In Buddhist philosophy, there is a class where they talk about appreciation.

A student asks, “How can I appreciate when everything in my life has gone wrong?”

The student proceeds to explain a terrible circumstance: lost his business, lost his partner, his kids won’t speak to him, went bankrupt, lives on the street.

He says, “It’s easy for everyone else to appreciate, but I cannot.”

The teacher says to him, “There’s is always a way to practice appreciation. But it takes practice.”

Appreciate that you have a free moment right now to practice appreciation.

Appreciate that you have enough skill and karma to have learned a language, to know what the word ‘appreciate’ means.

Appreciate that you are right now benefiting from others kindness. They are trying to help you develop the skill called appreciation.

Appreciate the kindness you have shown to yourself through your discipline—to learn philosophy.

Appreciate there is philosophy we can learn. And someone took the time to write it down and teach it to others so they could benefit.

Appreciation is a seed, and if we take care of it, it can grow. Appreciate you are taking care of that seed in your heart.

The feeling of appreciation is a wonderful feeling we can access in our heart anytime. But most of us need a reminder to practice. Appreciate you have a heart that can create these incredible feelings unlimitedly.

Appreciate that Dharma, the system of life, is patient—to allow us again and again to forget to appreciate, and again and again, learn.

Appreciate that we have this observing ability we can focus to develop more and more awareness of our life.

Appreciate that life as illusion is a perfect system—allowing us to experience life unlimitedly and develop wisdom and compassion.

We can observe how shallow our appreciation is when we only do it from our mind. We can practice to appreciate deeply from our hearts. Then a deep content feeling will grow and grow. Appreciate there is no material in any universe which can match this level of joy.

Appreciate that no matter how much suffering we experience in life, it will all keep changing as an illusion. The function of all of it is to help us awaken, become a Buddha.

Appreciate that our essence is already equal to all the incredible Buddhas and Bodhisattvas waiting inside for us. Who teaches this? The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas do. We can appreciate we are born in a universe where their wisdom is still taught.

Appreciate we can become Buddha and help unlimited others also to become Buddha.

Appreciation is a way to open our Buddhahood.”

From Zen Tim