Training the Mind to be Thankful

Gratitude can change your life because, when the heart begins to open in appreciation and thankfullnesss, it’s like turning the pot right side up so as to catch the life-giving rain.

Meister Eckart, a thirteenth century Christian mystic, recommended that, if you only ever say one prayer in your life, over and over, let it be this: “Thank you, Thank you. Thank you.” Affirming the benevolence of every single event coming our way, not only connects us with a profound inner peace, it also ensures that our enemy becomes our best teacher, and the present misfortune changes to a rare and golden opportunity.

Training the mind to be thankful, for both small and large, praise and censure, success and failure is a vital ingredient for real inner peace. Otherwise our feeling of well-being is at the mercy of random thoughts, destiny or fate.

G.J. Gurdjieff, the Armenian mystic of the early nineteen hundreds, would urge his followers to wake up, to stop behaving like robots pre-programmed to think, feel and act in set habitual ways. He often said, “Remember to remember that you are asleep.” Our loving duty to ourselves and to the world is to strive – strive to wake up, to be mindful, to be ever-grateful. Our challenging task is to yearn – yearn for that spontaneous outpouring of joy from a grateful heart. Our welcome assignment is to struggle – struggle to assert our mastery over the mind, so its thoughts are ever-thankful ones, remembering the bounty of life.

The renowned Zen Buddhist from Vietnam, Thich Nhat Hanh, says that when we are mindful, we are fully alive, we are fully present. Each time we remember to remember to be mindful, we find it easy to feel grateful, for at such times we are in touch with the wonders of life that can inspire, nourish and heal us.