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Guided Meditation: Gratitude for Life; Dharmette: Gratitude (3 of 5) Expressing Gratitude - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 27, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Gratitude for Life

So, welcome and good morning, good day to everyone from everywhere. It is a wonderful gathering of all of you. To those of you in the chat, you represent the many people who are here who are not posting. It is a wonderful group. Thank you.

I feel a little reluctant to speak. I feel quite content sitting here, quiet inside. What is there to say? Sometimes silence is more useful than speaking.

We are practicing gratitude this week. I am so grateful for all of you, grateful to be able to sit here and reflect, feel, and sense what is happening in this way.

To begin our meditation: Gratitude is not just something to think of the mind, nor just something to feel of the heart; it is also something of the body. Sometimes we express gratitude with a handshake, a bow, a smile, or by offering a small gratitude gift.

It is possible to think of the meditation posture you are sitting in as a posture of gratitude. You might want to take a little care about how you sit right now. Maybe sway back and forth a little bit, forward and back, just to limber up. Then, come back into whatever posture is your posture, doing so with the idea that this is the posture of gratitude. It is a very special thing, anybody's meditation posture—whether standing, walking, sitting, or lying down. But what would it be like if this posture was the expression of gratitude, of thankfulness?

Sometimes it doesn't have to be for anything. There can just be a gratitude because it is what wells up from within. Or gratitude to be able to practice. It is one of the great things in a human life to have a spiritual practice, a practice of liberation. So, to be grateful for this practice. It is almost like a reciprocal thing: we take this posture to practice, and we are grateful for the practice, which then helps shape our posture.

Gently closing your eyes.

What if gratitude now, in meditation, is a quiet, shy, gentle quality within? How would you orient yourself? How would you settle yourself? How would you listen to yourself, so you can be attuned to something that is quiet, deep, settled? It is already here, under the layers of agitation, preoccupation, or difficult feelings you might be having. Allow the thinking mind to become quieter so you can attend to, care for, and be with yourself.

Be with yourself as your best friend. Be with yourself as a good spiritual friend¹ that will listen to you, attend to you as you are, listening to what is deep within.

If breathing is a comfortable place for meditation, breathe with that quiet depth. Breathe out of it and return to it.

If there is no quiet depth in you, then be focused more on how you are mindful, how you attend to yourself. See if you can be the quiet companion who accepts you as you are, feels you as you are, and gets to know you as you are, in whatever way you are.

Perhaps what you are, then, is grateful to have such a companion sitting here together in a posture, attitude, and orientation to a quiet gratitude for now, here.

And then, as we come to the end of this sitting, to lead you through a little gratitude meditation.

As you sit here, lay here, or stand here in your body: The whole of who you are includes your body. It isn't that you have a body so much as you are a body—a physical body, mind, and heart all together.

A huge part of this body meditating is made of water. It is made from the waters, comes from the waters of this Earth—the rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans. Over a lifetime, so much of the waters of the world have passed through you, have had a home in you, have been you. To be grateful for waters. Grateful for how incredibly important water is for our life, our body, our being. Acknowledging and appreciating water as something to be thankful for.

Another big part of this human body is all the molecules made of carbon. We are carbon life. All the carbon that makes us up is a form of solidified air. The carbon dioxide in the air is converted by photosynthesis by plants into molecules that then become the carbon molecules that hold our body together, that build the body. To be grateful for the air. Thank you. In a sense, the air that we don't see becomes the solidified air that we do see.

Then, together with the carbon molecules, we are made up of minerals that come from the earth. If you mostly eat local food, part of you is comprised of the earth in your area. With international trade, we are made up of the earth from all over the world. Thank you to the earth. The earth that supports us in so many ways. Thank you.

And then there is the sun. The fire that burns quietly for us far away, lighting the days. The light that is converted by photosynthesis² into the carbon molecules that are the source of sugars and the source of our energy. That passes through carbonized molecules to be released as little sunlights in our body, little electricity through our nervous system. Thank you, Sun—the big one—and the teeny ones of electrons in our body. Wow. Thank you.

And then there is the wondrous capacity that evolution has given us, slowly, steadily: all our different capacities for attention, for sensing, feeling, knowing, recognizing, being aware. Somehow, the dynamic processes of life brought us this: the capacity to be aware, to think, and to know. Thank you to all the life processes that brought this into being, that we share in this wondrous way. We are the universe knowing itself. Thank you.

And then there is space. When we walk through this world, it is because there is empty space that we can walk. Empty space makes possible walking, talking, communicating, doing things, moving our fingers and hands.

In the same way, we have to have space within us—space in our body, our mind, and our hearts for all that moves within us. We often fill the space with thoughts, preoccupations, and our focus on the emotional life, our suffering, our pains, our successes. But we have a practice that allows us to give space, to live in a spaciousness that makes so much possible—so much more possible than if we are hemmed in by our thoughts. Thank you, space.

Thank you Earth, water, air, fire, awareness, and space. Always here with us. To be grateful for all that sustains our life moment by moment, so that we are better equipped to be with the difficulties and sufferings of this life.

May we touch into love, compassion, good will, and care as a culmination of all that sustains our life. May we be grateful for whatever capacity we have for a kindhearted heart. Thank you. And may we bring this kindness and good will into the world to benefit everyone. May all beings be happy.

Dharmette: Gratitude (3 of 5) Expressing Gratitude

Hello and welcome to this third talk on gratitude.

I present a little bit about the different aspects and dynamics of gratitude, which I have called the "Ecology of Thankfulness." It begins with the cognitive aspect of appreciating something and acknowledging it. Part of the Buddhist word for gratitude can be more literally translated into English as "acknowledgement"³—acknowledgement of what has been done for us.

Then there is the thankfulness, which is the feeling. To allow ourselves to feel. There is a way in which taking a moment, a minute, a year, or a lifetime to take in the experience, the feeling of well-being that comes from gratitude, from thankfulness—to open up to it, to let it register. One of the reasons to do this is not just to indulge in those feelings, but rather so the gratitude becomes more whole. So when we say "thank you" or we bow, there is much more embodiment behind it, much more here. There is more that is offered in return.

If I just keep walking and wave my hand—"Thanks"—I don't know if that is really going to touch someone else. It is incidental and casual, almost unimportant. Just to kind of bark out "Thank you," or "Thanks." But to stop with someone, maybe even hold their hands, and say "Thank you" (though you have to be careful who you do that with), or to really stop and bow a little bit, even if you don't put your hands together—to really feel it so it can be embodied.

The part I want to emphasize today is expressing gratitude. This is an extremely important thing, not only for the person you are saying thank you to, but I believe it is important for us. This is one of the things I learned from my years of monastic practice. There was something about deep appreciation, a deep welling up of gratitude that happened to me day after day with all the meditation I did. There was something about the experience, the goodness, the well-being of meditation that I felt so grateful, so appreciative, that it felt like there was something inside of me that needed to express it. Otherwise, it was bottled up, restricted; it didn't really have a life, it couldn't come to its fullness.

One of the reasons I like to bow at the end of meditation, whenever I meditate, is that it gives a life, gives acknowledgement, and allows a movement that is happening inside of me to live and have its fulfillment. That is the deep feeling of appreciation and gratitude. In return, I think it also changes me, inculcates or reinforces that side of myself.

After my years of monastic practice—we did a lot of bowing, and I didn't always want to bow; it wasn't always out of appreciation. But after a while, there was something about putting my hands together and bowing, even when I didn't want to. It had an effect on me. It was a gratitude posture that, drop by drop, actually did do something to me. By the time I left the monastery, we always bowed to each other whenever we passed each other.

When I left the monastery after three years, I was walking down the street in the city of Berkeley nearby. The first day out of the monastery, I was passing all these people on the sidewalk and I just wanted to bow to them all. But they were strangers, and I thought that would be weird. Then luckily, I saw across the street, down the street, someone who had visited the monastery at some point during the summer. I went running after her and said, "Stop, stop, wait, wait!" I just wanted to have someone to bow to, to express my gratitude for all these people, for the people I was there with, and give it life.

So, express gratitude. Certainly do it with a "Thank you" and words, but let the words be embodied. Not just casual. Stop and do it, say it in a good way, in the fullness of it.

There are also the gestures you use. For people who don't know about bowing, if you do that to them, maybe it's weird for them. But a little nod, stopping and looking at them. Some movement of the hand that expresses something. Maybe just opening your hands wide. In the old days, men would tip their hats; that expressed a little bit more of a gesture.

What is the gesture? What is the embodiment of it? It could be stopping physically and turning towards the person to say thank you. There are wonderful photographs and videos of the Dalai Lama going over to people he sees, bowing, holding their hands, and being completely with them for those few minutes, like they are the most important person. I don't know if he is expressing gratitude, but there is something deep because he is really there. He has changed so many people just by how he greets people.

Then there is the "Gratitude Gift." Sometimes you want to say, "I want to thank you for what you did for me, and here is a small gift." Not a big gift that makes people obligated to return it, but maybe something you bake: "Here, I baked this for you, please." Or, "Here are some flowers. I want to thank you for the favor you did me, the support you gave." That little expression of gratitude is more embodied and makes so much more go on.

The other thing I think about is that sometimes it is useful to go out of your way to say thank you. Show up. Go see someone you know, walk up to them and say, "I just wanted to take the time to say thank you." It is clear you are going out of your way. You go into their office, walk down the hall: "I am here just to say thank you." Or go to a neighbor and knock on the door and say, "I just want to say thank you for yesterday. It was really nice to be invited over for dinner." It doesn't have to be a gift; just, "That's all I wanted to say."

Go out of your way so there is something deeper in it. It is not just a casual "thank you." It is like we are investing; we are doing something.

What I would like to suggest is that this way of really living in gratitude is a way of letting the love, gratitude, or the dynamic aspect of human relationships flow in a healthy way. There are cycles of giving and receiving, gratitude and generosity. It just keeps flowing and moving, just like all the elements within us.

The water that we have comes and goes. The water that is in us now probably contains some water molecules that were there in the Buddha, or in all kinds of wonderful, compassionate people in the past. It keeps flowing out of us. Our water now will probably be in some other human being, animal, or being in the future, thousands or millions of years from now. We want to just keep it flowing, keep it moving, keep it going smoothly.

So it is with human relationships: the dynamism of love, of care, of friendship. Keep it flowing. One of the ways to do that is to express gratitude. Sometimes when we neglect to do that, something stops; it stops with us, and maybe it never continues again. So keep it going. Pass it on through how you say thank you.

So for all of you: thank you very much for today. I will be here tomorrow. In the United States, it is a holiday on Friday, and we will continue this topic of gratitude. Thank you.