Gratitude is the bringing into conscious awareness an acknowledgement of other, other people, ideas and things. This reminds me of the two states of being. Being Alone and Being with Others. Being with Others is not just existence with other people, like trees in a forest, but interconnected and dependent on each other. Associated with an all permeating pulse. Very real but mostly we are not aware of it. An analogy would be water and the fish. The fish doesn’t experience the water as water but as the space in which it lives. Likewise, we don’t experience this Being with Others because it is the space we live in. In the mythology of Buddhism it is called Indra’s Net.
Well and good. A little meta. Now - how to make gratitude a bigger part of my own experience. What tips can I apply to be better than before? To move from being less mature to more mature. Lists have helped. Making a daily habit of listing three things I’m currently grateful for has helped me bring gratitude into focus. I recently heard of a guy who, together with his family, each share one thing from the day that they are grateful for before they eat dinner. Kind of like a benediction. Informal and takes less than a minute. Great tips.
What do you do? Do you have any great tips to share?