The Teaboy, the Middle Seat, and Thanksgiving
As the holiday season begins, I’ve been thinking about the teachings that help me stay grounded and true to my inner compass. For Thanksgiving 2018, another year marked by political tension, hard news, and climate-related disasters, I wrote about Atisha and his teaboy. Rereading that post reminded me why I’m drawn to this story. It helps me keep my sense of humor, soften where I can, and remember that even the most challenging people and situations can teach us something.
I’m sharing Atisha’s story again this Thanksgiving — a reminder that light still shows up in unexpected places.
My grown son once had the dreaded middle seat on a cross-country flight — right between two parents who spent the time passing their restless, crying toddler back and forth across him. When I asked about the trip, he said, "Mom, I was traveling with Atisha’s Tea Boy.” I knew what he meant.
If you don’t know the story of Atisha and his teaboy, here’s the short version:
Centuries ago, the great Indian teacher Atisha traveled to Tibet with an attendant everyone called a “teaboy.” This teaboy was a handful. He was cranky, noisy, and constantly breaking things. He spilled tea, dropped bowls, and generally made a mess wherever he went.
Still, Atisha brought him everywhere.
His hosts would pull him aside and say, “Please, let us help you find someone new.” But Atisha always said no. “He’s my greatest teacher,” he explained. “He reminds me to be compassionate—and gives me endless opportunities to practice patience.”
Thanksgiving’s here and looking back over the past year it feels like Atisha’s teaboys have taken over. They've certainly taken over the news cycle. Some of our metaphorical teaboys are benign as the one in this story, others less so. I could list a few of the more malevolent ones here, but it’s not where I want my mind to travel this morning.
When I first wrote this post it was 2018. I was in Mexico City, teaching with old friends from AtentaMente, a Mexican NGO that brings social-emotional training techniques in schools, corporations, governmental agencies, and to the general public. From there, I watched events unfold back home, and it was bleak. Divisive mid-term elections and their aftermath tore our country apart. Fires in my home-town of Los Angeles raged, burning to the ground the homes of friends and colleagues. In a nearby town, just an hour from our house, eleven college students were gunned down while line dancing. LINE DANCING! And the sheriff’s sergeant who responded to their call for help was then gunned down, too.
It was tough to be hopeful in that environment, much less to be grateful to everyone—a teaching Atisha emphasized, but one that felt almost impossible to practice at the time.
When the teaching part of my trip was through, Seth (my husband) and I spent a few days in Mexico City. It was rainy, dark, and cold, but fun. Heading out to get coffee early one morning, I left our hotel room expecting it to look bleak outside but bright sunshine met me at the door instead.
Sunshine is an excellent metaphor. In a time that was not so dissimilar from this one politically, Martin Luther King reminded us that “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
In good times and bad, all of us will have Atisha’s teaboys in our lives, and I revisit this story because it suggests we reframe our reaction. Instead of getting angry, tensing up, closing down, or lashing out, Atisha encourages us to keep our sense of humor, soften, and choose to be grateful. Yes, grateful.
Why?
Our teaboys remind us to be patient. They remind us to be compassionate. They give us endless opportunities to practice tolerance and see firsthand how “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that,” and how “hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Across centuries and cultures, Atisha and Martin Luther King point to the same teaching. We don’t get to choose our teaboys — only how we meet them.