“Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.” Seneca

Ever year at Thanksgiving we rush headlong into that chaotic and curious American season that stirs in rampant capitalism with deep religious beliefs.
It is also a time for some to look back and reflect, to take events of the past year and put them in perspective and, perhaps, to learn something new. Indeed, the new year’s resolutions are a way of saying: “I have looked back on what I have done and this is what I need to change.”
Most of us change behaviors: we promise to eat less, exercise more, stop smoking, start a new project, spend more time with those we care about and less time with our televisions. Behavior changes come and go; many resolutions fade away by February and we slip back into the habitual.
At this time of year I think less about shopping and behavior changes and more about beliefs and attitudes. It is with our beliefs and thoughts that we change our world.
The first truth, and maybe the most important one, that Buddha teaches is “We are what we think.” Most people who read this think about it for a few minutes and then move on. To further explore this is to see that, by what we pay attention to, through what we believe to be true and through what our attitudes and feelings are we create our own world. It is not that we create the apple tree in the yard, but by our thoughts we create our own world that has the apple tree in it.
When you realize this, you realize how powerful each one of us is. We each create our own realities; this is what the great thinkers and spiritual leaders throughout time have been trying to tell us. It is how you regard the world that creates your world. You have created what is now right in front of you! This is such a powerful thought that it scares some people. When you fully believe it, you see that you have created you realize that you have created all those situations and relationships for which you blamed others, that you assigned to ‘bad luck’ or let go to fate.
So, how to go forward? What stance to take? What am I to think? If I accept the fact that I create my world, what do I want to create?
I have been thinking (there’s that word again) a lot about gratitude, the state of being thankful and appreciative of what—and who– one has. The French say that gratitude is “the heart’s memory,” the recollection and appreciation of who and what has been loved. Every other virtue we can think of – truth, love, beauty, compassion, generosity – can be encompassed by gratitude and, without gratitude, other virtues seem pale.
Melody Beattie says gratitude “turns what we have into enough. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home and a stranger into a friend.”
If I take on gratitude as a permanent inner state of being, I embrace other ways of regarding the world as well. Gratitude expresses trust, the trust that things are going along just as they should, that all is right with the world. Gratitude expresses a strong calm and reflects the peace that comes with accepting what is right in front of you as it is. It embraces openness, a receiving of who others are without the need to change them. When you are thankful for someone it connotes a connection to him or her and to a larger reality, instead of isolation or alienation. Finally, gratitude also means peace. How can you feel aggressive or violence for someone when you are grateful for them as they are?
A spirit of gratitude is not just a day of the year, a single prayer in the morning or a season that comes and goes, it is a way of looking at the world and a way of creating a reality. When I look at the world with gratitude I create what I am grateful for.
It might be a daily practice for each of us to be grateful for every small thing in our lives, every encounter, every relationship, every material object, every animal, every plant, every morsel of food, every event, every conflict and every single person that we encounter. How would that change your life to see with those eyes?
Some people, and you may be fortunate enough to know one, have the capacity to see each day as if it were new, to see each encounter for the first time, to appreciate again and again the things and people in their lives as gifts. They see life with awe, wonder and infinite pleasure.
Is this not heaven?
John Wood