Gratitude
November 23, 2023

Close your eyes and gather your mind around the breath. Be fully aware of the breath as it comes in, as it goes out. Notice where you feel the breathing in the body. Focus your attention there. It could be at the tip of the nose, but it could also be at the rise and fall of the chest, rise and fall of the stomach—anyplace where you can know: Now the breath is coming in; now the breath is going out. Focus your attention right there.

And then stay right there. This is part of developing a skill. It’s easy to notice the breath, but then it’s also very easy to drift off, to think about something else, to be aware of other things. Even though you may be aware of other things right now, you don’t want to focus on them. You want to focus on the breath. Focus on making it comfortable, so that it’s a good place to stay.

We’re carrying on a tradition here. This is a skill that has been passed on for centuries now—how to find well-being simply by noticing your breath, getting the mind to settle down with the breath. This has been passed on through the efforts of many, many people. So we should have gratitude to them. In fact, today being Thanksgiving, it’s good to have gratitude for all the people who’ve helped us: some of whom we remember, some of whom we know, some of whom we don’t remember or know. But you have to realize: The fact that you’re a human being, that you know language, that you’re able to negotiate this world, that you have knowledge about the world—you owe that to other people.

In this day and age of the Internet, we tend to forget that. There’s so much you can learn simply by pushing a button. But all that knowledge had to come through a person someplace. It’s good to stop and think of all the people you’re dependent on—all the efforts that went in to pass this goodness on to you.

The best way to show your gratitude, of course, is to carry on the tradition. If there are ways you can repay the people who helped you, go ahead and do that. If they’re no longer around, you can make sure that you maintain these good traditions and then pass them on.

As the Buddha said, “The sign of a good person is gratitude,” because it shows that you understand how goodness takes effort. And you appreciate the effort that other people put forth for you. That means you’re more likely to put forth the effort yourself. People who don’t have gratitude don’t appreciate the fact that somebody had to go through a difficulty someplace to help them, so they’re not very likely to want to put out extra effort to help other people, either.

So this is one of the ways you show that you’re a good person: by showing gratitude, maintaining the good traditions that have come down and filtering them. Of course, there are a lot of bad things that have come down through the human race. But a lot of good things have come down as well, so focus on those. Devote your life to maintaining those, because it’s so easy for them to erode away. You want them to be here in the world so that all the efforts of people in the past don’t go to waste, don’t get forgotten.

As Ajaan Lee said, it’s like learning the recipe for a good medicine. If you don’t actually try the medicine, you don’t know its value. It’s just a piece of paper with scribbling on it. You don’t feel much one way or another about it. After a while, if it gets dusty, gets in the way, you might throw it away. But if you actually take the medicine and discover that it actually does cure the disease it’s supposed to cure, then you’re going to treasure that little piece of paper, make sure that it doesn’t get lost.

In the same way the good traditions established by the Buddha that the Sangha—all Buddhists—have been passing on: You want to appreciate those. And the best way to appreciate them is to put them into practice and see how much good they actually do. Then you really will value them, and you’ll want to be one of those people who passes something good on as well.