Radical Gratitude

Why practice gratitude? How? What is the relationship between gratitude and other heart practices? And finally, what is radical gratitude?

Recorded at Spirit Rock March Monthlong Retreat on 03/24/2016.

Transcript

Okay friends,

Hello,

Good evening.

So for tonight's talk,

I'd like to start by inviting all of us to do a guided reflection.

That will be the setup for my talk.

So if you would kindly close your eyes,

Be in your meditation posture,

Get in your meditation posture if you aren't already.

This will be about five minutes maybe,

We'll see.

We'll see how long it goes.

You've done this for a month or two so you know how this works,

I don't have to tell you.

Make sure you're comfortable and just settle into your chair for a moment.

Feeling your body,

Feeling your breath,

Just settling into the chair.

Perhaps getting out of the listen to talk mode and into listen within mode.

Now I ask you,

I invite you to bring to mind someone who has been kind to you in some way,

Has supported you either in your life or here on this retreat,

In some way,

In some small way.

And bring to mind the act of kindness.

Let it be replayed in your mind in images.

Take your time really bringing it alive in your mind's eye,

In your heart.

And notice what comes up in your mind,

What comes up in your heart,

In your body.

Notice what comes up as you do this.

And then,

If you're going to take the opportunity to take this opportunity to take the opportunity to bring your own feelings up as you do this.

Now let that reflection go,

Keeping your eyes closed.

Another reflection,

I invite you to bring to mind the causes and conditions that have supported you being right here,

Right now in this moment.

This will take some time,

Take your time,

No need to get overwhelmed.

And maybe first bring to mind the people who have supported you,

Your family,

Your friends,

Your colleagues that have allowed you to take this time to be here.

The people who have supported you on this retreat,

All your fellow yogis,

The cooks,

The teachers,

The administrative staff,

Just so much support here.

What has supported you on the land?

So many causes and conditions that have supported you.

The food that you've eaten has nourished you,

The conditions,

The buildings that were built through the act of generosity of many people who have come before you.

Your practice has been supported by the turkeys,

The birds,

The rain,

The sunshine,

The river,

The flowers.

The flowers.

And all that has gone into those,

Into the food that you have eaten.

The people who have grown the food,

Who have transported the food,

Who have prepared the food,

The organizations that have allowed for roads to be built and maintained for food to be transported,

The farmers,

Their families,

Their loved ones,

People who have supported them,

The nourishment,

Food,

Sustenance,

Everything that has come to support everybody who has supported you,

Either seen or unseen.

Many people you know,

Many,

Many people you don't.

So many people you don't.

So many events that have led you here,

So many causes and conditions that have created the space,

Have brought these teachings to the West,

Not to mention the awakening of the Buddha 2600 years ago.

So many causes and conditions supporting you being right here right now.

And see what comes up.

Feeling how your life,

You being here,

This moment has been supported by so many causes and conditions,

So many people.

And see what comes up in your mind and heart and in your body as you reflect.

There might be a sense of overwhelm,

Let that go.

There are too many causes and conditions and conditions.

Just see what else is there,

What else is there as you contemplate.

Now I invite you to let that go.

The last contemplation I invite you,

This optional one,

The last one is optional,

Is to bring to mind something perhaps on retreat that came up that at first was quite challenging,

Quite unpleasant,

Difficult.

At the time it felt like the sky was falling down.

And then it changed,

It opened up after a while,

Maybe after hours,

Maybe after days,

It opened up.

Perhaps to you seeing a difficult pattern,

Maybe it was an insight about yourself.

Or it opened up to self-compassion or to wisdom,

Joy.

Developing,

Cultivating capabilities that previously had seemed beyond your reach,

But because you were pushed to your edge,

That difficulty,

That unpleasantness opened to something you were grateful for.

Allow yourself to bring that to mind.

Just organisations,

Countries and groups keep people influenced,

You should see what is happening today what is happening now open,

Bring that to mind.

So you can let that go also,

Let that reflection go.

And when you're ready,

You can open your eyes.

Thank you all.

So as you might have already gathered,

The topic for tonight is gratitude.

Not too surprising,

Is it?

So gratitude.

Gratitude.

It doesn't need a definition,

Does it?

It's very likely that it came up for you in some version or another through those reflections.

Even though it doesn't need a definition,

I'll offer one from the source of all human knowledge,

Known as the Wikipedia.

Gratitude,

Thankfulness,

Gratefulness,

Or appreciation is a feeling or attitude in acknowledgement of a benefit that one has received or will receive.

I also found another definition which I actually like even more,

An affirmation of goodness.

It's just an affirmation of goodness,

Gratitude.

Gratitude turns out to be the pillar of all major religions.

Among them,

Buddhism,

Christianity,

Judaism,

And Islam.

But of course not limited to these religions.

And in the theistic religions,

Gratitude is relational to God,

Is expressed to God.

Whereas in Buddhism,

Since there is no God,

It's expressed in a different way.

So I'd like to share with you something from an Atlantic article called,

Gratitude Without God,

From November 26,

2014.

And actually,

The article is not about Buddhism,

But it could very well be.

It's actually about studying gratitude.

Science has recently taken a lot of interest in the past decade or so.

And studying gratitude and the benefits of gratitude.

So this is from that perspective.

And I'll bring some more of that in tonight also,

Because I think it's actually quite supportive to our practice.

So Robert Emmons,

Who's really the eminent psychologist studying gratitude at the University of California,

Davis,

Who's written the book,

Thanks!

Exclamation point,

How Practicing Gratitude Can Make You Happier.

That's a good title,

Isn't it?

He says,

We all begin life dependent on others,

And most of us end life dependent on others.

If we are lucky,

In between,

We have roughly 60 years or so of unacknowledged dependency.

Isn't that great?

60 years or so of unacknowledged dependency.

The human condition is such that throughout life,

Not just at the beginning and end,

We are profoundly dependent on other people.

Gratitude is the truest approach to life.

We did not create or fashion ourselves.

We did not birth ourselves.

Life is about giving,

Receiving,

And repaying.

We are receptive beings dependent on the help of others,

On their gifts and on their kindness.

So in that way,

Since we're all born,

And since we all survive off the generosity of others and then die,

Gratitude is the natural organizing principle of life.

So gratitude,

Not just as an organizing principle of life,

Which makes sense,

Can also be cultivated,

Can also be practiced,

Practiced of gratitude.

So why practice gratitude?

Why?

And to help me answer this part of the question,

I'd like to bring in some of the studies,

Which are very rich.

And again,

We probably know the answers already,

But it's just kind of nice to see them played out in various labs.

And then just to give you a heads up,

After talking about why gratitude in some ways of cultivation,

I'd like to talk about the relationship of gratitude to the other Brahma Viharas.

So stay tuned for that.

That's kind of what's coming up.

So as I mentioned,

Science,

Positive psychology,

Has taken great interest in studying gratitude and studying it both as the short-term experience,

As an emotion of gratitude,

Which is called state gratitude,

Just experiencing in a moment,

But also in terms of how frequently people feel gratitude as a trait gratitude,

How grateful people tend to be over time as a trait,

And how these two relate to each other.

And of course,

Thanks to neural plasticity,

Practicing a lot of state gratitude,

Cultivating state gratitude,

Bringing it up,

Can lead to trait gratitude,

Like many other things.

So on the path,

Gratitude opens us up instead of us contracting and closing up.

It really opens us up for life,

For contact with others,

For being open.

It's like tilling the soil.

And as I mentioned,

I will talk about its relationship to kindness,

Vicarious joy,

Compassion,

And generosity.

So why practice compassion?

Well,

Basically,

It's good for you.

The social science studies on gratitude are actually pretty resolute.

It said,

Feeling thankful is good for you.

This is from an article,

Actually the same Atlantic article.

So Joanne Sang,

A researcher psychologist at Baylor University says,

There is something called a grateful personality that some psychologists have studied and found that if you're greater in the grateful personality,

Which is the trait,

Which is a trait gratefulness,

You tend to have increased life satisfaction,

Happiness,

Optimism,

Hope,

Positive emotion,

And less anxiety and depression.

And Robert Emmons,

Whom I mentioned earlier,

The author of Thanks,

He's actually,

Many of you might have heard of the various experiments on keeping gratitude journal.

Actually,

I'm curious now,

How many people are familiar with keeping a gratitude journal?

Just a show of hands.

OK,

Lots of people,

Great.

So it's a pretty simple exercise.

You write down five things you're grateful for at the end of the day.

And sometimes there are variations in this experiment.

You can just write it to yourself or you can email it to a friend.

And there are all kinds of variations.

But that's the basic,

Simple way of bringing it out,

Bringing it up.

So what Emmons says is that he ran thousands of subjects,

Age range between 8 and 80,

8 years old and 80 years old,

And they did this practice for three weeks.

And he saw changes in three different areas,

Physical,

Psychological,

And social.

The physical,

The changes were measured stronger immune system,

Less bothered by aches and pains,

Lower blood pressure.

They tended to exercise more and take better care of their health.

Who would have thought?

If you just write things you're grateful for,

Then you exercise more often.

They slept longer and felt more refreshed upon waking up.

And then there's a study with people who had heart attacks.

Half of them were told to be in the grateful condition,

And half of them were not given anything special to do.

And then measured two weeks,

Three months,

And six months out.

And the grateful group had less inflammation and much faster recovery.

And this is again the survivors of heart attack.

Then psychological effects,

Higher levels of positive emotion,

More joy and pleasure,

More optimism and happiness,

Sense of meaning of life,

Higher long-term satisfaction with life,

Less anxiety and depression.

And again,

One specific study was done in the psychiatric ward with people who have severe depression and suicidal ideation.

And this gratitude was even helpful there in severe cases.

And in the last and perhaps the most important category is the social one.

Gratitude practice makes you nicer,

Makes you a nicer person.

It makes you more helpful,

Generous,

Compassionate,

More forgiving,

More outgoing,

Less lonely and isolated.

And it especially helps kinder behavior towards others,

Including close relationship,

Intimate and romantic partners,

Close friends.

There was a study where in the lab subjects who basically,

They were given a computer to do a task and then the experimenter messed with their computer so the computer wouldn't work.

And then another experimenter came and very kindly fixed the computer.

The people whose computer were fixed were very grateful.

And then they were more likely to help other people in the lab in part of the experiment.

So gratitude makes you more helpful towards others.

It's,

As I'll talk about,

It's a circle of giving and receiving.

So what are some ways to cultivate?

What are some ways of cultivation?

One is to count your blessings.

And this is a simple one.

Have you ever done this experiment on actually writing what you're grateful for?

In just three weeks it changes your mind state.

You start to see what you're grateful for.

You start to see less what you're bothered by in the world.

And you start to see things that you're grateful for.

It changes your perspective.

You start to see things you didn't see before.

It's actually quite profound.

If you've done this practice before,

It's a wonderful practice as you go home,

If you're so inclined.

Another way to practice is what's called mental subtraction.

In the words of Joni Mitchell,

You don't know what you've got till it's gone.

So what you can do actually is to consider something that is very important to you.

What would your life be if that wasn't part of your life?

If it's a job or education or actually even much more close to heart is someone that you care about in your life,

Or someone that you did care about.

If they never were a part of your life,

And if they weren't a part of your life ever,

Wow,

What would that be like?

This mental subtraction really helps us not to take positive events and people for granted and just see them as inevitable,

But in fact recognize how fortunate we are that things have transpired the way they have.

In fact,

Right now as you're sitting here,

Imagine yourself sitting,

And guess what?

You broke your leg on this retreat,

And right now you have a big cast on your leg as you're sitting here.

Imagine that.

So the mental subtraction is your healthy leg is now a leg that's in a cast.

Now imagine what would it be like at the end of this talk,

You would have to think about,

Okay,

How would I get up,

My crutches,

How would I put them under my arm,

How would I get out,

How would I go back to my room?

Just imagine all that for a moment.

And now realize you don't have a broken leg.

Wow,

What a blessing,

Wow.

Don't you feel grateful?

You don't have to go through all the difficulty of getting up and the crutches and all that.

Mental subtraction helps you not to take what you take for granted.

For granted.

There's so much we take for granted.

Another suggestion is to savor,

Is to be mindful,

Is to be present.

Because again,

A lot of times there is what's called hedonic adaptation,

Which is we adapt to what is good.

So for example,

If you say,

For example,

You enjoy drinking coffee or tea and you drink it every morning,

Maybe there's hedonic adaptation,

You don't appreciate it as much.

Stop drinking it for a few days,

You'll appreciate it a lot more.

Alternatively,

You can become very present and mindful,

Which you have been practicing for a while,

To really appreciate,

To really appreciate.

Einstein says there are only two ways to live your life.

One is as though nothing is a miracle,

The other is as though everything is a miracle.

We also like this other quote from G.

K.

Chesterton.

And here the quote is about saying grace,

But I take that to be an act of gratitude,

Saying grace,

As in saying thanks,

Saying gratitude.

You say grace before meals,

All right,

But I say grace before the concert and the opera,

And grace before the play and pantomime,

And grace before I open a book,

And grace before sketching,

Painting,

Swimming,

Fencing,

Boxing,

Walking,

Playing,

Dancing,

And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

Another strategy,

Another way of cultivating is to say thanks.

It's just to say thanks,

Is to actually express your gratitude.

Martin Seligman,

Who is the father of positive psychology,

He led a study in 2005 where people wrote and delivered gratitude letters to people.

So they wrote gratitude letters to someone they were grateful for,

And then they actually delivered them,

And then they sat down and read the letter out loud,

Slowly.

And up to six months after this event,

Their level of happiness increased.

It's a pretty significant thing to do,

To express thanks,

Especially in that way,

In that very,

Very measured way.

And again,

It's a beautiful practice,

It's a beautiful practice to write a letter of gratitude and then read it to someone,

Either over the phone,

Skype,

Or in person.

What is the most important thing to do?

Robert Emin suggests three questions from actually from Nikon Meditation School.

The three questions is,

What have I received from X?

The second reflection,

Contemplation,

Is,

What have I given to X?

Actually,

Let's do that together for a moment.

Let's just take a moment and bring someone to mind,

And just drop these reflections in,

See what comes up.

What have I received from so and so?

What have I given to so and so?

The third one,

Not to get caught in the challenges of the question,

But just to drop it in very lightly to see,

To own the troubles.

The question is,

What troubles and difficulty have I caused?

What troubles and difficulty have I caused?

Again,

Not to go into guilt or remorse,

But just to own,

Just to see the full picture of giving and receiving.

Because wherever there is lack of gratitude,

Or troubles or difficulty that have been caused,

Maybe it's an opening to what hasn't been recognized or appreciated.

What have I given to so and so?

These questions can be very helpful in any relationship.

Gratitude really brings up a sense of humility,

Because you see that you're not such an independent self,

But an interdependent.

Your self is interdependent on everybody else,

On so many people,

Known and unknown.

Our interdependence on reliance on others becomes very clear.

And you become mindful of the good,

And counting your blessings instead of burdens.

So,

Gratitude and kindness,

Gratitude and metta,

When we receive kindness,

We become grateful.

And then we act kindly.

Kindness flows in,

Gratitude,

Kindness flows out.

So gratitude feels like a relay of inflow-kindness,

Outflow-kindness.

You see,

It's kind of like how,

It's part of that circle of kindness.

And also,

Gratitude is related to generosity,

Because the kindness,

The gifts that we give others are not just,

Are all of our resources.

The kindness of our heart is a resource,

Is generosity of the heart that can be expressed in response to gratitude,

When we feel gratitude.

It is said that the proximate cause of happiness is caga.

Caga,

The Pali word for generosity of the heart.

Dana is the act of generosity,

And caga is the generosity of the heart.

And that's the proximate cause of happiness.

Which makes sense when you have a generous heart.

The heart is less clingy,

Is more generous,

Is more grateful,

Is more happy.

And generosity and kindness and happiness and gratitude,

They all flow in and out of each other.

Virtual cycles.

Gratitude and mudita,

Vicarious joy.

As Andrea was talking about,

When you practice mudita for yourself,

And when you recount your own good fortune,

And wishing for it to increase and continue,

It's natural for the heart to then become grateful for all that good fortune.

It's just natural.

One practice leads to another.

And again,

Don't take our word for it.

Do it for yourself and see how it changes.

Gratitude and compassion.

Compassion leading to gratitude,

Gratitude leading to compassion.

I'd like to read you a letter,

Actually.

It's a letter written by Deborah Green.

And it's written to strangers in Whole Foods who surrounded me after news of my father's suicide.

It's a gratitude letter for the compassion she received.

Dear strangers,

I remember you.

Ten months ago,

When my cell phone rang with news of my father's suicide,

You were walking into Whole Foods,

Prepared to go about your food shopping,

Just as I had done only minutes before.

But I had already abandoned my cart full of groceries,

And I stood in the entryway of the store.

My brother was on the other end of the line.

He was telling me my father was dead,

That he had taken his own life early that morning,

And through his own sobs I remember my brother kept saying,

I'm sorry Deborah,

I'm so sorry.

I can't imagine how it must have felt for him to make that call.

And as we hung up the phone,

I started to cry and scream as my whole body trembled.

This just couldn't be true.

It couldn't be happening.

Only moments before I was filling my cart with groceries,

Going about my errands on a normal Monday morning.

Only moments before my life felt intact,

Overwhelmed with emotions I fell to the floor,

My knees buckling under the weight of what I had just learned.

And you kind strangers,

You were there.

You could have kept on walking,

Ignoring my cries,

But you didn't.

You could have simply stopped and stared at my primal display of pain,

But you didn't.

No,

Instead you surrounded me as I yelled through my sobs.

My father killed himself.

He killed himself.

He's dead.

And the question that has plagued me since that moment came to my lips in a scream.

Why?

I must have asked it over and over again.

I remember in that haze of emotions,

One of you asked for my phone and asked who you should call.

What was my password?

You needed my husband's name as you searched through my contacts.

I remember I could hear your words as you tried to reach my husband for me,

Leaving an urgent message for him to call me.

I recall hearing you discuss among yourselves who would drive me home in my car and who would follow that person to bring them back to the store.

You didn't even know one another,

But it didn't seem to matter.

You encountered me a stranger in the worst moment of my life,

And you coalesced around me with common purpose to help.

I remember one of you asking if you could pray for me and for my father.

I must have said yes,

And now when I recall that Christian prayer being offered up to Jesus from my Jewish father and me,

It still both brings tears to my eyes and makes me smile.

In my fog,

I told you that I had a friend,

Pam,

Who worked at Whole Foods,

And one of you went in search of her.

Thankfully,

She was there that morning,

And you brought her to me.

I remember the relief I felt at seeing her face,

Familiar and warm.

She took me to the back,

Comforting and caring for me until my husband could get to me.

And I even recall,

As I sat with her,

One of you sent back a gift card to Whole Foods.

Though you didn't know me,

You wanted to offer a little something to let me know that you would be thinking of me and holding me and my family in your thoughts and prayers.

That gift card helped to feed my family when the idea of cooking was so far beyond my emotional reach.

I never saw you after that,

But I know this to be true.

If it were not for you,

For all of you,

I might have simply gotten in the car and tried to drive myself home.

I wasn't thinking straight.

If I was thinking at all,

If it were not for you,

I don't know what I would have done in those first raw moments of overwhelming shock,

Anguish and grief.

But I thank God every day I didn't have to find out.

Your kindness,

Your compassion,

Your willingness to help a stranger in need have stayed with me until this day.

And no matter how many times my mind takes me back to that horrible life-altering moment,

It's not all darkness because you reached out to help.

You offered a ray of light in the bleakest moment I've ever endured.

You may not remember it,

You may not remember me,

But I will never,

Ever forget you.

And though you may never know it,

I give thanks for your presence and humanity each and every day.

Gratitude and compassion,

Compassion and gratitude.

I'd like to read another piece for you.

And this perhaps,

This piece could be thought of as the connection between gratitude and death contemplation.

So as many of you might have experienced in your own practice,

Death contemplation can bring up a sense of gratitude for the preciousness of this life and the preciousness of the shortness of the fragility of this life.

It's also,

It's not surprising that,

Yes,

Various research also shows that death contemplation brings up gratitude,

Feeling of gratitude in people.

The next thing I'd like to read is a piece written by Stephen Stuckey,

The abbot of San Francisco Zen Center,

Who passed away on January 1st,

2014,

Dealing with cancer.

And these are the Thanksgiving reflections,

These are,

A couple of paragraphs are reflections from Thanksgiving reflections,

Written December 2013,

Or shared December 2013 online.

The challenge of this practice often slaps me in the face and sets off a series of seemingly impossible barriers.

These days,

As you may know,

I wake up and say gratitude,

And the next thought is pain in the belly or cancer,

Or it's not fair.

To accept such thoughts with gratitude may be impossible and even contribute to further unwholesome states of mind.

So it is realistically healthier to enter this practice by creating a field of positive energy by first naming what you know from experience is nourishing for you.

For example,

Gratitude for my friend Larry,

Or gratitude for my mentor,

My lover,

My mother,

The person who changed my life.

Of gratitude for sobriety,

My family,

This food,

The sunlight,

Mashed potatoes and gravy,

The capacity for healing,

Etc.

It quickly becomes clear that one can create an infinite list of positive nourishments,

And the mere fact of being alive tells one that positive,

That is life supporting factors outweigh all others.

This is a basis for fundamental confidence in reality.

Know that this life is rare and wonderful,

Because it is happening right now with the full support of the universe.

How?

Once the above truth is clear,

It is not so difficult to be kind.

One naturally wants to give back to that from which one has received so much.

And since one has received and is now receiving so much from the mere existence of each other,

It is the perfect time to say,

Thank you,

I love you.

I invite you to take up this practice today as a positive nourishment practice for yourself.

As you do so,

I feel even more gratitude and delight.

Love,

Myoghain Steve.

So as we get ready to go home,

There are lots of practices that you're taking home with you.

Gratitude is a good one also to take home with you.

I'd like to read a little story from the book,

A Monastery Within,

By Gail Franzdell,

Which speaks to that,

Speaks to practicing gratitude in daily life,

Which seems appropriate as the retreat is winding down.

So listen up.

So the name,

The story is called The Monastic Alternative.

As a teenager,

She often visited the monastery.

She was deeply attracted to the monastic life.

The Buddhist path to liberation was what had the most meaning for her.

When she became an adult,

She planned on joining the monastic order.

However,

When she turned 21,

Her older sister and her sister's husband died in an accident,

And she became the foster parent for their two young children.

In addition,

Her own parents had become quite old and needed her help.

As the only income earner in the family,

She had to work long hours every day.

She loved to meditate,

But with all the work and caregiving she had to do,

She had no time for it.

Since she was not able to fulfill her aspirations for following the monastic path,

She went to the abyss of the monastery and asked how she could follow the path with the life she had to live.

The abbess said that if she couldn't meditate,

Then the best alternative is to be grateful for everything.

There are a lot of teachings in this last sentence.

The abbess said that if she couldn't meditate,

Then the best alternative is to be grateful for everything.

It's actually a pretty radical teaching.

Both as the best alternative,

But also it's to be grateful for everything.

Not just what's good,

To be grateful for everything.

I'm going to up the ante now.

This is the practice of radical gratitude.

It's called radical gratitude.

It's optional.

What is radical gratitude?

It's being grateful for everything,

Not just what's good,

Not just what's easy to be grateful for.

But also asking your mind,

Asking,

Can I be grateful for this too?

For this?

Can I be grateful for this too?

If the answer comes back,

No,

I can be grateful for this.

Don't push it.

Just drop it.

It's fine.

The radical gratitude is not that you should be grateful.

There's no should.

You shouldn't be grateful for everything.

The practice is this.

Can I be grateful?

Drop in the question.

Can I be grateful for this too?

Whatever it is,

Even if it doesn't seem pleasant at first,

Doesn't seem easy,

It seems challenging or difficult.

Sometimes in retrospect it's easier to be grateful for things that seem difficult in the past,

But you could see how they turned out to be good.

The beginning of the talk and the reflection I asked you to bring to mind,

Something that was challenging on retreat,

But it opened you up to something unexpected.

Radical gratitude is actually looking forward to see if you can be grateful for something that seemingly you wouldn't be grateful for.

So one of the biggest challenges that I have in my life is my health,

As I've shared with you before.

I have chronic Lyme disease and I deal with it all the time.

A few years ago I wrote a thank you letter to the tick that bit me.

Not that I would wish this on anyone.

It's been harder than I can express.

And yet it's been my biggest teacher.

It's pushed me to my edge in ways that I never wanted to be pushed to let go,

In ways I never wanted to let go.

And it's been one of the biggest gifts of my life.

One that I wouldn't wish on anyone,

But I am grateful for.

I am grateful for it.

So when something comes up in your life,

When the next time something comes up,

Ask yourself,

Can I be grateful for this too?

Can I be grateful for this?

And if the answer is no in that moment,

Again,

Drop it.

It's not that you should be grateful.

But just be creative.

Can I be grateful for this?

I'd like to share something with you.

I shared teachings on radical gratitude some time ago in a very short talk actually at Dharmet of maybe five minutes at Inside Meditation Center.

We have these half day retreats on Wednesdays.

In the morning there's maybe five minutes of instructions and people practice for half a day.

And then they come back and there is perhaps a discussion.

So I asked people what arose for them.

And these two short recordings of maybe five and ten minutes,

They were on audio drama and I didn't think anyone would listen to them.

But somebody did.

And it happened to be someone who actually has a blog with 25,

000 followers.

And he wrote about it.

And anyway,

Making long story short,

I got an email.

Anyway,

So this person took this practice and really took it to the next level.

So I want to read something because I love this circle of something I shared.

I thought nobody would listen.

This person took it back and now here I am back in this talk sharing what they took their practice.

So it's lovely.

I'd like to share it with you.

A few weeks ago a neighbor I had not yet met,

His name is David Kane and the website is called Raptitude.

A few weeks ago a neighbor I had not yet met knocked on my door to tell me that her storage locker in the basement had been broken into and so had mine.

I went down there,

The locker door was hanging open and my bike was gone.

They hadn't cut the lock,

But had instead crowbarred the hardware entirely off the plywood door,

Which building management had attached with four of the tiniest screws I'd ever seen.

My initial feeling was the rush of violation and dirtiness that everyone feels when they see the mess left behind,

Left by a thief.

They touched my stuff and now some of it is at their place.

But I ran out of indignation pretty quickly.

The normal victim feelings gave way to a feeling of,

Wow,

I'm really glad I'm me.

I can afford a new bike.

I've never felt a desire to steal from people.

Aren't I lucky that I don't know what it's like to enter a building illegally and rifle through someone else's belongings,

Hoping to find something I can sell off for 50 bucks.

I would rather lose all my possessions than be that guy.

I'm also glad to know that the locker was so insecure before I put anything replaceable in there.

And then he continues and he says that he wasn't he didn't think about at the time,

But he had just listened to these couple of talks shortly before it.

And this is how it came up.

This the radical gratitude for her for him.

And and then he talks about one of the things which is actually I'd like to share that also.

Let's see.

Just after I had listened to Nicky's talk,

This happened to me again.

I was on the cusp of reenacting my normal sequencing of overreaction,

Disappointment,

Rage,

Then grumpy trudging.

When I remember the practice,

Could I be grateful that I couldn't find a spot close to the building that was happening,

That that what's happening is in many ways a good thing.

I missed something.

Oh,

Let's see.

Oh,

Yeah.

I live in the city and make use of the parking every day.

Most of the time I can't find a spot on this on the stretch near my building and I have to go past the building around the long side of the block.

I mean,

These are normal inconveniences every day.

Right.

We all have them.

Right.

And we grudge and so when that happens,

I usually end up hundreds of yards away from the door with groceries to unload,

Particularly predictably.

I curse my bad luck and often the people who had parked there inconsiderately or at all.

So could I be grateful that I couldn't find a spot close to the building that what's happening is in many ways a good thing.

The thought immediately put me in a totally different position,

One where I didn't assume I should feel any particular way about it.

Mostly,

I just enjoyed the walk,

Noticed a few of my neighbors yard decorations and felt glad that carrying grocery bags to blocks isn't particularly difficult for me.

I'm lucky to be able to walk almost any distance without chronic pain or fatigue.

It struck me that my neighborhood is so close to downtown,

Yet it's really peaceful and safe.

I can walk through it at 4 a.

M.

With nothing to worry about.

These are privileges that serve me every day,

Although I seldom actually enjoy them because I'm so rarely aware of them.

And he goes on to other examples.

But it's really that shift that he beautifully writes about.

It's just a shift of,

Oh,

Can I be grateful for this too?

That can put you in a completely different state of mind.

And again,

If the answer comes back,

No,

Don't push it.

There's no should here.

But the next time,

When something doesn't go your way,

Can I be grateful for this too?

Something that seems unpleasant.

Can I be grateful for this too?

It doesn't have to be something huge or big.

Can you be grateful that you're out of coffee,

That your internet is out,

That your latest draft sucks?

If you have a brain and a bit of curiosity,

Yes,

You can.

So I'd like to finish with a poem from Billy Mills.

Billy Mills was born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

He grew up in poverty and was orphaned at the age of 12.

And in the 1964 Olympic Games,

He won the 10,

000 meter race that no American had ever won.

So he has written books.

The book is called Wokini New Life.

And there are two words in this poem that I'll finish with.

One word to explain is ichtumi,

Which is a trickster or mischievous spirit.

The other one is wakan tangka,

Which is the sacred or the divine.

So you may want to sit and close your eyes and let this poem just wash over you.

In my youth,

I respected the world and life.

I needed not anything but peace of heart.

And yet I changed despite myself and believed in ichtumi's lies,

Ichtumi,

The mischievous spirit.

He seemed to know all the truth.

He promised to make me happy.

He made me ask wakan tangka for wealth,

That I might have power.

I was given poverty,

That I might find my inner strength.

I asked for fame,

So others would know me.

I was given obscurity,

That I might know myself.

I asked for a person to love,

That I might never be alone.

I was given a life of a hermit,

That I might learn to accept myself.

I asked for power,

That I might achieve.

I was given weakness,

That I might learn to obey.

I asked for health,

That I might lead a long life.

I was given infirmity,

That I might appreciate each minute.

I asked Mother Earth for strength,

That I might have my way.

I was given weakness,

That I might feel the need for her.

I asked to live happily,

That I might enjoy life.

I was given life,

That I might live happily.

I received nothing I asked for,

Yet all my wishes came true.

Despite myself and ichtumi,

My dreams were fulfilled.

I am richly blessed,

More than I ever hoped.

I thank you,

Vakantanka,

For what you've given me.

Let's just sit for a moment.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Reviews

Inspiring. Brought me to tears at times. In some aspects a reminder, yet the linking and flow between gratitude, compassion and kindness was fresh and profound. Thank you, thank you, thank you 🙏🏼

Made me think

Five stars seems grossly insufficient to express my gratitude with the beauty and wisdom in this talk. This is a life-changing.

As someone suffeeing from chronic lyme's disease I am grateful that I started a gratitude practise years ago. Not sure if I would have or am to survive but I did write a book. Grateful to speak out. Thank you.

Thank you for a beautiful reminder of why my gratitude practice is so important!

Can I be grateful for this? What an unbelievably powerful question. I loved everything about this meditation. I give it more than 5 stars

What a wonderful listen, meditation and an amazing enlightenment!! Radical Gratitude is an amazing practice, thank you so much for such a thought provoking talk. ❤️🙏🏽

This is exactly what I needed. So well spoken. Thank you🙏

Thank you! This was amazing and very moving. I used to ask "what is the opportunity?" when something bad happened. I'm going to also started asking, "can I be grateful?". Again, thank you!

So much wisdom and guidance in this talk. I am grateful for every bit of it!

Very grounding. A reminder of things in life we often take for granted. 🙏

Beautiful thank you

Thank you. Meaningful and focusing. Sending good wishes with gratitude.

🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽😍🥰

Beautiful talk. Nourishing to the spirit, mind and body. Grateful with love 🙏🏻✨

Absolutely wonderful 🙏😇💜🌏

Radical gratitude: Can I be grateful for that, too? Beautiful. Thank you...

This is terrific, thank you. I’ve been seeing how I keep ending up in a sad place and wondered what to do. Gratitude practice is definitely worth a try! :-)

Beautifully done! Thank you

Wonderful inspiring thought provoking talk, thank you so very much💖🕉