This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Grateful; Attitudes (4 of 5) From Self-Preoccuption to Gratitude. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Grateful; Dharmette: Attitudes (4 of 5) From Self-Preoccuption to Gratitude - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 23, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Grateful

I offer you nice, early greetings. For those of you in the United States, warm greetings on this day of giving thanks. It is nice to see your names and the greetings here on the chat. There are a lot of people, many of whose names I've seen frequently. It is very nice to see the locations you are in all over. Some of you I know have been to our retreat center and I've been on retreat with you. It's been a very wonderful thing to do, and maybe someday others of you will come on a retreat.

Again, good day and welcome to all of you on this day of giving thanks. One of the things I am very grateful for is my meditation practice—this practice of being present. I feel like it is a gift. Not only is the practice a gift, but I feel very fortunate to have received this gift in my lifetime. I feel very fortunate for what seems to move through or arise as I sit, leading to a deep gratitude to life, to being alive, to breathing, and to all that makes it possible for me to be alive, safe enough, and quiet enough to sit in meditation. To open the mind and open the heart. Metaphorically, at least, when I am sitting I open my hands—to be open-handed in this world, open-hearted, and open-minded. It just seems like such a fortunate thing to have this ability, this capacity, and this opportunity to do this kind of practice.

When I bow at the end of a sitting, it is often an expression of gratitude for me. I learned early on that it was good to express it; it would be hard not to. Some emotions we feel come to fulfillment when they are expressed in some form. I feel gratitude is one of those that needs some expression, some movement that goes beyond the personal.

Gratitude, for me, is an experience that points to something beyond my personal ideas of self, my ideas of agency, and all the kinds of things operating here. In Buddhism, we call this the Dharma¹. To sit and open to this wider, transpersonal experience—or the deepest, most intimate place that is non-personal—gives birth to gratitude.

So we'll sit today, and maybe gratitude will not be far away. Maybe we can begin by considering it, in spite of the difficulties many of us have in our lives, and the difficulties that might not be far away as we sit to meditate—illnesses, injuries, and all kinds of challenges.

Let us begin. Assume a meditation posture that allows you to spend a little bit of time appreciating being comfortable. Maybe a safe posture. Maybe a posture that can be an expression of appreciation for this body that does so much for us, that supports us so much.

Gently close the eyes.

It is not so far-fetched to be grateful for what supports our life, for what we receive. With every breath, we receive the oxygen that is essential for our living. With every exhale, we are freeing ourselves from gases which would be problematic if they built up within us. To receive gratefully with every breath.

Every sensation you have in your body is, in part, a consequence of the food you have eaten. It generates the energy for this whole neural system to operate. It allows us to feel and sense this body. And we have a mind. Even with all its challenges, it still gets us about, gets us through a day. The mental processing is so sophisticated that we hardly know it's operating; it is needed just to get around and make the basic activities of daily life happen. So much of it happens unconsciously and effortlessly.

To sit here, finding gratitude in every breath. Appreciation and thanks for the ability to sense and to feel in the body for every sensation. Appreciating and being grateful for this mind that we have. Maybe let every thought that arises, every impulse, be met with gratitude. A gratitude which is an attitude—a background attitude by which we receive all experiences.

In the times that you are pulled into thinking, distracted from the here and now, to what degree is that a self-involvement, a self-concern? All too often, when we are self-concerned, there is little room to receive the gifts of life, the gifts of the spiritual life, the gifts of our practice. Self-concern all too easily interferes with an open sense of gratitude. To realize that we receive so much more than we give, that all that keeps us alive is a gift.

As we come to the end of this sitting, appreciate that when the mind is settled and not preoccupied, when the heart is settled and open, and when we are just sitting here at peace, calm—then there is space in the heart and mind for a greater appreciation of our life and of this moment.

A greater receptivity to all that makes it possible for us to live our life. To recognize that our whole lives are built on receiving so much from others, from the world, from the natural world.

When we are settled, there is more room for gratitude. A thankfulness for all that we receive. So many people work to keep the food in our kitchen, the electricity on. Those who work in the stores where we shop, those who grow the food. Everything we touch virtually that is humanly made is something that has been created by someone for us to use, to appreciate, to interact with. The roads that were built, the electrical wires connecting our homes—the list goes on and on. Things that people have done have made our life possible. To appreciate how much of our life has been built on the work of other people, built on the gifts of the natural world.

To sit in gratitude, and with that open, appreciating heart, we give thanks. And we give our well-wishing:

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free of suffering, oppression, war, and poverty.

In our gratitude, may we be generous to this world. May we wish everyone well in words, in deeds, and in thoughts. May we make this world a better place for everyone.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Attitudes (4 of 5) From Self-Preoccuption to Gratitude

I want to share with you a story of gratitude that comes from one of the very significant scholars of religion, a professor of religious studies in the United States named Huston Smith². He did a great amount of work, spending a lot of time living in different countries, entering into some of the major world religions, participating in them, and studying them in a very deeply appreciative way. He formed deep personal relationships with people across all kinds of religions over his very long career.

He tells the story of practicing Zen in Japan at a very strict Zen monastery. He was there for a month engaged in this practice and ended with a week-long intensive Zen retreat where you get something like three hours of sleep a night. It was very intense and certainly challenging for him.

When he was preparing to leave, he went to pay his respects to his teacher, the abbot, Goto Roshi³. He was a bit stunned by what he was told. He'd been working in a Rinzai monastery, grappling with koans⁴—these enigmatic questions that you struggle with—and he'd been meditating a lot. The abbot said to him, "Koans can be a useful exercise, but they are not Zen."

He thought he'd been doing Zen by sitting in meditation. The abbot went on, "That is also not Zen." I think Huston Smith was quite stunned and surprised. He came to study Zen, and so much of it was intensive meditation and koans, yet those aren't Zen. So what had he been doing?

The Zen master then said to him, "So you'll be flying home tomorrow, right? Don't overlook how many people will help you get home: ticketing agents, pilots, cabin attendants, those who prepare your meals." The abbot placed his palms together and bowed in deep gratitude. Then he directed this bow of gratitude toward him and said, "Make your whole life unceasing gratitude."

He added, "What is Zen? Simple, so simple: infinite gratitude toward all things past, infinite service to all things present, infinite responsibility to all things future. Have a safe journey home." And he gave him a wonderful smile and said, "Glad you came."

Here, this Zen master identifies the heart of Zen with gratitude for all that we receive. Maybe Zen is not the meditation itself; maybe Buddhism is not the meditation. Rather, meditation is what clears the heart. It clears the mind so that we can see, feel, and experience this life from a place where we are not self-centered, self-preoccupied, or self-concerned.

It is so easy for us to be pulled into the world of self-concern, where everything is referenced in relationship to "me, myself, and mine." When we are thinking about ourselves, we carry an attitude of self-preoccupation. It is reasonable to have self-concern, of course—it is reasonable to take care of ourselves and know where we are and what is going on. But when we have an attitude of it, it means a part of our mind is always preoccupied with self. We are always preoccupied with, "What's in it for me?" or "I'm not enough," or "I'm a problem," or "I deserve more," or "I need to make myself safe."

There are a lot of emotions centered around this self, a cluster of preoccupations built around a fundamental attitude that we carry with us—a mood or a state that constantly references everything to ourselves. It involves tension, shutting down, and the inability to connect fully to the situation.

Meditation is a way to quiet this self-concern and self-preoccupation. A large reason why meditation is de-stressing is that there is less self-involvement in meditation, meaning the source of stress is not operating so strongly. That is, unless we bring it with us into the meditation: "Am I doing well enough? Am I concentrated? I need to do better." This whole game of self goes on.

By letting that selfing mind become quiet and letting that attitude decrease, it can then be replaced with an attitude of gratitude. Grateful, thankful. There is a Zen saying: to move forward asserting the self is delusion; to settle back and receive all things is awakening.

There is so much that we are receiving all the time just to be alive. So many people are working, just as many of you work in ways that support others. Our lives are supported by countless people. Every day, those of us living in the modern United States—driving on roads, using electricity, taking water out of a tap in our kitchen, living in insulated homes with heater systems keeping them warm—rely on infrastructure put in place by countless people. The food that comes to our table has had a whole series of people contributing to bring it from the ground up into our kitchen.

Wow, there is a lot that we receive. If we are self-concerned, it is easy to complain that there is not enough, that we want more, or that it should be different. It has been said that when we have an attitude of gratitude, we can be happy anywhere. If we have an attitude of complaining, we would complain even in heaven.

Enter into this day appreciating the lowering of self-concern and self-preoccupation. At least quiet the part that feels we're not good enough, that the situation is not enough for us, that it's not right for us, or that it should be different. No matter what the circumstances are, appreciate the goodness of it, the gift of it.

I believe not being able to appreciate the gifts we receive makes spirituality impossible. Spiritual states, spiritual freedom, awakening, the practice of mindfulness, the deepening subtleness—it is really a gift. We cannot demand it. We cannot assert ourselves into it. We cannot use it to build up the self. If we try, the beauty of this life, the beauty of our hearts, the freedom of heart, and the freedom of the world are not truly available.

See spirituality as entering into a world of receiving. We receive so much, and perhaps in receiving those gifts in the present moment, we can also give. Give our smiles, give our well-wishing, give our deep appreciation for others and for who they are. In our gratitude and appreciation, we can have a vision for a better tomorrow that we contribute to, making it better for all of us, not just ourselves.

May our gratitude and deep appreciation help us work for a better future, a better tomorrow. No matter how difficult it gets, let us step forward to contribute in such a way that in the future, people have reasons to be grateful for us and for what we do.

Thank you very much, and I look forward to one more day on this topic of attitude. I hope that this day goes well for you. If you have the ability to meditate extra today, it is a great day to turn into a mini-retreat for yourself. Thank you.