her attic and fell down the attic stairs, and landed on the ground. Bruising, but she lay there realizing: nothing is broken. Thank you. Not, "Those"–excuse my language–"damn stairs. Why did this happen to me?! Not fair!" – "I'm okay. Nothing is broken." Landing on I think the concrete basement floor–"I am bruised but not broken. Thank you."

I'd like you each to think of something in the past week, and the conference call people, please do this with us. Close your eyes and think of a painful circumstance in the past week, something that was unpleasant. It doesn't have to be huge, like somebody destroying your car. Whatever comes is fine.

We'll take two or three minutes for you to go deeply into it. Remember the experience and any negative emotion you had from the experience. (pause) Sadness, anger, confusion, clinging, aversion. I want you to try to feel your whole body and energy field closing with this experience. (pause) Feel the contraction of it in the body and in the energy. If there's a very clear emotion like anger, note it. It may just be tension, contracted. "Not what I wanted." Go deep into the immediate reaction to this experience.

Now, when I asked you to do this, I did not ask you to choose something that brought contraction, only a negative experience.With our friend falling down her stairs. It was a negative experience and there was no contraction. But for this exercise, I'd like you to think of something for which there was contraction. "Not what I wanted." Contracting, contracting.

Let your mind play with it a bit. Think of all the terrible repercussions it could have. "I can't afford to buy a new car, and he totaled it." "I didn't get the work finished, and my boss will fire me." "I lost something valuable. My spouse will be furious." "I burned dinner, and I'm frustrated and furious." Feel the contraction.

Now without knowing why you would thusly choose to say thank you, just for experiment's sake, put your hand over your heart. Take a deep breath and literally say, "Thank you." Say it aloud. "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know why you have come to me but I greet you as a gift, and I thank you. Why ever you have come to me, that will open in time. I don't have to understand it right now. Only, as long as my energy field is locked in tight, I can never understand. So with my hand on my heart and a deep breath, thank you." Visualize the person involved in the situation, or the situation itself if no other person was involved. Maybe just yourself, something careless that you did.

Visualize the tree that fell down on your roof. Visualize the work package that you left on the bus. Whether it came to you from another or yourself: thank you, thank you. It may be a very painful life situation, such as the loss of a loved one. "Thank you." Maybe a message from your doctor about something challenging happening in your body. "Thank you. Thank you." Can you feel how the heart opens with "Thank you"? Even if it just considers the possibility to open...,even if it's mechanical at first, eventually you can touch into a place that means it, when saying thank you.

Sometimes when people do this exercise there's some resistance. The heart stays hard for a while and you have to keep repeating thank you, and then it just breaks open and there are tears. Touching a very vulnerable place, very tender place, the part of you that knows you cannot stay safe. You cannot keep yourself and your loved ones alive forever. You cannot hold onto the things that you cherish. "Thank you." Because only when you let go of these various conditioned items including your own life and health, your loved ones, your material possessions, only then can you find out what you truly have, the riches you truly have.

So now after this thank you – we'll go back and say it again for a minute or two – then I want you to hold your hands out, one hand or two. "I am ready to receive whatever gift will come from this." That gift can take many forms. Insights; material gifts; the deep feeling of love from friends.

I have a very clear memory of a member of our sangha from Year One back in Barbara's living room, who was in an accident and lost a finger of his hand. He was in the ER and then Critical Care. They did surgery right away. He felt great pain and distress because his hands were part of his livelihood. What will happen to me? I remember his talking to me about it. "Aaron, how can I live with this?" And I invited him just to say thank you and open his hands and his heart and see what gift would come. This was over 20 years ago, 25 years ago, probably. At that time in his life he was young and felt somewhat unlovable and unworthy and unsure of himself. Friends began to come to his hospital room day after day. They sat and talked to him. They brought him flowers. They didn't just come the obligatory once; they came again and again. His heart broke open. "I never thought I was loved. This is the price of my finger, this gift. I have come to know that I am loved." Now, that's a high price to pay. I'm not saying that one has to pay that high a price. But for him that was the path to this knowing beyond all doubt that he was loved.

One of this circle had a similar experience with an illness, and feeling the love around her. "Thank you. Thank you." So hold out and feel the energy field opening and some of the pain moving away, releasing. For the sense of vulnerability, loss, anger, or fear, "Thank you. What is the gift you bring?" You have to be ready to receive the gift. If our friend had gone on saying, at the hospital, "They don't really care about me. They're just coming because somebody said they should," he never would have found this healing. He had to acknowledge, "Maybe they do love me. Maybe I am lovable," and allow that possibility to sink deeply into his heart.

Thank you, and then opening the hands as a gesture to help you realize, "I am willing to receive the gift." Why have we pushed love away? Why have we pushed financial stability away? Why have we pushed health away? I'm not saying that you caused your ill health, or your loneliness, whatever it may be, but at some level you have moved into a habitual pattern with these experiences. And as the heart opens, there's a shift and a willingness to say, "I invite." I invite good health. I invite love, friendship, material stability, the various things you want in your life. Not a grasping, but, "I am open to it." So that the loss can be a way of supporting the shift in your energy and really allow you to be ready to receive something you had not been ready to receive before.

Thank you... (pause) Can you feel the possibilities, for your open hands? It may not be there full-blown yet, just the possibility to receive this. (pause)

From my position here I can feel the difference in your energy fields, the openness. I don't know if that's apparent to those of you sitting in the circle, for yourself and for others, but there's a real difference in your energy fields. Connecting, open, inviting...

You here in this culture, you really have been born into a heaven realm. Throughout the world there are people who do not know if they will have food the next day or a roof over their head, or who are afraid to go to the market for fear of being blown apart by a bomb or somebody with a gun. Afraid to let their children out of their sight, who may be killed or enslaved and stolen, who live in places that are filled with disease. You have the good karma to be born into this heaven realm. You have, for the most part, appropriate medical care, food and housing. As long as you are aware of your surroundings and don't go into dark alleys in dangerous neighborhoods, it's fairly safe to walk around your cities.

How many of you have had a thought in the past week, "It's not fair. Why can't I get a better job?" "My car is too old. I want a better car." "I don't have many loving friends." Whatever. My guess is that each of you some time in the past week has had this kind of negative thought. Go to that thought and say, "Thank you. Thank you for this fear that my needs won't be met. And thank you also for all the blessings that I have." It's so easy to ignore the blessings and focus on the lack. But the more you focus on the lack, the more energy you give to the lack. When you focus on the blessings, you invite blessings.

Thank you, thank you... Let it become a habit. When you stub your toe or lock yourself out of your car, when dinner burns, when your back hurts–big breath. No denial of the pain. You must open to the pain. But then, "Thank you. You come as a teacher, thank you. And I am ready to receive your benediction. What do you come to offer me?"

So many people live with so much tightness and fear because they are constantly focused on what they lack rather than the blessings that they have. I have people who come to me and say, "Aaron, I don't have any friends. Why doesn't anybody like me?"

So I mention to them one or two people that I know I've seen them with, and that they seem to enjoy, and ask, "Is this person not your friend?"

"Well yes, but I'm not talking about her."

"Or that person?"

"I'm not talking about her, either. I'm talking about all the people who don't like me."

Bring your attention back and focus on these two people and say, "Thank you! It's wonderful-- I have not one but two friends! What a joy!"

Somebody complaining about how old their car is and that it's not reliable. Ah, but you still have a car. Somebody who I know, who now no longer has a car, and remarkably I have not heard her complain about it, but open to the new blessings of friends who come and pick her up. A gift. Thank you.

The Buddha says very clearly, you are what you think. With your thoughts you make the world. Think an unpleasant or impure thought and that energy will follow you, as the cart follows the horse. Think a loving thought and that energy will follow you. I'm not quoting him exactly.

So it's really about learning to have a habitual response to the myriad discomforts that will come along. Not of, "Why? Not fair!" and of anger and frustration, but, "Oh, that's painful." Feeling the sadness of it. And then, "Thank you. What do you bring with you?" Because when you open your heart in that way, such beautiful gifts will come. Thank you.

So you set aside this one day as a day of thanksgiving. And I invite the circle here and those hearing me on the conference call, and all of those who read this transcript–I'm going to ask Barbara to make sure it's posted on the Deep Spring website-- the invitation to a year of Thanksgiving. Let's try it as an experiment for a year and see what happens. What does it do to your life to give thanks repeatedly for the challenges that come? Thank you, thank you. Next year at this time I will hope to hear from you about your experiences.

All right, I'm going to pause here and open the floor to questions, and it can be about gratitude or anything.

Q: How many times a day can you ask for a gift? Is there a limit?

Aaron: Why should there be any limit? How many times a day does something unpleasant come to you? Once, three times? Each time it does, say thank you. How many times a day does something pleasant come to you? Say thank you. The thank you is not limited to the unpleasant. The thank you is for everything, pleasant or unpleasant. Whatever it is, thank you.