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Gratitude and Happiness
In the Buddha’s teaching, gratitude begins with our parents—the ones who give us our form—then extends to teachers who offer us the life of wisdom, friends who support us through difficulties, and then reaches out to all beings: sentient and non-sentient, from humans, trees, earth, and stones to the sun, air, and water. Parents are “the common mother earth and sun” of all beings, and within every cell of our body are the seeds of their transmission. Giving and receiving are not two separate entities: the giver and the receiver become one in the non-dual stream of transmission between subject and object.
The Four Noble Truths—the truth of suffering, the truth of the origin of suffering, the truth of the cessation of suffering, and the truth of the path—do not stand apart but inter-are, blending like mud and lotus: suffering cannot exist without happiness, and vice versa. Contemplating these four noble truths is truly the foundation for right view, leading us onto the path of the Noble Eightfold Path, practicing mindfulness through the four establishments of mindfulness: body in the body, feelings in the feelings, mind in the mind, and objects of mind in the objects of mind. Through daily relaxation and conscious breathing, we can transform biological tension—adrenaline rushing the blood, shutting down digestion—into peace, giving rise to the non-dual insight so that we may live happily right in the present moment.