Four of us recently returned from a six-day retreat (called a sesshin in the Japanese Zen tradition). The monastery sets aside the last week of every month to close the big gate, put phones on hold, and invite retreatants to enter into silence. Registration fees, already low in comparison, were waived for this one. Forty-five people — meditating, eating, chanting, and working together “in gratitude.”
During one of his daily talks, the retreat leader listed some of what he was grateful for, in that moment: “… this room, this gathering, this monastery, the many people who built it, maintain it, clean it every day; air to breathe, the view from the window, the rain and sky; these hands, my beating heart, these eyes with which to see, this voice that speaks, the silence that pervades this space.”
“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough,” Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) assures us.
In this moment, body aches, monkey mind, doubts, hopes, desires, sorrows — all dissolve in thankfulness. Nothing else matters. Just this one breath. Followed by this one breath. Inherently devoid of content: no past, no future, no suffering, no story.
“What would it be to awaken to a day of gratitude,” asks Stephen Levine*, “a day of thankfulness for what was and yet will be? … Gratitude for the love we have experienced and, even more important, for the loving kindness we are capable of generating. … Grateful for this life in which we have been feeling our way toward the truth. … Grateful for ‘just this much,’ this very instant, this millisecond of awareness in which discovery is possible. … Grateful for the potential of the heart to rise above the stormy surface of the reservoir of grief. … Gratitude that we are able to go beyond what we know into the unknown where all growth occurs.”
*Levine, S. (2005). Unattended sorrow: recovering from loss and reviving the heart. Emmaus, PA: Rodale, ch. 40.
In gratitude for you and these glorious insights, thank you Peter.
Amen! Thank you.