2020-11-22 Appreciation and Gratitude

Insight Meditation Center23min

Gil Fronsdal

00:02

So on this Sunday morning talk a few days before the holiday of Thanksgiving here in the United States, I want to talk a little bit about Thanksgiving, gratitude, thankfulness. I love the expression Thanksgiving because it kind of implies or kind of contains within it, both giving and receiving. We give thanks for the benefits we appreciate and the benefits we receive. And then we give the thanks. And this wonderful, circularity, mutuality of giving and receiving. And sometimes it's just a delight to receive thanks for something. It's an expression of appreciation and delight and value and even expression of kindness, to be thanked. And sometimes, of course, the thanks can be overdone, and maybe come with complicated baggage. But the simplicity of gratitude is just such a nice thing.

Gil Fronsdal

01:22

And in the myths of Buddhism there's a story of the Buddha. That after he was enlightened he spent seven days gazing much of the day, day and night, gazing at the tree, the Bodhi tree under which he was enlightened, in gratitude of the tree. Maybe the protection it gave and the support it gave him for this amazing experience of freedom, presence that he discovered. And the Buddha didn't teach much about gratitude. But he did say that wonderful statement that no one is injured in feeling gratitude. And this idea of no one is injured, you won't be injured in feeling gratitude. What a delightful idea. In the teachings of the Buddha there are two words that are almost always appear together. And they both relate to the word gratitude in English. Maybe there are two sides of what we would think of in English is gratitude. And the first one that's often referred to in the West referred to as gratitude and Pāli is kataññuta, k, a, t, a, n, n, u, t, a with the n the tilde. And literally what this word means is knowing what has been done. So it's a cognitive experience of knowing, recognizing what someone has done for oneself. What has been done for one. The second word almost as a compound because they appear together so often is kataveditā, k, a, t, a, v, e, d, i, t, a. And this means, the first part of it is the same as the other one. It means that which has been done. And veditā, kind of means to experience or to feel that which has been done that we feel. So this is more emotional. This is more the emotional feeling we get when something has been done for us, something beneficial. So the first is the recognition that what's been done. The second is the emotional impact of that how it opens our hearts, how it delights us, how it makes us smile, how it lifts us up, how it fills us maybe. And both of these are part of it. That gratitude is in a form of appreciation.

Gil Fronsdal

04:44

The dictionary definition that I have is that gratitude is the quality of being thankful, readiness to show appreciation and to return kindness readiness to to show appreciation. So there has to be appreciation first, and there has to be the recognition of what we've received. And this is a delightful exercise to spend time, maybe in the end of the day, I've done this sometimes. Sometimes I do, as I lay in bed, go to sleep, sometimes I do at my last meditation of the day. I'll just review the day, and appreciate all the good things that happened that day. And inevitably, I'm a little bit surprised by this exercise, that turns out, there was more things to appreciate through the day than I actually spend time appreciating. Because I'm just going to one thing to the next, and just not really not, sometimes not thinking about things too much. And then to review the day. And so I did it recently, recently. And last week I did a retreat. And at the end of the day, I did this, this exercise, and I kept going, Wow, wow, wow. And they weren't like dramatic things. Just small things that I could feel appreciate. And it's a wonderful exercise. And the idea of doing it is not to do it's kind of forcefully or artificially or pretend things are better than they are. The idea is to really reflect on what we genuinely and easily appreciate. And it's a skill that's developed over time because there's a lot of things going on in daily life that maybe we generally kind of take for granted and don't think about. Then we start kind of reflecting in this way. We start slowly, maybe over time, we recognize, Oh, yeah, there's that too. There's that too. And realizing there's more and more and more people to appreciate more things to appreciate that we get. And then in from that appreciation, one of the things that we gather, what comes from that is gratitude. As a feeling of thankfulness. And gratitude can be an expression that is not expressed. And it's just something we feel inside, it's more than one of the most common emotions I have, at the end of a meditation session. I feel both great appreciation and I feel gratitude. And it's not something that I'm working on to have, it just kind of wells up for me at the end. And one of the reasons I like to bow at the end of meditation practice is to give expression to that. It doesn't have to be expressed, but it's so nice to. It's like my system wants that energy to flow out or not be bottled up or something. And so, this kind of bow is a very simple expression of appreciation and gratitude for me. And so one of the reasons I like that Buddhist custom of bowing, because it seems like a whole body kind of coming together in a kind of, the hands together, whole body kind of coming together to appreciate. So the appreciation is like more embodied, more complete than simply saying to someone, I appreciate you.

Gil Fronsdal

08:28

So gratitude. To contrast it with greed, gratitude is expressed in the words, thanks. Greed is expressed in the words more or have, get. And I think of greed as kind of a state of lack of not being complete, of something is missing and cut off from oneself probably to some degree. And I think of gratitude as being the kind of more closer to being complete, being receptive, being open, having enough, being grateful for what we have. As opposed to greedy for what we don't have. To be grateful for what we have, instead of being proud of what we have. Very different sentiments, very different ways of being.

Gil Fronsdal

09:29

And I think that to be grateful and appreciative, we have to be a little bit comfortable with ourselves. We have to be not feeling anxious or insecure or feeling a sense of lack. But even if we feel just a little bit of it, to open ourselves up and and appreciate the gifts that are given appreciate what's happening for us also contributes to a sense of comfort. Greed, I don't think it leads to much comfort. It might lead to pleasure. But often, it's a pleasure that kind of calls for more pleasure. And so this state of being complete, being full, being whole, that I associate much more with appreciation and gratitude. Gratitude is having a new vision of our world. It's not necessarily living in a new world. It's not like living in a new reality, a new kind of place. But it's taking the world we live in and seeing it in a new way. Seeing it with more appreciation and seeing with more gratitude.

Gil Fronsdal

10:47

Then it's easy to complain and say, well, there's a lot of things not to appreciate, and we're supposed to not appreciate them. And complain about them or be upset with them, and all kinds of things go on. And so maybe there's some truth to that, I don't want to deny that. But it's also important to reflect on the consequences of complaining the consequences of anger and despair, that are very different than the consequences of appreciation. That the appreciation of things tends to support the growth of those things we appreciate. appreciation is a kind of food for things. And so there's kind of a positive reinforcement. And people really benefit, the world benefits from a lot of positive reinforcement. So if there's genuine appreciation, genuine gratitude, in the right way and the right amount, it's a fantastic thing to offer gratitude. I generally think in our society, that maybe in many societies, but certainly where I live and around, that gratitude is kind of under utilized expression of mutuality, of care, of kindness. And to be more thankful. To make it more second nature to be thankful.

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