Mental Note to be Grateful Always

It’s been awhile since I last posted on this blog and I just received a wonderful sharing by Rinpoche just the other day. Rinpoche had been sharing a lot lately about gratitude on social media and he explained what dawned on him recently. He noticed that friends and students who transform and take on more responsibilities for others always do it because they have a sense of gratitude either for themselves or for the Dharma. This is in sharp contrast to some students who rarely profess gratitude and hence, their minds go up and down and always have doubts about the Dharma and often have thoughts of leaving the Dharma.

Rinpoche further explained that this does not just apply to the Dharma as it also applies to the secular world. You will always hear people who have succeeded always attributing it to a supporting loved one, parent or teacher. Whatever it is, this does not take away from the fact that gratitude is one of the cornerstone practices of Mahayana Buddhism. Rinpoche explained that one would need to develop a deep sense of gratitude for all mother sentient beings in order to develop real compassion. Rinpoche revealed that one of the greatest Buddhist classics that affected him deeply when he was younger was the Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life or Bodhicharyavatara by Shantideva. The author Shantideva based his entire treatise on developing the highest wisdoms and realisations based upon the foundation of developing deep gratitude for all beings for having been our mothers before one lifetime or another.

I went to be bed thinking and realising how blessed my life is for having everything I really needed to be a deep practitioner (although I am not one yet). I have good parents, good friends and a great spiritual friend like Rinpoche. There were close to no real obstacles except self-created ones. There’s just a lot to be thanked for and I just regret not being able to share this with some people who have decided that they needed to walk away. Gratitude is indeed a powerful way to develop spiritually.