I encourage you to read these thoughts from Jack Kornfield slowly, with deep and gentle breaths, letting their meaning sink in. (Spacing is mine.)
“Gratitude is a gracious acknowledgment of all that sustains us,
a bow to our blessings, great and small,
an appreciation of the moments of good fortune that sustain our life every day.
We have so much to be grateful for.
Gratitude is confidence in life itself.
It is not sentimental, not jealous, nor judgmental.
Gratitude does not envy or compare.
Gratitude receives in wonder the myriad offerings
of the rain and the earth,
the care that supports every single life.
As gratitude grows it gives rise to joy.
We experience the courage to rejoice
in our own good fortune and
in the good fortune of others. “
Jack Kornfield is an American writer and teacher in the Vipassana movement in American Theravada Buddhism.
In your journal:
- Write a list, each line beginning “gratitude is…”
- Write a poem about gratitude.
- What might a “gratitude practice” look like for you?