Gratitude Journal

Time again (well past time in fact) for another collection of thoughts on gratitude….

1. Twitter – of all things… I worried it would be too much a repository for people’s mundane crap lives (like these silly blogs, hehe), but I’m actually finding good nuggets, links, and more.

   Still plenty of moments of brevity though, as I read tonight my old meditation teacher note how an item he had just purchased was now just “$1.69, WTF!”

2. Silent space – For three weeks I’ll be house-sitting for my friend, Sally as she spends time with friends and on retreat. This gives me a whole house and all its beautiful silence to wander in my mind of wonder as I ponder and plunder and set asunder the realms of Buddhist ethics.

   I suppose a good next one would be…

3. People who can actually write poetry. I’ve long had suspicion of poetry and fiction of all sorts – there is after all so much to adore about reality, even our tiny glimpses of it… But I’ve grown in affection for fiction over the years. It is, after all, a path to truth.

   Update (3/4) – there are probably countless poems about the richness of the world and the failings of poetry (or words/language in general), but here’s one from Rumi via one of my twitter contacts:

   “When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense”

4. Wonderful people. I’m not sure what it is, but there are times when it feels as though the great people of the world have all just mysteriously stumbled into your life. This is one of those times.
5. Meditation. I was given mention recently in a book on Vision Boards, itself something I am very grateful for, and I have since pondered how, in my own life, the vision board has been most powerful. And the answer has come back to meditation, the calming and stilling of the mind that only comes with great patience and practice. When I have been in practice, I have been mentally prepared for opportunities and to roll smoothly through life’s bumps. When I have been out of practice, I missed things, I struggled, and wasted a lot of time and effort.

   I could say so much more about meditation, but I’ll leave with saying that I am giving a talk on “Buddhist Meditation as a Moral Activity” next month; so I’ll likely have more thoughts on that coming soon…

Best wishes to all, much joy, much heartfelt appreciation to all of you.