This week Annie will facilitate.
In a dharma talk in 1995, Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) said:
"When you love someone, you have to be truly present for him or for her. A ten-year-old boy I know was asked by his father what he wanted for his birthday, and he didn’t know how to answer. His father is quite wealthy and could afford to buy almost anything he might want. But the young man only said, “Daddy, I want you!” His father is too busy – he has no time for his wife or his children. To demonstrate true love, we have to make ourselves available. If that father learns to breathe in and out consciously and be present for his son, he can say, “My son, I am really here for you.”
Once, during a Beginning Anew practice on retreat at Plum Village, my 10-year old son shared some suffering with me. He said that he felt hurt that I was always on my email and not paying attention to him. Hearing this made me very sad and I sincerely wanted to change. Over the years, I have gotten better, but giving my full attention to other people can still be a challenge for me. I can get caught up and distracted by what I am doing or thinking and miss the other person right in front of me. I have also seen other people get distracted like this when I am with them. More technology gives us more distractions.
Thay says that when we love someone, we should give them our full presence. Sometimes it is most challenging to be present for our loved ones because we take them for granted. And certainly they need to be our priority. I would like to extend my presence to be fully there for the people I pass the street in our masks or the person checking us out at the grocery store. Our presence is a gift, and to truly be there is a generous act. The first of the four love mantras can help by reminding ourselves, "I am here for you."
The second love mantra is equally helpful in grounding our presence with another. "I know you are there and I am very happy." It's so easy to forget that someone else is there with us. Because of impermanence, this person may not always be with us. I wrote about this in my book, Things I Did When I Was Hangry: Navigating a Peaceful Relationship with Food:
"The fact is, we never know if we'll get to hug our beloved again or eat another piece of Grandma's pie. We don't know whether this is the last meal that we'll ever cook for ourselves or our loved ones. All we know is that in this moment we have something precious, whether it's a deeply delicious slice of lovingly baked pie or someone at our kitchen table who loves us enough to eat our slightly burned pancakes, as my family did for decades."
Many of us are exploring our internal biases around race and gender, and we can look at this practice through this lens as well. Who are we really present for? Who and what holds our attention? It's also interesting to note what kind of news captures our attention. Tracking our attention throughout the day is a way to identify our deepest values. If our attention is the most precious thing we can offer, where are we choosing to place it?
Looking forward to seeing you on Monday.
with love,
annie.