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Happy Hour: Kind Awareness as a Gracious Host

Introduction

Great. Okay. All right. So let's begin. Let's begin by arriving together and acknowledging that this is a Sangha. We practice together, not alone, fellow human beings who support us. By showing up, we support them, and by their showing up, they support us, and there's this sweetness in that. There's such a sweetness in that. If I was just here alone staring into the camera, talking to imaginary people, it would be very different for me. Just so that I share that with you, and as I look and see your faces, it just warms my heart. You guys are welcome actually to put it on gallery view so that you can see each other. It's quite sweet to get a sense of, yeah, this Sangha that has assembled, these wonderful beings. We're coming together to just practice and support each other, support each other just by your presence.

So I'll weave this theme into our meditation tonight. And yeah, without further ado, let's begin. Let's sit together.

Guided Meditation

So arriving in your body, seeing what your body needs. If it needs to shift and move a little bit, if the shoulders need to be rolled back a little bit, maybe side to side, the whole body to find your center of gravity. Arriving and settling. Arriving and settling in this body.

Here I am. Here.

Our feet on the earth. Sit bones on cushion, our hands on our lap. Body alive and breathing.

What's happening right now internally? Letting go of any assumptions, presumptions, and meet this moment, meet this body with fresh eyes, as a beginner. Curious, interested. As if you're meeting your body from the inside, internally, for the first time.

And relaxing, relaxing the body and receiving. Receiving the sensations. Receiving the sensations with interest, with openness of heart, as if you're opening your heart to your home, making space, welcoming all sensations.

And your awareness is so welcoming. It is a good host, a gracious host that welcomes everything. Welcomes every sensation, feeling. Whether they're pleasant, unpleasant, or neither. Whether they're familiar sensations of the breath or noticed for the first time, perhaps differently. Your awareness is kind, welcomes, welcomes everything.

Sensations between the hands, cool and warmth. There's space for you. Yes, come. Hello, welcome. Sensations of the forehead, a little tight? It's okay, we love you anyway. Come.

Hello, sensations of sit bones. Hard, resolved, expansive, heavy, light, tired. However you are, the sit bones feeling the chair, the cushion. Welcome all you sensations, welcome. So nice to meet you in this moment. So nice to feel you.

Thank you.

Shoulders, maybe a little tight. It's okay, welcome, welcome. Nice to feel you, nice to see you.

Attention, awareness, this host, hostess, gracious host, hostess. This wholeheartedness, welcoming all sensations. Particularly calming and soothing, nourishing they can be.

Hospitality. This gracious, kind wholeheartedness, awareness opening its doors. Yes, there is room for you. Awareness so vast, so spacious. Your heart, the home of your heart, so spacious. There's room for everything, all sensations. You know, all sounds. It's okay, it can all be just as they are, arising and passing. There's room for you. Sensations, sounds.

Attitude of spaciousness, welcoming. This gracious host, it's your awareness. Same attitude towards sensations, sounds, feeling expansive. Sounds coming and going, and our thoughts. We don't need to be entangled with them. Same spaciousness you had with sounds, giving them space. They come and they go. Same way with thoughts. Nothing wrong with thinking. Don't make an enemy of it. Let it come and go.

There is room for everything. You don't have to become stuck, become tiny in a thought. Plenty of space in your heart and your mind, spacious as the sky. A fluffy cloud of thought can come and go on this vast sky. It's welcome. Oh, welcome. Not going to fish for them, but if they come and go, friendliness with everything.

Even if they're thoughts of self-judgment, can you be friendly towards them? Thank you. You're really trying to just be helpful. Thank you, I don't have to be entangled. Start believing you, you can come and go. Thank you. Spacious, welcoming all. Without clinging. Friendly, kind host. That's your heart of awareness.

Let them come. Let them go. Let them go, let them go. Let them go with kindness. The spaciousness, friendliness with hellos, friendliness with goodbyes.

All sensations in the body, all sounds, all thoughts. All states of mind, states of heart. Friendly. Friendly, there's room for you to welcome. There's room for you.

Thank you.

Can there be friendliness? Can there be friendliness with different beings in your life, in your mind's eye? Really inviting them as if you're hosting a big party. Your awareness, your heart, your mind-heart is hosting this big party. Welcome, welcome. There's room for you, dear friends, family. My Sangha, welcome, hi.

You realize there is so much room, so much space in your heart. It's limitless. For people you know and love. People you know a little bit, people you don't know at all, but you wish them well with goodwill. And even people you have challenges with. You may be surprised that your heart is spacious enough, you're a gracious host enough. You welcome everyone with kindness. Actually strengthens your heart and stability of its own courage. The particular strength that comes from kindness.

And maybe in your mind even you welcome, you greet the challenges or difficulties you have in your life right now. You greet them. You welcome them. There is room enough in your heart, spacious enough. You're stable, spacious beyond your imagination. There's room enough in this castle of your heart and so wide, a spaciousness, the sky. Welcome challenges. Hi, there's room for you, welcome. Hi.

As we turn to bring this meditation together to close, as much as it's available at your heart, your mind, feel as spacious as the sky. With goodness, capacity, strength, and your kind awareness to be with everything. To be with kindness, kind awareness to welcome everything. It's possible. Possible for you.

May there be every goodness in your heart and your mind. Spaciousness, stability, equanimity. Strength, spiritual strength to serve you, serve your loved ones. And for your goodness to serve all beings everywhere in ways you cannot imagine. May our cultivation, our expansion, expanding our hearts in goodness and wisdom and kindness be of service. Goodness to freedom of all beings everywhere, including myself. May all beings be well. May all beings be free.

Reflections

Thanks everyone. Thanks for your spacious practice welcoming everything with kindness. It's so fun to have a party, right? And welcome all sensations, all thoughts, just their space. Their space, it's okay. Then we realize our capacity, our strength. There's a sense of stability. Yes, yes, challenges come, there's room for you. I've got this. Yes. It's the sense of resilience that can arise from that kind openness that doesn't arise from pushing away. Like, I'm afraid of this, I don't know what I'm gonna do, or this piece. There's room for you. There's room. Yes, yes. There's a sense of resilience really that can arise, that can serve us, and that can serve others. So thank you for practicing. In any way, then hopefully it supported you.

So I'd like to invite us to say yes. Say yes, to say yes with kindness and welcome, meeting a couple of fellow practitioners. Yes, hi, there's enough room in my Zoom square for a couple of you. Come, hi, welcome. So be a gracious host to each other. Let's try that on for size. That's when the rubber meets the road. Opening up, hi, the sense of hospitality to each other. What if we meet each other as gracious hosts, our awareness meet each other as gracious hosts. We're all welcoming each other into our spaces, you know, right? We're all welcoming each other into our homes in a way, with our backgrounds. And it's a very intimate thing. We're not at a meditation center where everybody comes together. We're all coming to each other's homes. So in a way it's like, oh, take a moment when you go into small groups. Maybe go around first and welcome, just each person will welcome the other person. Welcome to my home, welcome to my space, and just go around, and just the sense of welcoming. Just welcoming each other. And so that would be the first round, meeting each other with welcoming, with a sense of kindness. And see what might arise, or might be playfulness, right? The playfulness of meeting the unexpected. We never know what's going to happen the next moment.

And then go another round. Again, each person can share something. Don't direct, don't ask questions. Just show up. Show up with your kindness, with your hospitality. Hello, welcome. And if you like, you can share something about how this practice was for you. Maybe just a nugget, maybe just 30 seconds, and then the next person, and the next person. That would be the second round, or you can say pass. So the first round, you welcome each other to your space and have fun with it. This is kind of, why not? I don't know if you've ever done that before on Zoom, yeah. Well, welcome to my home. I have a virtual background, but hey, welcome. Welcome to my space, welcome to my virtual Zoom space. So have fun with it. How lovely it is to be able to practice with others.

Excuse me. Okay, so I have created the Zoom rooms and invite you all to take care of each other with kindness. And here we go, opening all the rooms.

[Breakout rooms open and close]

The rooms will close in about 10 seconds. We'll wait for everyone to come back.

Okay, your rooms are closed. Everybody's back. Welcome back everyone. We have time for a couple of reflections. Especially if you have not spoken recently, I invite you to pull forward. If you've spoken a lot, back up, make space for others. So what was it like? The meditation, you can reflect on that, and the aha moments, challenges. And also, how was welcoming, being a gracious host to each other with kindness, meeting and greeting each other with kindness? You can also put your reflections in chat if you wish. If you type them to everyone, I'll read your name. Just type them to me and it'll be private.

Jamie says, "We had a love party." Oh my god, that is so sweet. We had a love party. I love it. That's sweet. Ah.

Any other reflections?

Fernanda and friend said, "I thought it was just us." That's great.

Lorraine says, "It was delightful." And I want to... let's see. Can you unmute me? Yes I can. Let's see... Can you raise your hand? It's hard to find you. Hold on. Okay, here, I'm going to look for you. There you are. I'm going to ask you to unmute.

Lorraine: I've been meaning to thank you from January 23rd, it was a Monday night that you had us envision going somewhere, and I went to my sister's home on Long Island. So not only do I feel like we had a great time tonight where my group and I did great tours, but how this extended to my sister. And it was like 10 o'clock her time, and I really visited her, gave her tea, and she just felt so loved. The next morning I text her and she's like, I go, "Did you notice anything about 10 o'clock your time?" She goes, "Oh my god, yes, I felt so comforted." But for me it was so great because I used that night to visit her. I don't get to see her enough. And I imagined seeing her husband and her son, and it was so yummy, not just my room. But it reminded me of that night as well, tonight's meditation. So thank you.

Nikki: Oh thank you, it was so sweet. Thank you so much for sharing that. Delights in vicarious joy, I'm feeling lots of mudita^[1], vicarious joy for your practice, for the sweetness tonight and that night with your sister. So sweet, so sweet. Thank you.

And let's see, Fazel says, "It was really nice." Here's one of your co-partiers. Denise says, "Was Jamie's love party in his car?" Apparently yes, we have a thumbs up. That is great.

Let's see here... Jamie says, "It was Yousel's." Okay. And Charlie says, "Awareness is a gracious host. Unlocked the spaciousness I didn't know was available. It's a great way to describe awareness to those I love who don't practice." Oh beautiful. Thank you Charlie, that's lovely. Yay. Oh, that's just great, yeah. What a beautiful way to share this, your practice with your loved ones. Yeah.

And Greg says, "It's my first time, I want to say..." So Greg, I need to look for you. Hold on. There you are, Greg. Okay, now you can unmute.

Greg: So I also wanted to say thank you and it was wonderful to hear your voice. I was at your Maraṇasati^[2] retreat in December and it was absolutely transformational for me. My life is one thousand percent better. And I don't know why it took me so long to come to your happy hour, but here I am and I'm just so happy to be here.

Nikki: Ah, thank you Greg. Thank you so much for your practice. Oh gosh, it makes me so happy. Speaking of Maraṇasati, mindfulness of death, if I die today it would be worthwhile. This life of service would have been worthwhile. So thank you so much for sharing your practice and coming to happy hour. Yeah, and keep coming, that's so great.

Greg: I will, I will.

Nikki: Thanks for sharing, it just makes me so happy to know the retreat was transformational and supportive for you. Yay.

And Fernanda says, "I felt very joyous to meet the inside of my hands and my arms and welcome them to my party." Oh that is so great. I love it, meeting the inside of your hands and arms. It's just, there are so many ways we can welcome thoughts and sensations and tightness in the body and others, just beautiful. So beautiful. Yeah, "appreciation begets abundance", yes exactly. Author of Braiding Sweetgrass^[3].

You are so welcome. Thank you Fernanda and friends for joining. Thank you all for your practice tonight. Thank you for welcoming yourselves, all parts of you, and welcoming each other. Welcoming being welcoming. Yes, awareness as a gracious host. Thank you all, so grateful. Thank you for welcoming me to the Sangha, and I welcome all of you. It's just mutual, right? We welcome each other. Thank you for your practice. What a gift. What a gift this Sangha is to me. Thank you. Well, may we all be free. May all beings be free. Take good care. Be well. See you on Monday.