The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

Please visit our website at audiodharma.org.

For this week, discussing the different aspects of appreciation, I think appreciation can be a food for people.

I think people benefit tremendously from being appreciated.

I would say that a lot of people are not appreciated enough.

And something smiles inside, something lifts and delights when there's appreciation.

And if it goes a long time without appreciation, especially if we're doing something for others, something begins to sink.

Something feels a little bit off and not quite right.

We live in a world where there's a mutual give and take, a mutual...

kind of a reference point we use for being with each other.

And we might have tremendous generosity and offer things to others.

But if not even appreciation or gratitude comes back, then at some point the feeling generosity begins to become less and less.

But if it's a simple appreciation, people understand what we're doing and value it.

And then it could be a smile and I'm happy to do it and maybe easy to do it.

So appreciation is a really important ingredient.

And appreciation has these different elements to it.

And today I'd like to suggest that the important element is respect.

And respect is, I just legend many of you know, I love the Latin root of the word, which means to look again.

And when we respect something, we're willing to take a respectful look again.

We value something enough.

We're not afraid of it enough to look again. That can happen, but we respect it.

We value it enough that yet this is something we want to be connected to or to see or to understand.

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