“It Works”: Gratitude Arising Through Practice

Gwen Juvenal

Recently, I was in conversation with our practice leaders, talking together about gratitude and gratitude practices. During that conversation, Steve shared something that really stayed with me.

He spoke about how, when he first came to the Sangha, he wasn’t truly seeing the opportunity of life or what it had to offer. But over time, something shifted. As he kept coming, something changed. He stepped into practice, into leadership, into sharing. And as he did, his life changed dramatically.

As we were talking, Steve said something very simple that I loved. He said, “It works.”
Just that. It works.

Sitting with that later, I realized something. I don’t think Steve initially understood what he was doing as a gratitude practice. He wasn’t setting out to cultivate gratitude as an end in itself. He was showing up. He was volunteering. He was participating. He was listening.

And as part of that, gratitude came.

What Gratitude Brings With It

When we talk about gratitude practices, it can sometimes sound as though the point is the gratitude itself—as though we’re meant to generate a certain feeling or arrive at a particular state. But the point isn’t gratitude in that way, even though gratitude is very much the point.

What I mean is this: the state of gratitude brings something with it.

It brings a willingness.
An open nature.
A softness that allows kindness to be present.
An ability to see what has been given.
A recognition of abundance that may already be here.

Listening as the Ground of Practice
Practices like deep listening, becoming aware of what is present, staying with what is arising instead of turning away. These are the kinds of practices we usually talk about as Buddhist practitioners, even if we don’t always call them gratitude practices.

When we listen in this way, when we stay present in this way, gratitude doesn’t need to be forced. It arises naturally.

As Thích Nhất Hạnh said,
“When you practice deep listening, gratitude naturally arises, because you see how much you are made of non-you elements.”

I find this especially easy to experience during our retreat during meal times, when I’m fully present with the food. Have any of you experienced what Thích Nhất Hạnh has said?

Gratitude, in this sense, isn’t a moral stance. It isn’t a demand we place on ourselves to feel a certain way. It’s a recognition—a seeing of interdependence. A softening into the fact that none of us are doing this alone.

In this way, gratitude and listening become communion—communion with what is.

When gratitude arises in this way, it doesn’t stand apart from our lives. It deepens our participation in it.

Widening Our View of Gratitude Practice

When I hear the phrase gratitude practice, I often think of familiar forms: writing lists, keeping journals, placing notes into a gratitude bowl, engaging in practices like Naikan. These are meaningful and time-honored ways of orienting ourselves toward appreciation.

Specifically, the Naikan (Nikon) practice is a contemplative reflection that invites us to look carefully at our lives through relationship. Traditionally, it asks us to reflect on three simple questions: What have I received from others? What have I given? And what difficulties have I caused? Rather than being a practice of self-judgment, Naikan gently turns our attention toward interdependence—toward the countless ways our lives are supported, shaped, and sustained by each other, often without our noticing.

So, if gratitude is communion with what is, our understanding of practice can widen.

I am beginning to recognize showing up as a gratitude practice.
Listening as a gratitude practice.
Participating, volunteering, staying present, telling the truth—all of these as gratitude practices when they arise from relationship and acknowledgment, rather than obligation.

Gratitude, then, isn’t something I only do in specific moments. It’s something I begin to enter into—something that can envelop how I live, how I respond, how I meet what’s in front of me. This was the attitude I developed the last few weeks as I was considering gratitude and inviting gratitude as communion into my life.

Three Orientations of Engagement: Self-Development, Self-Surrender, Self-Discovery

Recently, in reading The Promise of a Sacred World, I’ve come to look at three different ways we can understand gratitude practice. These ways come from teachings about how Buddhists across traditions attend to enlightenment. They aren’t rigid categories, but different views or orientations—different ways we enter practice.

The three are: self-development, self-surrender, and self-discovery.

Each one offers a distinct doorway into gratitude as communion.

In self-development, gratitude can look active. It may show up as intentional practice, reflection, or action. Gratitude here supports our participation in life—how we show up, how we respond, how we care.

In self-surrender, gratitude has a different quality. It acknowledges that our view is limited, that we don’t see the whole picture. Gratitude here is less about doing and more about receiving—allowing ourselves to be met by something larger than our own effort.

In self-discovery, gratitude is quieter still. It is the recognition of what is already here. The simple noticing of what has not disappeared. Gratitude arises not because we made it happen, but because we finally saw it.

Resistance can arise when we expect gratitude to look like only one of these. But when we allow gratitude to meet us through any of them, something softens.

A Lived Moment: Being With What Is

In the last six months, my own life has been going through a lot of transition. I’ve moved into a new place, I’ve been having a hard time finding steady work that fits me and my skills.

There have been times when food hasn’t been plentiful. Many times, I’ve found myself making meals while having to let go of certain expectations—letting go of what I wanted them to be.

One morning recently, I was making breakfast for my boyfriend and myself. It was an adaptation of what I would normally make, because I didn’t have all the ingredients I usually use. As I was cooking, I could feel that familiar tightening begin—the pull toward worry about being judged, about not giving what I had wanted to give, about not living up to some imagined standard.

There was a quiet pain starting to rise up in me.

I stopped. I took a breath, inviting in something new. And then I heard a voice within me—very simple, very clear—that said: just pay attention to what is right here.

So I pulled my attention back to the food—what was there—and the moment of judgment and fear opened into an experience of awe. As I put the meal together, as I connected with each item, the acknowledgment that it was there, that it had been supplied for us, and that it was there for our benefit became undeniable and exquisitely full.

I said something out loud—not to compare, not to minimize anything—but simply because it was the way gratitude was moving through me in that moment.

I said, isn’t it wonderful that we even have food to eat? It’s pretty amazing, right? There are so many people who have died of starvation, and look at what we have.

I wasn’t saying this to convince myself that everything was okay, or to compare my life to someone else’s suffering. What I felt instead was a connection—to all that had happened for that food to be there, to the simple fact of being able to eat, and to the flavor and beauty of what was simply there.

My boyfriend responded, talking—about life, about how strange and fragile it is, about famine and loss and the lessons humanity keeps learning. And there we were, in what can feel like troubled times, sitting together and eating a simple, tasty breakfast, in gratitude.

How the Three Orientations Were Present

As I look back on that moment now, I can see how all of these ways of engaging were present.

There was self-development there: the willingness to pay attention, to pause, to care about how I was meeting the moment, to ask myself how I wanted to respond rather than reacting out of habit or self-judgment.

There was also self-surrender: the moment when I stopped trying to manage the experience, and listened to that quiet voice, that invited me to soften and see what was.

And there was self-discovery: the simple seeing of what was already there—the food, the conversation, the shared presence, the grace and beauty of life meeting me exactly where I was.

All three were present at once—intention, letting go, and seeing—moving together in a way that felt whole.

From that wholeness, gratitude arose.

Nothing was missing.
Nothing needed to be fixed.

I want to interject here and make a note. Sometimes things to get to change. One thing that I saw as I was being with gratitude as communion this week was that a part of me feared gratitude. Has anyone else experienced that?

For me I saw a fear that if I fully was grateful, that meant that I was shutting off a need or desire. How many of you as a child had some one tell you, “why can’t you just be grateful?”

The longer that I have sat with gratitude as communion, the more I see that it can actually support action in a more balanced and grounded way. What happens when we have confidence in what is, when fear subsides and trust increases?

Joy, Inclusion, and the Light That Never Stops Reaching Us
I’d like to end with some beautiful Buddhist quotes.

From Shinran:

Although my eyes, blinded by passions,
do not see the warm light that embraces me,
Great Compassion never tires,
constantly casting light upon me.

And Dōgen reminds us:

When one side is illuminated,
the other side is dark.
When we are in this state,
the grasses and trees, walls and fences
preach the Dharma for all beings.
All beings, in turn,
preach the Dharma
for the grasses and trees, walls and fences.
Nothing is left out.
Nothing is only receiving.
Nothing is only giving.

We are always in the middle of an alarmingly beautiful song—one that continues even in the depths of our anguish. And our voice matters.

Although I haven’t emphasized particular gratitude practices today, they matter. They are part of the action we get to take. They help open doors—not by forcing us into a feeling, but by creating space for listening, for participation, for response.

That practice may look like a gratitude bowl.
It may look like the Naikan reflection.
It may be as simple as a pause—a sigh when we feel tight—and an invitation for gratitude to help us open right now. To see a larger picture. To see what is present. To recognize the grace and beauty that is already here, even alongside what is painful.

Gratitude does not require perfection.
It requires presence.

And so now I ask you, what does gratitude practice look like for you?

Namu Amida Butsu