Thankfulness
Your journey of life began with your first breath.
Since then, the coming and
going of this breath has not stopped.
It will be with you throughout this life,
right until the last moment.
Be thankful that you are alive.
Appreciate this existence.
Breath brings you life.
Each breath, as it comes, is a true gift.
Pay attention to it as it comes into you.
When you can feel your own breath ushering in life, it brings a comfort and fulfillment.
If you ever feel small and insignificant, remember this miracle of breath happening inside of you. With your effort, remembering the breath and being thankful for it can become a habit. Don’t let anything else come in between you and your gratitude for this life. If there is a conflict inside you, put an end to it. Focus on the simple joy of being alive, the simple gift of breath. A little effort towards that can bring a beautiful clarity and renew your passion for life.
You have an amazing ability to feel gratitude.
Not the gratitude you feel when someone opens a door for you and you say, ‘Thank you.’
That is one kind of gratitude, but there is another.
When your ability to feel gratitude is turned in to your existence, to the coming and going of this breath, it produces a unique kind of gratitude.
When you understand your ability to feel, your ability to find answers within you, your ability to be fulfilled, then gratitude wells up from within you.
Our ability to feel gratitude does not need to be improved upon.
It needs to be accepted as one of the most incredible powers we have.
There are many people who think, ‘I need that. If I only had that, I would be happy.’
Very few think, ‘I am happy because I am alive right now.’
If you don’t understand that being alive itself is a source of happiness, then it doesn’t matter how much you know, you are still missing a key piece of the puzzle.
What you are looking for is inside you.
All the answers you are looking for are
already within you.
The old man’s milk
There was a wealthy old man who liked to drink a glass of warm milk before he went to sleep. Every night his servant prepared some milk and served it to the old man in his bedroom.
And every night the servant thought about how tasty it looked.
One day he decided to drink a quarter of the milk and replace it with warm water.
When the old man drank the milk, he thought to himself, ‘Hmmm, something is wrong. This tastes watery. Maybe my servant is tricking me.’
So the old man hired a second servant to keep an eye on the first servant.
In the evening, as was now his custom, the first servant made the milk and took out a quarter for himself.
When the second servant saw this he said, ‘Hey, what about me? The boss hired me to keep an eye on you, but I won’t say anything if you give me quarter of a milk too.’
That night the old man’s milk tasted even worse.
So he hired another servant to keep an eye on the first two. When the two servants took their share, the third servant said, ‘Hey guys, what about me? I’ll keep quiet if you share the milk with me too.’
That night the old man’s milk was three quarters warm water and one quarter milk. The old man was angry, so he hired one more servant and gave him strict orders to watch over the other three.
That night the three servants took their quarter and the fourth said, ‘What about me?’
But the others said, ‘If you take a quarter, then there won’t be any left for the old man.’
The fourth servant said, ‘Don’t worry I have an idea.’
That night the old man waited in his bed, but his milk never came. Eventually he fell asleep. Then the fourth servant snuck into the room, took some foam from the bottom of the empty glass of milk, and gently put it around the old man’s mouth.
When the old man woke up in the morning he was furious. He called all four servants.
‘I am paying the four of you to bring me a glass of warm milk before bed and you are stealing my milk. You never brought my milk last night.’
‘We did bring your milk, sire,’ said the servants. ‘Believe us. Go take a look in the mirror.’
The old man went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Sure enough, there was foam around his mouth, and the man thought, ‘Maybe I did drink my milk last night.’
Real happiness and gratitude are feelings that well up from within. They’re not dependent on external events such as belonging to a successful company or owning a lovely house. Having such things is fine, but happiness and gratitude don’t follow a formula. Don’t be like the old man in the story and fall for an external facade. When the gratitude can be felt inside of you, you know it is real. And you know it is precious to you.
When you are touched by something, it connects you with
a feeling of gratitude. When you can feel gratitude, it sparks your passion for life. When you have that passion within you, it allows you to feel compassion for others and you evolve. Being touched, feeling gratitude and experiencing passion for life, brings compassion and growth.
These things you can experience, they can become familiar to you.
If you can accomplish this, then doubt, hatred and anger will become strangers to you.
