Prologue

I am learning and discovering the practice of Tonglen meditation. In tonglen practice, when one comes up against any form of suffering, one breathes that suffering in, with the purpose of feeling it, accepting it, and owning it. Then, one breathes out compassion, loving-kindness, and relief. It is a simple but powerful idea -- taking on all the bad and giving away all the good in order to relieve the suffering of all sentient beings.

One of the ways I am trying to do this is to breathe out gratitude; to remember on a day-to-day basis how blessed I am and to give voice to that. Gratitude is one of those things, like compassion and loving kindness, which cannot but improve the world. If we all thought more about what we DO have - as opposed to what we don't have - this world would be a much gentler place. Gratitude, like its aforementioned sisters, short-circuits anger and hatred.

Some days, this is harder than others. Some days, I feel very little thankfulness and very little compassion and very little love for the world. And on some days, my cup, as they say, runneth over. Regardless of what my day is like, I want to remember to feel gratitude - for things great and small, silly and profound.