Awakening Joy Course - April

A student once complained to Nisargadatta, a great twentieth-century spiritual teacher from India, that daily life seemed so tedious to him. "You've done the most amazing thing," the sage replied. "You've made life boring!" In our culture of thirty second sound bites, we can easily get addicted to a never-ending desire for peak experiences. And so in the midst of abundance, we can find life lacking.

The answer, and the focus for this month, is Gratitude. The founder of Gestalt psychology, Fritz Perls, used to say, "Boredom is simply lack of attention." And as we know from last month's practice of mindfulness, when we pay attention, anything can be interesting. "There are two ways to live your life: One is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle," said Albert Einstein.

Tibetans Buddhists say that gratitude opens the heart like a satellite dish. We all know the dangers of letting our minds rule our lives - it is pretty easy to get caught up in sordid stories and dramas that leave us drained and depressed. But by practicing gratitude, we can bypass our minds and go straight to our hearts - and experience the awe and wonder and beautiful Mystery of being alive. And the amazing part is that by opening to gratitude, we also begin to attract into our lives even more blessings and benevolence.

And it is a practice. You can consciously cultivate appreciation and gratitude to arise in your heart. Each moment is an opportunity to develop a grateful heart by paying attention to the many blessings, big and small, around you. One of the main effects of practicing gratitude is that our "appreciation radar" is out much more consistently and we start seeing what is good in our life more often and more clearly. Also, negative states like anger and resentment dissolve in the presence of gratitude. Some gratitude exercises to try include:

• Look for and appreciate the good stuff - keep your radar out on the look-out
• Appreciate others, especially in the workplace and at home
• Appreciate yourself, become less dependent on praise from others
• Write a daily gratitude email to a friend as a practice
• Keep a gratitude list or gratitude journal
• Write a gratitude letter to someone thanking them for all the ways they've enriched your life
• Express your gratitude directly in the moment
• Take a moment to say something you are grateful for at dinner everyday

One of the experts in the science of gratitude is UC Davis psychologist Bob Emmons who wrote the book Thanks! How the science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier. His work has found that people who are more grateful have higher levels of well-being - they tend to be happier, less depressed, less stressed, and more satisfied with their lives and social relationships. Another expert in this field, MJ Ryan who wrote Attitudes of Gratitude, says that gratitude activates the parasympathetic nervous system which floods the brain and body with endorphins, oxytocin and other feel-good hormones.

In Be Here Now, Ram Das says you can go through life resisting every situation with a cry of "unnnkkkhh" or opening to it with "aaaahhhhh." In other words, you can go through life seeing everything as a burden or a gift. The choice is ours: whining or appreciation. Go for appreciation.

"The secret to awakening joy is the live with a grateful heart that can hold with acceptance and gratitude the 10,000 joys and sorrows."