I think if you teach yoga the week of Thanksgiving and you don’t theme your class around the idea of gratitude, they revoke your teaching certification. Of course, I’m joking — sort of. It’s an obvious thing to focus on, especially this week. As I was planning my class today, it’s where I went, but with a slight twist.

I was thinking in particular of this quote from Pema Chödrön that I’ve used in my classes before. It goes like this,

There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly.

Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.

I’ve had students tell me this is a bit dark, this particular explanation of gratitude and joy. To me it feels exactly right. So often we bypass the reality of the bad things that happen and head straight for gratitude, looking for the lesson we are sure is present in our current suffering and offering thanks. We believe that we must force ourselves to always focus on the positive, the “good,” and reject what’s bad. We think this makes us kinder, wiser, more highly evolved spiritual people.

I don’t think we need to do this. We are perfectly capable of sticking with the awfulness of what is happening, making room for all of it while still managing to find our joy. To be aware that things are hard and bad things happen isn’t any kind of denial of wonder, delight, the potential joy in our lives. We can stay open, be curious, and be present for all of it.

To practice gratitude, we often skip past joy. We list the things we are grateful for with a sense of duty, of obligation — we give thanks, look for ways to return the kindness. Appreciation is something we offer, extend out. I am going to suggest to my class today that we spend some time sinking into the joy we receive, open to it, let ourselves notice it, allow ourselves to fully experience it. My suggestion is going to be that we embody gratitude by feeling our joy.

It’s my 51st birthday today. I have very little time this morning before I need to shower and get to yoga teacher training, where I’ll spend most of the day. I slept in this morning, knowing I should prioritize rest over everything else, but that meant I lost two hours I’d normally have to meditate and write and take things slow. Instead, I got up and started working on my homework for teacher training. I was finished with it on Friday, but I keep futzing with it. There’s one part I’ll have to teach later this afternoon, and I wanted to run though it one more time, fine tune it. And knowing the way I teach (one part planning, one part showing up and responding to what happens), I’ll probably change it again while I’m actually teaching.

It feels a little unfair to be making so much effort on my birthday. I’d rather stay home with Eric and the dogs, relax, maybe go see a movie, go out to eat, but what I’m doing instead is important to me too. And I really can’t complain at all because I’m taking next week off from work. Don’t feel sorry for me for one second. Do something nice for yourself instead — it’s my birthday, I make the rules today and that’s what I want, kind and gentle reader. And if you can’t think of something nice to do for yourself, do it for someone else. Ease suffering, in yourself and in the world. That’s all I ever want, no matter what day it is.

Four years ago yesterday, I took refuge vows and officially became a Buddhist. Five years ago today, I registered for my 200 hour yoga teacher training. Tomorrow is my 51st birthday. To quote myself,

You go through this ceremony which is like part baptism and part wedding and you expect to be born again somehow, cleansed or something, a new beginning, but really I’m just back in the heat of my own stew, laughing at how silly I was to think anything was going to be magically changed by it. I have to do the work, show up and practice, it’s up to me and that’s never going to change. This is my path, for sure and for real.

I forgot to post something yesterday. Or rather, I remembered when I was on my way to bed, when my brain was no longer really working, so I decided there’d be no post for Day 14.

What I did instead: Slept in, because with two days of yoga teacher training over the weekend, and a super busy Monday and Tuesday, by Wednesday I’m ready for a day off, but couldn’t take the day off this week so I slept in instead. Sam had an appointment with his physical therapy vet, so once I showered and ate and meditated and wrote, I took him to that. He’s doing good, and at this point we might have to accept he’ll never go back to what he was. I brought him home after and fed both he and Ringo an early lunch before going to my CSU office. I met for a bit with a friend, fussed about and researched and texted Eric about the “grain-free diet danger” for dogs (because of Sam’s chicken allergy and the food Ringo was eating when he came to us, for the past almost five years we’ve had them on a salmon based kibble that just so happens to also be grain free), and then went to the monthly meeting for the communicators in our college, which I’ve missed the past two months. I avoid as many meetings as I can now because they only seem to mean more work for me, and I really don’t want or need more. Then I had to come back home and walk the dogs. Eric wasn’t going to be home until 6 pm and even though we were most likely just eating leftovers for dinner, I had to go to the grocery store — it had gotten to the point where there were things in our house that could be cooked, but we were running seriously low on anything “grab and go,” which sustains us during the week, (“grab and go” for me includes things like apples, yogurt, soups, and bread for sandwiches). So, I threw the dogs in the car and got groceries. Home, I unloaded the dogs and the groceries, put away the food and it was already almost time to feed the dogs again. Checked my work email and caught up on a few things, then changed into my pajamas and fed the dogs. This is the time of day I typically am DONE and have to get on the couch with my phone or turn on the TV, because that’s all I have left.

A thought I often have is something like “practice, then the laundry.” It’s a reference to that popular quote from Zen Buddhism, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” As practitioners on a particular path, we study and serve and practice. We put a lot of energy towards spiritual growth, undoing our neurosis and habitual patterns of reactivity, cultivating sanity and wisdom and compassion – and yet, most of us are also “householders” and as we practice, life continues to happen and needs our attention too.