The very
languaging
of being grateful defines what's possible for gratitude. A certain
languaging
of being grateful allows for ordinary gratitude. Another
languaging
of being grateful allows for extraordinary gratitude. To wit,
languaging
ordinary gratitude references an object. What do you mean by
that, Laurence? I mean when I'm ordinarily grateful, I say things like
"I'm grateful for ..." or "I'm grateful
because ..." (where the dot-dot-dot
represents the object of my gratitude). But gratitude per
se only sometimes requires an object - in other words, being
grateful only sometimes requires a for or a because. When I
language
gratitude without an object, it's extra-ordinary gratitude. To
wit, extraordinary gratitude is just being grateful -
period, like a space to come from, a space which stands alone
(no object is required).
Ordinarily I'm grateful if someone gives me something valuable. Just as
ordinarily, I'm grateful if someone does something of value for me. But
until
speaking with you for the
first time forty years ago,
I had no concept of being grateful outside of the context of someone
giving me something valuable, or of someone doing something of value
for me. Today if I
strip it down to the
studs,
I have two takes on the extraordinary way of being grateful like a
space to come from ie like a possibility.
The first is I'm grateful for being, just for being -
period. In particular, I'm grateful for
being around you,
and for being alive on the planet at the same time as you. I could have
been born at any other time in history, in any other millennium.
Likewise, you too could have been born at any other time in history, in
any other millennium. As it turned out, like the overlapping circles in
a Venn diagram, we were both alive on the planet at the
same time. And I'm grateful for that. To be explicit, my gratitude is
not so much for something you gave me (I'll get to that in a moment).
Neither is it so much for something you did for me (I'll get to that in
a moment too). It's simply that I'm grateful I had the opportunity to
be alive on the planet at the same time as you. That opportunity made
my impossibles possible. But look: even that outcome, is just the
what happened ie it's just the result. It's not the being
grateful I'm coming from per se, the being grateful I'm speaking.
The second is I'm grateful you gave me
nothing,
and that you did
nothing
for me. Really. Now clearly that's not ordinary gratitude.
It's extraordinary gratitude. And lest I understated it, neither is it
ordinary
nothing.
It's extraordinary
nothing.
Those of you who know that
nothing
to which I refer, will get it. And those who don't, may not. See, I'm
not using the term
"nothing"
colloquially. "I'm grateful you gave me
nothing"
and "I'm grateful you did
nothing
for me" flies in the face of ordinary gratitude requiring an object or
a for or a because (it harkens to a
Zen koan
"You gave me
so much
when you gave me
nothing.").
The
nothing
you gave me, and the
nothing
you did for me, allowed me to experience just being. My
gratitude for that, is the very space I come from. This is what being
grateful is - like a possibility.
Now: what about this
"nothing"
you gave me? What about this
"nothing"
you did for me? To get that, requires being steeped in
your work
and / or being steeped in
Zen
(one of its precursors). For starters, it let me experience gratitude
both ordinarily as well as extraordinarily. But much more
than that, it's a generous act of
Zen
to give someone
nothing
and to do
nothing
for them. In this context, it allows people to experience who they
really are. And that's a priceless gift (no, it's arguably the
ultimate gift). It's certainly not what we think of when
we talk about giving someone
nothing.
To be sure, while
enlightenment
isn't what we ordinarily consider to be something that's given
(especially the result of being given
nothing),
these
Zen
exchanges (of which you are a
master)
were never ordinary exchanges to begin with.
Around you
I'm being grateful. That's my
platform
for being grateful for and grateful because, neither of which are
required. This gratitude is enough. It'll last
forever.