Positive Thinking, Gratefulness, and Mindful Action

UPL asks its followers to practise positive thinking, gratefulness and mindful action, for personal enrichment and collective growth.

Gratitude is the most widely shared of the three. The Qur’an teaches that gratitude is met with increase. The Haudenosaunee give thanks to each part of the natural world before anything else is said. Seicho-No-Ie’s founding message is one of grand harmony with all things, and it keeps gratitude to one’s ancestors as a practice.

Positive thinking comes to UPL chiefly from Seicho-No-Ie, which teaches that thought, word and deed shape the world a person lives in. Other teachings stand near it without being the same. The Dhammapada opens by saying that mind comes first and that speech and action follow from it. Jesus told his followers not to be anxious about tomorrow, and his ground for it was trust in God, not the power of thought.

Mindful action is where the traditions meet again. The Bhagavad Gita teaches a right to the work and not to its fruits. The Buddha taught right speech and right action. Jesus asked that good be done quietly and not for show, and Jewish teaching guards against harmful speech even when what is said is true. Islam asks for good character, and for taqwa, a steady mindfulness of God.

This belief is lived out in The Integration of Positive Thinking, Gratefulness, and Mindful Action.