“Ajaan Fuang and had a student who had had cancer, and after one of her operations they gave her radiation treatment. She discovered that she was allergic to the anesthetic, so the doctors were stymied. She said, “Well, can you do it without the anesthetic?” They said, “The pain is intense.” She told them, “I’m a meditator.” So they tried it, and she was able to get through it. But she later said that she was exhausted at the end of the treatment because she had been using her powers of concentration just to focus, focus, focus, and not allow herself to have any reaction to the pain. Afterwards, Ajaan Fuang went to visit her and asked her how it went. She explained, and he told her, “You can’t use just your concentration. You also have to use your discernment.”

“One way of doing that is to see that the pain is inconstant. Even though there’s a steady stream of little pain packets, each little pain packet does go away, go away before it’s replaced by another one. Another way to use your discernment is just to get out of the way. Don’t have a “you” in there that’s experiencing the pain, that has to get involved with the pain, that has to be responsible for the pain. The woman later told me that the next time she underwent the treatment, it went a lot more easily. It didn’t require so much physical and mental energy.”

— Thanissaro Bhikkhu “Getting out of the way”
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/GatherRound/Section0059.html

"When there is misunderstanding, be aware of it. When there is understanding, be aware of it. Don't go to either extreme - stay in the middle. Simply put, maintain mindfulness (กำหนดรู้) of how things arise, persist, and cease."
-Tahn Ajahn Jayasaro

Itivuttaka
Iti 26 Dānasaṁvibhāga Sutta:
Giving and Sharing

This discourse was taught by the Blessed One, taught by the Arahant, the fully enlightened Supreme Buddha. This is as I heard:

“Monks, if people knew as I know the results of giving and sharing, they would not eat without having given nor would the stain of stinginess overcome their minds. Even if it were their last bite, their last mouthful, they would not eat without having shared, if there was someone to share it with. But, monks, because people do not know as I know the results of giving and sharing, they eat without having given. The stain of stinginess overcomes their minds.”

This is the meaning of what the Blessed One said. So, with regard to this, it was said:

If people only knew—
so taught the Great Sage—
how the result of sharing has such great fruit,
then people would subdue the stain of stinginess
and with pleased minds
they would give gifts in proper occasion
to the noble ones where a gift bears great fruit.

Having given much food as offerings
to those most worthy of offerings,
the donors go to heaven
when they pass away from here,
the human state.

Having gone to heaven,
they rejoice and enjoy divine pleasures as they desire.
The generous people experience
the result of generously sharing with others.

This, too, is the meaning of what was said by the Blessed One. This is exactly as I heard.

https://suttafriends.org/sutta/itv26/

"If each person in this world would mind his or her own business, clean up his or her own house, there wouldn’t be any trouble or conflicts in the world.

Our problem is that we leave our own immediate responsibilities and start worrying about other people: what they’re doing, what messes they’re creating for us, or what messes they’re creating for other people.

That can be appropriate only after we’ve really taken care of our own business. Otherwise, we leave huge blind spots in our mind about what we’re doing and saying and thinking. We become oblivious to our impact on the world where we really are responsible."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Minding Your Own Business"

Sometimes I’d go to see old Buddhist sites with ancient temples. In some places they would be cracked. Maybe one of my friends would remark, "Such a shame, isn’t it? It’s cracked." I’d answer, "If they weren’t cracked there’d be no such thing as the Buddha. There’d be no Dhamma. It’s cracked like this because it’s perfectly in line with the Buddha’s teaching.

~ Ajahn Chah

The real distinction lies in the intention: the intention to do what is skillful, the intention to be compassionate, the intention to help one another. Those are the good things that keep society functioning.

And it goes further. When you think about the goodness that has gone into, say, your bed or your hut, it spurs you to action. After all, the goodness lies in the action. You realize that somebody had to put forth an effort either to do a good job in making the hut, or to provide the resources to make the hut. If someone bought it specifically for you, you have to be grateful for their intention to help you.

Then you ask yourself, “What am I doing with their good intentions? Am I just wallowing in the comfort, or am I actually trying to create some goodness on my own to dedicate to them?” As the Buddha said, this is one of the motivations for actually becoming an arahant, so that all the good things that people have done for you will bear them great fruit. The purer your mind, the greater the merit they’ll gain from their donation, from their generosity.

So reflecting on where the goodness really lies—i.e. in the action—helps spur you on to good actions of your own. This is why the Buddha said that gratitude is a sign of a good person. You see the good that other people have done, you have a strong appreciation of how difficult it is to do good, and you also have a strong sense of what’s to be treasured in people’s doing good. A person like that is more likely to do good him or herself.

So in this way, instead of getting you attached to objects, gratitude spurs you on to do more good things.

Then you think a little bit further: that these good things we use have to come through suffering. Some of the people or beings involved in this process did so willingly, and others were not so willing—like the animals who become our food or the workers who work in less than ideal conditions to make the things we use. There’s suffering involved in all of our material possessions in one form or another. So this spurs you even further: Can you get the mind to a point where it doesn’t have to come back and use material things again, again and again? The simple fact of our being born means that we come in with a huge gaping hole: the need for food, clothing, shelter, and medicine. Which means that our lives depend on suffering, not only our own, but also that of other beings.

This contemplation spurs you even further to try to find a way out. What is the escape from this burdensome process? How can we find a happiness that doesn’t depend on other people’s suffering, other beings’ suffering?

So when you think of the goodness around you, it’s not the goodness in the things. It’s the goodness in the actions. You appreciate the things you have. You take good care of them. But the gratitude is for the people and the beings who made those things, bought those things, provided those things for you to use. Your way of repaying them is to practice, to do good yourself in being generous, being virtuous, meditating—particularly in meditating. As I’ve said, the purer your mind, the more merit goes to the people who provided the things that made it possible for you to practice. When your mind reaches ultimate purity, then you don’t have to come back and be a burden for anyone anymore.

So try to keep this distinction between appreciation and gratitude in mind. Both of them help us get past our tendency to take things for granted and to overcome our childish sense of ennoscriptment. But it’s important that you be clear on where they’re different: Appreciation is for the things; gratitude is for the actions, because that focuses you on your actions, what you’re going to do in response.

That’s how gratitude keeps you focused on the practice.

~•~•~•~

From Gratitude to Things by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.
https://www.dhammatalks.org/audio/evening/2009/090919-gratitude-to-things.html