A few worldwide statistics:

• Nearly 1 in 10 persons lives below the international poverty level of $2.15 per day (per the World Bank)
• Only 1 in 4 people have access to safely managed water (according to WHO)
• Only 1 in 6 people own a car (per PD Insurance)

When exposed to this data in combination with sufficient media exposure to see how people live the world over, it’s not much of a stretch to acknowledge all the blessings in my life. Born white into one of the wealthiest countries on the planet. Raised by conscientious and loving parents. Access to stellar educational and employment opportunities. Loving friends and family. A comfortable roof over my head in a safe neighborhood with the means to keep it there. Nourishing food.

Gratitude ought to be a no-brainer, and yet it often feels like something that should be felt rather than naturally arises. That sensibility gained traction growing up as the gratitude factor was often invoked somewhat punitively. If we complained about a meal, we were reminded that there were starving children in Africa. My parents often recited the phrase: “I cried because I had no shoes until I saw the man who had no feet.” Very true. And quite guilt inducing. In fact, I still beat myself with the gratitude stick every time I complain.

Good old evolutionary science cuts me some slack here. Our survivalist brains aren’t wired for gratitude. They don’t take inventory of what’s going well. In fact, they get used to all the good stuff and barely take notice of it at all. If anything, they ratchet up expectations for more goodies in the future. But they are always on the look-out for what might go wrong: imminent danger, potential threats, scarcity. And they get drawn into social comparisons, determining their social and personal worth based on how they stack up against others in their peer groups. It isn’t me vis a vis the world’s population, but me vis a vis my community, my Facebook friends, my alumni groups, and so on.

That point was driven home to me years ago when colleagues of mine were doing a study in behalf of a major financial institution on the market needs for “private clients” – that is, individuals with very high net worth. They snagged an interview with an heiress of a major industrial enterprise. Upon explaining the nature of the work and the clientele they were interviewing, she said she didn’t think she fit the mold. After all, she wasn’t worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Such behaviors are normal and natural, even if we wish they weren’t. Much like lovingkindness, forgiveness, and equanimity, it takes intentionality and practice to become beacons of light.

So, how do we turn the heart and mind toward gratitude?

First Off: Pause. Breathe. Appreciate.

If we want to disrupt those well-established neurological patterns that take the good for granted and trend toward negativity, it’s wise to take them off autopilot and redirect their attention. To slow down and start noticing all the blessings that arise in our lives and in the world. Want a guide to help you? Read Mary Oliver’s poetry.

Second: Good old… count your blessings.

Buddhist monks begin each day with a chant of gratitude for the blessings of their life. Native American elders begin each ceremony with grateful prayers to mother earth and father sky, to the four directions, to the animal, plant, and mineral brothers and sisters who share our earth and support our life. In Tibet, the monks and nuns even offer prayers of gratitude for the suffering they have been given: “Grant that I might have enough suffering to awaken in me the deepest possible compassion and wisdom.”

As Jack Kornfield says: “Gratitude is a gracious acknowledgment of all that sustains us, a bow to our blessings, great and small, an appreciation of the moments of good fortune that sustain our life every day.”

Third: Find silver linings.

Hate doing dishes? Be grateful for the food that messed them up. Hate paying taxes? Be grateful for the income that sustains you and makes it possible to remit funds to the government. Hate those lines that are creeping across your face? Be grateful for all the smiles over the years that have put them there. You get the drift…

Fourth: Establish a practice that works for you.

You can do a weekly gratitude walk, where you just go around wherever you live and find things for which you are grateful: the trees on the street, the neighbors who smile and say “hello,” the dogs that wag their tails when they see you, the flowers showing off their radiant colors, the warmth of the sun.

You can keep a gratitude journal or have a little gratitude jar into which you and your guests capture blessings as they arise.

Say thank you… even for all the ordinary things in life. Thank you for doing the laundry. Thank you for doing the dishes and putting them away. Thank you for walking the dog.

Just sit and reflect: What am I grateful for? What else could I be grateful for? What opportunity is life presenting right now for which I can be grateful?

Take in a guided gratitude meditation.

Like it or not, life presents challenges and setbacks. Thoughtful folks may make plans and take precautions to minimize their occurrence, but there remains much outside our control. A traffic jam precipitated by a roadway accident. A major financial reversal, or simply unanticipated expenses. The unnerving medical diagnosis. The unusually long line at the grocery check-out when you’re already late. Stalled deliverables on an important project. Depending on our response, some challenges can prove beneficial. They may help us grow and/or heighten appreciation for things that we previously took for granted. Some… not so much.

The ancient stoics – Zeno of Citium, Epictetus, Seneca – experimented with “framing” when facing setbacks. They’d consider all of the things that were going well in their lives and treat the setback as a minor inconvenience. They’d imagine how much worse things could be and took comfort that their circumstances weren’t all that bad. They’d frame news with a positive spin – e.g., a 60% survival rate for a disease versus 40% mortality. They’d consider how they’d feel in an hour, a day, a week, or a month and ask themselves: Will this setback really matter to me then?

St. Paul, the great Christian evangelist who organized communities of faith throughout the Near East, took solace in his unshakable faith in God. Though he is revered today, his life was far from easy. He spent a healthy amount of time in prison. And he tells us in a letter to the Corinthians, “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea.” And, to top it off, he regularly dealt with squabbles in the churches that he’d founded.

Yet throughout the full arc of his life experiences, Paul seems neither puffed up by his successes nor undone by his trials and tribulations. Life can beat him about, and he just keeps on keeping on. As he writes to his compatriots in Phillippa:

“I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned for me but had no opportunity to show it. Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances, I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and having need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” [Philippians 4:10-13]

He speaks to the essence of equanimity – to be in the midst of life’s vicissitudes without whitewashing or sugarcoating them, and without being undone by them. To live in that peaceful place of knowing that it can all be taken in and experienced without fear or defeatism. To stand sure-footed in this world.

I cannot help but think of my husband who is a grand master in equanimity. He brings the capacity for great caring to his community, his work, and his relationships yet remains steady amidst the ups and downs of life. I’ve seen it in matters great and small. A story from our distant past…

We purchased a largish hunk of property in California a few years into our marriage. To control weeds, we opted to blanket the yard with fir bark. And being youthful and frugal, we spread the stuff ourselves. A dump truck arrived and unloaded a HUGE pile of the stuff which created a sizable mountain in our driveway, blocking egress by both our cars. Needless to say, we were highly motivated to get it spread – a task that required filling wheel barrels and carting them down a steep hill to our back yard, dumping the contents, and then spreading the stuff around.

After a few hours of effort, I could find no material evidence that we’d made any dent in the ginormous pile of fir bark. So, in addition to the physical fatigue, my mind starting spinning on: “Oh my gosh. Why did we decide to do this job? We will NEVER get it all spread! We can’t get the cars out to go get food. And I’m so tired. I just can’t do this anymore. What are we going to do?”

Amidst all my suffering, I notice that Spike just keeps spreading fir bark and saying nothing. Pretty soon, his calm demeanor starts to bug me. So, I say: “The pile isn’t getting any smaller. We’ll never finished. Aren’t you upset?” And he replies: “Not really. I just know that I’m going to be spreading fir bark until 5pm, and then I’ll go inside and have a beer.”

Jack Kornfield offers the following:

“Peace comes when our hearts are open as the sky, vast as the ocean. From this place, we choose to care for this moment, this cup of tea, this bowl of food in front of me, this child, this man, this woman, this earth, [this pile of fir bark,] the content of experience with a peaceful heart, knowing that it is all impermanent, not with sorrow, but saying how precious it is that we only get this day once. We only have this moment once.”

In 1986, Jeremy Irons and Robert DeNiro co-starred in a period drama called The Mission. In it, Robert DeNiro plays a mid-18^th-century conquistador named Captain Rodrigo Mendoza who kidnaps natives in the eastern Paraguayan jungle and sells them to wealthy plantation owners. Betrothed to the beautiful Carlotta, he is a picture of worldly success. But upon discovering that his fiancé is having an affair with his half-brother Felipe, Mendoza challenges Felipe to a duel and kills him. Wrought with guilt, he spirals into depression.

He encounters a Jesuit priest named Father Gabriel (played by Jeremy Irons) who offers him a path to redemption. The priest invites Mendoza to join his Christian mission to convert the very Guarani population that Mendoza has been terrorizing. Mind you, the entire mission is a dangerous prospect. The Guarani had killed a priest who’d previously attempted contact, and they would certainly bear hostility toward Mendoza. But Father Gabriel had piqued their interest through his calm demeanor and captivating oboe music and trusts that this modicum of goodwill might serve Mendoza as well. For his part, Mendoza must foreswear violence and carry his armor and sword in a bundle tied to his waist. The latter is no mean feat as the path through the jungle to meet the Guarani is rather treacherous even for one unencumbered.

Anyway, Mendoza is transformed by the journey and has clearly shed all traces of the violent opportunist he used to be. While the natives recognize their former persecutor, they soon forgive the tearful Mendoza and cut away his heavy bundle. He is released from his heavy burden.

I like that word: RELEASE. It helps me to think of forgiveness as letting go of guilt, blame, hurt, anger, and resentment, connecting with my vulnerability, and opening myself to a compassionate response – to myself and others. That release brings the freedom to be compassionate. And as one sage put it this way: “Don’t push anyone, including yourself, out of your heart.”

With this lens, I see forgiveness as a practice of unhooking from distress around past harms regardless of who the object of forgiveness might be. It’s letting go of what we would like to have happened. Someone else may or may not make amends to us, but if we hold ourselves hostage to someone else’s behavior, we cannot be free.

Lily Tomlin puts it this way: “Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.”

Just reflect for a minute: When you don’t forgive, how is that for you? How is it to live with that? How is it in your body, in your nervous system? If you walk around thinking to yourself, “I hate them, I hate them, I hate them,” who is suffering?

The other party or parties do not need to know about your decision. It’s not about them. It’s about casting off the suffering that weighs you down. It’s the possibility of profound redemption and release. But it can only happen in the right way and at the right time.

I’m not suggesting that forgiveness is a one-and-done transaction. It’s unrealistic to expect that we will come to a final release around a situation, especially if we have suffered deep wounds. Rather, it’s an attitude and an aspiration that we continue to practice, even if the same stuff crops up again and again. We keep doing the work.

Today’s post focuses on metta, the Pali word used to describe benevolence, loving-kindness, goodwill, and active interest in others. It is the first of four sublime states in the Theravada school of Buddhism and is central to the practice of mindfulness. I’ll begin with a story…

In the early 19^th Century, the King of Siam established a new capital city in Bangkok. And after commissioning the construction of many temples, he ordered that various old Buddha statuary should be brought to Bangkok from ruined temples around the country. Mind you, this was no simple undertaking. One such statue stood nearly 10 feet tall and weighed over 6 tons. Imagine the effort that it took to relocate it given 19^th century technology. It was not especially beautiful as its outer covering was that of stucco and colored glass. But its origins in the 13^th or 14^th century rendered it valuable.

The piece was moved three more times before settling into its permanent home in 1954. But during that final move, something happened to cause some of the plaster coating to chip off, revealing a golden surface underneath. This was a curious development. And at the direction of the monks, all of the plaster was removed. To the astonishment of the assembled workers and clerics, a golden Buddha emerged, preserved and protected over hundreds of years from would-be marauders who would otherwise have stolen this national treasure.

This story is oft repeated as a metaphor for human life – and, by extension, all of life on this earth. Luminous. Immensely valuable. Golden at the core of being.

Yet as we grow and walk this earth, how easy it has become to lose sight of our inner gold as we accumulate layer upon layer of outer shells and colored glass. Some as shields. Some to appear attractive according to the style of the day. And some due to a lost ability to let that inner core shine through even (and perhaps most especially) when we fail to act in accordance with our better angels or simply hold ourselves in low esteem.

Since I began a mindfulness meditation teacher certification program over a year ago, I’ve been struck by the frequency with which my instructors use the words “compassion” and “kind attention” in dharma talks and guided meditation. For example, if noticing physical discomfort when settling in for a period of silence, Jack Kornfield invites us to acknowledge the distress with compassion and then move mindfully. When investigating difficult emotions in a R.A.I.N. practice, Tara Brach encourages us to give kind attention to our sensations, our feelings, and stories. These aren’t throw away phrases. They’re constant reminders of that golden essence that lies at the core of our being… and that golden essence merits deep respect and care no matter what thoughts, feelings, or sensations arise and pass away.

That is the kindness that we owe ourselves. That is the lens through which we are invited to receive and respond to all beings. It is captured beautifully and simply in the Hindu greeting namaste which connotes “I bow to the divine in you” or “the sacred in me recognizes the sacred in you.”

And turning now to the word “loving.” Those among us who have experienced a deep connection with the Divine, who have experienced loving relationships in their families of origins, who have been blessed with committed partners and friends, who have raised children (and perhaps fur or feathered babies), and/or lived in intentional community may have a leg up in accessing this deep feeling of attachment that can abide between us. Far beyond the flutter of the heart, it speaks to a genuine concern for the other’s wellbeing, a steadfast presence during the ups and downs of life, a celebration of the other’s strengths and accomplishments, and a gentle tolerance for faults and failings. It is a felt sense in the heart and active engagement toward the other’s betterment. Metta invites us to extend the feeling we share with intimates to all others in our communities and on this earth.