If there is just one thing you could do to transform your life, it would be giving thanks.
Thank you for the solitude I am enjoying to write this. Thank you for the warmth I am in. Thank you for the quiet all around me. Thank you for the food we eat. May all beings be as well fed. Thank you for providing for our material needs abundantly. May all beings be as well cared for. Thank you for Al Anon meetings. Thank you for community and commitment. Thank you for honesty. Thank you for the world beyond what we can know with our physical senses. Thank you for inspiration, that breathes through physical people to enable them to create what was not there before. Thank you for joy, that liberates us from all anxiety, dealing with it as the desert sun to a raindrop. May we be subsumed by joy. May we lose our personalities in it.
Whatever you pay attention to increases. What would you increase? Whatever it is, you can pay conscious, loving attention to it by giving thanks.
Would you increase co-operation? Give thanks each time you see, hear of, observe, think of, or remember any instance of it. We are so grateful for this example of co-operation (or love, or peace, whatever you want to increase). May we always be taught through inspiring examples like this. May we forever remember the feeling state of this beautiful example of co-operation.
You will clothe yourself in co-operation this way. You will become and attract co-operation.
Giving thanks brings abundance
Is it solitude you want? Give extravagant thanks for each moment of solitude you get. Solitude is very close to peace.
I give thanks for the solitude I am experiencing right now, and I give thanks for all the activities that can be enjoyed in solitude: thought, meditation, yoga, reading, writing, playing, painting. I give thanks for all the beautiful moments of solitude I have enjoyed until now. Thank you for sending these wonderful gifts my way. My soul gives thanks.
If the only prayer you ever say in your life is thank you, it will be enough.
Meister Eckhart
