Naikan: Gratitude, Grace, and the Japanese Art of Self-Reflection

Accept your fear, anxiety, and concerns about this gift and consummate your marriage anyway. Your worries have no real power over you. Like the clouds in the sky, they come and go but they do not prevent the grass from growing.”

The recent addition of a thank-you log on my refrigerator door helps compensate for my poor memory.

Over the years she has trained her mind to focus on the gap between her ideal of the world and her reality.

We can witness eyes that scan reality for what they want, failing to see what they are being offered.

When we shift our attention to the reality around us, to our spouse, our car, the service station attendant, we see countless opportunities to care for others. But those who are most preoccupied with themselves suffer the most. They also fail to experience the satisfaction of attending to the needs of another.

Without a conscious shift of attention to the myriad ways in which the world supports us, we risk our attention being trapped by problems and obstacles, leaving us to linger in suffering and self-pity.

To live a life of gratitude is to open our eyes to the countless ways in which we are supported by the world around us. Such a life provides less space for our suffering because our attention is more balanced.

“Usually thinking is rather self-centered. In our everyday life our thinking is ninety-nine percent self-centered: Why do I have suffering? Why do I have trouble?” SHUNRYU SUZUKI ROSHI

We can open our eyes. We can begin asking a different question. Instead of the question “How can others be of use to me?” we can ask, “How can I be of use to others?”