Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets and fully beholds all other presences.
Being unappreciative, feeling distant, might mean we are simply not paying attention.
David Whyte, Gratitude
Being grateful
Tag: gratefulness
Rain falls without asking permission, without apology, without concern for our plans. We are invited – challenged – to meet life and the weather — not by resisting, but by allowing. This is far from passivity; it is intimacy with reality.
For after all, the best thing one can do
when it is raining
is to let it rain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863),
Perspective
Gratitude is the memory of the heart. It is also one of the most direct routes to happiness. When we appreciate what we have, instead of focusing on what we lack, we shift our entire perspective. A simple ‘thank you’ whispered to the universe for a moment of peace, a warm cup of tea, or the sound of rain can open the door to joy. Happiness thrives in a grateful heart.
Joseph Emet, Buddha’s Book of Happiness: Teachings for Achieving Lasting Peace, Joy, and Fearlessness
Blessed
Even with all our technological accomplishments and urban sophistication, we consider ourselves blessed, healed in some manner, forgiven, and for a moment transported into some other world, when we catch a passing glimpse of an animal in the wild: a deer in some woodland, a fox crossing a field, a butterfly in its dancing flight southward to its wintering region, a hawk soaring in the distant sky.
Thomas Berry : Sunbeams, January 2021
Sunday Quote: Wisdom
The wise person does not grieve for the things which they do not have,
but rejoices in those which they do have.
Epictetus, died 135 AD, Greek Stoic philosopher
Greet each day
Think of things that you do not have to do anything to earn or receive from anyone else – things you are already receiving from life before doing anything.
This is a powerful practice to greet each day and helps you to feel centered in the privilege and gifts of life.
Kristi Nelson, Wake Up Grateful, The Transformative Practice of Taking Nothing for Granted
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