Orange County Buddhist Church
Orange County Buddhist Church
Around this time of year, someone always says we should express our thanks everyday, not just one day in the year. She is correct, of course, but is simply saying thank you enough? It can be, depending on the situation, but the question really is meant to encourage you to ask yourself, Am I truly thankful, or am I just mouthing words? What does it mean to be thankful? Before more is said, let it be clear that, even as a simple habit, saying thank you is a good thing. That being said, let it also be clear that thinking about it is even better, whether before or after you have said it.
It is a Buddhist principle that everything and everyone depends on every other thing and person. That is what leads us to the teaching of no independent, permanent self. In other words, we are all dependent on every other thing and person, and, therefore, we are all also impermanent, that is, changing.
These teachings began with Sakyamuni, and their ramifications have been developed through the centuries. Even now, however, although we may understand in our rational minds what is being said, it is not always, or maybe even often, that we are able to live in harmony with it. Dependence on something outside ourselves, or, for that matter, even on our own selves, our own bodies, is seldom easy to live with. And is not change very difficult to cope with? Think about it. If you had to move every year or two instead of the ten to 20 or more that many of us stay in one place, do you think that would be a comfortable way of living? Young people hate to move from school to school, so I’m told. Being laid off is a change nearly everyone fears, especially if you have a large mortgage to be paid. Change is not always easy to cope with, even though we know it is inevitable, if not what it is that will change. The plunge in the stock market after Bush became president is one change I could have done without, and, I daresay, many of you as well. That is an instance of dependence as well as change. Whether we like it or not, whether or not it is beneficial to us, we are dependent more than we care to think, which is exactly why we need to think about it. Again, dependence and change are the main reasons we are without a substantial self. Knowing that does not mean we live in accord with it.
Thinking about thanksgiving, or giving thanks, can be a means to seeing how dependent we are on every-thing and everyone, whether near or far, and how subject to change we are, even when we are not the ones making the change, or maybe especially in that situation. But we do need to think about it and not simply say it. In that sense, the same is true of the Nembutsu, Namo Amida Butsu. We need to think about it as well as say it.
Let us hope we will get another step closer to the true and real.
Gassho, Rev. John Doami
