November 2, 2025
Dharma Message

The American painter and illustrator, Norman Rockwell, has depicted many scenes of everyday family life. Some of his prints have portrayed family togetherness and happiness. There is a particular illustration that has remained a favorite of mine. It is a scene where the family and friends are seated at a dining table, waiting for the meal. Everyone is smiling and talking among each other and the parents or grandparents are placing the turkey on the table. Those gathered have the expression of joy, elation and gratitude.

Mr. Rockwell seemed to capture the feeling of gratitude or quality of thankfulness. This gratitude is a deep state of being that lies in appreciation of kindness that has been shared. Gratitude is a noun that expresses what we appreciate and are grateful for while being grateful is how we express our gratitude through action.

The Japanese express their gratitude in itadakimasu, translated as “I humbly receive”. It is an expression of gratefulness to ALL that has sacrificed their lives to bring a meal or drink to our presence. If one thinks about how we get our food, whether home grown or from the market, those foods were grown through hard work, sacrifice, and with pride and respect. These foods nourish our mind and body.

Our itadakimasu is in respect for all living things. It is our deep appreciation, gratefulness and expression of gratitude to the earth, insects, air, water, farmer, field workers and grocers. There are so many other facets in our food journey. We are grateful to the person(s) who have prepared the meal for our well-being.

While we enjoy the meal presented before us, we are reminded of the four aspects of gratitude, which is referred to as the “4 A’s of Gratitude”. These A’s are attention, acknowledgement, appreciation and action.

Attention is noticing the positive aspects in our lives, no matter how big or small. It is being “present in the moment” and seeing the good around us.

Acknowledgement is the recognition of the positive and negative in our lives We focus on the experience or benefit. There is a positive in the negative. Imagine planting a seed. We dig a hole, drop the seed in, level the ground in a horizontal plane. However, when the seed germinates and starts to peek out from the ground and grow, the horizontal plane is now broken by its growth. We have now changed a negative into a positive.

Appreciation is the value and significance of those things shared or shown to us. We are left with a feeling of gratitude. Lastly is action, which is an expressed verbally or through an act of gratitude. It may simply be taking a moment to show appreciation by saying thank you, a wave of acknowledgement or a wave of thank you.

At the end of the meal, it is gochisosama deshita, translated as “thank you for the feast”. It is an expression of gratitude and respect to the chef and others who made the experience so enjoyable and pleasant. We put our palms together in gassho/Namu Amida Butsu in thankfulness, gratitude and appreciation for guidance and direction in making us more aware of attention, acknowledgement, appreciation and action of gratitude.

Gassho,
Rev. Seijo Naomi Nakano