Gratitude
Also
known as “Counting your Blessings”. And blessings are something we all have.
For a start we are living in the West, which automatically means we are
significantly better off than the vast majority of everyone else on the planet.
So
you have Gratitude for the nice place in which to meditate.
You
can have Gratitude for the people around you who helped you become a Tantric. I
did this towards the Theravadin group and its members I had known for so long.
They were still complete fucking arseholes, but they were complete fucking
arseholes who had given me every reason and some very good ones to leave
Theravada and to explore a Path that is significantly more suited to me as a
person. I looked back on every person who contributed to my leaving Theravada
and developed a deep sense of absolute Gratitude towards them. I didn’t and
still don’t like them as people, but the anger is by and large gone. These
people were a Blessing, by and large in disguise.
I
also looked back on the people who refused to talk sense to my ex-wife and thus
in encouraging her in her increasingly destructive negative behaviour that
brought about the death of that marriage and from the position of a deep
happiness in my marriage to Selina, developed a deep Gratitude. No great
accident that the people who were in the Theravadin group and those who simply
didn’t help were the same crowd.
The
point of this is to illustrate that whilst things may at first seem profoundly
negative, we can in hindsight look back on them and see them as a net gain. I
would never have done half the things I have in the last 5 years had I remained either in the marriage or the
group I was in. Thus, for me, there is room to see things as a Blessing.
Mahayana
Buddhism is very big on Gratitude towards our parents. There is the truism that
we only understand the sacrifices our parents made in raising us when we become
parents ourselves. Thus I now understand
my parents and have a great deal of Gratitude towards them.
Selina
understands that as an Aspergers, I need a fair bit of solitude just to
function as a person. She gives me two weeks a year to go walking by myself.
This is a deep gift from my wife.
My
son is absolutely a Blessing to me. For a start he helps me become both the man
and the father I want to be. He has also taught me an incredible amount of
Dharma. Because of him I’ve also had to practice more Patience, Metta, Karuna,
Mudita and Equanimity than I ever thought I would. He has also helped me heal
from a rather painful past.
I
regard Aspergers Syndrome as a Blessing. Yes it can be a royal pain at times,
but the positive aspects are what defines me as a person. A friend remarked
that it was the Aspergers that enabled me to stage and win my fight against the
Depression that was the legacy of my childhood. Aspies are notorious for not
backing down in a fight, nor giving up.
The
motivation to pursue the Tantric path is a Blessing. Even if that motivation
came from a near miss with death or diabetes.
We
sit in our usual manner and review all the utterly wonderful things in our
lives. You might be surprised at just how many there are.
