Thankful or grateful? Meditation for 5/15/14

“He who has lived one day has lived an age.”  - Jean de la Bruyere

“When one’s expectations are reduced to zero, one truly appreciates all he has.”  - Stephen Hawking

     To be thankful is to be aware and appreciative of a benefit.  To be grateful is feeling or showing a kindness in appreciation.  Although these two words get interchanged a lot and the dictionary does not draw a clear line, for me they have a subtle but very different meaning.   Thankfulness is for a kindness already received.  Although we are thankful in the moment, it is backward looking in time to some material object, circumstance or action that we have the awareness to recognize was “favorable” to us.  The word gratitude I like to use in the forward looking mode – although I can only feel it this moment the feeling has to do with recognizing and being appreciative of the potential that lies within and about me.  I am grateful for an opportunity, I am grateful for my existence, I am grateful that I have people around me that I can count on to help me when I need it. 

      I make this distinction because it is crucial to understanding unconditional love.  This “love with no opposite” only comes to me when I am simultaneously deeply appreciative of the beauty and infinite potential of life itself and not thinking of myself at all – so humble that I am able to be completely immersed in that specific moment in time.  When this “magic” combination of gratitude and humility combine I feel an awe and one-ness with everything.  I quit feeling this state as soon as begin the noise of “thinking” again -I pick back up my judgments, desires, fears or other personal debris and thus launch back into selfishness.  But these glimpses, when they come, are powerful, full of insights and full of inspiration.  They are gifts of doing the work, and they will go far to sustain us when the pains of new growth arrive again.

Today, may I quiet my mind in awe.  

Happy Thursday !!

David

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