MA 46 Meditation On Gratitude

Meditation from the Thai Theravada tradition following a modernized interpretation of Boran Kammatthana. While taking its usual focus at the center of this body, this meditation spreads gratitude from oneself ever outwards to the significant others in our lives, while mentioning many of the benefits to our subconscious of seeing the world through the lens of gratitude. No end sound.

Transcript

So we start by placing our attention on the most relaxed part of our body and if you haven't done so already then close your eyes very gently and as you listen you might become more aware of any feelings of gratitude which you have you can become aware of the feelings in your body as you relax and prepare to go deeper in meditation even on the level of our body there is much for us to feel grateful about so relax in your body more and more with every breath and every breath that you take in can be something which you are grateful for every beat of your heart is also something to feel grateful for and if you feel grateful for your breath and for the beating heart and for all the metabolism that powers your body,

The warmth and the liquids and the food and you can notice the parts of your body that feel relaxed and connect that relaxation with the feeling of gratitude and as you make that connection with the part of your body that feels the most relaxed you can also allow that relaxed and calm feeling to spread throughout your body and you can allow the feelings of gratitude to mingle with the feeling of relaxation and now as you connect with that tide of relaxation as soon as you feel ready and at a pace that you feel comfortable with you can allow yourself to drift deeper and deeper into a relaxed state of body and mind where gratitude is a feeling it's an embodied emotion a specific tingling and pulsing vibration that can move through you conjured up whenever you notice things for which you feel truly grateful and just as there are many things for which you can feel potentially happy and grateful in your life you can elicit a wonderful feeling of gratitude that will flow through your body more and more each time you connect with that gratitude and as you allow yourself to create a bigger and warmer and more wonderful feeling of gratitude in your body you can allow yourself to drift gradually deeper into this relaxation gratitude can be a response to things that you see and hear,

Things that you think of and imagine in your mind and the more that you allow yourself to connect with the feeling of gratitude as you go about your day the more that you experience the world through the feelings of gratitude and to abide in that state of gratitude,

Being grateful and thankful for that which is around you it's a very positive way to live your life and experience the world around you so as you go into this meditation just relax and allow your awareness to flow deeper into a comfortable state as for so many things to do with habits and values,

They are rooted in our qualities of mind without engaging the mind on a deeper level,

Then every aspect of gratitude or forgiveness that we manifest will be nothing more than lip service or going through the motions so together with every sort of cultivation in our life we try to engage with our mind on a deeper level to make sure the quality of gratitude is something meaningful right to our core so as a special opportunity to cultivate gratitude,

Forgiveness and all the things that make for harmony especially in the family life,

We conjure up a sense of positivity in the mind a sense of gratitude for all the things for which we see the value in our lives that emotion will arise inside us as a tingling feeling of positivity a warm fuzzy feeling inside us which we can allow to grow and spread inside us until it fills the whole of our body and mind until the entirety of the emotion within ourselves is that of gratitude and connecting with this emotion allows us to go yet more deeply into meditation and you may drift so deep into this meditation that the ideas and the thoughts about feeling grateful and living life with more gratitude can root themselves deeply inside your subconscious and manifest themselves as thoughts,

Words and deeds in your life and the things that you experience and when you experience gratitude as a feeling inside that reverberates through your entire being it makes life seem somehow more precious and the more that you live your life through those feelings of gratitude through the mindset of gratitude,

The more grateful you feel the more you become aware of the positive influences in your world such feelings of gratitude will attract more and more wonderful things into your future and the more that you take a moment right now to acknowledge that as you go deeper and deeper into this meditation you can connect with that gratitude more just hearing the words grateful and gratitude will help you to start noticing your gratitude towards other people and express that gratitude and other people will feel grateful towards you as well because gratitude is a subtle vibration that resides in the mind and like all things in the universe it's a vibrating mass of energy the very building blocks of all things animate and inanimate is energy whether it be cells,

People,

Knowledge,

Thoughts,

Places or experiences or everything in your universe just as the word realize literally means to make real by realizing gratitude you essentially make real the good things that you appreciate because of the energy of your thoughts which manifest and change things for the better the thought energy,

That is the thought energy of gratitude is made from the same energy as you and everything around you so by feeling grateful you are communicating and transforming all the things around you with that positive energy so having relaxed ourselves both in body and in mind,

From here we turn our mind to achieve some sort of focus inside ourselves to this end we might imagine that within the body is just an empty space or a hollow cavity because if our whole body has been transformed into a sort of transparent bubble with nothing on the inside and now would be the time to find a focus for our attention by conjuring up in our mind something bright and clear like a shining sun,

A full moon,

A star,

A crystal ball or even a sparkling diamond or indeed the feeling of an object such as those have already mentioned as if that object is present inside our body even though we know it's there only by how it feels and we allow that picture or feeling to make its way gently downwards within our body until it comes to a point at the deepest part of our breath,

The solar plexus or the centre of our diaphragm using that inner object as an anchor for the mind to keep our mind engaged with our sense of positivity and the place where it really counts at the very centre of ourselves if our mind wanders away to anything else around us it's just a case of bringing it back each time if the inner object disappears we can conjure up a new one if the object changes we can just follow it in its new form and little by little it will take our mind deeper the quality of the awareness will change to become more subtle,

More nuanced,

More refined until there's a feeling as if our whole body seems to become light in weight disappearing into the atmosphere around us and allowing the mind to go deeper still if there are thoughts in the mind we do our best to ignore them because meditation is a place of wordlessness it's a place that gives value to the space between the thoughts rather than the thoughts themselves so we look for the space between the thoughts and the goal of stopping the mind or the standstill which you may be familiar with from previous meditations means a state in meditation where mental activity has died down to a point that there are no further thoughts in the mind anymore just a sense of clear awareness,

A sense of direct perception on the inside and we'll find that many of the things we have experienced since the day we were born are things that we have just taken for granted when we were younger there were people to cook for us,

Clean and wash up after us look after us,

Teach and guide us as we grew up hopefully we will have acknowledged all this help and become more grateful some people say that you don't appreciate what you've got until it's gone and gratitude is about appreciating things while we still have them it's easy to take things for granted when we have never experienced life without them so we take a moment and notice some of the feelings in our life about things for which we are grateful perhaps things we've been taking for granted but which we now recognize allowing us finally to become more grateful as we relax comfortably we can start to see the world differently in a way that has more gratitude the danger of a world that lacks gratitude is that no one will want to help another person a second time ingratitude will turn society into a more selfish place because the nature of ingratitude is like being in the middle of the ocean surrounded by water but unable to drink any of it and in the same way if we are ungrateful even if we are surrounded by helpful people things and opportunities but because we only know how to find fault with these things we are unable to derive any benefit from the help that's offered to us but through gratitude it seems that even our brain is transformed we find ourselves more and more unshackled from toxic emotions if we are more grateful and even if we don't share that gratitude with others it still brings benefits on the level of the brain it's as if our unconscious mind gets messages that join together in new ways so that we can think differently about the things that we achieve realizing more and more how much of what we achieve in our life is due to the help of other things and other people in our lives and when you're better able to feel grateful for these things and it is something that we can do anytime at any place whether we're driving,

Walking,

Talking,

At work or at play we can feel grateful more and more in all sorts of situations we can allow ourselves to feel grateful for things and for people with whom we spend our time feeling that gratitude more and more in effect it is an internal dialogue an image and a feeling within us and eliciting those feelings and images or this internal dialogue helps us feel more grateful helps us to value and appreciate the things that we have it's almost as if we are pre-programming our subconscious to remind us to feel grateful at every opportunity so meditation on gratitude supercharges our subconscious literally rewiring our mind for a more grateful and abundant mindset and this gratitude will contribute to improved health and wealth and abundance in our lives so reflecting on this we engage deeper and deeper with a sense of gratitude at the center of our body for a few more moments in silence until we come to the appropriate time you you you and picking up now on the energy we've gained by the outpouring of gratitude we re-engage with gratitude at the center of our body and at this time we can double down on that sense of gratitude by projecting a sense of gratitude towards ourselves first of all we take a moment to feel grateful just for being who we are appreciating ourselves as we are and taking a look at ourselves as if in a mirror to think how grateful we are that we are who we are we can remind ourselves to have an attitude of gratitude and rather than advocating self-aggrandizement we simply connect with a moderate amount of self-esteem because if we don't appreciate ourselves then it will be hard for others to appreciate us or for us to appreciate others and you can remember to feel grateful towards yourself throughout the day from this moment forward and from there we can allow ourselves to feel more and more grateful deep down inside our subconscious recognizing that feeling of gratitude allowing us to feel grateful for more things perhaps things that have happened in our lives whether it be birthdays or festive times of the year or specific events that you have coming up you might feel grateful for things like nutritious meals,

Holidays or even the small and simple things that you can feel grateful for you can feel grateful for the things that perhaps you normally take for granted even the things we may feel that we've actually paid for but simply having them available to purchase whether it be food,

Shelter,

Clothing or good health these little things that we often take for granted or the things like the time you spend with other people or the people that spend that time with you more and more in the future you can feel grateful when you're experiencing these things either working or socially the more you experience gratitude in those places and times in your life the more wonderful and vibrant and grateful your life will become you can feel grateful for those things and you can allow your feelings of gratitude to spread into other areas of your life allowing you to express those feelings of gratitude more and more as you go through your day and as you feel gratitude for those things you might start to appreciate with gratitude the role other people have had in bringing about those things for which you feel grateful and you express your real and true gratitude to other people for the things that they do because you spread that gratitude to others simply by saying thank you to somebody is expressing your gratitude saying thank you can bring a smile to other's faces and it even lights up different areas of our brain making us feel happier the long-term benefits of practicing conscious gratitude on your health happiness and general well-being have been proven again and again and it might be a good opportunity to be grateful on a spiritual level to founders teachings meditation teachers in the present the heritage the living tradition and the culture that perpetuates our tradition from which we derive so much solace and benefit in the practice of our meditation in the present day we might also consider feelings of gratitude for elders and betters in our lives acknowledging the ways they have shaped our lives for the better so we cultivate our attention in this way lightly and gently engaging more deeply with a sense of gratitude perhaps calling to mind the things for which we are grateful and often gratitude is connected with an emotion of forgiveness and in this connection we can perhaps reflect on the issues that we might want to let go of from our past with the proviso that we can forgive without any real need to forget allowing us to learn from history without being too naive about it and when we extend good wishes in this way to ourselves initially and then ever wider outwards into the society around us to fellow human beings all of whom love their life appreciate goodness in life irrespective of race,

Creed,

Nationality or religion and to all living beings not just human beings but all living beings who also value their lives in the same way because at this moment although we may be fortunate in being able to enjoy peace of mind and cultivate a sense of peace but there are parts of the world where many people are not enjoying such peace those who are caught up with disruption and fear so at this time we might be worth conjuring up a sense of gratitude for the peace that we enjoy while remembering that those elsewhere in the world aren't so fortunate as us so we extend a sense of humanity in ever widening circles outwards into the world around us for a few more moments in silence until we come to the appropriate time you you

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So grateful to have found your practices. So much to be thankful for. Blessings to you. ☮️💖🙏🖖🪷

Thank you 🙏🏽