On Having a Good Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2011

I had a fine night's sleep, not that common when you're in your seventies, and awoke with a peaceful mind.  I'm going to a planned-potluck Thanksgiving dinner at the church, and have only one thing to cook.  Japanese sesame spinach from the Low-Fat Moosewood cookbook is served cold, so I won't have to dance in the flash mob in the kitchen to heat it up.

Into my empty mind came the remembrance of Thanksgivings past, in which I drove I-71 from Columbus to my parent's house on Greenlawn Avenue in Akron in the worst traffic of the year - bumper to bumper at 72 mph.  During that drive I would vow things like, "He's not going to get to me this time," and "I'm not going to get mad at anybody today."

In time my parents moved to a small apartment in a nearby town, and Cassie held the Annual Dysfunction, as someone later termed it, not in jest, then my father died and we all went to a horribly expensive restaurant.  Then I held it in my house.  Then my mother died.  Then my sister moved to Australia.  Then my brother finished his dying of liver cancer.   Things change.

Midstream we began the Thanksgiving dinner at the church.  It was something Tina came to - her family didn't like her, either - but she died last year.  I miss her acerbic presence in my life; she was irreplaceable.  Well, they all are.  We all are.

I didn't know much about vowing back then.  Nor was I in the habit of expressing my anger, irritation, resentment - just kept them on simmer.  Of course, that kind of vow is an evil virus that can take over all your feelings and put them in the deep freeze we call depression.

I've been teaching the Great Vows for all, and thinking how the second vow is a natural for this great family holiday in this country of rampant consumerism -

Greed, anger, and ignorance arise endlessly, vowing to cut off the mind road.

They do arise.  And the vow is not to stop them.  The vow is to let them pass, the way you do when you meditate.  The vow is to get off the long train of resentments, preferences, desires, by doing something else.  Cut off the mind road of long stories, hear the music, and enter the dance.

Another Growth Opportunity

Here's what I got in my mailbox today from Tricycle Daily Dharma, which I usually appreciate:

We should be especially grateful for having to deal with annoying people and difficult situations, because without them we would have nothing to work with. Without them, how could we practice patience, exertion, mindfulness, loving-kindness or compassion? It is by dealing with such challenges that we grow and develop.
Judith Lief, from "Train Your Mind"

It made me feel better to send it to a friend who completely understands the irascible state of mind this kind of thing puts me in, so I thought I'd blog on it, too, and that might make me and someone else feel better yet.

Obviously, this quote is well-chosen the coming holiday, Thanksgiving, the day when 43.6 million Americans will travel to be with family; it's kind of a standing joke that these are people you would never have chosen as friends - in America there is a shocking disrespect for one's ancestors.  Most of these travel by car, driving the highways for hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic for an average round-trip of almost 600 miles.  And actually, this is no longer my situation in life due to deaths and other circumstances; I go to a Thanksgiving dinner at the church, where I like most of the people.

But not all.  And one of them I just really don't like right now.  For quite a few years my dislike was not a problem.  I just avoided them (plural pronoun used as gender-free singular). But recently they shot a couple of arrows right into my tender spot.  They were not aiming at me, and this is usually true when someone hurts you - some people just carry their big egos on their shoulders like a 2x4 and once in a while it swings around and happens to strike you, like a Three Stooges cartoon.

But - the damn arrow still hits you.  I would like to pull it out.  Meanwhile, this is a person I don't want to talk it through with, because I don't want to be their friend. I want to go back to comfortably avoiding them.

So I will have this to practice with on Thursday, for they will probably be there at church.  Right action, Buddhists call it.  Being pleasant.  Not gossiping angrily behind someone's back.  Not sending  bolts of cold.  You know.  And that will just have to do.  I intend to put them in the "difficult person" or "enemy" slot in my lovingkindness meditation, but right now that slot is full with somebody else.  Such is life. And, since I am a creative person, my "beloved" category is full, too.

To close with a little more attitude that reflects on American history, here's Jon Stewart:

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.

Your comments are always welcome.

update:  I had no trouble at all with negative feelings toward that person.  A stray negative thought, but not a problem.  Isn't that true for everything we worry about?  (Unless, of course, it turns out to be much worse.)