Until you learn to be grateful for the things you have

After a short-lived and disastrous marriage at  23, I “ran away” to the UK for a year to do my MBA. I was a recluse, awkward and naive young woman.

The first term at the school was a disaster.

I had torn a ligament and was on crutches for the better part of my MBA. I also had my paper for a group assignment torn up by a team member in front of my classmates, who said my work was rubbish and not fit for inclusion in the group assignment. I discovered that my study team was meeting without me and overheard my teammates laughing about how dumb I was.

At the end of the first term, one of our professors, a whacky old psychologist who taught us Organisational Behaviour, surprised us with an activity in class. He arranged a massive stack of Post-it notes and coloured pens on his table.  He asked us to pick a set of Post-it notes and a favourite coloured pen, get out of our seats, and gather in the classroom.

He asked us to pick one person in the class, select a word that best represents them (positive and constructive words), write it on the Post-it and stick it behind their backs. We were to repeat this exercise until we had anonymously covered all our classmates’ backs. And we were not to read our notes until the exercise was completed.

This caused a flurry of movement and excited voices, and I could see people already moving around in the class, slapping each other’s backs with post-it notes. I retreated to a corner in the class with my Post-it notes and pens, wondering if I would have at least a few Post-its on my back.

As I started writing my post-it notes, I felt a hard bump on my back. I ignored it as we were all jostling for space. Then, a minute later, a thump on my back. I felt my back, and there were two post-it notes. By the time the professor announced time up, I had many more thumps and bumps, and I managed to cover all my classmate’s backs with notes.

I was surprised to find that there were qualities about me that my classmates liked.

Being rejected by my study group was challenging, as they were some of the smartest people in the class. I took that rejection to mean that the entire class didn’t think much of me. However, reading the notes, I was able to broaden my perspective of my experience and my classmates.

A paradigm shift at the lowest point of our life is a miracle.

It is one of those miracles that changes nothing externally, but the shift it causes within us is so powerful that it changes our lives. That day at Cranfield, where I experienced my classmates’ love, warmth and kindness, was a paradigm shift that turned my experience of the school from “terrible” to “amazing”.

The book, “365 Thank Yous: The Year: A Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life” by John Kralik is a memoir of gratitude.

The book is about a man who experiences what he calls an “irreversible personal nadir”, the lowest time in his life on multiple fronts. Work was bleak as he struggled to pay his employees and keep his law firm running. He was going through a prolonged divorce (second marriage). He struggled to pay his bills and lived in a downsized living quarter compared to what he was used to.   

This stops him in his tracks, and he is reminded of his grandfather, who tried to teach him the value of gratitude.

“He promised that if I wrote him a letter thanking him for this silver dollar, he would send me another one. That was the way thank-you letters worked, he told me.

Experiencing something is different from learning from it

I have only a few memories of my grandfather from this period of my childhood, but I remember well that on this occasion, he was true to his word, and soon I had two silver dollars. Having experienced the truth of this principle, however, I failed to learn it.”

He resolves to learn the principle now and decides to write a thank you note to another person for every day of that year. He figures since he is already at his lowest point, there is not much he would lose by doing that.

What starts as thank you notes blossom into something meaningful he does for himself and the people around him. A tight cocoon of “me, my problems” expands to include family, friends, and people with whom he interacts every day.

I have read this book twice so far, and I intend to read it at least once a year to remind me of the power of gratitude. There are a few themes that I have unearthed in this book, and I will explore them in future editions of this newsletter.

I’ve noticed a profound shift in my meditation practice whenever I include gratitude. It gives me a sense of settling down, acceptance and contentment.

Write back to me! 

Write back to me and let me know your “paradigm shift” experiences with gratitude. Your story will help me stay on track with my gratitude and meditation practice.

This is my first edition in 2024, so my dear reader, Happy New Year to you. I wish you a year of blessings, lessons and opportunities to experience life in all its richness. Thank you for sticking with me so far, and I hope to hear from you this year.

I am finishing this edition with my customary story as a parting thought.

Publishing the Sutras

Tetsugen, a devotee of Zen in Japan, decided to publish the sutras, which were available only in Chinese at that time. The books were to be printed with wood blocks in an edition of seven thousand copies, a tremendous undertaking.

Tetsugen began by travelling and collecting donations for this purpose. A few sympathisers would give him a hundred pieces of gold, but he received only small coins most of the time. He thanked each donor with equal gratitude. After ten years, Tetsugen had enough money to begin his task.

It so happened that the Uji River overflowed at that time. Famine followed. Tetsugen took the funds he had collected for the books and spent them to save others from starvation. Then he began again his work of collecting.

Several years afterwards, an epidemic spread over the country. Tetsugen again gave away what he had collected to help his people.

For a third time, he started his work, and after twenty years, his wish was fulfilled. The printing blocks which produced the first edition of sutras can be seen today in the Obaku monastery in Kyoto.

The Japanese tell their children that Tetsugen made three sets of sutras and that the first two invisible sets surpass even the last.

Reference: 

Tetsugen’s Three Sutras  https://www.sunrays.me/tetsugens-three-sutras/