An invition to gratitude

From Michael Winn, at www.HealingTaoUSA.com ,
or
www.HealingDao.com

A Soul-stice Blessing and Meditation on Gratitude:

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...
you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace...
you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...
you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation...you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a church or other gathering without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

If your parents are still alive and still married... you are blessed with a family that is very rare.

If you hold your head up with a smile on your face and are truly thankful...you are blessed because the majority can, but most do not.

If today, you can hold someone's hand, hug them or even touch them on the shoulder ...
you are blessed because you have made contact with another human being.

If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

Count your blessings, and pass this message along to remind others how blessed we all are. Gratitude to the Life Force that manifests everything is a powerful way to come into intimate relationship with the Tao. The Life Force is the life blood of the Tao, our only means of communicating with the Great Mystery of the Unknown (wuji).

After contemplating this feeling of gratitude, I recommend sitting in the stillness of the Deep Cosmic Yin Inner Smile that is naturally happening at this time. Silence, but with an open heart.

Bless you and those you love this Solstice time, in whatever form you celebrate it!

May the Inner Light of the Tao Shine in Us,

Michael Winn