Cultivating an Appreciation

And when you look at yourself as a set of phenomena, what is there to judge?

Is that flower less than that?

It’s just being different than that.

You begin to appreciate your uniqueness without it being better or worse, because it’s just different.

Cultivating an appreciation of uniqueness rather than preference is a very good one.

“When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.

The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”

- Ram Dass