A few days ago beloved teacher Thich Nhat Hanh continued on. I was one of millions of people whose lives he quietly changed. As I write that, it sounds too significant. After all, I didn't know him personally. I was just one in a crowd. Could someone we don't know intimately really have that effect? Apparently so, because when I think about who I would be if I hadn't learned from him, his monks and nuns, lay teachers, and sangha members starting in my early twenties, I wouldn't be who I am. I likely wouldn't be here writing to you.
You have been hearing his words mixed into mine in these weekly emails, in my guided meditations and talks. For 25 years I have been absorbing his words and trying on what he taught. I can’t really separate his words from mine anymore. Those retreats I had the good fortune of going on in my twenties changed my life even if I didn’t realize it at the time. When I think of the concepts I most learned from him that I have always felt dedicated to passing on, they are the concepts of:
Stopping and enjoying all of the beauty around us, even when there is suffering present.
How to "take care of our suffering" and not run away from our suffering.
Washing the dishes to wash the dishes, walk to walk, etc. Though I may not always do this, I hear his reminder all the time.
The profound way he teaches about no birth and no death and the freedom that comes when we have this understanding.
Teachings on mindful consumption and the idea of being mindful of the "seeds we water."
His teachings on mindful speaking and listening
The beautiful metaphors he would use to describe Inter-being. How we can see the tree, sun, rain, the logger in a piece of paper; how we can see the cloud in us.
His emphasis on the importance of nurturing a mindful community.
Letting go of concepts (right/wrong, good/bad, death/no death).
His stretching our ideas on compassion and our non-separation. His poem Please Call Me by My True Name captures it most poignantly where he asks us to consider that we are both the frog and the snake that eats the frog. He invites us to awaken our compassion and understanding.
His emphasis on taking care of the earth understanding that we are not separate from the earth.
The idea that if we stay calm amidst confusion we can have a calming impact on everyone around us.
His approach to mindfulness in everyday life. More than anything, for me, this is what made his teachings so different. He asked us to practice not to become good meditators, but so that we can bring mindfulness into our everyday actions.
Over the past few days, I feel my practice has deepened. Pausing to deeply acknowledge what I learned from Thay is something that I neglected to do at the depth that I am now. Maybe it is because he is gone in this form that it feels like my responsibility to get clear on where I come from when I facilitate and teach. I feel more clarity than I ever have. Thank you, Thich Nhat Hanh.
All of this has me thinking about why pausing to honor the teachers in our lives is so important. We consume what they share and it shapes us. We then pass it on. It is significant. To pause in gratitude is a way of saying, "your actions have mattered to me. Thank you fo what you have awoken in me."
What makes a teacher is not their status, their degrees, or even their knowledge. A teacher can be younger than us or older. A teacher can enter our lives just for a moment as our paths cross. A teacher is not a perfect being. A teacher is someone or something who shifts our perspective, who awakens something inside of us, who inspires possibility, awareness, positive movement. A teacher is someone who helps us to clearly see the beauty inside ourselves and how it is always there, connected to everything.
My invitation this week is to ask yourself, "who are my teachers?" To recognize someone as a teacher requires humbleness. It requires us to put aside our egos and to admit that there are things that we learned from this person, things we did not yet know. And, If we are living openheartedly, we will always have teachers coming and going. Some will have profound effects, some will offer some smaller gifts that at first we might not see. All of them move us. And as Thay says, it is our action here (thoughts, words and actions) that are what we take with us. So let's honor our teachers and their teachers. It is how we got to be here and how we will keep growing in love.
🙏
Jean
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