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Please: (1) I keep having these intense moments of immense wonder and gratitude lately. (2) The amount of authentic spirituality available to us with the internet today is truly staggering. (3) I'm old enough to remember the mid 1960s . . . when there was just Krishnamurti . . . Yogananda . . . Gurdjieff . . . and that was about it. (4) No Daoists. No Tibetans. No Sufis. No Advaitists. No Zenists. (5) You had to travel (time and money) to meet people and get a chance to compare and contrast methods for your specific needs. (6) What then took a year to figure out . . . follow up on . . . and check out . . . you can now do in a week. (7) Do the corresponding numbers: it's like living 52 lives in this one. (8) It's like living . . . 52 incarnations. (9) We're getting it done better and faster than any generation in the history of this planet. (10) It's overwhelming to consider . . .

@dawei and all others responsible for creating and maintaining this site, THANK YOU for creating The Dao Bums! I find much pleasure here. I know how much work it is to keep something like this rolling and I really appreciate all you do. - (not as) Lost in Translation (as I used to be)

Feel free to use this thread to 'count your blessings', or name the things that you're grateful for in your life. Maybe it would be fun to limit it to one thing per day/per post...that way we can spend every day in gratitude. That is, unless you don't like limitations. ... I'm grateful for: A warm bed.

A couple years ago, out of a deep need to consciously acknowledge and actively foster the sources of gratitude in my life, I founded a new habit. The three years previous, had been a systematic barrage of some of the harshest, most heart-straining, painful and sad experiences of my life and I was floundering much of the time. I needed a way to foster the inertia of gratitude in the flow and not as some intellectual, ephemeral idea, but as a practical, tangible energetic connection... one beyond my practices of qi gong and stillness, that I could access easily and use anytime. It took root when I saw someone do something beautiful, just like any other day, but instead of simply smiling and moving on... I reached out to them and acknowledged how much it meant to me, to witness this act of love. I wanted them to know how much this simple example of wisdom had impacted another who was suffering and to know they were appreciated for it. There is an energetic loop in this acknowledgement that has become a self sustaining process far more potent than I imagined when I started. The jar is the home version of this... and I love it because we can go back and reread these old moments, it's especially helpful when the shit hits the fan. It's incredibly potent. Any longer, it's not just people, I'm talking to everything from shrubbery, trees and breezes, to trashcans and garbage trucks these days. It's everywhere and this simple process of spending just a bit of my energy to acknowledge it, is fostering an inertia that I did not expect. Obviously the gratitude jar is an old idea, but in my home it is a physical manifestation of this amazing experience for me. Our gratitude jar is a big mason bugger that sits on our kitchen bar, with a stack of paper and a pen next to it. We walk past it all day long and see it constantly. Whenever we are struck by love, appreciation, or gratitude, we jot it down and drop it in... Once in a while, we will reach in and pull a couple out, or dump them out and read them. When the jar is full, the bits go into a box that I'll be saving and passing down to my son when I'm gone. This jar has become an energetic garden in our home, a vibrant manifestation of gratitude. Just the sight of it peripherally can bring sympathetic vibration and a shift in awareness, so I figured I'd start a digital one here.

So this realization has been revisited on me again and again in my life. Mainly because I am nearly, inconceivably wealthy in the vast amount of incredible people, animals and plants that have continually surrounded me throughout my life in every phase. It's become more intense and frequent of late, last night being a whopper. So I share it. Last night it was driven home, poignantly, almost overwhelmingly in one of those simple, shining, 'ordinary' moments just 'hanging out at home'. A moment so relaxed and simple, so authentic, it roils with potential and resonates in my inner life like some massive gong being struck and my awareness takes on a pounding presence of clarity and acute, almost overwhelming gratitude... I'm sitting in my usual spot, cat splayed out on my lap, as my wife and son engage in deep conversation... and then awareness settles, everything becomes almost still, even with the motion of the fish swimming and the gestures going and the music playing, everything seems to get very still as I expand outward... and this concept settles on my pond like a leaf striking a gong that shakes the world. "the most valuable thing that anyone has ever shared with me, or that I could ever offer... is complete, authentic presence." It's profoundly humbling and empowering simultaneously. A silent, immense, gratitude repeatedly pounding out in waves of love that in turn crash back into my core, as if the very air were a drum being hammered by the presence of authenticity.

These long, deep nights around Solstice are my favorite of year. Deep, hours long conversations about the nature of reality, or completely fabricated stories of unimaginable bullshit are among my favorite pass times ever and this time of year is so conducive to it. I lost my Father this year, very suddenly. So many conversations, so many moments. Life changes so fast, it's me who's slow to respond it seems. In the midst of the pain of his absence, shines something far more powerful though. It's gratitude, for being fortunate enough to have known him at all. The memories come so suddenly, reaching to pick up a sweater and then, this overwhelming waves of gratitude for all those I've lost and all that's passed and joy in having shared life with them for a time. Such gifts as these... my wealth is truly immeasurable. May all beings be released from suffering. Love and Light.