Participating in the grace that surrounds us all

Gratitude for it all, including money

The poet and spiritual philosopher Mark Nepo has three morning rituals:

1. Let light in (open the drapes)

2. Take care of a life form (feed and pet his dog)

3. Give to a person he loves (make coffee for his wife or do something for her)

What I love about Nepo’s rituals is that it’s everyday spirituality, accessible to everybody. I open the drapes and feed my dog every morning too. But Nepo is suggesting something extra: by seeing our actions as ritual, we imbue them with meaning. It’s not just opening the drapes and feeding the dog. It’s letting the Light in. It’s caring for Life. In re-cognizing (i.e. understanding again, differently) that our actions have a deep meaning beneath them, we are participating in the grace that surrounds us all, in the Love that moves the Sun and other stars.

Query: What are your daily rituals? How could you recognize them as participating in the grace that surrounds us all?

Wu Wei, wonderdog

I have morning ritual, which I call “Greeting the Day.” Every morning I pour myself a bowl of cereal, put away all electronics, and do a gratitude meditation. I give attention to the flakes, the blueberries, and the milk and give thanks to the people who allowed all three to happen: the farmers, the cow, the truck drivers, the factory workers, the grocery clerks etc.. I then expand it to the things that allow the cereal to happen: the bowl, the spoon, the chair etc.. As I finish breakfast, I think about the people I’ll see that day: any person with an appointment on my calendar, my friends on the soccer field, my neighbors I’ll see at the dog park. All of it is a gift, if I see as so, to be received as such. By giving attention to grace, I’m in a web of grace.

“The only difference between an extraordinary life and an ordinary one is the extraordinary pleasures you find in ordinary things.”  ― Veronique Vienne

I did a gratitude dojo here in Santa Fe last night. One of the stations is called “Who Loves Ya?”, where you make a list of people who love you, focus on the person on top of that list, and meditate on receiving that love. And then you slowly work your way down that list. It’s a lovely practice. So last night, I pulled out my phone and looked down the list of people I texted with in the last week, meditating on how each of them loved me. In that way, my phone had a deeper meaning of grace underneath it. My everyday list of iMessage texts became a manifestation of God’s extravagant love.

It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up. - Eckhart Tolle

Gratitude practice for money

With all I have experienced in my own life, the power of gratitude stands above everything else. In your mindfulness practice, use gratitude until it becomes your way of life. - Thich Nhat Hanh

As Thich Nhat Hanh says, gratitude practices are the height of mindfulness. I think of it as daily attentional hygiene, the mental equivalent of brushing and flossing your teeth. And anything can be grist of the mill, including money. In Financial Freedom, we explore our “money scripts” — our unconscious, childhood, intergenerational and cultural, partial truths about money. The four common money scripts: money vigilance, money avoidance, money status, and money worship, are really forms of ego separateness and inattentiveness. Unsurprisingly, those four money scripts are ways that we find ourselves ungrateful and unconscious about money.

In her wonderful book Wild Money, my friend Luna Jaffe offers a gratefulness practice that awakens us to all the ways money benefits us as it comes into and out of our lives. I suggest you try it out:

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Think for a moment and make a list of the money you receive (your paycheck, any passive income or inheritance, alimony payments from your ex, student loans, or gifts from your parents). Recognize that money doesn’t come from solely your effort. 

All of these times money comes to you are opportunities to gratefully receive. How did you feel when you had the money in your hands or saw it show up in your bank account? Did you pause, savor it, and give thanks? Did you rush by it, wishing there were more, or barely notice it at all, taking for granted that it would always be there for you? 

The money you receive then helps you meet your physical, emotional, and social needs. Think of what this money provides you each month. Each time you paid for something, did you stop and think about how lucky you are to be able to buy it? Consider each item on this list and realize that money helped you get:

• Rent/mortgage, food

• Water, electricity, internet, phone

• Travel, education, what you’re wearing, entertainment, 

• (Other things?)

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Life is a gift. You can move into the gift by seeing it, acknowledging it, and feeling grateful. But the most important gifts are lost to us because of their closeness and familiarity. The most important gifts of money: that it gives us far more than we could have ever gotten without it, that it connects us to the wider world, that it comforts, privileges, and supports us, are lost because it does so consistently and unobtrusively (moreso with automated deposit and payment). I mean, holy crap, going to the grocery store and exchanging $70 for a week’s worth of food is a miracle, a work of everyday grace. If we were more grateful, I suspect we’d find enoughness in the world, and in ourselves.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said that "Forgiveness is not just an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude." I would say the same about gratitude. I don’t always feel grateful. But I choose to practice. I try to make it a permanent attitude, even seeing the worst times as dark grace. Quite simply, I ritualize this core skill of human happiness. How we see our experiences is still up to us, independent of what is happening to us.

Let the light in. Feed the dog and get the groceries. And do so holding the deeper meaning behind it. It’s everyday spirituality. Magic is happening right here and right now and it’s holding us in grace. In turning our attention to the blessings in our lives, including how money rolls in and out of it, we fall a little more in love with our own lives. With gratitude, we participate in the grace that surrounds us all.