Grounded in Gratitude

Count your blessings and you'll find that even an uneventful or "bad" day is filled with precious gifts.

By Frank Jude Boccio

At its most profound, Naikan is practiced on retreat with trained counselors. From dawn until night, every day for a week, you sit and reflect on your mother—what you received from her, what you gave to her, and what troubles you caused her. You generally spend about two hours reflecting on your life from birth to age six, and then for each three-year period after that, meeting with a counselor after each session, until your whole life has been examined in relation to your mother. You then move on to your father, siblings, lovers, friends, and others. In such a situation, you are free to honestly look at how you have lived your life.

Naikan can also be done as a daily practice. The rewards will become immediately evident in the blossoming of a natural, deeply felt sense of gratitude and appreciation for your life and for all the gifts you receive daily—gifts that you realize were always there but that went unnoticed and therefore unappreciated.

The practice of Naikan can lead you to the realization that you are rich indeed, and that you are not only not alone but are truly supported by the universe! You may even come to see the truth in the exhortation of the 13th-century mystic Meister Eckhart: "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘thank you,’ that would suffice."

Frank Jude Boccio is the author of Mindfulness Yoga and can be found at www.mindfulnessyoga.net. He wishes to express his gratitude to all of his teachers.

Page 1 2 3

See All Meditation Articles »