The Dalai Lama isn't simply saying that gratitude makes us nicer—he's proposing something subtler: that goodness requires us to *notice* and *value* goodness first, almost as a sensory act. Without that attentiveness, our moral efforts become hollow performances rather than authentic growth. You see this in parenting: a child who learns to recognize his parent's small sacrifices develops genuine compassion far more reliably than one merely lectured about kindness. He's describing appreciation not as a feeling but as the fertile ground from which everything else blooms.