Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a holiday focused on family, generosity, gratitude, and the traditional cycle of harvest. Thanksgiving, symbolizes the feast before the long cold and often dark winter, a shared bountiful harvest given to us by the land and the community. What is most important is the mindset that we hold during our Thanksgiving gathering. To see all beings as Buddhas. We are Buddhas in process. Either they’re already Buddhas and I can’t recognize them, or they are becoming Buddhas, or will become Buddhas in the future. So we can invite them over and celebrate with them on each Thanksgiving.

The sharing of delicious foods are offered up to our family, and friends and offerings are made to our ancestors, to nature spirits, protectors, and all sentient beings. We can offer in gratitude in many ways such as:

• Inviting our friends and family (especially those who may be alone) over for a delicious meal. Or bringing our own tasty dishes over to our loved ones home to eat with them. And if we cannot cook, we can still offer our joyful presence and even offer help cleaning up.

• A plate for our ancestors. A small plate set aside on the table, perhaps with a candle or flower, to honor family who have passed.

• Outdoor offerings. A portion of food taken outside after the meal, left as an offering to wildlife, birds, or simply to the spirit of the land, such as Mr. Land.

• Acknowledgment of land. Naming the land and its original caretakers, remembering that our feast takes place within a larger story of human and ecological relationship.

These actions remind us that we do not eat alone. Every bite of food comes from a web of interconnected life and death.

For more information see Ong Dia (Mr. Land) here.

Land Spirit Offering

To the supreme guide, the precious Buddha,

To the supreme protection, the precious Dharma,

To the supreme spiritual companion, the precious Sangha, 

To the objects of refuge, the Three Jewels, I make offerings.

[Three Times]

To all you spirits, owners of this land and place, together with your retinue,

This offering of excellent food and drink is made.

Please perform the activity to fulfill the wishes of the yogi, master and disciple, and so that 

The Teachings of Lord Buddha may flourish and spread!

May you, by the power of this offering and prayer,

In whatever place and wherever we are

Always pacify sickness poverty and conflicts

And may the Buddha’s Teachings and prosperity increase!  

Healing Through Flower Watering

Our Thanksgiving can be an act of healing of individuals, of communities, and of the bonds that connect them. In many families, Thanksgiving is also about healing through togetherness and connection, whether explicitly or quietly: strained relationships, family members who rarely speak, generational rifts can be softened by food and togetherness.

During the meal, each participant can name one quality they are grateful for in someone else at the table in a practice called "flower watering." This is a chance to share our appreciation for the other person. We may mention specific instances that the other person said or did something that we had admired or are thankful for. This is an opportunity to shine light on the other’s strengths and contributions to the family and to encourage the growth of his or her positive qualities.

For more information see Táo Quân (The Kitchen God) here.

The Blessing of Gratitude

On Thanksgiving, one does not simply take food; one receives it as a blessing. To receive it as a blessing is to recognize interdependence, to acknowledge that we rely on one another and on the earth. We gather, we share, we feed one another, and we rejoice together.

Gratitude is more than a polite “thank you,” it is an act of being fully present to the reality of this moment, to the relationships unfolding around the table.

Thanksgiving is about deepening what is already present: the gratitude, the gathering, the impulse to give and to receive. It invites us to see ourselves not as isolated individuals but as participants in a vast mandala of life. One in which ancestors, land, family, and strangers all have a place at the table as Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

In a world often fractured by division, Thanksgiving remind us of blessing of interbeing and interconnection of all life.

For more information see The Blessing of Thần Tài here.

Thanksgiving Blessing Prayer

Tashi Delek (Auspicious Greetings)!

On this auspicious occasion of the Thanksgiving Holiday, I wish you all happiness and good fortune! As we celebrate this festival of gratitude, let us connect it with the profound perspective of the Youngdrung Bon.

In the view of Dzogchen, while all phenomena are merely illusory appearances arising from our own mind, cultivating gratitude for the opportunity to recognize our own primordial, unconditioned Rigpa (Awareness) and for perceiving all obstacles on the path as self-liberated is a crucial aspect of the supreme practice.

• We offer thanks for the basic goodness within ourselves, and for the joy derived from this gathering of Dharma friends who practice together.

• Similarly, we offer immense gratitude for the opportunity to recognize that all confused appearances of cyclic existence arise as the Ground Luminosity and the Display of Rigpa.

During this holiday, it is important that we strive to abide peacefully in the fundamental nature of our consciousness and never forget the foundation of View (Tawa), Meditation (Gompa), and Action (Chödpa).

I wish you all a day filled with peace, joy, and the recognition of Naturally Arising Primordial Wisdom.

Tashi Delek (Auspicious Greetings)!

Prayer Before Eating Meat

chom den dé dé shyin sheg pa päl dzin la chag tsäl lo 

chom den dé dé shyin sheg pa päl dzong la chag tsäl lo 

chom den dé dé shyin sheg pa nam par röl nam pa chen pa la chag tsäl lo 

ཨོ་ཨ་བི་ར་ཧྃ་ཁེ་ཙ་ར་མཾ་ས་ཧ། 

OM AH BI RA HUNG KHE TSA RAM MUM SVAHA 

repeat the mantra 7x, then blow on the meat/body