Role models and true stories of gratitude

From 16Guidelines

Ram Dass

Ram Dass, formerly the American psychology professor Richard Alpert, was one of the ‘high generation’ hippies who experimented with narcotic substances in their search for truth. Gratitude did not necessarily fit well with their free thinking approach. They were rebels, many of whom kicked the dust of home from their shoes and disappeared for years on end to India. However Ram Dass went on to set up the Hanuman Foundation, to embody and celebrate the love and service that he had experienced there.

Ram Dass has described his life as being a succession of ‘advance parties’ – for the psychedelic movement (in the Sixties), for Westerners who were opening up to Eastern spirituality (in the Seventies), for a contemporary exploration of how everyday life can become spiritual practice (in the Eighties) and as a teacher on ageing and illness (in the Nineties). He has treated each one as a learning experience, and as a result everything he has written and taught has been infused with thankfulness.

Ram Dass’ early relationship with his parents was not easy, but as they grew older he consciously sought to repay their kindness to him. In Still Here, his book on ageing, change and dying, he describes the experience of becoming a carer for his father. At first it felt like a restriction and an intrusion on his life, but gradually he came to see it as a gift that shook him out of an egocentric attachment to external freedom.

Ram Dass has called for the “heart to heart resuscitation of society.” He believes passionately that both personal and social transformation start with everyday attitudes such as gratitude and concern for others. He sees his work on himself as a gift to others, and a means to stem the cycle of pain and suffering in the world. He began his life seeking freedom through independence, but is ending it with the realisation that this is a contradiction: freedom can only be achieved through dependence on others.

Thich Nguyen Thao

The devastating tsunami that hit Asia and East Africa in December 2004 had a powerful effect on a Buddhist monk called the Venerable Thich Nguyen Thao. He decided to sell one of the meditation centres that he runs in Vancouver, Canada and donate the proceeds to the tsunami relief fund set up by the Canadian Red Cross. The donation was worth around half a million dollars. Venerable Nguyen described it as an expression of gratitude to the people of Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia who had provided refuge to Vietnamese refugees such as himself. When the initial shock had worn off, his congregation commented that it was the best lesson they had ever received from their teacher. “We can have a temple of compassion instead.”