Contemplative practices gave me an opportunity to practice gratefulness and look at things from a new perspective. There were days when I struggled to sit quietly to participate in the practice. Those days often occurred when my back hurt and I was in physical pain. However, this struggle to concentrate made me aware that when we are in pain it becomes difficult to look past that pain to practice gratefulness or see new perspectives. Specifically, as people are suffering from flooding and heat waves to civil unrest, how can we focus on anything past that pain? I’m still struggling to answer that question myself.
Many contemplative practices allowed me the opportunity to practice gratefulness. During the practices, we often talk about putting our mind and body in the present. On October 21st, when it rained for the first time after a dry and smoky summer, I was so happy I felt like crying. The rain on my skin never felt so refreshing, and I felt silly smiling to myself as I walked through the rain to my class. Any other quarter I would have walked to class as fast as I could to avoid the rain. But because I had a chance to practice being in the present, in that moment, I had a chance to appreciate the rain.
Not only have the practices helped me habituate gratefulness, but they have helped me see things from new perspectives. During the practice where we took on three different perspectives where the world was good, where the world was bad, and where the world is as it is, I found myself not quite fitting into any of those three perspectives. However, when we watched the movie Journey of the Universe, I reflected on that practice again and concluded that “The universe is definitely half full.” This perspective derives from the thought experiment of “Is the cup half empty or half full?” Probably, the cup and the universe are both half empty and half full, but I will choose to look at its fullness rather than its emptiness. Rain after a smoky summer, the death of stars to create all the heavy elements, and this life, are all definitely a gift. To help answer my previous question of how to look beyond the pain in our lives, I think part of that answer is seeing the good despite the bad.
