MIDL 23/36: Insight Meditation: Gratitude

Stephen Procter guides you in the insight meditation skill of cultivating gratitude to help your mind put down preoccupation with the future and abide in the present. When gratitude is not present, we lose sight of what is important within our life and start focusing on how we feel things should be. This creates a divide between reality and our desires causing suffering to arise within our life. Support articles and instructions for this guided meditation can be found in the Free Online MIDL Insight Meditation Course by checking Stephens Procter's teacher profile.

Transcript

Hello,

My name is Steven Proctor.

Since gratitude is very personal,

That is,

We all have different things within our life to be grateful for,

It is not truly possible to guide a gratitude meditation.

So I'll guide this practice showing you how I practice gratitude within my life.

When you understand the technique,

Then you can start to practice it in yours.

This practice is best done as you're falling asleep at night,

Or even better as you wake up in the morning to set your attitude for the whole day.

So let's begin the example of the meditation.

When I first wake up,

I start by setting the foundation of my mindfulness in the body,

Just being aware of just laying there,

Feeling the touch of the body on the bed,

Feeling of heaviness throughout the body,

Feeling pressure.

And points of touch such as hardness and softness.

Starting to be aware of the feeling of the breath moving through the body.

Relaxing any tension within the breath.

And starting to feel the movement of the breath throughout the whole of the body.

Allowing each out-breath to soften into,

Relax into,

Just being present.

Emersing awareness throughout the whole of your body.

The next stage,

Once you're very present,

Very alert,

Is start reflecting on what you have to be grateful for.

Start out with very simple things.

Thank you for this pillow.

I'm truly blessed to have a pillow.

Thank you for this bed.

I'm truly blessed.

I'm truly blessed to have these blankets and sheets to keep me warm.

Thank you.

Thank you for this room.

It's protecting me from the cold,

From the heat,

Allowing me to feel safe for the night.

I'm truly blessed.

Thank you for my wife who chooses to sleep in the bed next to me.

For this,

I'm very grateful.

Thank you.

Thank you for my home.

For my family.

I'm truly blessed to have them in my life.

Thank you for the water that comes out of the tap in my home.

I'm blessed to have clear,

Clean water to drink.

Living in this wonderful country,

I even get to wash and clean my body in drinking water.

I'm truly blessed.

I'm very grateful.

Thank you.

Thank you for my clothes and the food that I eat.

I'm blessed to live in a country where I can eat when I need to.

Not everyone has that opportunity.

I have so much in my life.

Thank you for my car who carries me every day.

Thank you for the streets in which I drive.

Thank you to the people who maintain the roads,

Supply the electricity,

Change the globes and the traffic lights.

Thank you to the shopkeepers who supply the food and the farmers who grow it.

Thank you to the community around me.

Thank you to the trees for sharing each breath with me.

Thank you for supplying my oxygen that I breathe.

Please accept this gift of carbon dioxide as I breathe out.

Thank you for keeping me alive,

For giving me this life.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to earn my living in this way.

Thank you to my students,

For without them I could not be a teacher.

Thank you for supporting me,

For giving me this life,

For without your generosity I could not live in this way.

I could not have so much in my life.

I am truly grateful for you.

Thank you for the kindness and caring everyone shows towards me.

Thank you for this opportunity for me to practice generosity,

Kindness,

Compassion.

Thank you for this opportunity for me to practice this Dharma,

For me to have come in contact with this practice.

I am truly grateful.

Thank you for the difficulties in my life that teach me and provide me an opportunity to become a better person.

Thank you for this in-breath.

Thank you for this out-breath.

And stop being aware of each breath as it comes in and out.

Bringing the whole world into you.

And breathing thankfulness and gratitude out into the world.

To all my students,

Thank you again for your hard work this afternoon,

And keep this Allowing the gratitude to fill every cell of your body.

Allowing each out-breath to say thank you for all that you have.

Allowing each out-breath to say thank you for all that you have.

Then as you open your eyes,

Be aware of seeing the room around you.

Make a smile on your face and say thank you.

Gently and mindfully hop out of the bed.

As each foot touches the ground,

Say thank you.

As you walk out of the room,

Realize how grateful you are,

How lucky you are to have this body to carry you through life.

How blessed you are to have this opportunity and choice in how you live.

I think of gratitude as being the king of emotions.

Gratitude has the power to change the way we view the world.

When you start to view the world in a negative way,

Viewing it through anger,

Aversion,

Depression,

You'll find that mentally you start to push everything and everyone away.

The mind then starts to fixate on,

Obsess on,

Churn over.

What's lacking in your life,

What's missing what you don't have?

This change of perception is focusing on lack,

Is toxic to our lives.

Like rust to steel,

Our lives start to rot from inside and fall apart.

A daily gratitude practice,

If done in a proper,

Skillful way,

Alters the perception and removes the rust so the foundation of our life becomes strong again.

Instead of focusing on what we don't have,

We start to see what we do and live in a feeling of abundance and wealth.

If you find in life you're looking at things in a negative way,

You can also support this practice by making a list daily of five things you have to be grateful for.

Reminding yourself of how lucky you really are.

Also bring your mindfulness into your life.

Start being aware of whenever you start focusing on the negative,

When you start moaning and complaining to yourself and those around you.

Whenever you find yourself doing this,

Come back into your body and start practicing gratitude for what you actually do have.

Don't allow the habitual mind to destroy your life.

The complaining and moaning that goes on,

The focusing on the negativity and what's wrong with each situation,

Is not coming from you.

It is just habitual thinking arising within the mind.

It's just the mind verbalizing your past relationships to life.

All habitual thinking when it arises,

And that is all thinking that's focused on the past or the future.

It tells you nothing about the person who is right here right now.

Habitual thinking tells you about how you related to life in the past,

But it tells you nothing about the person who's sitting here right now.

In reality,

You are a blank slate.

What is going to happen next is always unknown.

What has happened no longer exists,

And what defines you right now is how you are relating to right now.

If you are reacting to your present experience through aversive or greed based states of mind,

Then the next moment will contain aversion or greed.

How you are relating to right now is conditioning and creating your future.

The way you're relating,

The states of mind you're reacting through,

Are creating your reality.

You are a blank slate.

You are not your past.

You always have the opportunity right now to rewrite your life.

You are the script writer.

With mindfulness,

Your life can head in whatever direction you choose.

Habit will keep you in a tight little box and say,

I don't have enough.

If only I had this,

Then I'd be happy.

Don't believe this,

It is a lie.

Habit will say,

I can't do this,

Others can,

But I can't.

This is also a lie.

Your life is a blank slate.

You can do whatever you want to do.

Turn your mind towards what you have,

Abandon the old writer of your scripts.

Choose to relate to right now through gratitude,

Through love,

Kindness,

Compassion,

Through generosity and through joy for other's success.

Meet yourself,

Your family,

Your friends,

Your community,

The world around you with kindness.

Choose what you are putting out in the world.

Are you writing your script out of fear or out of love?

Because the script that you write is the life that will reflect back at you.

Start to understand you are not separate from this planet.

This planet builds you.

You're born out of this planet.

It supports you.

It supports your life.

And eventually you'll fall back into it,

Become the elements and you will also support other lives.

This is the cycle.

We are not living separate from this planet.

We are this planet.

To respect it is to respect ourselves and to respect everyone else around us.

Gratitude has the ability to shift your life completely.

Before I go I'd just like to say thank you so much to all my students throughout the world.

Thank you for the life you have given me.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to teach.

Thank you for spending all this time meditating with me.

Thank you for the mindfulness,

Love and kindness you're bringing into the world.

I'm truly grateful.

Thank you.

Take care of yourself.

Have a wonderful day.

Goodbye.

Reviews

I am so glad I found this meditation. I am facing a medical procedure today that has brought about much fear. I am entering my day instead feeling grateful for my doctors, for the care and support I am receiving, and even for the health condition that is leading me to this moment. I find myself feeling softer, no longer averse, and truly wonder-filled and grateful for this new day of my life.

Beautiful meditation. Feel so much peace now. Much love and gratitude❤️🙏

So kind. I'm grateful for you, Stephen, thank you!

Thank you so much, Stephen! I’ve been doing MIDL 36 and enjoying it a lot! I had never done 45+ mins long sessions and it’s been quite a journey so far!

One question that came to mind recently is “ Any particular body movement you’d recommend after long sessions where my body might be a bit sore after sitting for so long?”

Thanks!!

I am so grateful to have found you on Insight Timer. Your meditations are such a gift to my life helping me to transform to my better self. Thank you so much 🙏

Wonderful simple practice, and reminders about why this is so important to cultivate. Thank you for so elegantly holding the space for healing and discovery.

This was a wonderful practice of gratitude, followed by a discussion of the merits of gratitude. Thank you for teaching me, for allowing me to be your student. 🙏🏼

Very touching. Thank you Stephen, I am glad to be your student and grateful every day for the teachings that you give me.

It’s a great reminder of how blessed we all are. Thanks

This is an excellent meditation. I was not feeling too grateful. I did a search and Stephen's gratitude meditation came up. It was like putting on a different pair of glasses. Everything has a bit more color? I have followed Stephen's MIDL meditations over some years. They have been instrumental to developing my practice. Thank You Stephen 😊

It’s a much lovelier way of seeing our world around us. Thank you for your teaching.

Wow, thank you! Pulling out another heavy hitter, daily gratitudes! I'm grateful for insight into how you use it in your practice! Thank you for this course!

This is the insight I’ve been looking for. Thank you!

Im grateful for your presence and teachings. Thank you

Beautiful start to the day, thank you 🙏

What an incredible gratitude lesson This was so rich so helpful I

Thank you for this wonderful gratitude practice,Stephen 🙏

Thank you for reminding me how fortunate I am.

Thank you, Stephen. I am very grateful for your teaching and generosity.

I just love this gratitude practice. Thank you!