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Happy Hour: Happiness Mirrored

Introduction

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Happy Hour. We have a couple of minutes before we formally get started, so let's say some hellos. I'll start by saying hi, I'm Nikki. I'm in Mountain View, California, on unceded territory of the Ohlone^[1] tribe. Let's see the weather: it's still light outside, the days are getting longer here in California. Today was mild, in the 60s. Who's here who wants to say hi? You can unmute yourself if you like and say hello.

Hello, Bill from Dallas. Comfy temperature—glad you're not freezing, Bill! [Laughter] Christine says peek-a-boo from Sydney. Mild in Sydney, 21 degrees Celsius. Ah, nice, mild summer, sweet. Hi Neil, from New Hampshire. How's the weather in New Hampshire? Nice, it's warming up. No snow? Only on your background, it's the only snow right now. I'm sure that's great.

Romina says hello on YouTube, also from Texas. Kevin says hello from Middlebury, California, and E.R. says namaste. Hello folks on YouTube, yay! Nice to have you with us. Anybody else want to say hi before we get started? It's nice to hear your voices. I hear Claire's key clicks, but I don't hear her. There is her laugh! Claire from New York City types, "Hello." Oh, it's a fluffy, sweet guest! Four-legged. That's great, so sweet.

Let's formally get started. Thank you, Neil, for sharing information about the Happy Hour Google Groups, where folks can share information with each other and contact the community offline. Also, information about Diana and myself teaching a four-day retreat in April is in the chat. I change the settings always at this time so that the unmuting ability will go away for the duration of the guided meditation. Chats will just come to the host only, and I start the recording now for the sake of AudioDharma. Here we go.

A warm welcome, wherever you are in the world, whatever time zone you're in. So nice to come together and practice together. How sweet it is. I've been looking forward to coming together and practicing together today.

For the theme of today's practice, I have to say I've been really relishing the muditā^[2] practice, really getting into the habit of it. Usually in Happy Hour, before we started this regular theme of going through the Brahmavihārās^[3]—like mettā^[4], and then we did compassion, and then upekkhā^[5]—we would do different things different nights. But the consistency is nice, to explore one practice for a period of time. It allows the heart to get some footing in it. If there are challenges, that is fine.

If you've had challenges with vicarious joy, empathic, or sympathetic joy, and you think, "Oh, we're going to do more empathic joy?" Actually, let it be. Yay, we're going to do more empathic joy, because you get to explore it! You really get to explore what can work for you and what is challenging. Instead of just doing it for one session and then moving on to the next, it's like when you're traveling. If there are these tours where each day you're in a different city, you kind of get a whirlwind experience. But it's kind of nice to explore and walk the city walls to really get a sense of it. This is just like that.

We'll explore the practice of vicarious joy one more time. A show of hands would be helpful: who is new, either to Happy Hour or to this practice of vicarious joy? You can click on reactions and then raise your hand on the bottom of the screen, so I get a sense of how many people are new to this practice of vicarious joy, muditā.

I'm not seeing anyone raise their hand, so it seems like you've all showed up in the past few days and practiced before. Okay, great. It's helpful to know.

One more thing I want to say before we start: given that you've all practiced with this before—we've been doing it now for a couple of weeks—while you're doing it, also be a scientist of your own mind. See what are the ways that you can really connect with the happiness of others and the happiness of yourself. What are the challenges? Try to be gentle with yourself in working with those challenges. Maybe notice what aspects bring up jealousy, if any, or envy. Be both a practitioner and a scientist-observer of what's happening.

Kevin on YouTube says they're new. Great! And so is Jonathan. Great, we can all attend to this practice with a beginner's mind. As Suzuki Roshi^[6] said, in the beginner's mind there are lots of possibilities. It's open to exploring, open to being surprised, open to learning. Whereas the expert mind says, "Oh, I've done this practice before, I know what's going to happen." It is closed to the possibilities, closed to the surprises. There are always surprises.

I'm inviting all of us, including myself, to have a beginner's mind today with the practice of vicarious joy. At the end, I'll ask you, "Did you notice something? Did you observe anything that surprised you about your practice tonight?" Let's bring a sense of curiosity, newness, and a beginner's mind to our practice today.

Just one more thing to say about the practice of vicarious joy: it's about cultivating joy. It's about turning our hearts to joy—happiness for our own happiness, and happiness for the happiness of others. It's a happy-making practice, especially supporting us to have more joy in our hearts and in our life. Not as a way to avoid and turn away from challenges, but as a way to make more space, to be more available, and to have more resilience. Think about it that way. Okay, enough introduction, let's do it.

Reflections and Q&A

So, I'm wondering what you noticed with your beginner's mind and your practice tonight. I noticed so much joy and expansiveness, as if my heart was beaming with bright light in this practice. Also, the reflection, which we hadn't done the past few nights—this reflection of one's own gladness in somebody else. That added more nuance, more delight, more celebration. The celebratory mirroring and reflecting was just lovely. That's what I noticed, and I would love to hear what you noticed. You can raise your hand, or you can type it in chat. If you type directly to me, I won't say your name, it'll be private. If you type to everyone, I'll say it out loud. Of course, you are invited to raise your hand and share what you noticed, what worked, and what was challenging. It's all good, so take it away.

Carla: I noticed today there was still some tightness that I hadn't had in the last couple of days. It was more euphoric the last couple of days, but I noticed I could still go from tightness to feeling joy and happiness, and go back. It would come back and then go back, so it didn't go all one way or all the other way. I could balance kind of between the two, which was kind of nice. I didn't get lost in tightness.

Shivani: For me, it was the exact opposite. It was easy today, and I felt like I was feeling warm. Like I was excited and felt a whole-body warmth. Sort of like heat—not even warmth, but heat kind of came. I still have it, so yeah, it was exciting today.

Nikki: Lovely, beautiful. Thank you both for your reflections. I feel warmed by both of your reflections, this is lovely. I have one question for you, Carla. When noticing the tightness, and then the gladness and joy of the practice, and then the tightness would come back—did you notice if there was something that mediated or brought the tightness back? Just curious. If you didn't, it's all good.

Carla: I don't think it was a thought that brought the tightness back. I think it was just sensations of tightness, kind of being disconnected from my heart and then getting reconnected again. Being up in my head, not just even in thinking, but just sensorially. It was kind of that dance.

Nikki: Okay, great. I appreciate the clarity of the observation. One invitation for you, and others who might notice tightness somewhere—maybe it's in the head, it's higher up, it's not quite connected to the heart center or this feeling—one approach is to actually try to settle into your body some more. Try to expand the sense of subtleness of the heart center and in the abdomen. Kind of settle in and expand. If the tightness is there, expand to land into this more in order for the tightness to be included, for it not to be separate. Does that make sense what I'm pointing to?

Carla: Yeah, I think I'll have to try it.

Nikki: Great, awesome. Thank you so much, thanks to both of you.

Emily says, "The practice felt so nourishing today. I feel very grateful to have tuned in. It expanded the impact of the blessings by bringing my attention to them." Lovely. Thank you, Emily. It's lovely the way you've put it—expanded the impact of the blessings, because they're there, but it expands the impact when we bring our attention to them. Beautifully put. Thank you.

And one more reflection: "Noticed much gratitude and caring exchange with others." Oh, that's lovely. Gratitude and caring exchange with others.

So dear ones, this is a great time to bring our practice into this sense of gladness and gratitude that can actually feel even bigger when we practice in real time with others. This is the invitation for tonight, and don't hop off just yet for those of you who are a little shy about practicing with others in the small groups. What you have shared is thirty seconds of silent joy, silent muditā for each other—just seeing each other's images on screen and feeling happy for each other's blessings. You don't yet know what they are, but everybody has blessings. Just feeling happy—may happiness continue—and seeing what it feels like when you do that in real time for someone you don't know, or you've just met.

Then, after thirty seconds of silence, go one round with each of you sharing some blessing in your life, something you're grateful for, maybe today. And then others practicing real-time muditā. Yay, may your happiness continue. See what that feels like. You've done it with your eyes closed in your heart, but now see what it feels like in real time. In this way, you can actually take it to the real world. When someone at work, a friend, or some stranger says something, then yay, you can feel happy in real time. Wow, what a nice burst of happiness to have in life, to have access to that. That's the invitation for building this muscle in small groups.

I will invite you to start practicing by looking at each other on the screen, feeling happy for each other's happiness, while I set up the groups. It'll take me a moment to do that. All right, all rooms are open. Enjoy your practice, take delight in it. Here we go.

[Breakout Groups Occur]

Hi everyone, welcome back. All the rooms are closed. Great. I love this Zoom glitch where those who are on the phone don't get muted when they leave the room, so it's sweet to catch the tail end of some of your warm-hearted connection and conversation. It warms my heart.

We have a minute if you'd like to share reflections. Bill says, "I find this practice more challenging than just mettā, but I don't understand why."

Yeah, this can be a little more complicated than mettā. There's more happening here. It's not just goodwill, but it's meeting the good fortune of others with goodwill. So there is more that can come up, and it is a purification practice. Yes, it is a little more challenging in general. It's more complicated, different things can come up. It's good to stay with it even if intellectually you don't quite understand what's going on. For you and others who are finding this a little more difficult, stay with it gently, gently, gently. Remember that maybe there were times you found mettā^[8] challenging, if any of you did. Through practice, it becomes a little easier.

I see Neil's hand is up, so yes, Neil, please.

Neil: You know, I find this very difficult too. I find generally I just lose focus, which, I mean, happens all the time when I meditate. But I seem to do it much better when I'm practicing muditā. I'm wondering what practices I should do going forward to try to overcome this difficulty?

Nikki: Yeah, I think one aspect of it might be—I mean, as you said, mind wandering happens—but given this specific practice, the mind finds it challenging. When something is challenging, the mind might feel it's more fun to think about plans and other things. So I suggest you start this practice where it's really easy. Whether it's your own blessings, a dear person, a child, a pet, whoever, just start where it's really easy so it's not hard. That way, the mind doesn't go, "Oh my God, this is hard work, I'd rather think about what I'm going to have for lunch tomorrow." Just stay where it's really, really easy. Then the mind goes, "Oh, actually I'm liking this. This is fun. I can deal with this." Then go to a slightly more difficult category, maybe just four percent more difficult, where the mind is like, "Okay, I'm on the edge, but I choose to stay." Just on the edge where you can still connect. It's not so challenging that you think, "Okay, I'm out of here," and it's never boring, but it's not so challenging that you're totally disconnected. That's what I would recommend, Neil, for sticking with this practice as you practice on your own.

Excellent questions, both of you. We have come to the end of another Happy Hour together, a happy edition of Happy Hour celebrating happiness. So thank you all. Thank you for your practice, for showing up, and for doing this practice not just for yourself but for all those whose lives you touch. I really mean that. May all beings be happy, may all beings be free, including ourselves. Thank you.