Noticing What Holds You

May 29, 2025

Noticing What Holds You

Preface to Naikan Class 1 These readings are from the first session of a four-week course, Naikan in Four Movements, I offered through Baltimore Dharma Group in Spring 2025. For this opening session, I drew from Gregg Krech’s Naikan, adapting the material to reflect Zen practice more directly. In later sessions, I began writing the readings myself. Naikan is traditionally rooted in reflection on three questions: • What have I received? ⧉ • What have I given? ⧉ • What troubles have I caused? ⧉ Krech’s framing is thoughtful and sincere. At the same time, I’ve long felt that Naikan’s quiet power benefits from a Dharma-grounded context—one that emphasizes relationship over correction, and presence over self-evaluation. In these readings, I’ve tried to weave in the Zen understanding of Giver, Receiver, and Gift as not-three. Rather than asking “Am I good enough?” the question becomes: What am I in relationship with? And how do I stay close to it, even when there’s no resolution? ⧉ My aim is to offer Naikan not as self-analysis, but as a practice of relational clarity. With bows, Dōmon 道門 Luu Pham 2025

Opening Reading: The Start of Attention

Sometimes I go into the woods and just sit. At first, it’s noisy — but not because of the wind or the birds. It’s the mind. Even though my body is still, my thoughts race ahead. Plans surface. Conversations replay. Worries and reminders loop through my awareness, as if momentum alone keeps them going. But if I sit long enough, something shifts. Gradually, the noise fades, and the world around me becomes audible again. The call of chickadees, the rustle of leaves, the rhythm of my breath — these things were always there. I just couldn’t hear them until I had the space to listen.
And then I begin to notice what I usually overlook. The quiet warmth of the sweater I’m wearing. The crisp outline of a branch, made sharp by the glasses on my face. The solid feel of the bench beneath me. These aren’t new things — I rely on them every day. But without attention, they disappear. I realize how much of my experience is shaped by what I notice — and how much passes by unseen. That realization isn’t about guilt. It’s just a fact of being human. But it also opens a door. Because if I can begin to notice more clearly, then I can begin to live more clearly too.
I remember hiking a trail in the mountains after a storm. Trees had fallen across the path, and I had to climb over them, one after another. It felt difficult — at times even frustrating. I remembered that hike as a struggle. But on the way back down, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before: many of the fallen trees had already been cleared. Someone had come through and cut them, making a path. In fact, when I counted, more trees had been removed than remained. But I hadn’t noticed them, because they weren’t in my way. I only remembered the obstacles. That moment stayed with me. It showed me how selective my memory can be — how easily I remember hardship, and how often I forget support.
This is what Naikan helps reveal. Not a new way of thinking, but a more accurate way of seeing. A way of turning toward the life we’re already living, and noticing the patterns that shape it. What have I received? What have I given? What pain or trouble have I caused? These are not questions to interrogate ourselves with. They are invitations to look again — with honesty, but also with gentleness. We reflect not to judge, but to understand. And through understanding, we may begin to experience a different kind of clarity — one that’s rooted in relationship rather than control.
So we begin here, with this simple shift in attention. Not to fix anything. Not to measure our worth. But to notice. To remember what we forgot to see. To sit beside the truth of our own lives with a little more patience. As we do, we may find that the life we thought was missing has been quietly happening all along — waiting only for our presence to meet it.

❧

What Is Naikan? A Practice of Noticing

Naikan is a quiet practice of self-reflection grounded in relationship. It asks three simple but profound questions: What have I received? What have I given? What difficulties have I caused? These are not moral riddles or self-improvement tools. They are invitations to look again — into the space between ourselves and the people, places, and systems that hold us. In Zen, we speak of the Giver, the Receiver, and the Gift as not three, but one — the act of giving contains all three. Naikan moves in the same way: not to divide or rank these aspects, but to bring awareness to the flow between them. When we reflect on our days through these questions, we do not measure ourselves. We simply begin to notice how we participate in life, and how life participates in us. Most of the time, what we receive goes unnoticed. A bus arrives. The shower has hot water. A friend texts without being asked. Even our breath, our clothing, the soil beneath our feet — these pass through us without ceremony. Our attention is pulled toward what’s missing, what needs fixing, or what didn’t go according to plan. This is not a personal failure— it’s the conditioning of the mind, especially in a world that prizes striving over presence. Naikan gives us a chance to pause and look back. What did we receive today that was not earned? What allowed us to do what we did, or feel what we felt? These are not abstract questions. They are grounded in the felt, physical world. They invite us to remember the gift that makes our living possible. Some might wonder if this reflection is only for when life is going well. But in truth, it becomes most meaningful when life is hard. During illness, grief, or uncertainty, our suffering tends to fill the whole view. And still — someone may hold our hand, refill our prescription, or sit beside us in silence. The world doesn’t erase pain, but it rarely abandons us completely. Naikan doesn’t ask us to deny hardship or cover it with gratitude. Instead, it widens our frame. It shows us that even in the middle of struggle, we may still be receiving. It reminds us that the Giver, Receiver, and Gift continue to turn—sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in ways we only notice in hindsight. We often hear the phrase “taking something for granted” as a moral failure, but if we hear it differently — to take as granted, as given — we find something softer and truer. The vast majority of what sustains us comes without demand or announcement. A flush toilet. A polished floor. A light switch. These are not luxuries, but inherited kindnesses from those we’ll never meet. And beyond physical comforts, there are emotional ones too: someone who forgives us, a partner who makes coffee each morning, the steady companionship of a dog. The practice of Naikan helps us see what we once assumed as background — and to receive it, again, consciously. To reflect in this way is not to correct ourselves, but to return. Return to relationship. Return to awareness. Return to the quiet rhythm of giving and receiving that has always been there, whether we saw it or not. Naikan is not about fixing our story — it is about remembering what we forgot to see. When we sit with even one of the three questions sincerely, the world changes shape. The stories of not-enough, of always-lacking, begin to loosen. And we may glimpse, however briefly, the truth that the Giver, the Receiver, and the Gift are already within and around us, turning.

❧

Specificity as a Gate – The Quiet Depth of Gratitude

Before meals in Japan, people often place their hands together and say Itadakimasu. It means, roughly, “I humbly receive.” But it’s more than a phrase. It’s a posture — of the body, and of the heart. The hands come together, the head bows slightly, the eyes lower. This isn’t about performance. It’s about presence. Saying Itadakimasu is a way of recognizing that we are receiving — not just from the food itself, but from all the lives and efforts that brought it to us. In Zen, we say that Giver, Receiver, and Gift are one. The farmer, the truck driver, the cook, the water, the soil, the sun — all have participated. And we have a role, too, a very important one: Receiver. And in our way of receiving, we enliven the Giver and the Gift. We don’t just take — we activate a relationship through our awareness. Even a cup of tea carries a world of effort. When we say thank you with this in mind — not to be polite, but to actually see — it changes the experience. It becomes what we might call Relational Gratitude: not a feeling we summon, but a way of locating ourselves inside a network of unseen care. This kind of gratitude doesn’t need to be dramatic. We don’t have to thank the barista for their whole career path, or narrate the backstory of the table we’re sitting at. That would likely become performative, another “should.” Instead, we can practice bringing specificity to our thank-yous. Instead of a reflexive “Thanks,” we can say, “Thank you for making space for me,” or “Thank you for keeping the water warm.” These small details restore texture to our awareness. They help us shift from a general mood to a moment of actual recognition. We don’t say thank you because things have ears. We say it because we have the capacity to notice. A pair of socks on a winter morning can be a reminder of cotton fields, sewing machines, shipping routes, and care. When we remember that, we see more clearly what we are inside of. Not isolated. Not owed. Just quietly held — again and again — by a thousand hands we’ll never meet.

~ End ~

This Week’s Intention This week, we begin not with effort, but with attention. Naikan practice starts by noticing what has already been offered to us — often quietly, without asking. This is not a moral exercise. It is a return to relationship.

Daily Reflection Practice Each evening, pause for a few minutes. In a notebook, on your phone, or just in your heart, reflect on this question: • What did I receive today? It might be something physical (a warm meal, a working light switch), relational (a kind word, someone waiting for you), or circumstantial (a quiet moment, unexpected ease). If something touches you, you can say thank you — not performatively, but inwardly. Keeping this intimate will be the most beneficial — you say it not because the world needs to hear it, but because you are capable of seeing it.

Optional Practice: Relational Gratitude Try offering one thank-you aloud this week that names what you’re thankful for. Instead of a general “thanks,” try something like: • “Thank you for making time for me.” • “Thank you for keeping the water warm.” Notice what shifts when you speak with this small specificity.

Final Thought You don’t need to do this perfectly. Let it be quiet. Let it be real. Every time you notice something you’ve received, you return to the truth: you are not alone.

Curious to keep going?

The next reflection in Naikan in Four Movements is:

•What Flows Without Return ⧉

(Each piece stands alone. There’s no need to read in order.)

• Noticing What Holds You ⧉

• What Flows Without Return ⧉

• What I Couldn't Undo ⧉

• The Rhythm of Vow ⧉

For orientation beyond this page, you may enter through:

•The Vibrating Thread: From the Field of Redibility

•Naikan in Four Movements

•Threadwork (or begin with Threshold to Threadwork ⧉ for a gentler entry)