Gratitude

Interbeing and Attunement's radiant grandchild

I didn't plan to write a special Thanksgiving essay. But early this morning I remembered something I read in one of my few “desert island" Substack subscriptions- Kathleen Ellen Sullivan's incredible Code Red. I read about thirty Substacks, some for information, some to keep abreast on cutting edge developments in science areas I track. Some, whose scope are global or local, spiritual or ethical, dwelling in science and the mythical alike. Code Red which gracefully negotiates many of these recently had an essay whose emphasis on the concepts of interconnectedness and attunement spoke deeply to my own feelings.

I left a comment to it there on what a Buddhist writer had said on the same topic. That comment is the bulk of my Thanksgiving message to the readers over here at Lux Umbra Dei. The quote from the Buddhist monk:

“In order for a bowl of rice to get to your table, the heavens must have let the sun shine to grow the rice paddy and scattered just enough rain to wet the shoots. The earth must have opened its heart to let the rice spread its roots, and the wind must have blown cool breezes to ripen the crops. The whole process must be teeming with the sweat of the farmer who planted the rice in spring, pulled the weeds in summer, harvested the crops in fall, and with the care of the one who made the warm bowl of rice, soaking it and boiling it. Not only that but, in order for today's farming and table to exist, there had to be vertical accumulation of technologies from numerous ancestors and traditions. Horizontally there were precious efforts to produce farming tools, fertilizers, threshers, a rice mill, kitchen utensils, fuel and so on. Therefore, how can you call a bowl of rice yours just because you bought it with your money? Trace its history--in a bowl of rice, there is the grace of the entire human race and the whole universe."

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A comment is a haiku. A distillation- and like all such, can be a truer, more direct presentment of ones heart’s feeling than something lengthier mediated by the “imperious lonely thinking-power” from Arnold’s poem, Empedocles on Etna. I could have distilled my comment to one word: Gratitude. But to whom, for what? The quote did it for me.

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Here then let us offer a Thanksgiving toast to rain, soil, farmer, implements. To sun, science, rain. To Code Red, to all subscribers, to pen and paper. To all of us in this great sangha. To Interbeing and attunement- to the radiant Grace of our mother planet and the Universe. If we spoke eloquently without end there would still be insufficient praise.

We thus give thanks.

इति. Svaha