Five Thanks Givings
I recently found a wonderful essay entitled The Four Stages of Thank You. It lists the gradual steps we go through towards learning to say “Thank You” with sincerity. But beware, I have added another stage between Stage #3 and Stage #4. So, we now have The Five Stages of Thank You. This list begins with:
Stage #1: We don’t say “Thank You” .
When we are young, we don’t say “Thank You” after receiving a gift. This is because we are solely focused only on the gift. But as we get older, we move on to the second stage:
Stage #2: We begin to say “Thank You” after being reminded.
This is progress on our journey to sincere gratitude. Now, when reminded, we do say “Thank You”. We have now learned that these two words, “Thank You”, are what we say when we get something we want. All we need is to be reminded for this behavior to kick in.
Stage #3: We say “Thank You” without being reminded but we don’t really mean it.
In other words, we have mastered the mechanics of saying “Thank You” but there is no emotional connection yet to actually saying these words on our own. We are now merely taking part in a cultural convention. But this is still important progress.
Stage #4: We say “Thank You” and we really mean it.
I added this one since without it this list seems too pessimistic to me. This is an important stage. We now express our genuine gratitude by saying the words “Thank You” without being reminded. We could call this a type of sincere sectarian happiness.
Stage #5: The words “Thank You” are no longer enough.
No longer enough because we have entered a profound spiritual realm of sincere gratitude. This is no longer tied to getting what you want or being happy or not. It is about feeling a deep contentment with everything around us just as it is. Rather than searching for happiness, we now realize meaning in everything in our lives. This is why the words “Thank You” now fail us. Everyday language is no longer up to the task when we move from expressions of happiness to expressions of gratitude.
This exercise can also be replayed with a one-word phrase rather than a two-word phrase. We can swap out the two-word “Thank You” with the one-word “Namoamidabutsu”. Surprisingly it is the same journey with the same list of five stages, but it would be The Five Stages of Nembutsu rather than the Five Stages of Thank You.
When we first begin to come to temple, we do not say “Namoamidabutsu”. This is because we have never been taught how or why, and we don’t know what it means. But over time, after being reminded many times, it begins to feel more comfortable to say it. It takes time but we move from not saying it, to saying when prompted and then on to saying it on our own.
And then we begin to mean it. We feel it in our hearts and mind. It becomes our own expression of gratitude. We also begin to know its meaning though we cannot express it in words. We can now move beyond Stage #5 because we now have a word that is up to the task of expressing a profound sense of spiritual well-being. One that we cannot explain but can realize within our everyday life. This word is enough.
Namoamidabutsu, Rev Jon Turner
