The Zen of Gratitude

Why Is More and More Always Better if It Can Never Be Enough? And Other Great Questions From David Loy.

- Sam Mowe

“The striking thing about gratitude is how much there is in our society that militates against it,” says Zen teacher David Loy. “For example, consumerism—which in some ways seems to be the prevalent religion of the modern world—is based not on cultivating gratitude, but just the opposite. “ Fortunately, says Loy, gratitude can be cultivated as a spiritual practice. He spoke with S&H about practices to develop gratitude, and how greed and generosity can be expressed on both the individual and institutional levels. His website is davidloy.org.

Gratitude is often seen as a good and important quality, but also as kind of obvious and basic. Is there anything much to say about gratitude? 

Thinking about it recently, I realized that gratitude is not just something that we feel or don’t feel, but that it’s something that needs to be encouraged and developed in the same way as any other spiritual practice. It really transforms the way we experience the world.

Meister Eckhart, the great medieval Christian mystic, wrote: “If the only prayer we ever say is ‘thank you,’ that would be enough.” As Brother Steindl-Rast put it, we aren’t grateful because we’re happy or because our life is going well, we’re happy because we’re grateful. So gratitude also transforms how we experience ourselves.

Why don’t we talk about gratitude more?