Ancestors are a hot topic in the world of spirituality. We all know that our ancestry is a very important part of who we are, and every spiritual tradition in the world has something to say about those who came before us.

Even in the Western world of pick ‘n mix spirituality we intuitively feel that it is very important to (re-)establish the connection with our forefathers and -mothers. Often, however, we make something mystical and magical of it – we long to connect with our deepest most far away ancestors in time. In the meantime, we neglect the often complex but important relationship with our most direct ancestors, our parents.

In this short article I’d like lay out a way of working with your ancestors that is both grounded in reality and in spirit. It is the perspective by Thich Nath Hanh, the late Zen master who is seen as the founder of socially engaged Buddhism. I had the luck of visiting the monastery where he taught in 2012, and since then his teachings are part of my life. I have been reconnecting with his work more actively since his passing away in early 2022.

Who are our ancestors?  And how should we relate to them? The answer to these questions might be more confronting than you think.

Blood ancestors

“We are the continuation of our mothers and fathers. We can’t extract that part of ourselves. To get angry with our parents doesn’t change this.”

Thay – as students call Thich Nath Hanh- talks about two kinds of ancestors: blood ancestors and spiritual ancestors. The first, blood ancestors, are our family. Parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents (and your brothers and older brothers and sisters, who are considered the youngest of your ancestors).

Many of us are angry at their parents. Our mothers and fathers were not always skillful in raising us. They may have neglected us or treated us badly in this or that way, and now we feel resentment towards them. We avoid confrontation by keeping contact superficial or by trying to break with our parents altogether.

The thing with ancestors, though, is that you can’t get rid of them this easily. They are inside of ourselves. Thich Nath Hanh, in the way I interpret it, doesn’t mean this in a philosophical or esoteric sense. He says: “they are truly present in you, along with your grandparents and great-grandparents”, he says. We have to look deeply inside ourselves to understand and accept this simple truth.

Getting angry at your parents is getting angry at yourself. Wanting nothing to do with your parents is denying a very simple truth that they are inside of you. Therefore we need to find a way to ‘peacefully co-exist’ with the parents inside ourselves.

There is a beautiful meditation in the Plum Village tradition called the Five Earth Touchings, that addresses your relation with your blood ancestors. You recite the following text:

I see my mother and father, whose blood, flesh, and vitality are circulating in my own veins and nourishing every cell in me. Through them, I see my four grandparents. Their expectations, experiences, and wisdom have been transmitted from so many generations of ancestors. I carry in me the life, blood, experience, wisdom, happiness, and sorrow of all generations. The suffering and all the elements that need to be transformed, I am practicing to transform. I open my heart, flesh, and bones to receive the energy of insight, love, and experience transmitted to me by all my ancestors. I see my roots in my father, mother, grandfathers, grandmothers, and all my ancestors. I know I am only the continuation of this ancestral lineage. Please support, protect, and transmit to me your energy. I know wherever children and grandchildren are, ancestors are there, also. I know that parents always love and support their children and grandchildren, although they are not always able to express it skillfully because of difficulties they themselves encountered. I see that my ancestors tried to build a way of life based on gratitude, joy, confidence, respect, and loving kindness. As a continuation of my ancestors, I bow deeply and allow their energy to flow through me. I ask my ancestors for their support, protection, and strength.

Being in true connection with your parents and family can be very hard, as I know from my personal experience. For a long time I resisted them, I thought of them as different than me and I had a grudge for all the mistakes that I thought they made in raising me. Now that I reflect on my relation with my parents more often (and now that I am a parent myself), I see that my parents were and are doing the best they could, and that this is more than enough.

Spiritual ancestors

“Our spiritual ancestors are those who have taught us how to love and understand in our life.”

The painful rejection of our family might also apply to our spiritual ancestors. They may have had great qualities, teaching us kindness, compassion and generosity. But just as our blood ancestors, they might have messed up alot as well, hurting us in the process of their own pain.

In modern culture I think we don’t always realize who our spiritual ancestors are. In the West we have deep Christian roots, so we can say that our spirituality lies in Jesus and the Bible. While much of our behaviors might have their origins in Christianity, for many this does not ring true anymore, because of the violence and ignorance that was spread in the name of Christianity.

The spiritual gap that Christianity leaves is filled with many things. One of them being consumerism: the continuous search for spiritual experiences, food, sex or other pleasures. You could perhaps also call the faith in technological progress a new form of spirituality. Arts & culture provide for a spiritual dimension to our lives as well: we go to concerts for religious experiences, read in newspapers and magazines about the lives of artists and actors who become role models for how to live. Every social bubble has its own idols.

Just like with our bood ancestors, it seems we are not easily satisfied: there is a tendency here to condemn or reject our spiritual culture. We have been doing it for a long time in the modern West: flirting with exotism and finding meaning in the spirituality of other cultures.  There is no peace with our own spiritual ancestors, which is understandable: our Christian God has been a tool for oppression and aggression throughout the world, and much blood has been shed because of it.

The big wave of Eastern spirituality that is dousing the West at the moment (Thich Nath Hanh’s teachings being a part of this) is also exemplary of our culture struggling to (re)connect to its spiritual roots. We combine religious practices and symbols from all over the world, and this pick ‘n mix spirituality can take very extreme forms. I am an Ecstatic Dance DJ and I frequently visit events where cacao ceremonies (origins: South America), Hindu kirtan (origins: India/Asia) and raving on electronic beats (origins: Europe/North America) are combined with a side program of Japanese tea ceremonies and tantra workshops.

In all this spiritual searching I see my own denial of my spiritual ancestors. If I think of what my culture has done to other cultures I feel shame and guilt for what was done in the name of the Christian God (or in the name of that other God, technological progress). I’d rather wish to free myself of this. I don’t want anything to do with our male-dominated white colonial culture. These events are a way of actively trying to split with my spiritual and cultural past. The only issue is: it is not really working.

“We cannot get rid of them”, Thay says about our spiritual ancestors. They are there, inside of you, throughout all of your being. We need to unconditionally accept this. It is the first step towards forgiveness.

The Five Earth Touchings meditation also addresses your spiritual ancestry, which you can recite during your meditation:

I see in myself my teachers, the ones who show me the way of love and understanding, the way to breathe, smile, forgive, and live deeply in the present moment. I see through my teachers all teachers over many generations and traditions, going back to the ones who began my spiritual family thousands of years ago. I see the Buddha or Christ or the patriarchs and matriarchs as my teachers, and also as my spiritual ancestors. I see that their energy and that of many generations of teachers has entered me and is creating peace, joy, understanding, and loving kindness in me. I know that the energy of these teachers has deeply transformed the world. Without the Buddha and all these spiritual ancestors, I would not know the way to practice to bring peace and happiness into my life and into the lives of my family and society. I open my heart and my body to receive the energy of understanding, loving kindness, and protection from the Awakened Ones, their teachings, and the community of practice over many generations. I am their continuation. I ask these spiritual ancestors to transmit to me their infinite source of energy, peace, stability, understanding, and love. I vow to practice to transform the suffering in myself and the world, and to transmit their energy to future generations of practitioners. My spiritual ancestors may have had their own difficulties and not always been able to transmit the teachings, but I accept them as they are.’

A lot of beautiful things happen at the pick ‘n mix events that I visit. Humans are gathering in vulnerability, finding healing and transformation. We rediscover the power of ritual, the pleasure of coming together in a conscious way, of practicing spirituality together.  But at some point it is time to take all this practice back to your own ancestry, be it your blood or your culture. You can not live without them, because it is part of you. I wish you lots of understanding and forgiveness.

This post also appeared on my own substack blog called the Forager. I write about rituals, spirituality and science, from this world and from others.. subscribe for free!

Main sources I used for this piece

You can find the full Five Earth Touchings practice instructions here on the Plum Village website

Thich Nhat Hanh. ‘Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm’, Parallax Press

’Connecting to our Roots’ , The Way Out Is In, Plum Village Podcast.