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Happy Hour: Brightening the Heart-Mind with Gratitude in This Moment

Introduction

Okay great. So hello everyone, lovely to be with you. Lovely to be with you all wherever you are. Wherever you are in this moment in time on this planet of ours, it's nice to feel your presence. And also welcoming all those who listen afterwards on Audio Dharma and who are part of the Sangha^[1], even if not in time, but in space.

So for today's practice, I want to try something different. Instead of speaking about what I'm going to talk about and then doing the guided meditation, I'm going to switch it up a little bit and just start the guided meditation together. You don't need any experience; whatever is needed will be presented to you in the guided meditation, and then afterwards I'll speak a little about the topic and what we did.

Are you ready gang? Yes. Let's see thumbs up, yes, great. All right, sweet. All right dear ones, let's start practicing together. Let's sit together.

Guided Meditation

Landing in this body. This moment in time.

First arriving by relaxing the body. Relaxing the muscles. Muscles of the face. Of the jaw. The eyes. With each out-breath, releasing more.

Releasing the neck and shoulder muscles. With the out-breath, releasing the hands, the arms. Releasing the chest, releasing the heart.

Whatever preoccupations you have had—self-talk, a monologue that sometimes feels like a dialogue or a cacophony inside—can be released right now. Put down just for this moment. You can pick it up all later. Choosing to put it down. Releasing the heart. Not needed in this moment.

Take refuge. Spacious silence.

Releasing the abdomen and the back, especially the lower back. Releasing the groin area. Let the weight of your entire upper body land in your sit bones, offered to the earth. Releasing the legs: upper legs, knees, lower legs, and feet. Let that feel heavy on the earth, your entire weight offered to the earth.

Relaxing the whole body, letting the breath move through. Receiving the breath in the abdomen.

The entirety of the in-breath, can you stay with it? Receive it. The entirety of the out-breath, exhaling, letting go. Can you stay with it?

Challenge yourself for the next three breaths to stay with the entire breath. Now relaxing, receiving three more breaths.

If you feel lost at any point, no problem. Release smilingly and reconnect with the next three breaths. Just the next three breaths. Staying present with the next three breaths. And when you find yourself lost, reconnecting again. No need for huge determination, just for three breaths, that's it. That's all.

And now just for the next two breaths, releasing some more.

And now just connecting with this in-breath, this out-breath, that's all. Just one breath. And if you feel lost at any point, not a problem. Release. Just connect with this one breath right here. As if it's your first breath, as if it's your last breath. The only breath we really know is right here. That's all. Right here, right now.

As we connect with just this one breath, also connecting with the goodness, the good fortune of this breath in this body, to gladden the mind, gladden the heart.

Let each breath, as you connect with it, breathing in some blessing right now that you feel. Maybe that there isn't a lot of pain in the body, connect with that. Or if there is pain, maybe it's not too strong. Or if it is strong, you're able to sit with it or be with it. A blessing.

Maybe you're sitting somewhere where it's comfortable, sitting on a comfortable chair or cushion. Let yourself connect with the goodness of that. Gratitude for this here right now. No past, no future. Right here. Grateful for this, the immediacy of this.

A roof over my head, safe from the elements. Gratitude for this. Our ears that hear, how amazing.

Go slow, take your time. Slowly connecting with each breath in the body, a blessing. To brighten your heart, your mind, right now in this moment. Explore for yourself. Let yourself really savor before moving on to the next. Take your time. It's wholesome to gladden the heart, inspire the mind.

If you find yourself lost, just reconnect with the breath. Just this breath right here. And when you feel embodied, reconnect with the blessing. Brighten your heart and mind with goodness. Filled with the abundance of your life. The sorrows and problems and scarcity, but all the blessings of which each of us have plenty of, as well as the challenges and difficulties. Turning towards the good.

You had a meal today, maybe friends or family you're able to connect to in the past week. So many gifts.

As we begin to bring this sitting to a close, let yourself feel the goodness of knowing the Dharma^[2], knowing the practice, having met the practice. What a gift that is readily accessible through technology these days, and that you have met it. Here you are. Wow, how lovely.

Blessings of a community of practitioners. Blessing of the capacity to wake up in this very life for each and every one of us. Yes, yes we can. Wake up. Be free, be light, be loving, compassionate, wise in this very life.

For whatever level of freedom, ease, love, and joy that we have, we have had on our path, to celebrate, take delight, give thanks. Give thanks for our good fortune to be born as a human being, with all its trials, tribulations, all its gifts, all its joys, all its sorrows. What a ride, what a ride. How amazing, how amazing.

Give thanks. To give thanks for our good fortune, our blessings for our challenges that have brought us here, have made us more tender, compassionate, more human.

Give thanks for all the lives whose touched ours, and all the lives we've touched. All the love we have received, all the support, and all the support we have given. This web, this interconnected web of humanity. Give thanks, give thanks for our place in it.

And be heartened with inspiration, aspiration. Sharing your gifts, your gratitude, your goodness, your life as an offering.

With all beings everywhere, may my life, may my practice serve as a cause and condition for my own awakening, my own well-being, my own freedom, joy, happiness, freedom from suffering. May my life serve freedom, awakening, happiness, goodness for all beings in ways I may not be able to fathom. And the little self that I see myself, I offer. I offer my goodness, the goodness of this practice, to all beings everywhere, which include myself.

May all beings everywhere be happy, healthy, and have ease. May all beings everywhere, including myself, be free.

Thank you all. Thank you for your practice.

Reflections on the Practice

What a joy to practice together. What a gift. What a gift to come together on this Zoom or YouTube or whatever it is. What a gift to be able to do this together. I feel happier and more grateful through this practice together.

So what we did, just a quick recap. We started with settling in the body with the breath. First relaxing the body, starting from the head going down, relaxing, landing in the body so we can become embodied. And then we connected with the breath, receiving the breath in the abdomen.

I invited you to receive the next three breaths. So that was a pretty low level of commitment, just stay with three breaths, and then you would refresh your commitment when you got to the end of the three breaths. Then after a while, there could be a tendency to pull forward and not be with one breath, but just kind of pull to the second and the third to the end of the race. So we pulled back to just two breaths, and then we pulled back even more after we had the scaffolding of the three breaths, we pulled back to just one breath. Just this one. Just this in-breath, just this out-breath.

And then as we stayed with the breath for a while, we connected the breath, breathing in what we're grateful for right here, right now, in the immediacy of our experience. Just like our breath, the immediacy of the experience. The cushion we're sitting on, the warmth of where we are, the roof over our heads, maybe the meal we have eaten that's giving us energy.

I invited you to explore for yourself, brightening your heart and mind, which is skillful, it's wholesome to do this with the blessings in your life. Because we usually turn to see where the problems are; we don't turn to what's good. And then when we turn to what's good, it's like, Oh my goodness, I am so blessed. Yes, there are problems, yes, of course there's sorrow and suffering, but yes, so many blessings.

And at the end we turned to the blessing of the Triple Jewel^[3]: the Sangha, the community of practitioners. How lovely that we're practicing with other human beings right now on this path with us. And then we turned to the Dharma, the teachings, having met the teachings. How awesome is that? Wow, through technology here we go on Zoom, who would have thought? On YouTube.

And then turning to the Buddha within, the possibility of our awakening. Yes, we can. Of course we can, otherwise the Buddha wouldn't have taught it. And we know we can. We know there is goodness within this being. Trust there's goodness here, of course. And that serves as a source of joy and delight. So that was the arc of our practice.

Q&A and Reflections

So now I'd like to invite you all, if you have reflections, questions, comments, or complaints, you can put them in chat. You can raise your Zoom hand. What did you discover from this practice? And the invitation, especially if you haven't spoken for a while—if you have recently spoken, I invite you to pull back, allow other people to pull forward. The offering is really for the benefit of everyone.

Christine.

Christine: Hi Ms. Nikki. That was great, exactly what I needed to hear tonight. I'm getting ready to fly to the East Coast tomorrow, and I just know coming tonight, because I've been keeping myself calm today trying not to listen to the news. I just felt this sense of peace that all is well, all is going to be well tomorrow. Having, like you said, a group of people, I thought I'll share this and everyone can take that to the heart, that it's going to be okay. Just that breathing just kept it. There's no panic in me, it's just like it's going to be okay. So thank you so much for this, exactly what I needed to hear tonight.

Nikki: Oh, beautiful. Thank you, Christine. Thank you so much for sharing your reflection, lovely. And so beautiful to gladden our hearts, right? Gladden our hearts and minds, a sense of peace and ease that arises. And this is available. Travel can be stressful and unpredictable and all that. If it arises, remember this is available to you. If you're sitting, and I don't know, if your flight is delayed or something, again, you could be sitting in the lounges stressing out like, Okay, yeah, I'm just gonna remind myself, breathe in with all the blessings that are happening in this moment. All the blessings.

And when you said everything is going to be all right, I want to share with you, actually. This is a haiku that someone wrote recently on a retreat I was teaching. I taught a mindfulness of mortality retreat a couple of weeks ago at Spirit Rock on land, and the retreatants were invited towards the end to write haikus to capture some of their insights. So here's this one that I saved. They say:

I've now understood that it's already all right everything ever

Isn't that it? I've now understood that it's already all right, everything ever. And that is an insight, that is an understanding. Even when things go wrong, it's already all right, everything ever. So I offer that to you, Christine, for your travels. Thank you.

Any other reflections, comments?

As I wait for your reflections, either in chat if you want to share them or raising your hand, I'll share a reflection with you. Before starting to teach, I was feeling fatigued. I had an intense day of trying to finish something, accomplish something, and I feel less tired now. There is a refresh. I feel more refreshed, not just in my mind but in my body, which is very interesting, right? The relationship between the mind and body.

Sarah, please.

Sarah: Hi everybody. Thank you so much, Nikki. That was just such a beautiful meditation. You have such a soothing voice. I just wanted to reflect back on how, so often when we're in pain, how it can become overwhelming. It can become the theme of our days and our sleep and everything that revolves around alleviating, finding comfortable positions. I have some knee pain that I've been struggling with recently, and so I always have to get creative with my meditation posture. It's interesting because, as you brought that up during the meditation, I just reflected on the fact that I can be with it. It doesn't have to pull me into the sensations, but that I can experience a multitude of things along with pain being present and still not let it detract from this experience. So that was really helpful to me.

Nikki: Yeah, thank you, Sarah. Beautifully and eloquently spoken. Exactly. When there is discomfort, especially in the body—and the heart too, they're similar—our focus narrows and that's all we see. It's like a microscope and that's all we see, it takes over. And yet we can realize, just as you said, Yes, I contain multitudes. Absolutely, I contain multitudes. The pain is there, it doesn't have to take center stage. There can be joy and gratitude and gladness, and the pain too. Yes, pain, welcome, join the party. There's just so much here. That's lovely.

And one thing to say, as you were saying you have knee pain and need to be creative with your posture, I'm sure you already know this, but just to say that it's okay to sit on a chair, to stand, to lie down. You don't have to sit cross-legged or in any particular posture. You know that already, right?

Sarah: Yes, thank you.

Nikki: Yeah, of course. We have complete permission, there are so many postures the Buddha has taught. This is lovely. In fact, thanks Sarah, and I'll share this with everyone. I was in Thailand a couple of months ago already—gosh, time flies—and there were many statues of the Buddha, of course. There are statues of the Buddha sitting in the sitting posture, and lying down, and standing, all these postures. And I also saw statues of him sitting on a chair. That was pretty fun to see. That was pretty cool to see. So yes, and it is said that the next Buddha is going to be sitting on a chair or something, the Buddha of the next age. Anyway, just giving permission for physical comfort, which you guys already know.

Anyway, so I'd like to invite us to now turn to practicing together in small groups. The prompt tonight is—and we go round and round in a spiral—what are you grateful for? And it's such a joyous experience and practice to say it out loud and be held in witness by two other people with care, with appreciation. And when you also hear other people's joy, if you've already done this practice you know it's infectious. It's a joy that's infectious; you start to feel happy for other people's happiness as if it were your own happiness. It's such a beautiful practice. I love doing this practice.

So one person will share one thing they're grateful for that came up for them. It could be as simple as, Yes, a comfortable chair, I have little pain in my body, or I can be with the pain right now that I have, or whatever it might be. And then the next person, and then the third person, and then back to you, and then round and round. Let's go in alphabetical order. There will be an average of three people in the room. Be kind to yourself, be kind to each other. Just share from your own experience, no questioning, directing, etc. And have fun, this is such a joyous practice. All right, I'm gonna open the rooms. Here we go. Take care of yourselves. Actually, wake up, I need to recreate the rooms. Hold on. Okay, here we go. All right, take care. Here we go.

[Break for small groups]

The rooms will close in about five seconds. We'll wait until everybody is back. Okay, the rooms are closed, everyone's back. And we've got just a couple of minutes for reflection. What was it like to participate in sharing your gratitude and hearing others? And again, if you haven't spoken in a while, I'd like to invite you to move forward please. If you always fall into a pullback, rarely do you like to pull forward.

Is this Michael?

Michael: It is, I must not be muted. But since I'm called, I'm sharing. Sometimes I have trouble with muting a phone. So you're on mic, go ahead. Oh, deep bows. This is Michael, and I just had huge mudita^[4] listening to my comrades share. It was just a beautiful soup that was made in the Dharma sharing. So deep bows.

Nikki: Oh, that's very sweet. Thanks for sharing that, Mike. That just makes me happy. Lovely, sweet. Any other reflections? Even if you're muted, especially if you usually don't share, what came up for you?

Love, please.

Love: I think one of the lasting impressions I have from the group is the gratitude of noble friendship. The gratitude of being able to practice with people in any tradition, any lineage, or just interested in exploring wisdom and compassion in ways that are really profound. So very grateful.

Nikki: Beautiful. Thank you for that, Love. Yeah, gratitude for the wisdom and compassion and spiritual friends on this path. Lovely.

Claire.

Claire: Last reflection is so mundane, you've got to go beyond me. I hit the wrong key on my computer and abruptly left my group, so I wanted to apologize to them.

Nikki: Oh, that's sweet also. All right, it's a sense of responsibility. It's a sense of care, so I appreciate that. That's very sweet, a sense of care like, Oh, I left too early, dear group. That's very sweet. I'm actually so touched by that, I'm getting teary. A sense of care. So thanks for sharing that, Claire, that is sweet.

Oh, so dear ones, it is 7 PM Pacific and we have come to the end of yet another happy hour. Thank you so much for your practice, doing this work for not just your own sake but all those whose lives yours touches directly and indirectly. May all beings be safe, happy, healthy, and at ease. May all beings be free, including ourselves.