How should I wrap my presence?

Many platitudes about the holidays focus on the joy of giving.  Of course, ideas become platitudes by being generally true or at least by being generally accepted as true.  As a parent, I gain a great deal of joy from watching my children receiving gifts.  Yet, there is sometimes a dark side to giving.

Part of this dark side is the norm of reciprocity.  This is defined succinctly by the clip above from the TV show, Big Bang Theory, but basically when someone gives you something, we feel a need to reciprocate.  This is a powerful social norm which can change a joyous giving into a burdensome obligation.  One of the classic studies was conducted in 1974  by Phillip Kunz.  That year, he randomly selected 600 families he didn't know and sent them Christmas cards.

To these 600 strangers, Kunz sent his Christmas greetings: handwritten notes or a card with a photo of him and his family. And then Kunz waited to see what would happen.

"It was just, you know, a shot in the dark," he says. "I didn't know what would happen."

But about five days later, responses started filtering back — slowly at first and then more, until eventually they were coming 12, 15 at a time. Eventually Kunz got more than 200 replies. "I was really surprised by how many responses there were," he says. "And I was surprised by the number of letters that were written, some of them three, four pages long." (See article describing this study in more detail here)

This is the norm of reciprocity at work, and is especially surprising when you remember that these 3-page letters he received were not typed on computers and mass-produced -- they all were handwritten in 1974.

When considering our holiday gift-giving, do we feel it as an obligation or as a joy?  If it's stressful and obligatory, then is it really giving?  The first of the Paramitas (the perfections of the heart that we are cultivating through practice) is dana, or generosity.  The Buddha said (in the Dana Sutta), that there are three conditions that should be met:

1. Before giving, the mind should be glad
2. While giving, the mind should feel inspired (bright and clear)
3. After giving, the mind should feel gratified

Can we practice these three as we shop, as we give, and as we receive?

Perhaps part of what makes the giving difficult for many of us is that the focus becomes the gift itself, which as Nancy Thompson noted in a recent post, is empty.  Another practice is to recognize that we have much more to give than stuff.  Perhaps the greatest gift we can give is our presence. 

As we join with friends and family and others with whom we often have complicated feelings, can we drop the past feelings and be present with them as they are now?  Can we drop our judgments about them while we are with them?  Can we reduce the effect of our past conditioning and respond in a fresh way?  The person in front of you is NOT the same person he or she was last year (or even yesterday).  Can we see who they are at this moment alone?  Can we listen without needing to say our "side?"  Can we understand their point of view, without deciding if it's better or worse than ours?  This is really what most people want - to be truly listened to.  Presence is a present we don't need to wrap.

Photo credits: Here and here.