The Dharma of a Turkey Sandwich
The cloud of light is unhindered, like an open sky;
There is nothing that impedes it.
Every being is nurtured by this light,
So, take refuge in Amida, the one beyond conception
Shinran, CWS #6, p. 326.
Gratitude is one of the most important cornerstones of a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist life. As Rev. Kenji Akahoshi pointed out in a dharma talk a few years ago, other traditions ask “Please,” whereas we say, “Thank You.” When life is going great it’s easy to be grateful, but when life is filled with precarity and uncertainty, where the grounds upon which we live shift so rapidly, sometimes it can be easy to forget about all that we receive. What’s worse can often be the feeling of forcing yourself to be grateful. And so, I’d like to share with you a story about how genuine gratitude often springs forth when you least expect it.
I am a teacher at an independent school in West Los Angeles. On March 11, 2020 (which feels like a lifetime ago) our school, following the lead of nearby UCLA, transitioned to online teaching and learning. We faculty officially had one day to overhaul our lesson plans, learn how to use a novel platform called Zoom, and assuage the concerns of our students as well attend to our own anxieties and fears. The following week, most teachers continued to come to campus and teach from our classrooms for convenience’s sake, to provide some visual continuity and normality for our students, and to enjoy each other’s camaraderie. But less than a week after we went online, the situation became even less tenable. The shelter in place order was coming. Campus emptied day by day. Our dining hall closed, and only essential staff were requested to stay on campus. On the last day I was teaching from school, I began my day at around 6:30AM rushing to record as many lectures as I could into since I knew my home Wi-Fi wasn’t strong enough to support that task. It’s a long and onerous process. I was doing this all while teaching my classes and worrying about the creeping panic buying. And, somehow, I still had to attend faculty meetings on Zoom. Before I knew it the clock struck 3:00PM and I literally hadn’t eaten a single bite of food.
To my pleasant surprise one of my colleagues who is also one of my closest friends swooped into the classroom where I was holed up and offered me half of a sandwich. Little did I know that she observed that I hadn’t eaten anything and realized she had that half of a sandwich left over from her previous day’s lunch. In that fleeting moment I didn’t have to worry about sheltering in place or long lines at the grocery store or how I would react to a global pandemic whose scale society hasn’t witnessed in generations. I was so struck not only at the kind gesture, but truly at how all life had to come together to provide me nutritional and emotional sustenance.
Objectively what sat before me was a turkey sandwich on sourdough with one slice of tomato and a few leaves of spinach. But there was something about that moment where I could be in awe of every thread of life that came together: whether it was the water and sunlight needed to nourish the vegetables or the farmworkers who harvested them, the turkey who gave their life, the people who prepared the sandwich, and my friend who, through infinite causes and conditions, was born in Colombia, raised in Philly, came to be my classmate in a doctoral program at UCLA, and eventually became my officemate at private school founded by a quirky poet named Shirley Windward back in the 1970s.
In the passage above, Shinran points to the infinite oneness of all life, the light we call Amida. He points out that it touches all of us as nothing can impede it. No matter how foolish or riddled with anxiety we receive that light. A light, which is beyond conception. I will never in a million years understand every bit of life it took so I could be nourished by that sandwich, and yet, I still received it.
This experience suggested to me that gratitude isn’t something that flows from our own effort. In fact, I would suggest not trying to force being thankful to take our minds off the suffering we endure. In our moments of despair all life calls out and reaches us, even in (or especially in) the form of a day-old sandwich.
Namoamidabutsu
Jean-Paul deGuzman is a minister’s assistant at the San Fernando Valley Hongwanji Buddhist Temple and a student at the Institute of Buddhist Studies. His other writings on Buddhism in America appear in The Wheel of Dharma, Lion’s Roar, and Religion in Los Angeles: Religious Activism, Innovation, and Diversity in the Global City.
