Dharma Talks for the Nervous System · Holiday Edition
Dharma
for the
holidays.
Five talks for the most wonderful, most overwhelming time of the year: wonder, giving, letting go, enough, and joy for others.
Each pairs an old teaching with one line of modern science, and gives you the words for the start, the middle, and the end of class. All five are open.
Wherever you see this mark, pause for two or three breaths. The rings behind this headline breathe with you: four seconds in, four seconds out.
Five weeks, five lights.
One talk for each week of the season, starting the Sunday the lights go up. Pick a candle to see its anchor line and when I’d teach it. Light it once you have taught it.
The weekly order is my suggestion, not a rule. Your lit candles are remembered in this browser only.
The sleigh tracker.
Tradition has the sleigh arriving around midnight, wherever midnight happens to be. So this tracker follows midnight: it crosses the date line at noon Greenwich time on December 24 and works its way west for twenty-four hours. The bright dots are where it is daytime right now.
daylight nownight nowthe sleighyou
Arctic reindeer change the color of the mirrored layer behind the retina with the seasons: gold in summer, deep blue in winter. The winter blue goes with eyes that are more sensitive in low light.
Stokkan et al. (2013), Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 280, 20132451. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2451
For its Christmas issue, The BMJ ran a study of reindeer noses. The tiny blood vessels inside were 25% denser than in human noses, which the authors said helps keep the nose from freezing on sleigh duty.
Ince et al. (2012), The BMJ, 345, e8311. doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e8311
This page won’t say. What it will say: you didn’t outgrow the magic, you outgrew the looking. The first talk below is about getting the looking back, with a study on awe to go with it.
Dharma Talks for the Nervous System · Holiday Edition
Dharma for the Holidays
Five talks for the most wonderful, most overwhelming time of the year: wonder, giving, letting go, enough, and joy for others. Each pairs an old teaching with one line of modern science, and gives you the words for the start, the middle, and the end of class.
Wherever you see this mark, pause for two or three breaths. The rings at the right breathe with you: four seconds in, four seconds out.
Three moments per talk
Opening. Tell the story and introduce the idea during centering. About two minutes.
Mid-class. Bring it back inside a pose. A few sentences.
Closing. Land it before or during final rest.
Make it yours
Read slowly and cut freely. You don’t need every line. Each talk has a boxed pair: the anchor line is what students remember, said to the room two or three times; the cue is what they do, said inside the pose.
The science is written into each talk, in one or two spoken sentences. Say it as written and don’t add to it; the study behind it sits under the talk for anyone who asks.
Hold the room
Some talks touch tender ground. Where you see a “Hold the room” note, use invitational language, and remind students they can always rest instead.
Holiday Edition
The Holidays
The magic you felt as a kid didn’t go anywhere. You just stopped looking. Zen, the Buddha, Patanjali and Seneca on wonder, generosity, grip, enough and joy.
Zen
Beginner’s Mind
see it for the first time
Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (1970)
- Anchorsay it to the room, two or three times
- You didn’t outgrow the magic. You outgrew the looking.
- Posewhere the cue belongs
- Easy seat, or lying on your back with knees bent
- Cuesay it inside the pose
- “Meet this breath like it’s the very first one.”
Opening about two minutes
Think back to being small in December. Maybe it was the night before a holiday, maybe the first real snow. You lay in bed listening hard. Every creak in the house could have been something. The lights on the neighbor’s roof looked like they were humming. Anything could happen. That was the feeling. Not the presents. The possible. And then, somewhere along the way, December turned into a list. Buy, wrap, ship, host, clean up. The lights are still up. Most nights I drive right past them. I suspect I’m not the only one. That isn’t a flaw in you. It’s your brain being efficient. The more times it sees something, the less attention it spends on it. Familiar things get filed under “already know,” and we stop looking. The Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki had a name for the cure: beginner’s mind. Meeting things as if for the first time. He wrote that the beginner’s mind holds many possibilities, and the expert’s mind holds few. So tonight we practice being beginners. Not at yoga. At being in a body, on a floor, in a breath. You’ve done this a thousand times. Do it like you haven’t.
Mid-class about thirty seconds
Stay right here and get curious, like a kid who has never felt this before. Where does the breath start? Is it cool going in? Warm coming out? Wonder isn’t just for kids. In one small study, adults in their sixties to nineties took a fifteen-minute walk once a week for eight weeks, and some of them were asked to notice things that amazed them along the way. That group reported more joy and more warm emotions like compassion and gratitude, and in the photos they took of themselves, they took up less of the frame and smiled bigger. Meet this breath like it’s the very first one.
Closing about forty-five seconds
Here’s something to take home. This week, pick one ordinary thing you’ve stopped seeing. The lights on your street. Your favorite mug. The face of someone you live with. Give it ten seconds of first-time looking. Whatever you believed as a kid, the wonder you felt was real. It was yours, and it still is. You didn’t outgrow the magic. You outgrew the looking. And looking can be practiced.
Hold the room
Not everyone has warm childhood holidays. Keep the opening wide: “or any moment you remember being amazed.” The talk never confirms or denies Santa, so it works for every belief and every tradition.
Make it yours
“Most nights I drive right past them” should be true for you. Swap in your own version.
The science, for anyone who asks: Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (Weatherhill, 1970). Sturm et al. (2022), Emotion 22(5):1044–1058: 52 adults aged 60–90; awe walks vs. regular walks, 8 weeks. The “less attention to the familiar” line describes habituation in plain terms.
Early Buddhism
Dana
the practice of generosity
Itivuttaka 26
- Anchorsay it to the room, two or three times
- Every gift you give, you get to open too.
- Posewhere the cue belongs
- Supported bridge, or any gentle heart opener
- Cuesay it inside the pose
- “Breathe in for you. Breathe out for someone you love.”
Opening about two minutes
Watch a little kid give a present they picked out themselves. They can’t wait. They hover. They hand it over and then they can’t stand it: “Open it. Open it now.” Half the time they help you rip the paper. Somewhere along the way, a lot of us lose that. December giving can turn into a spreadsheet: who’s on the list, what it cost, whether it was enough. That’s not you being stingy. That’s you being tired. The Buddha put giving first. When he taught step by step, he started with generosity, before ethics and before meditation. The practice is called dana. And he said something remarkable about it. If people knew what he knew about the fruits of giving and sharing, he said, they wouldn’t eat a meal without sharing some of it. Not because giving is a duty. Because of what it does to the giver. The kid in the wrapping paper already knows. So in this practice, we give. We give the body attention. We give the breath room. And we notice what that does to us.
Mid-class about thirty seconds
Stay in the shape and let the chest be open, like you’re offering something. Researchers once handed people five or twenty dollars to spend by the end of the day. The ones told to spend it on someone else were happier that evening than the ones who spent it on themselves. And the amount didn’t matter. Five dollars did the same as twenty. Breathe in for you. Breathe out for someone you love.
Closing about forty-five seconds
One small gift this week, and keep it cheap. A text that says “I thought of you.” A coffee for the person behind you. Ten minutes of your full attention, phone in another room. Then do what the kid does. Stay and watch it land. That’s the part we skip, and it’s the best part. Every gift you give, you get to open too.
Hold the room
Money is tight for many people in December. Keep the gifts free or nearly free, and never suggest that giving more means caring more.
The science, for anyone who asks: Itivuttaka 26 (trans. Thanissaro Bhikkhu). The step-by-step talk that opens with giving appears in several suttas (e.g., DN 3, MN 56). Dunn, Aknin & Norton (2008), Science 319:1687–1688: 46 people given $5 or $20; spending on others predicted greater happiness that evening, and the amount didn’t matter.
Yoga
Aparigraha
open hands, full heart
Yoga Sutra 2.39
- Anchorsay it to the room, two or three times
- Hold it lightly. That’s how you get to keep it.
- Posewhere the cue belongs
- Reclined butterfly with the palms turned up
- Cuesay it inside the pose
- “Let your hands be empty for one whole breath.”
Opening about two minutes
Every December, somewhere, a kid opens the big present and then spends the whole afternoon playing in the box. I love that kid. That kid knows something. The joy was never in the thing. It was in the playing. For the rest of us, a funny feeling can show up after the unwrapping. The paper’s on the floor, everything’s open, and there’s a quiet little voice: Is that it? That’s not ingratitude. That’s just what wanting does. It promises more than any box can hold. The yoga tradition has a word for loosening that grip: aparigraha. Non-grasping. Taking what you need and letting the rest go by. Patanjali made a big promise about it, too. When non-grasping gets steady, he said, you start to understand the how and the why of your own life. Not more stuff. More sense. So in this practice, we play in the box. We stop reaching for the next pose and enjoy the one we’re in.
Mid-class about thirty seconds
Turn the palms up and let the hands go empty. Nothing to hold. Nothing to carry. Here’s the research side. A large review pooled 259 groups of people and found that those who put a high priority on money and possessions tended to report lower well-being. It shows a link, not a cause, but the link kept showing up. Let your hands be empty for one whole breath.
Closing about forty-five seconds
Here’s an experiment for the week. When the wanting shows up, in a store, in a cart, in a late-night scroll, pause and ask: Do I want this, or do I want the feeling I think it brings? Sometimes you’ll still buy it. That’s fine. This isn’t about owning nothing. It’s about the thing not owning you. Hold it lightly. That’s how you get to keep it.
Hold the room
Some students are going without this season. Keep the talk about grip, not about having too much, and never about what anyone did or didn’t receive.
The science, for anyone who asks: Yoga Sutra 2.39. Classically, the fruit of steady aparigraha is knowledge of past and future births; “the how and the why of your own life” is a modern simplification. Dittmar, Bond, Hurst & Kasser (2014), JPSP 107(5):879–924: meta-analysis of 753 effect sizes from 259 independent samples; correlational.
Stoicism
Saturnalia
the feast and the fast
Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 18
- Anchorsay it to the room, two or three times
- A little less, and it tastes like the first time.
- Posewhere the cue belongs
- Easy seat, in a pause between poses
- Cuesay it inside the pose
- “Take a sip of breath, not a gulp.”
Opening about two minutes
Two thousand years ago, a man sat down in Rome in the middle of the holidays and wrote a letter that could have been written this week. “It is the month of December,” Seneca wrote, “and yet the city is at this very moment in a sweat.” The festival was Saturnalia: feasting, gifts, parties, the whole city overdoing it together. He even quoted an old line: once December was a month; now it’s a year. Sound familiar? The decorations go up before Halloween is over. By the fourth party, the fourth cookie doesn’t taste like the first. That isn’t a lack of gratitude. Your brain gets used to good things. It’s built that way. Seneca’s advice was not to skip the party. Join in, he said, just not in the same way. And now and then, set aside a few days to live simply, and ask yourself: Is this what I was so afraid of? So today we practice a little less. Less effort, less force. And we see what a little less does to the taste of things.
Mid-class about thirty seconds
Pause here, between shapes. Don’t rush to the next one. In one study, people ate a piece of chocolate in the lab, then spent a week either giving chocolate up, eating as much as they comfortably could, or carrying on as usual. When they came back and ate another piece, the ones who’d taken a break savored it more and felt better afterward. Take a sip of breath, not a gulp.
Closing about forty-five seconds
Here’s the experiment. Pick one small pleasure you love this season, the song, the show, the good mug, the scroll, and give it a few days off. Not as punishment. As seasoning. When it comes back, notice the first sip, the first note. It will taste like the first time again. Enjoy the feast. Just leave a little room to miss things. A little less, and it tastes like the first time.
Hold the room
Keep this about savoring, never restriction. Offer pleasures that aren’t food first, and don’t suggest skipping meals or “earning” holiday food. Anyone with a history around food can choose a song or a screen instead.
The science, for anyone who asks: Seneca, Moral Letters 18, “On Festivals and Fasting” (trans. Gummere, 1917). Quoidbach & Dunn (2013), Social Psychological and Personality Science 4(5):563–568: college students gave up chocolate for a week, ate a lot of it, or got no instructions.
Buddhism
Mudita
happy for them, for real
The four brahmaviharas (e.g., MN 7)
- Anchorsay it to the room, two or three times
- Someone else’s light doesn’t dim yours.
- Posewhere the cue belongs
- Warrior II with a soft face, or resting on your back
- Cuesay it inside the pose
- “Picture someone with good news, and let your face soften for them.”
Opening about two minutes
December is the season of the big reveal. The engagement photos. The holiday card where everyone matches. The promotion, the new house, the family that looks like a commercial. And if you’re tired, or it’s been a hard year, there can be a little pinch when you see it. I feel it sometimes. I suspect I’m not the only one. That pinch isn’t a character flaw. It’s comparison, and people are wired for it. The holidays just turn up the volume. Buddhism names four qualities of the heart: kindness, compassion, equanimity, and one that doesn’t get talked about much, mudita. Joy in someone else’s joy. Some teachers call it the hardest of the four, because it asks us to be glad when the good thing happened to somebody else. Here’s the secret: joy isn’t a pie. Their slice doesn’t come out of yours. So in this practice, we practice being glad. Starting with being glad for this body, for showing up.
Mid-class about thirty seconds
Hold here and bring to mind someone who has good news right now. Let it in. Psychologists have studied what happens when people share good news. When the listener responds with real interest and enthusiasm, it’s linked with more positive feelings and stronger, more satisfying relationships. How we receive someone’s joy matters. Picture someone with good news, and let your face soften for them.
Closing about forty-five seconds
Here’s the practice for the season. When someone tells you their good news, at the table, in the group chat, wherever, ask one more question: “Tell me everything.” Then actually listen. It costs nothing, and it might be the best gift they get all month. Someone else’s light doesn’t dim yours. Look down a street of lit-up houses. Every window makes the whole block brighter.
Hold the room
Some students are grieving or alone this season, and other people’s joy can sting. Say out loud that the pinch is allowed. Mudita is an invitation, never a test.
The science, for anyone who asks: The four brahmaviharas appear throughout the Pali Canon (e.g., MN 7). Gable, Reis, Impett & Asher (2004), JPSP 87(2):228–245: sharing good news (capitalization); active-constructive responses were linked with positive affect and relationship quality. Correlational and diary studies.