Written by Jen Liu

I recently read a beautiful poem called "Time Piece" by the late writer and activist Andrea Gibson. I was struck by the lines: "Regret is a time machine to the past. Worry is a time machine to the future. Gratitude is a time machine to the present."

Gratitude can be a complex topic in spiritual communities when it is co-opted to bypass taking action and responsibility. At the same time, cultivating one's relationship to gratitude is a meaningful cornerstone of nearly every major spiritual or contemplative tradition, from Indigenous Native American teachings to Buddhism to Christianity to Islam.

All of these lineages understand gratitude to be a powerful doorway to awareness. When we walk through that doorway, we enter a cycle that asks us to stay in relation to everything around us: to the Earth, to ourselves, to our loved ones, to strangers across the globe. That embodied experience of gratitude becomes the in-breath to the out-breath of reciprocity.

While we typically direct appreciation or thankfulness at specific instances — the way we might appreciate someone's kind smile or be thankful that our flight landed safely — I tend to experience gratitude as more an orientation toward the wholeness of our lived experience, honed through both easeful and challenging times. It is an agreement I make with myself to always try to hold the full complexity of life in one hand, and sacred curiosity in the other.

Holding gratitude for a challenging experience isn't mutually exclusive with feeling deep sorrow, anger, or the need for things to change. It is a commitment to try to make suffering, if it must happen, be in the service of liberation — which often starts within our own hearts. Speaking of the grace he felt he received by coming to terms with the debilitating aftermath of his stroke, Ram Dass once said to an interviewer, "I don't wish you the stroke, but I wish you the grace of the stroke."

This time of year, when gratitude practices abound, can simultaneously shine a tender light on dissonant experiences of hardship, estrangement, and the suffering of our fellow beings. The teaching of gratitude, like a time machine to the present, invites us to hold it all and still show up in this very moment — a place that can be complicated and difficult to face, yet profoundly transformative if we choose to let it in.