Gratitude for when life throws us a curve ball.

I think it's fair to say that life has thrown us all a curve ball. And equally fair to say that gratitude, or to feel grateful for it, is not usually our immediate response, or even a response we think of at all.

Mindfulness teaches us that gratitude is not about feeling grateful only when we receive or achieve something; in other words, it's not something which is dependent upon conditions. Gratitude is not considered a reaction. It's considered to be a habit, an attitude, a state of mind to be generated and cultivated. Our mindfulness practice reminds us especially to appreciate difficult times because when life throws us that curve ball, that's the time which teaches us the most.

From my own experience of recent events, and perhaps you've also felt the same, I realised how this difficult time can be used as a time of insight, greater or more refined awareness and generating compassion. In certain temples in the Far East there's actually a prayer that you make asking for difficulties. Imagine!. :) So I guess we should be making good use of this time before it's over.

Gratitude is a powerful practice for a few reasons.

For one thing, gratitude opens the heart:

Our practice encourages us to be grateful all the time because it helps us to be more positive, patient and emotionally resilient. It also opens our heart to compassion. The prayer I mentioned above reads: "May I be given the appropriate difficulties so that my heart can truly open with compassion." You only have to look around you to see how many people have jumped in to help others and feed the hungry.

Gratitude helps create a stronger mindfulness:

When we practice gratitude, you will recognise that the practice helps us to be fully in the present moment, aware of our surroundings or situation. This might not make sense to you immediately when you read this, but when we sit to practice gratitude, you will notice a very strong sense and direct experience of who and what surrounds you.

Gratitude means not taking things for granted:

To be mindful is to see the world as it is without judgment. In other words: responding to the world rather than reacting to it. So if gratitude is linked to mindfulness, inversely a lack of gratitude means we are not paying proper attention and taking our existence for granted.

Norman Fisher, a Zen teacher, writes: "We take life, we take OUR life, we take existence, for granted. We take it as a given, and then we complain that it isn't working out as we wanted it to. But why should we be here in the first place? Why should we exist at all?

We see ourselves and everyone else as separate individuals with needs to be filled, and we can easily become overwhelmed by all the unfilled needs. A mind of gratitude will help with this."

Gratitude for our precious human life:

When I read what Norman Fisher wrote, I was reminded of the Zen story of the blind turtle. Our human life is so precious, but we take it for granted that we are born human. To be born human with all our amazing capabilities, physical, intellectual, spiritual, is so precious and rare. The old Buddhist story called "Blind Turtle & Floating Log" explains this very well:

Buddha, talking to Ananda says: "Suppose there is a blind turtle who lives at the bottom of the vast ocean. This turtle has a long life. It comes up to the surface of the sea only once in 100 years to take a breath.

Then suppose, there happens to be a log floating in the huge ocean, tossed by winds and currents.

This log has a small hole in the centre. The size of hole is as small as a neck of the turtle.

What is the likelihood of this blind turtle coming up to the surface in exactly the place where the log is and getting his head through the hole of the floating log in the vast ocean?"

"It's impossible! It cannot happen!", replied Ananda.

Then Buddha said, "To be born as a human being is actually much more difficult than the possibility of the blind turtle putting his head through the hole of the floating log. Life is such a precious thing."

The idea being that we should be grateful for being born as a human, when we could just as easily have been born as an animal or a tree.

Gratitude Develops Patience:

In this crazy-weird time, many people are feeling anxious, bored, restless or frustrated; mentally shaking their fist at people, ideas or situations. Gratitude helps develop patience during difficult times. People with a strong sense of gratitude are more likely to be patient. This is not to say we should just lie down and give up on things. Rather it means we can approach our experiences with a more positive mindset.

In Zen we call patience one of the '6 perfections' to master. Patience is the art of taking a pause, especially when it comes to our thoughts. So if we find our mind is overwhelmed with thoughts, sensations or ideas, we can take a pause, stop thinking, take a deep breath, remember gratitude. We can find our equilibrium through patience.

Gratitude is also an antidote to grasping:

Grasping or greed often comes from feeling we don’t have enough. Gratitude reminds us that what we have is enough. In our body or mind we can't experience gratitude and grasping together at any one time. The same goes for jealousy or resentment, and many other negative emotions. They can't exist together with gratitude either.

To cultivate gratitude:

To cultivate a mind of gratitude separate from our conditions is not difficult. It's just a matter of practice. We can use various things: a gratitude meditation, chanting, whatever you prefer. Some people keep a gratitude diary. Whatever you use, just remember to be grateful for the practice. :)

Gratitude practice can be at any time, wherever we are. It's not necessary to sit formally. Any time we realise we're feeling a bit crappy or the world gets us down, we can remind ourselves of what's going right and what we have to be grateful for. What we have is already enough.

The Zen way of mindfulness and gratitude is to go through life and go through each days step by step, appreciating all the small and ordinary things as much as the larger things. When we practice mindfulness in this way, we can easily see what we are doing where we are. And we can feel grateful for what we have.

Thanks for sitting this week!