Appreciation as pointer

Appreciate your life.
– Maezumi Roshi

Many teachers emphasize appreciation and gratitude, and for good reasons.

As a teaching, it is – as other teachings – a pointer and a question.

What happens when there is appreciation? What happens when there is not?

When I find more clarity, does that tend to invite in appreciation or not?

What I find is that appreciation tends to come from clarity. That it invites in and comes from a receptive view, and also an open heart. It invites in and comes from a softening or release of identification with a particular view. It comes from finding what is more true for me than any belief.

And a lack of appreciation is reverse. It comes from a fixed view and position. From taking a story and its view as true, from identifying with the identity it creates. It comes from a closed heart. It comes from a belief and being caught up in fear.

Appreciation in a conventional sense comes when my stories of what is aligns with our stories of what should be, and it is often associated with a particular feeling or emotion.

This appreciation is not a feeling or emotion, but simply an expression of a receptive view and open heart. It comes from recognizing that any situation is an invitation to grow and wake up. That it is a perfect invitation, as it is. That whatever is happening is awakeness itself, no-thing appearing as something, the play of God. That I don’t know, and stories – including this one – are not true.

As a teaching, appreciation can be a very helpful pointer. It invites in and comes from maturity and/or what we are noticing itself.

And sometimes, an apparent lack of appreciation may be a helpful pointer as well – to shake someone up. But if that tool is used habitually, it can very easily just be an invitation to identify with views, take stories as true, create a sense of a separate I, and make something right and something else wrong. It can easily invite identification within content of experience. Many of the most mature and skillful teachers don’t seem to use it at all, since clarity itself is enough to shake someone up.

………………..

Many teachers emphasize appreciation and gratitude, and for good reasons.

As a teaching, it is – as other teachings – a pointer and a question.

What happens when I shift into appreciation and gratitude?

What happens when I find what is more true for me than a belief? Does it tend to invite in appreciation and gratitude?

I find for myself that clarity tends to invite in genuine appreciation and gratitude. I find whatever is happening as an invitation to grow and wake up. And I find it as the play of awakeness itself.

And when there is not appreciation, there is often instead identification with a story, a point of view and its identity, and a sense of having to protect it.

This appreciation is not an emotion or feeling. It is more what come from a receptive view, open heart and a sense of nurturing fullness.

…………………

Outline…

• appreciation
  • appreciation: receptivity + open heart, all as me/god (comes from clarity)
  • lack of appreciation: attach to a view as true, come from sense of separate I
  • teaching: some teachers, choose to talk as if do not have appreciation, teaching tool (useful sometimes, but maybe not as a habitual pattern)

Initial outline…

• appreciation
  • genuine appreciation
    • invitation to grow/wake up
    • what is more true than a belief
    • diversity, richness of existence
    • play of god/emptiness
  • if not
    • identification with a story (a point of view + its identity)
    • identification w/in content of experience
  • appreciate your life