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Happy Hour: the Body as the Basis of Friendliness and Goodwill

Introduction

Yes, so welcome. Welcome everyone. Welcome to Happy Hour. Delighted to see you, to be with you in this moment in time, practicing together.

For the practice this time together, sometime last week we talked about embodiment. How important embodiment is in the practice of metta^[1]. Embodiment, feeling in the body, being in the body, and mindfulness of the body as the basis for metta, as the basis for every meditative practice, is so important. In fact, the Buddha has said that without mindfulness of the body, there is no awakening, there is no Nirvana^[2], there is no experience of the deathless, as Nirvana is translated. So mindfulness of the body is so important. This feeling embodied, sensing, is so important.

It's not an inferior or preliminary practice. It's not like, "Okay, I've done mindfulness of the body, and now I want to go to mindfulness of the mind and all the other good stuff." No. Mindfulness of the body is so important to always base, to always root, to always ground our practice in the body, in the lived experience of the moment, in the sensations, in the perceptions. So it is so important that we cannot possibly have enough of it. We cannot possibly have enough of mindfulness of the body as the basis for metta, as the basis for vipassanā^[3], for mindfulness practice. It's always coming back to it.

I've been practicing now for almost a couple of decades, and I keep rediscovering more and more beauty, more and more nuances, more ways in which mindfulness of the body keeps opening up for me. And it's just such a delight that it keeps opening up. I keep realizing, "Wow, body as the ground, as the basis, the moment-to-moment sensations as the ground of experience, as the womb of metta."

So that's what I would like to bring in for us in this practice: the appreciation of being embodied, feeling the sensations, as a basis for metta, for cultivating goodwill, for cultivating friendliness. So that is the intention for our practice.

Let's get started. Actually, maybe I'll do things a little differently. I'll pause and see if there are any questions. You can type in chat if there are any questions before we get started, as I set the ground. I don't see any questions coming, so okay. All right, well, let's get started then.

Reflections

So we'll just take a couple of minutes, if you'd like to share any reflections in chat from what came up for you. Maybe a word or two or a phrase. And what I'll share for me is getting really settled in the body can feel so nourishing, and so settling, and so happy-making. And the sense of metta can flow from that. So, any reflections you'd like to share before we go into small groups? And if you raise your hand, I won't see you, so you just have to unmute yourself, which you're welcome to do.

Prajna says "appreciative" is the word that comes up for them. Ali, yeah you're welcome Ali, "rediscovering new feelings of relaxation, much needed after a difficult night." Thank you Ali for joining us and joining and practicing. Glad it was deeply relaxing. Neil offers, "totally chillaxed." Thanks Neil, chillaxed, I love that word. Kim offers, "My body feels calm and filled with sparkles." I love it. So does mine. "Ready for a nap." Lovely.

So I'll pause while I set up the practice meetings. Going to the practice with small group meetings, the invitation is to keep the feeling of relaxedness, as chillaxed, as relaxed as you are, and see if there can be being with others from that space. And don't let the sense of anxiety or fear of, "Oh my god, now I have to talk with people," take over. You don't have to. You can just be silent and be together with this lovely group of people. If you haven't been in the group yet, it's a lovely group of people. They're going to hold you with metta. They're going to hold you with kindness. No need for fear or anxiety of rejection, or how you need to show up. There's no need. So just show up as you are and hold yourself with kindness in showing up, and trust that others are holding you with kindness. Trusting others' kindness, whatever words want to come up, sharing your experience is fine, and if no words come up, that's fine too. The prompt is always the practice for you. You can say, "I fell asleep, I snored through the whole thing," that's fine. Or, "I loved it," or "I didn't." It doesn't matter so much what you say, but how you show up. Just showing up, just as you are, not needing to be a particular way, is an act of metta, is an act of friendliness for yourself, to accept yourself so much to show up as you are. Trusting that you are accepted just as you are. You don't have to show up any differently.

And if you really have to go and take care of others, it's perfectly fine to drop off now if you need to. But please don't do that out of fear. So I will create the breakout rooms now, and there will be a size of three. And again, just showing up exactly as you are, you don't have to be any different. Here we go, I'm going to create and open the rooms. One more thing I need to do here... Okay, I think we are ready. Here we go, dear ones. And if you need to leave, completely understandable. I see Yvette says it's 4:00 AM your time. It's okay Yvette. Thanks for showing up. Take good care. All right, I'm going to open the rooms now.

[Breakout rooms open and close]

The rooms are closed, everybody is back. Welcome back everyone. So we have a few minutes for reflections. But before that, I wanted to just appreciate a couple of other reflections that we had before we went into groups. One was by Ruth, saying she felt relaxed still, and yet feeling all the aches and pains too, which I really appreciate hearing that. And Yuka offered, "Thank you. The mind that was thinking about the future slowly turned to the present. It was as if I was thinking about tomorrow's weather, and it was a very nice weather now." Lovely. That's so well put, beautifully put. I love your use of language, Yuka. And that's actually profound what you're sharing with everyone, because a lot of times we're thinking about tomorrow. And then when we turn here to the body, when there is this deliciousness, the weather here is actually pretty good. There is no need to reach for thoughts, and especially when they're unpleasant. Mindfulness of the body can really show us that. So whoever wants to, I see Bill you're unmuted, would you like to share something?

Bill: I didn't realize I was unmuted. Oh, never mind.

Nikki: I don't want to put you on the spot, it's all good. Yeah. Michelle from Australia is here. Yeah, you're very welcome Michelle. So glad that you could join and hope you join again.

Q&A

Megan asks, "Can you talk a little bit on being present with body dukkha^[4]? Our group talked mostly about this."

Yeah, great. Thank you for bringing that up. I'll talk actually from my present moment experience, because I'm having plenty of body dukkha right now as I'm sitting. There's plenty of pain in my back, shoulders—I've hurt my shoulders. Anyway, with this practice, there are so many different ways to work with body dukkha, but specifically the practice that we just did, I want to talk about applying this to body dukkha.

A lot of times when there is body dukkha, body pain, we have a sense of ill will towards it. Like, "How dare you ache?" We want it to go away. There's a conflictual relationship, using the word ill will, like, "Go away, shoulder pain. Go away, back pain. Why are you here?" And then also the ill will sometimes turns to ourselves: "What did I do wrong?" So there are stories there. There are different types of conflict that come up with body dukkha. One is about the pain itself: "Why is it here? It shouldn't be here." Being angry at it, upset about it. That's one layer, that's one arrow, in the teaching of the two arrows^[5].

And the second arrow is, "Why is it here? What did I do wrong? Maybe it'll never go away. Will I ever be able to sit again for thirty minutes without having pain?" All the stories. So my invitation for the practice we just did is actually having a sense of goodwill. If you imagine these little smiley faces I was suggesting, or anything else that works for you, seeing even the body pain as a goodwill signal. Because it's so much healthier for us, for the body to communicate to us to know that there's something off, than if we didn't have any signals at all that something is off.

So actually interpreting that as a goodwill signal. Interpreting the pain as a signal of goodwill and care. Changing our relationship. Perhaps that's an invitation this way. And similarly, changing our own sense of metta, as I was inviting us at the very end to have a big smile, like greeting the whole body, "Hi body, hi!" Smiling at it. So it's a sense of metta, goodwill, friendliness towards the body, even if it's hurting. So in the case of dukkha, pain, the pain is smiling at us, "Hi, I love you, I need attention." "Oh, I love you, yeah I know you're hurting." So there is a sense of compassion, support. There can be ease in that meeting of holding and receiving body pain with friendliness. So I hope that answered your question, Megan.

Great. And I see it's seven o'clock Pacific Time, so thank you all for joining us. Joining yourselves, joining each other for this beautiful, lovely practice. We do this practice not just for ourselves, but for all beings whose lives we touch, we come in contact with. So may all beings be safe, happy, healthy, have ease, including ourselves.

Thanks everyone. See you on Wednesday. Tomorrow Diana's teaching. You can unmute yourself and say goodbye. Such a lovely ritual to hear your cacophony of voices. Be well.

Various Speakers: Thank you Nikki. Thank you. Bye everyone. Bye Marie, thank you. Bye.