Thanksgiving is here again, the traditional US holiday when families gather to celebrate togetherness and aspire to feel grateful for their blessings. Of course, this year is different. Due to the pandemic, people are being discouraged from traveling and gathering in groups of any size.

For those who have few or no family members, not traveling to see them is not such a sacrifice. Perhaps it’s a relief: at least they won’t feel so alone in having to be alone.

Yet, having grown up in the US, most of us will feel a twinge of regret, maybe feel left out, whether we celebrate alone or try to forget that it’s a holiday.

But still, we feel that we should be especially grateful on this one day.

In reality, we can feel grateful every day. Also, although this holiday is supposed to be a commemoration of something that happened in 1621, when a tribe of Indians in Plymouth helped some pilgrims with food supplies, and the two groups dined together, it didn’t really happen.

In fact, people arriving from the other side of the Atlantic had been interacting with various groups of indigenous people long before. However, November is a time of harvest celebrations, and so the story might be based on this.

Of course, we know that while the settlers were undoubtedly grateful for the new land of America,  the Indians lost their lands, and most of them eventually lost their lives.

Now, many people in this country are suffering having lost jobs and loved ones to the virus.

Maybe skipping Thanksgiving this year is a gift of gratitude to all the medical staff who are overwhelmed, risking their lives every day, and in some cases, sacrificing their lives.

We can also donate, share, or send loving thoughts to those in need.

There is a Buddhist meditation practice called tonglen, in which the practitioner breathes in suffering, whether that is yours or others,’ and breathes out healing and compassion. Even though it seems that this might increase your own suffering, it in fact does the opposite—because you have switched the focus from dwelling on your suffering or others’ and are taking an active part in alleviating it. Here is a link in case you are interested in trying it. I will be doing this myself.

https://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-practice-tonglen/

“In compassion, when we feel with the other, we dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and we put another person there.” Karen Armstrong