Tara: American author, E. B. White, wrote, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” In these final sessions of our program, we're exploring how mindfulness training helps us align each day with a positive purpose. In addition to the ways we serve, it's by savoring moments, feeling the sweetness of gratitude that we arrive most fully in our lives. As philosopher, Meister Eckhart, put it, “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'Thank you,' it would suffice.”
There's an increasing body of research on the benefits of gratitude, including better health, sounder sleep, less anxiety and depression, higher long-term satisfaction with life, and kinder behavior toward others. Gratitude's a natural response to our life, like a baby's delight at seeing a loved one's face, but it's sometimes blocked by that negativity bias in the brain we've been talking about. We're inclined to remember and focus on problems, deadlines, conflicts, health challenges. Even when there aren't major stressors, our day can sometimes be soured by the small ways life doesn't cooperate, traffic jams, long lines at the post office, breaking our favorite coffee cup, a frustrating connection to the internet.

Societal forces also drive the bias towards that sense that something's wrong or missing. Modern economies rely on a giant ad industry geared to make sure we don't relax into satisfaction with what we have now. Here's a headline from a satirical newspaper called The Onion, Executive Quits Fast Track to Spend More Time With Possessions. Mindfulness practice actually deconditioned the habit of scanning for what's missing or wrong. As we bring a gentle and clear attention to what's happening in the present moment, the mind starts relaxing. So, rather than worrying about what's around the corner or reviewing a recent aggravation, our attention settles and opens to the here and now. We step out of thinking our life should be different and begin appreciating what's before us, this breath, the sky and clouds, the sounds around us, the laughter of a loved one.

We discover satisfaction and fullness with what is. In the most basic way, a mindful presence is the ground of gratitude. Mindfulness can also help us in intentionally cultivating gratitude. You can be on the lookout for moments when you feel appreciation, pleasure, or joy. The next time you notice you're feeling happy, peaceful, alive, or tender, pause for a few seconds and mindfully in the felt sense of what's happening inside you. In this way, you entrain yourself with the experience of appreciation. You know the phrase. Where attention goes, energy flows? As you consciously allow yourself to savor, you'll become increasingly familiar with how gratitude feels in your body and heart. This actually creates new circuits in the brain, making it progressively easier to access this positive state.

In addition to pausing and taking in good experiences, another simple way to deepen gratitude is by expressing appreciation.

When things are going sweetly and peacefully, Kurt Vonnegut recommends that we pause and say out loud, “If this isn't nice, what is?” When we feel appreciation for another person, expressing it to them dramatically enhances the bonds of human connection and warmth. In much the same way, when we express out loud gratitude for any part of our life, a rose-colored sunset, a new song, meaningful work, a light rain, we feel more belonging to our world.

Yet another way to cultivate gratitude mindfully is to regularly reflect on what you love and appreciate. For instance, each evening you can take a moment to write down three things you're grateful for that day. You can even invite a friend to be your gratitude buddy. You can exchange your lists by email each evening. It's a powerful strategy that makes you even more aware of life's goodness throughout the day. In its full blossom, gratitude becomes an attitude of appreciation that encompasses our whole life. This has been described as happy for no reason, because our happiness is not hitched to things going our way. It arises out of love for life itself.

Let's explore together now mindñüness-based practices that nourish a grateful heart. Allow yourself to arrive, relaxing wherever you notice tension in your body, and then coming into stillness. We'll continue with our core practice for some moments, letting your anchor be in the foreground, unless some other strong sound, sensation, feeling, or thought calls for your attention.

Now, bring your attention to a person in your life who brings up a sense of strong appreciation and love. As you bring this person to mind, take some moments to remind yourself of what most arouses your sense of gratitude, perhaps ways they've been generous, or kind, or attentive with you. Let yourself feel your appreciation in a visceral way. Just notice how you experience it in your body, your heart. From that place of gratitude, mentally whisper their name and say, “Thank you.” You might say it again, “Thank you,” imagining that person receiving your gratitude and how that deepens the sense of connection and warmth.

Now, open your attention to other parts of your life and ask yourself, what am I most grateful for? What do I appreciate or love in this life? As different people, places, experiences arise, take a few moments with each, opening to the felt sense of gratitude and sensing how it lives in your body and heart. Now, letting go of any formal reflections, simply notice how your heart is in these moments. Let your attention be supported by the simple movement of the breath. Breathing in, receiving, feeling your heart touched by life, breathing out, releasing, letting go, offering yourself into this larger universe.

The poet Rumi writes, “Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” The cultivation of gratitude brings grace into our lives and joy to all we are with. 
© Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield
Reprinted by permission