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Happy Hour: Dancing with Difficulties, Dancing with Grace

Hello and welcome to this edition of Happy Hour. I am happy to be with you all. I notice actually, as I'm starting to speak and try to smile, it's a little hard to talk because I just had a filling done earlier this afternoon, and part of my mouth is still numb. So that's what's happening. Anyway, we'll see how much it impacts my speech, but the round vowels are going to be hard.

For today, I wanted to invite us to this new exploration. I haven't quite taught it this way, so I wanted to set the frame. To set the frame, I wanted to invite you to consider this game that is played in the context of team building, or I've taught it in improv courses. I'm going to describe it, and then I'm going to invite us to see—well, actually, I'll just tell you what it is.

There is this game that's called a mirror, where you get in front of another human being physically, and one person is person A and the other person is person B. For a while, A leads with physical motions—raising their arms, maybe winking—and B tries to follow. B is the mirror, trying to really follow the lead of A. Okay, got that? Can you imagine yourself doing that?

In the second part of this game, person B takes the lead and moves their arms, maybe their body, their legs, walks back and forth, or whatever movements. Person A, the mirror, tries to follow and mirror all their physical movements. So now B is the lead and A is the follower, the mirror.

And then we often surprise people with this third part, which opens up your thinking. It opens up this traditional way of thinking about being a leader or following in life. The third part of this game is: no one is a leader, no one is a follower, and both are leaders, both are followers. The idea is you get a sense of how to become in sync. No one really takes the lead, otherwise it really loses its edge. But movements happen—there's maybe a little movement and the other person continues it. The lead is kind of handed back and forth, and the following is handed back and forth. So both people are following and leading at the same time, both entities.

If you've never done this game, it can be mind-blowing how it works and how it opens possibilities up. And if you've done it, hopefully you're remembering the joy and beauty of being in flow with another human being, leading and following.

With this, I wanted to invite us to consider the difficulties or challenges in our lives. What if we were dancing with our challenges in the same way? We weren't trying to lead, trying to dominate, trying to say, "Okay, challenge, I'm going to put you in a box, I'm going to deal with you, I'm going to get rid of you." And we were not completely following the lead of wherever the difficulties and challenges took us.

What if we're actually in a dance? We're going to dance with life. We're going to dance with our challenges. The challenge leads a little bit, and maybe we're following. Then we lead a little bit with, "Oh, maybe this challenge actually is opening me up to see in this way, to move in this way." Then the challenge opens you up and moves you this way a little bit, and you move, and then you take the next lead. It's a dance. A dance isn't a fistfight, isn't an act of domination, but is what life is made of. It's an infinite game; it's not a finite game where there's a winner and a loser. It's an infinite game of expression.

The title I want to give to this practice that I'm offering is "Dancing with Grace." There are two meanings to this. What if this challenge isn't just that you're dancing with challenges in your life? What if challenges are actually expressions of grace and goodness in your life? Through this dance, you're being opened up to more grace, to more goodness, to more wisdom, to more compassion for yourself and for others.

Your partner is grace. You're dancing with grace. Grace is also the challenges too—it's both grace and challenge at the same time. Another meaning of the phrase "dancing with grace" in English is that when you dance with grace, there's a sense of uprightness in your movements and your actions. There's a sense of goodness in the whole dance, the whole being in the world. Both of those meanings apply.

The invitation I'm making for our practice together in the guided meditation, as we're about to do it together—of course after we settle in with our breath, our bodies, as always, with our intention—is to see our challenges as grace. It is as if we're dancing with them. Is there a way that they're pointing and opening us to goodness, to seeing things differently? And maybe seeing this whole dynamic as dancing with grace, instead of, "Oh, poor me, I have all these problems or these challenges in my body and my mind and my life." Seeing that you're dancing with grace gives a much more dimensionality in this plane.

So, enough of the framing. Let's practice together.

Guided Meditation

I would like to invite you to land in your meditation posture. If you need to shift and move... Arriving, arriving in this body. Arriving in this moment.

Connecting, connecting with your feet on the earth, your sit bones on the cushion or on the chair, hands on your lap. The uprightness of your spine, a sense of integrity of your posture.

And then relaxing, releasing all the tension in your forehead, your back torso, your chest onto the earth. Each breath opening you up further for possibility. Openness to possibility in this moment.

Letting go, releasing thoughts, entanglements. In this moment, no need. If plans, memories, or stories arise, gently tell them, "Thank you, but not now. Please come back later. I'm giving my heart, all of myself to this practice in this moment."

Every breath, in-breath and out-breath. Just this breath. In-breath and out-breath. Receiving wholeheartedly, kindly letting each breath grace you. Grace your whole body, your abdomen, your lungs, your whole being. The gift of goodness, the gift of life being received. This mystery of being human, being breathed in this form. Letting your whole heart, your body, your mind release, let go with each out-breath.

And as you notice the beginning of the in-breath, greet the beginning of the in-breath. The middle, the end of the in-breath. Can you greet it all? Middle of the in-breath, the pause between the in-breath and the beginning of the out-breath. The middle of the out-breath, the end, and the pause between the out-breath and the in-breath. As if you're dancing with the breath. This breath being a dance.

You're not leading all the time. You're not following all the time. You're both leading and following. And the breath in the body, this body knows how to breathe on its own. It's also leading and following. This body, its natural breath, breathing is a dance. Not too complicated. Don't think about it. You weren't thinking about this dance of breathing until a moment ago. Let it be natural. Let it be joyous. As if it were a partner dance, a delicate dance like the tango with the breath.

Let there be kindness, the giving and the receiving. Lightness. Enjoying the movement, the rhythm, the delight of dancing with the breath. Nothing more joyful than just dancing with the breath in this moment. All thoughts can wait. They can wait, not now.

Receiving, giving. Dancing with the breath with grace. As a practice for what comes next.

Maybe when challenges arise in the moment, just remembering this dance with the breath. It's dancing, giving, taking, kindly, spaciously. It can help bring perspective, groundedness, grace. Grace to our dance with a challenge, a difficulty perhaps.

What if you imagine yourself dancing with this partner, this challenge in your life? Dancing with grace. Maybe a different attitude, a shift in attitude is needed. Not to dislike your dance partner, not to try to dominate it, not to be scared of it, but to open your arms. Hold their hand as if in a partner dance, a sense of trust, and let yourself be held. Both leading and following. Not so much thinking, you don't have to think about solutions, but energetically shifting your relationship to this difficulty. An energetic shift. You're dancing, you're participating. You're leading in some moments and you're following in some moments. It's a dance.

Completely engaged in this dance. You're engaged wholeheartedly in this dance. It challenges you, it also nourishes you. There are some moves, there are some areas on the dance floor you've never explored ever, and this partner leads you there. You don't have to know what they are, but trust you follow. And oh, you notice another corner and you lead. Let's explore this with your challenge together.

And the more you dance, the more confident you feel. This is a worthy dance partner. Challenges you, helps you grow, opens your heart, teaches you. But it's not always in the lead. Sometimes it follows as you lead. Both leading and both following at the same time. Passing the baton back and forth seamlessly. It's a graceful dance. And again, you don't have to put concepts and words. It's just shifting a relationship.

There's a sense of delight. I get to dance, I get to participate in this dance. Maybe there's more zest. Maybe as you're dancing in your mind, your image, there is metta^[1]. There is goodwill for yourself, for the challenge, for the space between the two of you in this dance. The space, this dance floor of life, is much wider than you thought it was. Much bigger, more expansive. Keep dancing. Keep dancing with grace. Breathing in, breathing out.

And when your heart feels like this dance with this partner feels complete in this moment, maybe you bow to each other. Or maybe another dance partner could be a challenge or could be a gift in your life, a blessing that leads you, and you lead it. You help it grow, it helps you grow. The more you dance, the more full of vitality, life, grace, kindness you become. Your heart becomes.

Keep dancing with grace in your mind's eye. Whatever feels appropriate, you can bow to your dance partner. Maybe another dance partner, or maybe you simply sit and breathe. Dance with the breath and feel into this shift in perspective. Challenges met spaciously with metta, with kindness.

You're still dancing. Maybe the dance floor keeps expanding beyond your imagination. Wow, so much potential, possibility, growth. Maybe this has arisen, or can arise, through imagining this dance. Dancing with grace with challenges and difficulties. Maybe there's a recognition of your own ability to dance, skills, capacities, goodnesses that you're getting to recognize and have more confidence in. Capacity to follow and lead, lead and follow into wisdom and love. Unafraid, fully present. Who knew I could dance so well? I can dance so well.

May all beings everywhere discover their capacity to dance, more than they know, with grace. And may our dancing, our practice of cultivation serve all beings everywhere toward goodness and awakening, including ourselves.

Thank you all for your practice and for participating in this dance, exploring together.

Q&A and Reflections

So we have a few minutes for any questions, comments, reflections, special reports from the field. How was this for you? Claire, I do happen to see your hand. I usually don't see people's hands. There you go.

Claire: I couldn't unmute, I was having some problems. Anyhow, you may have noticed that I was smiling through the whole meditation. And this is because it's my favorite of anything you've ever done. My husband and I started dancing tango 12 years ago, and we dance every week. What you talked about speaks so much to the practice of tango. Tango is sometimes referred to as dance as a meditation. And it is very much. Tango people do not speak at all, the music directs what we do. The man directs the woman through his steps. And when you finish, you want to change partners, you just say thank you, and that's the end of that partnership. But it is such a cool experience. I really urge everybody here to try it. It's really wonderful. It's the most beautiful dance you can ever do. And it does encourage meditation, actually. You don't talk at all to each other. You're just following the music. So yeah, you're so much in the space of leading and following.

Nikki Mirghafori: Yeah, thank you, Claire. Thank you for bringing that in, being a tango dancer yourself. That is sweet. That's lovely. I appreciate that. And I do want to point out one difference between the dance of tango as you mentioned, and here in this meditation. It's obvious, but I still want to note it. Here we were imagining not leading or following. In tango, one person leads, one person follows.

Claire: Yes.

Nikki: And here it is leading and following.

Claire: Yeah, exactly.

Nikki: And here we're leading. We're leading and following at the same time. Yeah, thank you, Claire. Beautiful, so lovely. Any other reflections that came up? Maybe as you tried this on, was there something about your perspective that maybe all of a sudden shifted with respect to some challenge you're having in your life? It was maybe not thinking so much, but a sense of, "Wow, yeah, I can dance with this. I can hold myself upright." Madison?

Madison: Can you hear me?

Nikki: Yeah.

Madison: I was at first confused by the idea of letting the thing lead. I was working with this character of my anxiety that I have all the time with me, and I was like, "This doesn't make sense. I don't want to go down this trail that they're trying to lead me." But later in the meditation, when I imagined letting them lead, it was like, "I'm not afraid of you. It's okay. This is okay." It sort of helped me not be afraid and build trust with it. And that created a lot of space. So I just wanted to share that.

Nikki: Beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that, Madison. That's it exactly, because in the dance, right, there's a sense of trust. You know you're holding—like, "Okay, I'm going to hold your hand." And there's a sense of trust, and you also have control, you know, there's give and take. So that's exactly it. This shift in relationship, exactly as you said it. Beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing that. May that serve you. May that support you. Beautiful. Barbara? Still muted, my dear. Wait, how can we help unmute you? Hold on. Try again.

Barbara: There we go.

Nikki: There we go.

Barbara: Thank you. I just want to thank you, Nikki. This was so different from other meditations, other metta practices, and it was wonderful for me. My mind went back over the over 40 years that I was married, and times where my husband was a lead, and other times—you know, over all the years, things changed with causes and conditions and health and different things that come up in life. And so that's what came up for me, was to run my mind's eye through this timeline of when I was leading and when I was following. And I think it was a valuable exercise. Thank you.

Nikki: Thanks, Barbara. I appreciate hearing the sense of recognizing that actually you've been doing the dance of both leading and following in your life, in your relationship, in your marriage for 40 years. Did you say so? Leading and over 40 years leading and following?

Barbara: Well, yeah, it's done now. He passed away a few years ago. This was a nice meditation to think back over the thing that we did together.

Nikki: And a sense of appreciation, and to bring it here in the present. And here and now, Barbara's capacity to dance with life, lead and follow. Yeah. And that builds a sense of confidence. Wow, look at that. That's beautiful. It's not always leading or always following. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing that, Barbara. Beautiful. Nice. Any other reflections? And you can also type them in chat. If you type them to me privately, I won't read your name. If you type them to everyone, I'll read your name. Anything else that might have come up saying, "Oh, this is interesting"? And maybe what we'll do if I don't initially—I think I see your hand there.

Michelle: My challenge is very heavy, but I noticed in the dance it got so light. Nice. And I could move around. So I appreciate that. Thank you.

Nikki: Thank you, Michelle. That's fantastic. Yeah, that's exactly the intention for this meditation. It's to shift our perspective from something that's heavy and unmovable, to, "Oh, it's lighter. It moves." And that can create a different perspective. A different perspective of working with it. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing that. Jerry says, "It seems that life is in fact a dance of change." Absolutely. Absolutely.

So, speaking of a dance of change, we are going to shift into small groups and practice together this dance of life, dancing together. I'll create the rooms, and the invitation is each person will just share one nugget. One brief nugget maybe about this practice, what came up for you, or really speaking about this sense of dancing with life, dancing with challenges, for your own sake, and be held witness so that this perspective, this sense, can be spoken for you. It can be about a challenge, or it can be about something good, or again, about this meditation, or in general. And if it comes to you and you want to say pass and just hold kind space for others, that's perfectly fine. Let's do reverse alphabetical order just to shake it up a little bit. First name and one nugget, next person one nugget, next person one nugget. You go around and around. And remember, you're just sharing from your own experience. Not asking questions, directing, leading—just offering yourself your kindness, and it might be silence. So, opening the rooms. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other.

[Small groups practice]

Nikki: Any final reflections, anything that came up for you, especially if you haven't spoken today or in a while? And I may not see your physical hand because there are only very few of you I see. Vicki? Oh, you're still muted.

Vicki: Yeah, Nikki. I've been away at a different time than this time, but I just wanted to thank you for tonight because this is the first time I've ever really been connected to what the breath is in meditation, and it was just great. It was a way to break down that breath, to both leading and following. I was coming from a walk, so I was leading and following in the walk, and it just matched exactly what I had been doing.

Nikki: Yay, that delights me to know! And Vicki, that lit up for you, that really the connection was really made.

Vicki: Oh yeah. Leading, following, yes.

Nikki: Such a joy, right? Such a joy. And in the breath, yeah.

Vicki: Well, meditating, exactly.

Nikki: Such a joy with the breath like, "Oh, this is so good." Yay.

Vicki: It's just an opening. So thanks for sharing that. That makes me happy to know.

Nikki: And clearly the Sangha^[2] members too, by sharing heart. So it's great. Thanks so much for sharing that opening, that's beautiful. Yay! So thank you all, and thank you, Mary, for being part of the Sangha. Thanks to every single one of you for being part of the Sangha, whether live on YouTube or listening to AudioDharma later. Thank you for your practice and your cultivation. May all beings be happy, may all beings be free, including ourselves.

Thanks everyone. Be well.