📿This Too is Practice

Discovering Thich Nhat Hanh's gathas for embracing your life

When our daughter was first born I found myself discouraged by the lack of formal meditation time I had available to me and yet quickly discovered a shift of view. While up at 3 am changing her diaper the phrase arouse in my mind: “This too is practice.”

In other words, the way I show up for myself and my baby, while exhausted with frustration arising in my being, is just as important as how I show up on the meditation cushion. In that moment, my shoulders relaxed. My eyes lost some of the sleep that had been weighing them down. I saw my situation clearly and smiled at my child. She smiled back.

This phrase began to arise in many moments in those early days. When she simply would not fall asleep and scream-cried in my ear while I carried her around on my shoulder I thought, “This too is practice.” This moment, with an inconsolable being who had no idea that if she simply closed her eyes she would find the relief she seeks, this is a moment of practice. It is a training in patience, in compassion and in remaining present in the face of discomfort. What a wonderful teacher this baby has been.

In the last month or so I have found this phrase entering my mind in less baby-oriented moments. A pile of dishes left in the sink? “This too is practice.” I roll up my sleeves and get to work. The dogs refuse to come in when called? “This too is practice.” I trek out in the cold dead of night to retrieve them. It is not even a conscious act; it is a way of meeting my life without resentment or aggression.

This refrain has just become ingrained in my mind through sheer repetition. It is one of saying, “Hey. This is your life. Show up for it. Don’t numb out or distract yourself. Lean in.”

Sometimes, when people use the term mantra, I think what they really mean is a collection  of words that helps them remember what really matters. Perhaps a better term would be gatha.

A gatha is a short phrase that is engaged in for the purposes of meditative practice, or bringing the mind of meditation to your daily tasks. Even though many of these techniques have been around for centuries I find myself using the phrase “as made popular by” very frequently; in this case gathas entered mainstream culture through the beautiful work of Thich Nhat Hanh.

A formal mindfulness meditation, for example, could engage the following phrases to flow with each breath:

[inbreath] Breathing in, I calm my body. [outbreath] Breathing out, I smile. 

[inbreath] Dwelling in the present moment, [outbreath] I know this is a wonderful moment!

This can even be shortened to [inbreath] “calm” and [outbreath] “smile.” 

There are several of these types of meditations in the voluminous work of Thich Nhat Hanh, as well as many on-the-spot gathas, or phrases that correspond with everyday activities. Here is a short list:

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