What is the surprise when my belly grows over Thanksgiving? What does flummox is why the Buddha has such a plump girth. From the few readings that I have browsed, some even offline, the guy seems focused on simplicity. More than a few lean years, living one grain of rice at a time, is how he operated, several research sources demonstrate. The near starvation as a way in, into the physical understanding that suffering happens when we deprive ourselves of basic needs, especially the spiritual kind.

How does Thanksgiving holiday 2021 fulfill America’s belly? Still a discovery process, yet a court jester, wearing her bright orange, blue, and yellow striped hat with a ringing bell at the tip, is at the royal “we” table and whispers a word. Expectations.

Odd why we Americans seek overstuffed portions of too many dishes served at one meal. Maybe gluttony can seem freeing when the table adorns meats, vegetables, breads, and pies as if we value ourselves more in that abundant feeling of extra, meaning extra enough so we feel like enough. Can we be enough in our over-doing culture? The Thanksgiving dining excursion can be a thoughtful one on too much food as a visual reminder, a culinary statement, of who we are in the United States. Extremists.

These are sweeping sentences that generalize too widely on the American spectrum where protruding bellies can be evidence of poor nutrition, especially fast food, and how this option becomes so prevalent in lower income neighborhoods. And contrasting households where smaller portions of higher nutrition food, often expensive, keeps the one percent lean and in shape. Ranting I am, sure, with the hope and purpose to explore an inner mindset, mine, on view in this writing as “we” unfold the cloth napkin to initiate writing on food ceremonies. Join me at the dining table?

For example, last year we had an invite to this type of overly fooded table. All the extreme kindness in that living room meant so much to my son and I and an adult youth, a 19-year-old son to a lesbian couple, good friends of mine from Pacifica, an ocean town just south of San Francisco in California. He had been staying with us in our home for several months, in Hawi on Big Island.

For that 2020 in Waimea, a town 30 minutes away driving up Kohala Mountain Road, a few sets of parents, a traveling grandmother originally from Nigeria now living in Alaska and visiting Waimea, a middle school teenager, two kindergartners, my fourth-grade son, a three-year-old plus his Dad, had all gathered to overeat for several hours.

Given Covid stipulations, we kept all the doors and windows open and after eating we went to the local Waimea Park, in this town with paniolo (cowboy) histories and today hosts two elite private schools, Parker School and Hawaii Preparatory Academy. We all had a blast running around at the park and then returning to the house, playing the board game Apples to Apples for a long time stretch, enjoying zaniness that a festive crowd brings.

Now for this November 2021, I sought my own extremist response to Thanksgiving expectations. Spencer campground has a tent spot some thirty feet away from the beach on a slight hill above the ocean. We snagged this camping site on Tuesday late afternoon, the first vacation day for my son free from routine elementary school life in 5th grade. A 15-minute drive away is Hawi, the town where we live. Earlier in the morning I had piled my son in the car, picking him up from a stayover at his friend’s house. Minutes after sitting in our car’s passenger seat, he slumped over fast asleep, exhausted because he and his 5th grade amigo continued playing video games into the wee hours of the night, extreme stretches of play time.

Then our pilgrim status begins. We embark to Wal-Mart for an initial pilgrimage. The right phrase is just on the tip of my memory. How does that one go? Aaah, yes, now I remember: love the sinner and hate the sin. Shopping at Wal-Mart falls into this category. Forgive this sinner? Check out the documentary Wal Mart: The High Cost of Low Price by Robert Greenwald to start atoning if that is your path. Had been mine for more than several decades until I drifted into seeking a daily creative life. Then I caved. So, I am standing in aisle 29, surveying camping tents. On the front label, one is promising to be an Instant Pop-Up tent and has the greatest appeal even though the price tag is doubly more expensive than others. Convenience simply always has some sort of consequence—this time monetary. We buy the tent, anyway. Cave, cave.

True to the expensive promise, the tent does pop up quickly without the usual fitting poles, nailing strings to the ground and more. Voila, a pricey promise come true. Inflating the two air mattresses (cheap at $14 each with a $12 air pump!) the camping cozy factor is very much good to go. What an efficient American pilgrimage that takes 30 minutes from Spencer campground (next door to Kaiwaihae) to the Wal-Mart in Kailua-Kona, and then the leisurely commute back to our campsite, returning with vacation equipment. And then we begin to sit and just sat there.

And that is the Buddha belly point. When meditating to ease mind-set pressures of holiday expectations, an ease kicks in from the quiet mind practice, a result from “sitting,” a word some use as a synonym for meditating. At a campsite, much sitting around is already routine for the day. And snacking, too, as my Thanksgiving weekend belly exemplifies. I gained a few pounds even while saying no to overeating at a traditional food stuffed Thanksgiving table. This year we enjoyed more than a few meals at this other table, a simple cedar-green painted campground picnic bench. Am I extreme in seeking this food table simplicity yet still overeating? How to justify that hypocrisy? Buddhist writings suggest that every human innately has Buddha like qualities. Christ knows I am not comparing myself to the Buddha. (Howz that for sacrilegious prose?) Just sayin’ that we each have over-done our belly girth. What gives?

I guess the point is that we are fallible humans. And in our human nature, our instinct can be set for over appetites, for just about everything. Maybe the Buddha remains a conundrum in that once achieving nirvana, he then stays on Earth to share this wisdom. Yet was it then that he began to overeat, hence the belly? Or I simply do not know. The last explanation fits best, my not knowing much of anything, and so my flummoxing continues since I have seen more than a few wide-girth Buddha statues. Asking for a lending knowledge hand here if any reader can, then can. Anybody know?

Perhaps we can recognize that wanting too much brings suffering, guaranteed, yet learning how to live in simplicity, given all the American culture messages on expecting more to be better, can by daunting. My 11-year-old son and I gave the project a simple crack this Thanksgiving weekend. On Wednesday, seeking our lunch menu we made the 15-minute commute back home to Hawi, where the store Kohala Grown makes an amazing roast beef sandwich, veggie chicken wrap, and chocolate avocado pudding. Darien even splurges on the coconut chocolate gelato.

With our bellies quite full and having returned to the campground, we began to sit and just sat around. Blessed are the tropical breezes, warm and lulling. Ocean waves lap at the volcano lava, an easeful sound, water gurgling through and over rocks. We stayed in the spiritual discipline of rewarding ourselves by doing nothing.

Only for so long since dinner hunger pangs beckon most every day. Around 4 30 afternoon time, we again make the commute to Hawi, sitting down on comfy chairs at Mi Ranchito, a Hawi taqueria where we ordered three large soft tacos—grilled chicken, carne asada (grilled beef), and carnitas (pulled pork)—on one huge plate accompanied by refried beans and rice, plus a nacho plate piled high with pinto beans and melted cheeses, and next a significant quesadilla plate with guacamole and sour cream on the side. Before these entrees arrive, we did polish off the complimentary basket of chips and pico de gallo.

Much of the food went into an ice chest to enjoy a belly-extending breakfast the next day. Which has now become Thursday, the official American national over-eating ceremony called Thanksgiving. When eating late the night before, Darien is often hungry again around brunch hour. Yet he may have waited too long, so we give him a peanut butter Clif Bar to keep the hangry (too hungry makes for angry = unpleasant 11-year-old) mood away.

By 12 30 afternoon time, his belly balance restores, and our family is ready for Thanksgiving meal, which turns out to be roast duck with Hawaiian sides: two large scoops of white rice plus one big one of macaroni salad and an order of chicken chow fun. Drinking a Coco-cola, a rarity in our family, the culinary excursion off the beaten track feels complete. Picture extreme comfort food at a local Chinese restaurant in a small mall with a few shops. Fine by me if you erase that preconceived image of my son and I trekking for weeks in the rain forest to secure a meal. Ordinary to good Chinese food dined on in a familiar location and we were, once again, happy campers.

A two-minute drive away is the movie theater where watching Encanto sealed the day’s ceremony to give thanks for all that our family has. The incredibly gifted song writer Lin Manuel Miranda, creator of Hamilton, and so many other song-lyric works of empathy-filled imagination, brings his talents to this fantastic movie in a truly true theme for Thanksgiving. Every person in a family is loved and valued for simply being him or herself. No extraordinary performance or magical gifts required. Seems intentional that they opened this move on Thanksgiving, what can be a stressful time when many families experience rancor rather than respect.

**And I wish to add a side note. After posting this essay yesterday, the social-justice conscience ping-ping kept a ringing, a reminder on when I omit, I am complicit. Why did I not celebrate the mixed-race couple, a Caucasian red head and her dark-skinned Caribbean husband, whose young son Antonio motivates much of the story line? As this blog essay writing focuses on my own spiritual ease, this can gift a wider perspective, yet unwittingly, at times, narrower. Privilege works that way, I guess. So grateful when my training in life’s school of empathy brings me back to fuller awareness.

At the dinner table last night with my mixed-race son, who is African American and Caucasian, he asks me who is my favorite character in Encanto. I fumble for the name of the young boy. “Antonio,” my son declares. “Right, right,” I confirm quickly as if I miss the connection. Then I slow down since getting this conversation right is like Sisyphus ever climbing the hill to simply roll back again, but starting, and gently staying in the race conversation, offers chances to recognize him on the daily. That we get to see such fantastic characters of color while watching Encanto is inspiring. The classic Mama talk is his responding glance at me. Then he gives me a deep smile and we finish dinner in that light mood.**

And I am still wondering if I did the right thing by seeking simplicity during such a high expectation American holiday? The slowing-down days did transform a familiar campground, Spencer’s Beach (Ohia’Ula), where I have camped many times over the last several decades, into an entirely new land adventure simply by sitting around. One new experience is my son trekking our family to a side beach that I have never walked to before, which gave us the chance to go for swim number two on Friday. Amazing.

In the other direction of the beach bay, I discovered a small ocean inlet that rests at the foot of a Hawaiian temple—a heiau. Beyond this a small park has been cultivated for several decades by locals who strive to keep surfing at this Kaiwaihae location active. And turns out that the YMCA offers sailing lessons for youth nearby. All these discoveries made by simply gifting our family time and space to explore. One of the better Thanksgivings that I can remember.

Cultural context draws a clearer picture that on Big Island Hawai’i the practice is quite common for families to bring large tents to camping spots on the beach and prepare copious amounts of food to appreciate and enjoy over several days. And so, on Thanksgiving Thursday at Spencer’s beach campground, diverse families packed the place. Next to our tent was one family from Argentina and another from Mexico and they live in Hilo, a few hours away by car. My son made friends with several of the boys while playing Nintendo video games. In a way, Thanksgiving is celebrated year-round on Big Island.

Mainland American culture exhibits extremism in myriad ways: over eating one specific day, over expectations for this and other holiday times, over video gaming, and over Wal Marting. But the Thanksgiving invite from last year and that over kindness seems good and well enough. The twist this Thanksgiving that took work is to adjust my inner sense that I should do more, more, and more to make a difference. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Make meals for those in dire need. And on and on. Instead, the gift of time arrives, and I welcome a shift in my own spirit. As I slow down, I am more ready to give back and participate on behalf of others. That feels good and more than enough.

What does the participation look like to feel full enough in an American life? Mind you, those who live in glass houses, may not toss extreme rocks. My own day to day house is in recovery, which means I thrive now as a direct growth from prior extreme behaviors. Took me a few decades to deeply accept in my heart-awareness that I am more than enough as I simply sit on this green-cedar park picnic bench writing these words. Many difficult life events attempted to persuade me otherwise. Happy to realize now that as every day wraps up, each one of us is more than enough.

This ultimate exercise in finding simplicity becomes a required one for me and millions of others who live recovery life through AA. All are welcome and one quote from sobriety literature clarifies that “the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.” Replace the word drinking with extreme over doing in any other countless ways and perhaps we see that for all of us less is truly more. Expectations create cravings, often extreme. What we learn in recovery is to reset the craving button, so daily life, the unexpected joy from slowing down, becomes a sort of spiritual craving. In this way I often wonder if perhaps Buddha had been in AA even though our program begins in 1939 and he meditated around 300 BC. Despite the 2,300 year gap, more or less, I feel some kinship with the guy. His life motto focuses entirely on how to shift cravings to ease suffering so we can bring more compassion for others. Besides, he and I sport a plump belly that shakes with laughter all throughout the day.