“We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing.” ~ Charles Schaefer

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”

~ George Bernard Shaw

“We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.”

~ Dalai Lama

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.” ~ Albert Einstein

If you’ve ever visited a monastery in the tradition of Plum Village, you will see something that is unusual in monastic life, monks and nuns playing. Monastics play soccer with kids, score goals, run in circles. They play volleyball with each other and retreatants. They sing songs with hand gestures, laugh together, and make paper art. They do some serious playing. This is anathema to many religious traditions, especially for renunciants, but Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that play is central to our spiritual growth.

Thây gave a dharma talk to the monastics about balancing our spiritual lives to include, study, practice, work and play. Brother Phap Hai, in his 2015 book, nothing to it: ten ways to be at home with yourself, details these four aspects that help us to grow in happiness and wisdom. To deepen our understanding we read the dharma and listen to teachings, we train in meditation with our mind and bodies, we work to embody the bodhisattva ideal of ending suffering on earth and give our time to others, and we take time to do things that bring us joy. Allowing ourselves to play is what rejuvenates us. Play reminds of our capacity for joy and nurtures our reserves needed to study, practice, and give of ourselves. While it may seem undignified, or unbecoming to the status of a spiritual seeker, we need play to keep us from becoming strict and proud, from setting ourselves above others or losing our happiness and delight in living.

Brother Phap Hai tells us that, “The practice of play is really the practice of being at ease” (p.25).  He reminds us that “we need to bring the elements of ease, relaxation, and joy into our lives of spiritual practice” (p.28). If we are joyless in our practice, doing things because we should, we become tight and burdened by our practice. The Buddha said repeatedly, he taught only about suffering and the end of suffering. If our spiritual life creates more suffering, stress, and tension for us, we need to examine our practice. How are we balancing the four elements of spirituality in our lives? And how can we look at this next phase of our lives in the holiday season with the element of play? How do we play together with our families, our co-workers, and our friends?

As we head into the last few months of the year there is so much to do. For American’s we begin with Thanksgiving and progress into a frenzy of consumption with holiday gift giving and the countdown to the New year. For many, this season can feel like obligation and pressure. I want to stop and explore what is beneath all this preparation, all this shopping, feasting, and feting. It’s time to wake up to the constant impermanence in this changing world and be curious about who is sharing our lives and our table.

What if creating the holidays was not work, but play? When we give up the idea of perfection, we can add the element of play. If we grimly endure life’s events, this time of year can feel like one long obligation, a prison of unwanted traditions. When we look with the eyes of a child, we can ask, how can I enjoy this day? How can I enjoy these people, whom I may not see again in my lifetime?  We shift from obligation to opportunity.

Any occasion is an opportunity to share our lives and to create happiness. I remember a story by Lama Surya Das of the Dalai Lama’s visit to Yale University. “That evening, the formal hosts’ pedagogues all went to get him. After knocking on the Nobel Laureates door, they were greeted by a man in maroon lama robes wearing a Groucho Marx mask: eyeglasses, nose, and mustache. It was His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet himself, having a bit of fun. A jolly lama, indeed. This is a true story.” If the Dalai Lama can wear a plastic nose and furry acrylic eyebrows, what could you do to add some playtime to your life and to the lives of those we love? Let’s imagine ways our practice can include friendship, happiness, and delight. Let’s play at that.

May we all trust our light,

Celia