Buddha: What's NOT Wrong?

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that instead of focusing on everything that’s wrong with ourselves, other people, or our world, we should ask: “What’s NOT wrong,” as a way of practicing the incredibly transformative quality of gratitude - a quality that's so powerful, it’s considered 1 of 2 main antidotes to our experience of fear, & also represents the very fruit of our practice, Equanimity. This talk explores how we can use our practice to access this quality and discover much more peace.

Transcript

So last month I was really grateful to be able to lead a five-day meditation retreat on what are called the Four Brahma-viharas or the divine abodes which in the Buddhist teachings are considered the four highest qualities of heart and well-being.

And in our meditation practice we are asked to very consciously nurture these qualities so that eventually we can learn more and more to dwell in these qualities just like we might dwell in a home.

And the idea is that over time we can actually become that kind,

Calm,

Compassionate home or refuge for both ourselves and others which means it's really the place where we will dwell or live from.

Many of you may know these four qualities as metka or loving-kindness,

Karuna,

Compassion,

Mudita which is empathetic joy and upeka which is equanimity.

And if you happen to be interested in these qualities I'm going to be offering a day-long retreat on them on Saturday September 17th in Berryville,

Virginia and it will also be available online if you're interested.

And I wanted to mention these because during that five-day retreat a student raised her hand during one of the Q&A sessions and she asked me how the practice of gratitude related to the Four Brahma-viharas.

And honestly I was so pleased with the question itself because gratitude is such an incredibly rich topic and it's also one of the most powerful skills we can use to discover more balance in our lives,

Some sort of ground beneath our feet which I think we could all really use right now in our world.

In fact when we're really struggling gratitude is one of the main qualities that we can use to access a sense of calm and safety when everything else around us maybe seems to be coming undone which is one of the reasons that it's related to the fruit of our practice which is equanimity or balanced awareness,

The fourth of those Brahma-viharas as well as all the others it's related.

Sadly because we were at the very end of our session on that retreat I just didn't have enough time to go into this more and I was only able to offer the student a very brief reply and I was really disappointed about this so because I wasn't able to answer my students question I thought I would spend some time in this month's talk offering us some more detailed teachings on this really essential quality of gratitude or appreciation and of course I also really do want to answer my students excellent question which I promise I'll get to.

To start though I feel like I first really need to acknowledge that on the surface the practice of gratitude is just one of those things that can seem so simple like of course we all understand what it feels like to practice gratitude right but the truth is modern science has shown that this is actually not in our nature to nurture this quality or to even be aware of it most of the time actually because unfortunately as humans we are all basically wired to be more aware of things that can go wrong than appreciative of all the things that are actually going right in our lives and as I'm sure we all know simply because we're all humans living on this planet our strongest and most prominent emotion the one that we tend to feel the most is fear it's actually built right into our DNA it's just how we're made or how we're wired so basically we've all inherited this common trait for many different reasons including our ancestors real need in prehistoric times to be on the lookout for like actual cyber-toothed tigers or maybe people from other tribes who might want to kill them so although we really needed this trait in our collective past over the centuries now it's evolved into what is called our inherited negativity bias and the teacher and neuro biologist Rick Hansen explains our negativity bias this way he says that basically we are all velcro for the negative and Teflon for the positive I think that's really true unfortunately what's also true is that when we are so focused on what's wrong all the time instead of what's right science has shown that this tendency can create literal grooves in our minds which makes it much harder for us to step off these sort of well-worn pads that we all tend to walk so that's the bad news the good news is that science has also shown us that we can use this actual practice the practice of mindfulness meditation to literally change the way our mind works and create new neural pathways which means we really truly can evolve to think more positively science is showing us that this is possible and honestly I just love this so much that the fact that modern science is now proving the accuracy of what the Buddha was trying to tell us more than 2,

600 years ago which is that we can very consciously use our mindfulness practice to notice on a daily basis what we're feeling grateful for is a kind of counterbalance to that built-in negativity bias so we can train our minds to think this way more and more often in more moments of our lives and right now especially I truly think that this practice of gratitude of looking for what's right instead of what's wrong is so important especially when it comes to combating our fear just this past week actually I was chatting with a dear friend of mine who's another meditation teacher and she mentioned that life just feels sort of fragile right now she's the word fragile I totally agree no fragile and uncertain which if we think about it it's actually always how our life is at any moment that's just sort of the reality of life itself but obviously there are also times when this just seems even more so and I think this is one of those times and of course as the teachings tell us our practice really demands that we not look away from the suffering but allow ourselves to awaken to the truth of what's happening so that we'll be better able to open our hearts and commit ourselves not only to not harm ourselves or others but to actually help so this is just a very basic tenet of the teachings in the very first noble truth the Buddha tells us there are suffering and that the suffering needs to be acknowledged it's such a crucial first step and often really difficult but again many of us tend to forget that the Buddha also asks us to very consciously acknowledge what is not suffering you know to look at those things that bring ourselves and others a sense of gratitude and appreciation and joy more specifically he urged us to use our practice to train ourselves to pay very close attention to what are often called the ten thousand joys and the ten thousand sorrows of life and to truly acknowledge that life contains both and he asked this of us so that we can train ourselves to develop a sense of calm and balance and ease right in the middle of all of it the great Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh explained it this way he said the ocean of suffering is immense but if you turn around you can see the land the seed of suffering in you may be strong but don't wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy when one tree in the garden is sick you have to care for it but don't overlook all the healthy trees even while you have pain in your heart you can enjoy the many wonders of life the beautiful sunset the smile of a child the many flowers and trees to suffer is not enough to suffer is not enough please don't be imprisoned by your suffering so that being said as we all know actually doing this can be incredibly challenging for many many different reasons in fact if we're honest we might admit that we often struggle to look directly at both our sorrows and our joys because acknowledging the truth of either of these can sometimes be really difficult again mainly because of our tendency towards fear so for instance especially when we maybe see so much suffering around us it can often be a real challenge to allow ourselves to experience any joy or gratitude because we might think that it's somehow selfish or self-centered or we might be afraid that other people might perceive us as being selfish or self-centered if we express joy or again we might be afraid that if we acknowledge what's going right or we feel happy or grateful about something that we're in some way covering over the suffering or pretending that it's not there or we might be afraid that if we allow ourselves a sense of gratitude that you know something bad might happen like we're kind of afraid that that other shoe is gonna drop and so what happens is we don't allow ourselves to experience too much gratitude or joy because we're afraid we hold back what's also true is that sometimes when we're feeling truly grateful for something our tendency our human tendency is to want even more of that and so naturally no according to the teachings we end up suffering around this we also tend to be afraid that we might lose something that we feel grateful for so we end up trying really hard to hold on to it which again only makes us suffer even more on the other hand as we've all experienced there's also a very strong desire within us to want to kind of jump right over all that messy suffering stuff as well because basically we're all naturally afraid to take a good look at suffering we just really don't want to be with it and what I feel it but as the teachings so wisely show us whenever we resist suffering or run away from it fight it maybe just pretend or deny that it's there that is exactly how we continue to perpetuate the pain of it and so sadly as we all know these strategies just tend to make it so much worse and because seeing and acknowledging the suffering can be so difficult it's really crucial for us to develop some wise compassionate skills or practices that can kind of hold us that can give us a sense of safety or shelter refuge or groundedness as we continue to courageously open our hearts to what is true so essentially what we really want to bring in is some balance something to counter our strong negativity bias and this is exactly where our practice of gratitude can really help us in fact in the Buddhist teachings on fear which is your call is our strongest most dominant emotion the practice of gratitude is considered one of two main antidotes that we are asked to apply as a way to help ease or reduce our fear so there's two of these and the very first of these antidotes is loving kindness or metta which you might recall is the very first of the Brahma Vahara or the divine oppose and these two loving kindness and gratitude really go together so for instance when we're practicing loving kindness metta we're making an effort to offer our kindness or friendliness to both ourselves and others especially in times of difficulty and recall that every single being even those people that we dislike are precious every single being is precious personally whenever I'm having a hard time thinking about someone who is maybe habitually trying for me I often like to remember a famous teaching story about gratitude which is about a blind turtle who lives way down on the floor of the ocean recording the story this blind turtle only rises up to the surface of the ocean one time every hundred years and on the surface of this ocean there's a very small gold yolk which is you might imagine is being constantly blown around by the wind and the waves the Buddha asks what are the chances of that blind turtle servicing at just the right moment and in just the right place to be able to put its head through that little yolk on the ocean our chances of gaining a human life he says are just as improbable and therefore just is precious and so we should all treat our lives and all other lives as if this were true in fact he really asked us to treat everything in this way to see the preciousness of everything in the universe in the same way and to remember that absolutely all of it is fleeting and impermanent including of course ourselves the modern teacher mark Epstein tells a great story about one he and several friends were first learning about Buddhism and they travel to Thailand to meet the great master Ajahn Chah who happens to be one of the main teachers of my teachers and mark wrote that after they gathered around this great master they asked him to explain the Buddha's teachings to them and apparently Ajahn Chah simply motioned to a glass that was sitting on one side of him and he asked do you see this glass I love this glass it holds water admirably when the sun shines on it it reflects the light beautifully when I tap it it has a lovely ring yet for me this glass is already broken when the wind knocks it over or my elbow knocks it off the shelf and it falls to the ground and shatters I say of course but when I understand that this glass is already broken every minute with it is precious when I understand that this glass is already broken every minute with it is precious and so that was our John Charles very first lesson when they asked him to describe the Buddhist teachings I so love that many of you may be familiar with what are called the five remembrances which are five things we're asked to remember daily as a practice it's really a gratitude practice a lot of people find these five remembers is really difficult because essentially what they're asking us to remember is that we are all going to get old and sick and die and that everything we love is going to be lost to us so obviously this really does sound a bit morbid but the truth is the more we can get in touch with this inevitability again not turning away from it what happens is we wake up or we awaken more and more to the fleeting quality of our lives which then makes each and every moment even more precious many years ago now I remember hearing about a great daily gratitude practice that's used by many meditation masters in Tibet apparently every night before they go to bed they set their teacups upside down as a reminder of those five remembrances a reminder that life is impermanent and every morning when they're able to turn their teacups right side up again they rejoice with the thought hey look I'm still here yay what a blessing and as a confession I need to admit that most mornings the very first thing I turn over is usually my cell phone but I really do still think of this teaching every time I do it so I hope that still counts honestly though there are so many different ways that we can train our minds to be on the lookout for gratitude it really truly doesn't matter what it is really so long as it works to train our minds to become more thankful basically for what we already have rather than being so aversive or somehow wanting even more in the very first lines of the Dhammapada the Buddha reminds us all experience is preceded by mind led by mind made by mind speak or act with a corrupted mind and suffering follows as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox all experience is preceded by mind led by mind made by mind speak or act with a peaceful mind and happiness follows like a never departing shadow very first lines of the Dhammapada that shows us how we want to train our minds and by the way I want to remind us or maybe emphasize that our wanting is in no way wrong of course we want things for ourselves for others for the world itself of course we do that is not the problem the problem is that we expect things to be a certain way which means our suffering is about our expectations or maybe our shoulds as in he should she should they should it should I should etc basically how we think people things situations and ourselves should or are supposed to be that's where the suffering comes in but again it's really important to remember that the wanting itself is really in no way wrong otherwise all of our lives would really just come to a standstill when they just doesn't make sense another way to think of this is how do we train our minds so that we can let go of needing things to be a particular way how do we train the mind so we can let go of needing things to be a particular way many of you may know that besides our formal meditation practice one of the my very favorite non-formal ways of training the mind is by putting really short pithy teaching phrases on sticky notes and then placing them in areas where we know we're gonna see them often which is usually in our house or somewhere in the office this past year actually I thought one of these notes these sticky notes was so important that I taped it up where I thought I would see it the most throughout the day which means that right now it's sitting right above the roll of toilet paper in the restroom where I really do see that often so it's a super simple question but I cannot tell you how much has helped me personally and the question is what are you grateful for today really simple what are you grateful for today and I love this for so many reasons but I'll give you my top three the first one is that it almost instantly changes my state of mind by reminding me that I actually do have things to be grateful for the second one is it also reminds me to pay attention to become more aware and to start using my mindfulness practice to really actively notice everything that I feel grateful for and finally and maybe most importantly it almost always reveals my state of mind it catches me or maybe it calls me out you know when I see it because honestly I have to confess a lot of the time especially during those difficult days or moments the answer that my mind screams out automatically almost is nothing I'm not grateful for anything and of course then I need to laugh at myself and readjust and honestly I hope you might just try this at home because it's just been so helpful for me to become aware of my negativity bias and how my mind works and to remind me right in the middle of my day to practice to practice training my mind another sticky note that I've placed close to that one is similar and it's also really helpful very simple and it's another question and also the title of this talk which is what is not wrong what is not wrong and that one actually comes from a teaching from the great Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh who told us this we often ask what's wrong doing so we invite painful seeds of sorrow to come up and manifest we feel suffering anger depression and produce more such seeds we would be much happier if we tried to stay in touch with the healthy joyful seeds inside us and around us we should learn to ask what's not wrong and be in touch with that we should learn to ask what's not wrong and be in touch with that I also like the way Dell Byron the poet says this I really love this evolutionarily we're always concerned with what's not right that's what makes gratefulness delightfully subversive I like to think of gratitude as being subversive somehow so essentially what this practice is asking of us is to really recognize that our inherited perception or way of thinking tends to skew towards the fearful and the negative and to realize that there's a very good possibility that because of this we're actually not seeing the world as it really is more accurately with clearer glasses if you will with more of a sense of balance it's those 10,

000 joys and 10,

000 sorrows and according to the teachings the way that we can start to see things more clearly for balance is to pay very close attention to what in the mind is unwholesome or negative or which thoughts might be leading us towards greed and hatred or ill will etc and then consciously replacing these with more wholesome thoughts ones that are going to lean more towards kindness and compassion and joy and balance again those four divine abodes are Brahma-vakaras which all involve the quality of gratitude and so here is where I finally get to answer my students excellent question about how gratitude comes into play when we consider the four divine abodes or those four profound qualities of heart that we're being asked to nurture and then dwell in or live from so with the first two kindness and compassion metta and karuna we might consider that there's a great sense of gratitude in the act of both giving and receiving kindness and compassion isn't there the sense of gratitude in both and you know it just makes us feel good because we can feel deep gratitude for both the giving and the receiving and especially when it comes to that giving part of kindness compassion which in the Pali language is called dana or generosity it is said that we experience a sense of appreciation and thankfulness in three ways in the giving so the first is when we're simply thinking about offering someone or kindness or compassion just thinking about it and the second way is a sense of gratitude we fill in the actual offering of our kindness and compassion while we're doing it and finally the third way is that there's gratitude and are remembering our kindness and compassion remembering our offering isn't this true so just for a moment you might even think about a time when you offered your kindness or compassion to someone how does it feel right now just in the remembering of this kindness or compassion could be a nice thing you did for someone or sitting and listening to them or holding them or even offering a smile could be a gift maybe you said something nice to someone how does it feel when you remember that you might consider aren't you grateful for having been able to do that to offer that you might even sense the gratitude of being offered a kindness or compassion how does that feel in the remembering then in contrast you might now think about the opposite of that kind of giving no so we might honestly ask ourselves what happens to the mind and heart when we simply think about offering someone our ill will or hatred we're just hating someone right like maybe when we think of all the nasty things we might want to say to someone if we could you know and then we might even consider what effect does it have on the mind and heart when maybe we actually do say or do something that's harmful in some way to someone then we might really consider what is the effect on the mind and heart in our remembering of some harmful words or actions is there any sense of gratitude you know some self-righteousness whatever it is more often you know there's a sense of real regret and pain isn't there so this is something we can really contemplate and consider and remind ourselves of that offering our kindness and compassion out in the world really does make us feel better and more grateful especially in the remembering and they're doing the opposite of these things really brings ourselves and others more pain those are first two divine abodes kindness and compassion with a third divine abode which is mudita or empathetic joy the idea is that we ourselves feel both joy and gratitude when we rejoice in our own or others happiness right so again it really makes us feel good and we just feel so grateful for being able to experience our own or another person's joy when we can allow ourselves to do this which again for many reasons is not always easy to feel grateful for our own or another person's joy it's a practice but right now you might even consider a time maybe recently when either you yourself experience some joy or maybe you were rejoicing in someone else's joy so maybe someone got married or had or adopted a child or maybe they finally accomplished something that they set out for themselves you they're so happy about it as you remember doesn't it feel good to remember your joy for this person and to be grateful for being able to experience this joy you know we really allowed ourselves to be more joyful for the happiness of others and we're really grateful for that just think of how happy that would make us would make our hearts if we really practice that finally with the fourth Brahma Vahara equanimity or balanced awareness upekka in Pali we might recall that equanimity is at the very center of wanting and not wanting which is we might know are two of the main qualities that create suffering within us wanting and not wanting along with delusion which is basically not understanding that wanting and not wanting are what cause us suffering and if we think about it the experience or quality of gratitude itself fits right at the center of wanting and not wanting doesn't it so when we're experiencing the quality of gratefulness or appreciation we're not experiencing aversion which is not wanting and we're glad and appreciative about what we have rather than wanting something else right so in that very moment in that moment of gratitude we are actually living from a place of thankfulness rather than from a place of complaint right and when we're living here in the center of wanting and not wanting where we're dwelling is in a place of ease or equanimity which is again the fruit of our practice equanimity and we're actually experiencing it even for a brief moment we can live there and the idea is that over time with practice we can start to live or dwell in that place of thankfulness even more for even more moments and again that place of home or refuge of neither wanting or not wanting is an incredibly calm and peaceful place for us to live or to live from and by the way it can be really helpful to remember that our gratitude does not at all need to be about the really big things in our lives you know it can be the simplest things or maybe all of those things that we tend to take for granted for example we might even start paying attention to all those moments in our life that we usually consider boring which is mostly the ones we do all the time so for instance maybe we're turning on the water faucet and we might practice imagining what it might be like to be without water you know and then be grateful for everything that we do with water be grateful for water having water or maybe when we have hot water wow you know we might remember that for many people around the world this is a real luxury when we're reading we might just pause every once in a while and simply rejoice in the fact that we can read no we might also pause and celebrate our body and whatever condition it may be in and say thank you for all these years thank you body we might even take a trip around the body basically doing a body scan meditation and say thank you to each separate part of the body you know all those parts even that might not be functioning well like thank you feet thank you legs hips abdomen low back chest upper back throat head etc thank you heart lungs and other organs we definitely want to thank our awesome senses remembering that truly these are home these are home as the Buddha famously tells us in the Anguttara Nikaya I declare that is in this fathom long body with its perceptions and thoughts that there is the world there is the world besides our bodies we can also start paying attention to every little thing around us and be thankful for it all those things we take for granted maybe like even the furniture that we're sitting on we might think all the people involved in making it possible for us to do something as simple as sit in a chair or maybe if you're listening to this while you're driving Wow there's actually a car that you're driving in be grateful for that the people that made it for you and the roads etc could be the building we happen to be in you know and all the utilities especially that are in it the electricity the hot water etc right now maybe the air conditioning yay now we might thank the actual air for supporting us thank the Sun for shining keeping us and all the other living things alive you know we might also be thankful for all the people in our lives who we might also take for granted a lot of the time we don't really feel grateful for them until we don't have them in our lives anymore sometimes and as we continue we might even start to realize that there's really no limit to the things that we can express our gratitude towards and then we can become grateful more and more for each precious moment of our lives and personally I really like to use this very simple meditation from tikna Han which involves intentionally pausing and saying to ourselves this very simple breathing in I calm body and mind breathing out I smile dwelling in the present moment I know that this is the only moment I'll repeat that breathing in I calm body and mind breathing out I smile dwelling in the present moment I know that this is the only moment and of course we can do this for a few seconds or a minute or five minutes or just as long as we want maybe noticing that each new moment is completely different than the one before and therefore it's precious and finally as encouragement before I invite you into a meditation on gratitude I wanted to end with one of my very favorite passages from one of my favorite writers Barbara Kingsolver who wrote this about the importance of nurturing gratitude especially in times of difficulty she wrote in my own worst seasons I've come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard for a long time at a single glorious thing a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window and then another my daughter in a yellow dress and another the perfect outline of a full dark sphere behind the crescent moon until I learned to be in love with my life again like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills I have taught myself joy over and over again I have taught myself joy over and over again and I love that last line because it really relates to what the Buddha taught us which is that we can teach ourselves to experience even more joy over and over again and so if it's available and you're ready I'd like to invite you into a meditation on gratitude on the five senses so you might want to find a comfortable seat or if you're walking or driving you might start to pay attention to your body even with the eyes open and if you're sitting ready you might close the eyes take a nice deep breath in slow breath out maybe a couple of rounds of those on your own just to get in touch with the body and the breath bring your attention inward let yourself be with your heart your mind the body in this moment however it is I think if you can allow the breath itself to help calm the mind and body especially on each exhale allowing the body to settle even more right here in the present you might as you continue soften different areas of the body allow letting go you might notice the whole area of the face see if you can let the muscles soften here forehead smooth eyes soft in their sockets teeth slightly parted so the jaw can relax face can relax still breathing I noticed the neck and shoulders again just allowing the shoulders to drop you can soften in this area as well let go might allow the tummy to be soft undefended it's naturally receiving the breath letting go might let the center of the palms soften and a gesture we're both receiving and letting go still breathing aware of the body the aliveness of the body you might notice your skin and particular notice whatever is sensing maybe your hands are touching your clothing might feel air on the skin warmth coolness so this meditation is going to be a meditation on our senses which again is how we experience the world through this body and so can be really helpful to remind ourselves how grateful we are for our amazing senses which we do often take for granted I know some of us have lost some of our senses or some of our senses aren't as strong as they used to be and so throughout this meditation if a sense of grief arises please allow yourself your own kindness compassion allow yourself to grieve so important not to cover over men as a balance you might also try to recall your gratitude for being able to experience that particular sense in the past and all that you can remember still breathing you might even as we go through add a very slight smile to the corner of the eyes and the lips just to bring a sense of gratitude right here into the body whenever you like you can also place one hand or both on the heart or one hand on the heart and one hand on the belly can be a great way to access a sense of gratitude and as you're ready I'm gonna invite you to again pay attention to your body and your skin especially remembering the amazing sense of touch and bring to mind something that you're grateful for that you're able to touch so for instance it could be receiving a hug or recalling the softness of a baby's skin or the feel of petting your dog or cat or touching something that feels nice out in nature or at your home maybe a blanket that's comforting let's take some moments to tap into what you feel grateful for the sense of touch now as you're ready gonna invite you to get in touch with sound so right now you might even notice the sounds around you just be aware and touch with sound and as you're ready and invite you to recall a sound that you're grateful for maybe birdsong a loved one's voice waves crashing ashore and as you think of sound or sounds allow yourself to feel grateful for the experience of being able to listen as you're ready now I'm gonna invite you to pay attention to the sense of sight your eyes may be open may be closed might see light behind the closed eyes and touch with that sense of sight and then I'd like to invite you as you're ready to bring to mind different sights that you feel grateful for can maybe the face of someone you love beautiful sunset a painting the light changing being able to see the moon etc now as you're doing this allow yourself to feel grateful for whatever experience of looking that you have or have had in the past maybe stay with that you as you're ready now gonna invite you to get in touch with the mouth the tongue might feel saliva in the mouth and I'd like to invite you to bring them on a taste that you're grateful for different tastes could be your favorite food or drink could be a snowflake melting on the tongue just think of different tastes and allow yourself to feel grateful for being able to taste all the things that you've tasted might even think of favorite childhood things that you used to taste as you're ready now I'm gonna invite you to get in touch with smell might even take a moment now see if there's anything in your environment that you smell might notice the breath moving in and out of the nostrils then I'm gonna invite you to bring to mind a smell or smells that you're grateful for again could be your favorite food something out in nature the smell of a loved one's clothing or skin maybe how something smells in the morning or the evening as you do again allowing yourself to feel grateful for the experience of smelling you finally as we come to a close I want to invite you to take a few minutes to simply rest in the feeling of gratitude itself see if you can feel grateful for the feeling of gratitude itself and let it expand or grow like it could just be unlimited the gratitude itself could just be unlimited if it helps to recall some of the things you're grateful for you can try that on just to get in touch with that stay with the feeling of gratitude itself and finally I'd like to offer you these words from the late great Mary Oliver who tells us truly we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood how grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the Lambs have rivers and stone or forever in allegiance with gravity while we ourselves dream of rising how two hands touch and the bonds will never be broken how people come from delight or the scars of damage to the comfort of a poem let me keep my distance always from those who think they have the answers let me keep company always with those who say look and laugh in astonishment and bow their heads namaste and blessings I hope you enjoyed this talk these talks are always offered freely so that no one has ever denied access to these teachings and your support really makes a difference Donna is an ancient Pali word meaning spontaneous generosity of heart if you feel inspired to offer Donna you can do so by visiting my website at www.

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Reviews

Thank you for this beautiful talk and meditation. We all have so much to be grateful for. I love the sticky note idea and intend to put some around today.
Namaste
Lucy

Wonderful. Thabk you!

That was the most wonderful talk I've ever had the good fortune to hear on the subject of gratitude. I am so grateful to you for sharing it 🌟

A wonderful talk thank you so much🙏