Finding Gratitude in Times of Grief

Nov 22, 2023 1:01 pm

Dear friends,

This Thanksgiving holiday, as I reflect on both the beauty of gratitude, the pain of history and the violence in our world, I share some reflections from my new book, Your Heart Was Made For This.

May we each nourish our hearts with gratitude, and through this nourishment, may we feel empowered to respond to the needs within and around us.

Kindly,

Oren

Gratitude

Training as a Buddhist monastic, we rose at 4:00 a.m. I generally enjoy waking up early, but 4:00 is a stretch. I felt groggy, irritable, and found it difficult to meditate. My teacher suggested I reflect on gratitude for the first ten minutes of morning meditation.

After running through the obvious—food, shelter, my health, the opportunity to practice—I was stumped. Nonetheless, I continued contemplating gratitude each morning, lingering with the feeling it gave me. Interestingly, long-forgotten memories began to appear: eating a snow cone at a baseball game; chasing our dog in the park; my mother buying me clothes for school. My heart lifted, my mind brightened, and energy returned.

Equally fascinating, I began to notice small moments of goodness outside of meditation: a kind remark from a monk, a lay visitor asking after my well-being, the beauty of the monastery’s masonry, the cozy warmth of my bed. Those ten minutes’ reflection each morning set a tone for the whole day. If we look closely, we find countless inspirations for gratitude.

Perhaps you’re reading this and wondering, “But how can I be grateful for the blessings in my life when there’s so much suffering and violence in the world?”

Gratitude and grief may seem to be in tension with one another, but gratitude and loss are inseparable. Awareness of what is present calls forth what is absent. Grief embodies our humanity even as gratitude allows us to embrace pain and hardship.

(Continued on website...)