I once read that in Japanese, all the words for ‘thank you’ translate more literally as ‘resentment’. This appealed to my cynical, 20-year-old self–it’s a way to acknowledge a debt we didn’t ask for, like someone holding the door for us.
More powerful is to recognize that our gratitude is the payment, whether for someone holding the door for us, or each sunrise we get to see, for each moment we get to spend with our loved ones.
It’s funny, though perhaps appropriate, that this day—a day so focussed on commerce—is juxtaposed with Thanksgiving, a day focussed on gratitude.
Gratitude is the payment we give for those things that can’t be purchased with money; the things we didn’t ask for and can never repay. Those things that are intangible and yet so important.
We want Thanksgiving to be a time of gratitude, but first we have to let go of all the things that obscure it.
Ignorance or marriage, apparently. If we eliminate ignorance, as being incompatible with sat and chit, that leaves marriage.
Marriage isn’t about always being chipper and happy. Marriage is about being in a relationship that is so strong it allows you to see yourself reflected in it, clearly.
More than anything else, our ideas are our limitations. If you never try something, you can never do it. Let your time on the yoga mat encourage you to try something.
Due to unexpected commitments, Sommer and I have had to reschedule the last meeting of the Friday Meditation Series, to be 12/2, at Sfeer Studio, Chapel Hill, NC. Hope to see you then.
I’ll be subbing for Paul’s Mixed Levels yoga class at Carolina Friends School, Durham, NC, 12/13, 6pm
I’ll be subbing for Sommer’s Mixed Levels practice class at Sfeer Studio, Chapel Hill, NC, 12/19, 6pm.
I’ll be subbing for Sommer’s Anusara Level 1 class at Triangle Yoga, Chapel Hill, NC, 5:45pm 11/22.
Back in the day, Public Enemy released an album, It Takes A Nation of Millions to Told Us Back.
For most of us, all it takes is ourselves.
Let go of the ways that you are holding yourself down.