The Gospel of Gratitude According to Br. David

12/26/2017 The Gospel of Gratitude According to Brother David Steindl-Rast
Gratefulness
The Gospel of Gratitude According to Brother David

Steindl-Rast
By Rob Sidon
The role of the monks is to be the pikes in the carp pond of the institutional church.
Brother David Steindl-Rast was born in Vienna in 1926 and learned to live in joyful
presence during World War II, knowing he could die at any moment. After the war he
studied art, anthropology, and psychology, receiving an MA from the Vienna Academy of
Fine Arts and a PhD from the University of Vienna, but a passage from the 1,500-year-old
Rule of Saint Benedict, “have death at all times before your eyes,” reminded him of the
unique one-pointed happiness he experienced during the war. In an effort to recapture
that depth, he became a Benedictine monk in 1953 upon visiting the Mount Saviour
Monastery in Elmira, New York.
Alternating between the life of a hermit and an international spokesperson for interfaith
dialogue, he developed practical theories on the subject of grateful living, for which he is
most known. He is founder of the Network for Grateful Living, an interactive website
linking 240 countries and territories to promote the practice. In the wake of the
unprecedented fires that devastated Northern California in October, we spoke with
Brother David about myriad topics ranging from prayer and the current political zeitgeist
to child molestation in the Church and the vicissitudes of trusting in life.
Common Ground: How do you remember Hitler’s rise to power?
https://gratefulness.org/resource/gospel-gratitude-according-brother-david-steindl-rast/ 1/14
LeinzI was born eight years after the first world war, so there was still the Imperial
Viennese atmosphere combined with the great social upheaval, the Depression, and the
rising Nazis. I have two particular memories of March 1938. One was of our nanny being
excited and delighted with all the beautiful German soldiers coming in, and the other was
of my Jewish relatives sitting with windows closed in the dark and crying.
You were raised as a Germanic nobleman with

Jewish ancestry.
I can only say it mixes well, except we had to be terribly

careful during the Nazi time. My brothers and I were
considered a quarter Jewish, and my mother was
considered second degree. She didn’t have to wear the
yellow star either. She looked very non-Jewish and so
one just didn’t talk about it, and that’s how it worked
out.
You were drafted into Hitler’s army.
Franz Kuno Steindl-Rast in 1952 before

From
becomingMay 1944 until February
“Br. David.” 1945. To this day I have tried to figure it out but can’t find
any reasonable explanation why others were sent to the front line, but I was allowed to
stay behind. My only explanation is that I had a guardian angel. The Russians were our
liberators. We could see the gunfire coming closer and closer until finally we took off our
German uniforms and burned them. The first group of Russians were good and kind. They
fed us and provided what we needed. The second group was very destructive, looting and
raping. We had to hide our mother. It was a difficult time.
Austria just elected a 31-year-old from the far right, Sebastian Kurz, as chancellor. Do
you sense similarities to the political zeitgeist of the thirties?
Absolutely. And I’m not the only one—other people who experienced that time say this
sounds much like the thirties, when Hitler came to power. The political situation now in
Europe is discouraging, but Kurz is by far not the worst. I know him personally—not well—
he’s a gifted man, an intellectual. He’s nothing like some years ago, when there were some
villainous demagogues, very Nazi types.
Was it the war that turned you to religious life?
That’s an interesting question. Yes, in a way. During the war the only thing that gave us
courage and kept us going was spirituality or religion. We read anything we thought the
Nazis wouldn’t like us to read. The young people my age—more of them died than
survived. The war made us live in the moment because the next moment a bomb may fall
unknowingly. We lived every moment joyfully, not knowing if it would be our last. In the
midst of this constant death, we were really joyful. When the war was over, there was a
decisive point when I remembered a passage from the Rule of Saint Benedict, a little
1,500-year-old book by the founder of the Benedictine order, with a sentence that said,
“Have death at all times before your eyes.” With the war over and my life ahead of me, I
suddenly remembered how we had been so happy being forced to live in the present
moment with death at all times before our eyes. Because that’s where I first read the
sentence, I connected living in the present moment with monastic life. I felt very strongly
that if I wanted that deep kind of happiness, then I would have to become a monk.
What about girls?
I did find all sorts of excuses to delay becoming a monk and started one thing after the
other: art, psychology, anthropology, and kept saying, “I’ll take whatever comes first, the
right girl or the right monastery.” Knowing there were many girls and very few
monasteries, I thought I was safe. Then in 1953 after being in the United States, I ran into
the [Mount Saviour] monastery in Elmira, New York, and within 24 hours I knew that was it.
Hugh Hefner, the founder Playboy, died recently. He was about your age. Did you ever
wonder about his lifestyle and think, “Gosh I too am a young man. Am I missing
something?”
[Laughs] No. I always had girlfriends and had a great time, but having a girlfriend then was
not exactly what it is today. Young people weren’t going as far. When I became a monk, I
was so delighted and didn’t even think of anything else. That was way over 60 years ago
and I would do it again. On the deepest level I felt drawn to single-minded concentration
on the present moment, and the monastery made that easier. Then after the first 12 years
in the monastery, I traveled a great deal, eventually all over the world, which isn’t typical,
but I found it very satisfying.
What are the basic precepts of the Benedictine order?
The first rule comes out of the

deepest question, “Does he
really seek God?” We would
translate by saying, “Does he
[the aspiring monk] really want
to wrestle with the mystery that
is human life?” We all eventually
must wrestle these mysteries,
but in the monastery one faces
that question head-on.
Practically, how is it lived? We

spend time in manual labor
Photo by Diego Ortiz Mugica
working in the garden or some craft or in the kitchen or something—to keep us down to
earth. Secondly, we study and meditate, and that flows into one another. Third is we chant
and pray together. That is the course of the monastic day.
You’re famous as a philosopher on gratitude. What is the basis of your theory?
People usually think that gratitude is saying thank you, as if this were the most important
aspect of it. The most important aspect of the practice of grateful living is trust in life.
Every human being every day has to make a practical choice between trusting life or not
trusting life. Again and again in life, one is tempted to distrust and fear. Fear and distrust—
this is the same.
If you try out distrusting life and always questioning life, you find that it makes you
absolutely miserable. Or you can try trusting life and whatever comes up, saying, “Well,
maybe I don’t like it but I trust that life gives me good things—that life is trustworthy.” To
live that way is what I call “grateful living” because then you receive every moment as a
gift. And really the gift within the gift is opportunity. This is when you stop long enough to
ask yourself, “What’s the opportunity in this moment?” You look for it and then take
advantage of that opportunity. It’s as simple as that.
You have a practical way to look at it—stop, look, go.
Yes, we call it stop, look, go. The first is to stop and pause long enough. The second is to
look for the opportunities to find gratitude. Then go take advantage of it. Grateful living is
based on having trust and taking advantage of all the opportunities to live a joyful life.
People who haven’t tried it don’t believe it, but most of life is an opportunity to enjoy.
When you try it, you find it to be true.
You haven’t thought of all the things you take for granted: breathing, walking, simply being
alive. Having eyes to see, having friends, having something to eat. If you take these for
granted, they don’t do anything. When we meet other people, even if they are not
particularly likable, we find that they are interesting and different and provide an
opportunity to learn and grow. Even in politics or in the office or in the family, there are
things against which we have the opportunity to protest and say, “This is as far as I go,” but
these are also opportunities to be joyful in the midst of unhappiness—to enjoy life.
Here in Northern California, unprecedented fires killed many people and destroyed
thousands of homes. How do you tell people to find a silver lining in the face of such
misfortune?
I’ve been following the fires in Northern California every day because I lived there for quite
some time. First of all, you don’t go around telling people who are in the midst of misery
that they should be grateful. That’s not the way to do it. I can’t say anything. You can go up
to them and put your arm around them and show how you too suffer.
I have a friend, a psychotherapist who also lost everything in a Northern California fire
many years ago. He was a researcher who lost all his files and research. Looking back, it
was the beginning of a completely new life. He says it was like going through a new birth.
He had the inner attitude that even when the worst happened, it was for the best. But
talking that way in the midst of misery—I can’t do it and I would not advise anybody else to
do it.
There’s scientific research that suggests health benefits can result from gratitude.
That it unshackles toxic emotions, for example.
One researcher is Robert Emmons at the University of California at Davis. He has found
that grateful living is something that can be cultivated. He has statistical evidence that if
you do, your health improves, your social relationships improve, and that students even get
better notes. It’s something very positive, this gratefulness. One doesn’t want to water
down the research or overemphasize it, but it is best to read about these things. It’s easily
accessible.
I’m thinking about Eckhart Tolle, whose work I admire. I know that you two are close
but also that your work has strong parallels. Eckhart points to presence as a window
to enlightenment, while you point to gratitude. What are the similarities and
differences between his work and yours?
I feel very close to him and I’ve

even said to people, “If you only
buy one book, don’t buy mine,
buy The Power of Now.” I
subscribe to everything he says
and am promoting him. I would
simply say it’s another slant on
the same truth and the same
reality. Perhaps for you and me,
the saying “live in the now” is
more attractive and interesting,
but it’s a little more difficult
than to say, “just be grateful,
Eckhart Tolle and Br. David Steindl-Rast in 2016 – photo by Sounds True
trust life.” Every child understands gratefulness. Every religion emphasizes gratefulness—
it’s at the heart of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism. So you have
something that’s alike amid spiritual traditions, and that has certain advantages.
[Chuckle] Do you and Eckhart speak German with each other?
[Laughs] No. Only here and there for a word or two, but normally we speak English.
What are simple practices that readers can take away to cultivate gratitude?
Photo by Diego Ortiz Mugica
Within the phrase “stop, look, go,” many find difficulty in the stop because we live in a very
fast society. People get carried away and get ahead of themselves, so we need reminders
to stop. One has to find out for oneself the best ways, but often in the beginning,
something new is good. For instance, when you get into the car you can train yourself for
one second or a fraction of a second to wait before turning the key in the ignition. That’s
the stop. Then we look for the opportunity to be grateful. We have the gift of the car,
something to get around in. Then we go—we go and take advantage of the gift, which can
be a joyful ride.
Or in the morning before opening our eyes, we can train ourselves for one split second to
stop and keep our eyes closed. Before opening them we can look for gratitude such as “I
have eyes and I can look.” I read somewhere that there are 42 million blind people, and
many of them are children. Their blindness is mostly due to hunger. Anything we can do to
reinvent ourselves to pause even for the slightest moment. We used to have prayers
before meals, so even if we just put our hands together and bowed before digging in. This
will make meals much more enjoyable. Anything we take for granted is lost to our
experience. Anything we do mindfully can give joy.
What is the Network for Grateful Living you started?
It’s online support for offline grateful living. Everywhere in the world there are small groups
of people who are very different from one another that meet regularly and discuss their
difficulties in living gratefully and encourage one another. The goal is to spread this joy of
grateful living all over the world. There is an English website, a German one, a Spanish one,
a Portuguese one, and even a small Chinese one.
You operate within the boundaries of the Catholic Church. Do you ever find yourself
confronting stiff bureaucratic challenges?
I have been lucky in that respect.

[Laughs] I’m Viennese and
somewhat diplomatic. If you
attack, of course, you will be
attacked back. I have close friends
who have great difficulties with
the Catholic Church. Matthew Fox
in the United States and others in
Europe, but they are always the
aggressive types. But I want to be
outspoken, and I am in many ways
an outspoken critic of my own
tradition, but I try to be a
Br. David (far right with flag) and Thich Nhat Hanh (2nd from right) in 1982
constructive critic. You have to be diplomatic.
I presume the personality of the acting pope dictates the tone at the Vatican. You’ve
experienced many popes in your life. What do you think of Pope Francis?
I’m delighted with Pope Francis. I think he’s number 11 or 12 in my lifetime, and I compare
him to Pope John XXIII, who was also truly human and whom everybody loved. He started
the second Vatican Council, which received a great deal of opposition but was a
breakthrough. We have forgotten how many things that we have today we owe to Vatican
II.
What Pope Francis is doing—it’s not just being nice and compassionate, which is all very
fine. He’s dismantling the power pyramid at the Church, where the pope sits on top and
then there are the cardinals and then the bishops and the priests and so on. Jesus faced
that power pyramid in his own lifetime because that is how the world is built, but he spent
his life dismantling that, saying to his disciples, “With you it ought to be different. The
highest among you ought to be the servants.” He turned this power pyramid, which is
based on fear and rivalry, into a network of cooperation. I very much hope the present
pope finds a way to secure his understanding of what it means to be a Christian for the
future.
Does Pope Francis face a lot of opposition?
Unfortunately, he does—from the structures, especially from the cardinals.
How does Opus Dei factor in the Church?
I think it’s no longer as dangerous as it used to be under John Paul II and Pope Benedict,
but it’s difficult to judge. The great danger I see in the Church began when Jesus’s
message of the power of love confronted the love of power. Unfortunately, very soon
Christians thought they could enforce love by power. From all that one typically hears
about Opus Dei, they tried to play this power game. Jesus died as a political offender who
preached the reign of God against the emperor, against the occupying forces. By preaching
the power of love and by living the power of love, he undermined the love of power.
Crucifixion was not for any other offenses. It was for runaway slaves and revolutionaries
and those who undermined the existing political order.
But rather than criticize one group, I would promote the many wonderful groups all over
the world. For instance the Comunidades de base, the base communities of Christians
getting together to understand Jesus’s message as a challenge in their own life—here and
now, politically. There’s no question for me that to be a Christian is a profoundly political
decision. I don’t mean party politics, but I mean in the broadest sense of people. How do
people live together? How do people live together in peace?
This is an embarrassing question, but what can you say about the problems with
priests and child molestation?
It’s a catastrophe, which in the case of the Catholic Church has a lot to do with priestly
celibacy. That is something that could be given up at any moment. Priests, whether they
like it or not, are required to be celibate. I’m not a priest so I am speaking as a layperson, as
a monk, but I wonder why on earth in the 21st century one insists on buying the privilege
of serving the Church as a priest by being celibate? It makes absolutely no sense to me.
The Catholic Church has a great lack of priests, and we would have plenty if we allowed
them to marry.
I don’t quite understand the difference between being a monk and being a priest.
Priests are the guardians of the

institution, while monks are the royal
opposition. Unfortunately, many
monasteries simply take it for granted
that the monks will become priests.
[Laughs] We think of ourselves as
pikes in the carp pond. Carp are very
slow and a bit lazy and in danger that
moss will grow on them because they
don’t move enough. So people put a
pike inside the pond to chase the
carp. The role of the monks is to be
the pikes in the carp pond of the
Br. David and Fr. Raimon Panikkar
institutional church.
Many seekers have fled Christianity because they no longer felt it maintained a path to
enlightenment. They’ve turned mostly to Eastern traditions such as Buddhism or
Hinduism or Sufism, where there is a mystic lineage. Does the church today offer a
mystic lineage?
I have had a great deal of work in interreligious dialogue and often talk with people who
say they used to be Christian but are now practicing Buddhism. Very often they say, “Oh,
only now through my practicing of Buddhism I have discovered the spiritual riches that
were in my former Christian tradition.” To me it doesn’t make any difference what label
you put on it, as long as one discovers the spiritual riches and lives a deep spiritual life, but
why did they not discover it in the first place? First of course, familiarity breeds contempt.
That is to a certain extent true, but it’s also a fact that the Catholic tradition and also a
good many Protestant denominations put too little emphasis on the meditative, the
contemplative mystic aspects. But they are there. They are at the very heart of every
tradition.
Catholics have the Prayer of Silence that’s 2,000 years old and has been written about
extensively and practiced not only by the great mystics but by ordinary people over the
millennia. When I speak with Zen Buddhists about it, they say, “That is exactly what we call
zazen.” There is no difference whether you call it the Prayer of Silence or zazen. We have a
tradition called “living by the word of god”—savoring everything that is. Very much in the
way that I spoke about grateful living. As the song says, “Taste and see how good the Lord
is.” God speaks to us through everything there is.
Meditation in action—that is closer to what the Hindus do, where you act lovingly, and
through acting lovingly you experience from within the love of God that flows into that
action. That is a perfectly valid form of spiritual practice, and we have had it forever in our
tradition. There’s no reason why we couldn’t stress more the mystical aspects of the
Christian tradition. We are not so hungry for doctrine, we are hungry for spirituality.
Through your interfaith work you encountered many notable figures such as the Dalai
Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh. Who else has been especially inspiring to you?
You mentioned the Dalai Lama

and Thich Nhat Hanh. I would
mention Eckhart Tolle and
Swami Satchidananda, whom I
knew well. He founded Integral
Yoga. I would also mention
Oprah Winfrey. I think she’s a
deeply spiritual person and
does much for waking people
to spirituality.
I had one encounter with Sai

Baba. He was somewhat
Brother David and Swami Satchidananda 1973 – photo by Integral Yoga Media
controversial, but I think he did a great deal of good and I just liked him. I should mention
Thomas Merton, who had a great mind and great heart. I once met Swami Gosananda, who
went through prison and torture and great sufferings. I met him in the company of the
Dalai Lama.
I also met Mother Teresa and was of course deeply impressed by her personality. She
helped the poor but did not ask why the poor were poor. As Archbishop Dom Helder
Camara said in Brazil, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why
they are poor, they call me a communist.” I think it’s absolutely necessary to ask why the
poor are poor and then do something about it.
Ironically, in America we love Jesus and hate communism, yet the most superficial
study of Jesus’s life would earn him the commie label.
Historic communism has shown its shortcomings, but the idea of having all things in
common is wonderful. If you read Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament about the
church in Jerusalem, it sounds very communist. They had everything in common and
shared.
Br. David walking down a path in St. Gerold, Switzerland. 2009 Photo by Verena Kessler
What are some of your greatest joys? And fears?
Nature comes to mind. I don’t do gardening anymore but I love walks with animals and
plants. It’s a positive way to be in touch with what I call “the great mystery of life.”
Anxieties? When I look at the world and see what they are doing to our environment—that
causes me great concern.
I was at a conference this weekend where one man urged we pray that President
Trump become a contemplative. Everyone laughed at the unlikelihood of that
prospect, but perhaps we should simply pray he become a better steward of the
earth.
I do believe in prayer and pray for President Trump every day. I send him energy. As people,
we all have various parts of ourselves, so I am praying that whatever best part of him may
come to the fore. The destruction of the environment is suicidal for the whole human race,
and that’s certainly bad. But I do not believe that we are to fight against the bad but are to
resist it in concrete situations. I believe that bad is the not yet good. I think we should look
at the bad things in the world with the eyes of a mother that looks at her so-called bad
child and says, “You can do better.” With that look and attitude, she creates the space to
encourage whatever little good is there to come out and throw off the husk of badness.
But it’s important not to fight evil.
It seems like you have a blessed personality, or as the Easterns would say, you have
especially good karma. How do you acknowledge grace?
I cannot improve on what Saint Augustine said: “All is grace, all is gift.” Everybody can say
that. Everybody. Because even our shortcomings are gifts. Even our suffering is a gift. My
favorite example is Helen Keller. If she had not been blind and deaf, she would never have
become the great teacher for humankind that she became. Life gives us what we need.
You’re 91. Do you have any fear of death?
I’m enjoying life moment by moment as it is. So no, I can’t say I’m looking forward to my
last breath but will try to trust in life when it comes. I make an important distinction
between anxiety and fear. Anxiety is inevitable in life, but fear is not the right response to
anxiety. Fear stretches out its bristles and resists anxiety and gets stuck in it. The very
word anxiety comes from the same root, angustiae, which means “narrowness.” Anxiety
means getting into a narrow spot, much like when we come into this world through the
narrow birth canal. I’m sure that for the poor little baby, that meant a lot of anxiety but
instinctively it doesn’t set up any resistance and is born. In life whenever we get into a tight
spot, if we don’t resist and trust in life then life carries us through.
What advice can you share about making this a better world?
Help everybody to live fearlessly. All that goes wrong comes from fear. The opposite of
fear is trust in life. Say to each other “fear not” or “trust in life.” That would make a
completely different world.
A final message to some readers who are living in the aftermath of this fire crisis?
I say this too will pass. This too will pass.
Rob Sidon is editor in chief and publisher of Common Ground. He kindly gave us
permission to post this interview. Enjoy the entire 43rd Anniversary Gratitude Issue of
Rob’s Common Ground interview (November 2017), with many other wonderful articles

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12/26/2017 The Gospel of Gratitude According to Brother David Steindl-Rast

The Gospel of Gratitude According to Brother David

Common Ground: How do you remember Hitler’s rise to power?

You were raised as a Germanic nobleman with

I can only say it mixes well, except we had to be terribly

You were drafted into Hitler’s army.

Franz Kuno Steindl-Rast in 1952 before

Was it the war that turned you to religious life?

What about girls?

What are the basic precepts of the Benedictine order?

The ﬁrst rule comes out of the

Practically, how is it lived? We

You’re famous as a philosopher on gratitude. What is the basis of your theory?

You have a practical way to look at it—stop, look, go.

I feel very close to him and I’ve

[Chuckle] Do you and Eckhart speak German with each other?

Photo by Diego Ortiz Mugica

What is the Network for Grateful Living you started?

I have been lucky in that respect.

Does Pope Francis face a lot of opposition?

Unfortunately, he does—from the structures, especially from the cardinals.

How does Opus Dei factor in the Church?

Priests are the guardians of the

You mentioned the Dalai Lama

I had one encounter with Sai

What are some of your greatest joys? And fears?

You’re 91. Do you have any fear of death?

I say this too will pass. This too will pass.

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