This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Happy Hour: Grace of Impermanence

Great, so hello everyone, and welcome to Happy Hour. I am delighted to feel your presence, whatever your time zone. It's the present moment, yay. We're sharing this present moment, this illusion of time, together. How great is that?

For the theme of this evening, I want to talk about, or invite us to practice with, kindness and compassion towards ourselves, and befriending impermanence.

Sometimes impermanence is on our side in the short term, when there's something that troubles us. Maybe you had a meeting that didn't go well, or you got a parking ticket. In the short term, it's like, "Ah, there's an out." But if you take the long-term view, the longer-term horizon with impermanence, the nature of our lives is changing all the time.

In the big picture, this thing that perhaps happened today, or last week, or the past month, isn't the big picture as it shifts and changes. We can have a larger perspective, holding this with compassion, acknowledging it is impermanent.

So, there are some reflections having to do with that: bringing impermanence, a long-term view, kindness, compassion, and equanimity. We will practice together and see what arises. Sounds like a tall order, but we'll just take our time together and explore our hearts, and see what is supportive.

Okay, with that, let's begin together.

Guided Meditation

Let's settle into our seat. If you need to shift and move into a comfortable position, arriving in this body, in this moment in time.

Letting the breath be received in the abdomen. The in-breath and the pause. The entirety of the out-breath and the pause. Taking some time to befriend the in-breath, the pauses, and the out-breath in your own time. Letting them extend a little bit, slowing down.

If your thoughts are arising, still thinking about what happened before, planning for the next thing, it's okay. It's all right.

Oh sweet, dear heart. Let's put it down. Let's put it all down and just be here, and give our heart fully to this. Just to this right here, this breath. This breath. Let it be felt, received in its fullness, like a cherry blossom in the spring. Fresh. Full. Impermanently glorious. This breath.

And now, as we continue to be embodied, to feel the breath in the body, in the abdomen. Receiving the in-breath, the out-breath. This impermanent, glorious breath, like a cherry blossom in the spring. Let us open our hearts to appreciating ourselves.

We're doing our best. Doing our best. Showing up in every moment in this life as best as we're able to. We appreciate that we are doing our best given all the causes and conditions, most of them out of our control. So little is within our sphere of influence. Doing our best within that sphere. Doing our best within the causes and conditions.

Then again, not trying to pick fights with ourselves, or judging ourselves. Staying with the understanding that if things could have been different, they would have been, given everything that came before, so many factors and forces. And resting with this. Not thinking about it, but resting with it. Letting ourselves breathe with it.

Now, if you like, if there is something that perhaps there is a little bit of an "ouch" from, something recent—today, yesterday, this past week. Not the biggest "ouch," not the biggest thing, but something that's more manageable to practice with right now. Acknowledging the "ouch" with kindness towards yourself. Maybe it didn't turn out as well as hoped, but you did your best. Can you have kindness, appreciation that you tried? Letting go of thinking about it, and just feeling into kindness, goodwill for yourself, for this "ouch," with this "ouch."

Appreciating your own goodness, your own wholeheartedness, your values, your efforts. And within this sphere of kindness, acknowledging that yeah, it didn't go as well as hoped or possible, and it's okay. It's okay. Life is like this, it's okay. And we have stability, equanimity, equipoise, and hold things just as they are, just as they've been, with kindness.

And if we could imagine impermanence as a friend, as an angel of impermanence, paying a visit and saying, "Oh dear one, things change. I'm the angel of impermanence. Things shift always. It's just the way things are." You can put this down. You can let go and forgive yourself. You can forgive the causes and conditions. Perhaps learn, if there's something to be learned, without self-judgment. If there's a need to make amends, do that. Maybe not. Maybe it's just acknowledging, caring, learning, and letting go.

Releasing, releasing, releasing. The angel of impermanence kindly invites you to release. Let go.

Acknowledging with kindness, compassion, letting go, with the support of the angel of impermanence that permeates our lives, our human lives.

May I be kind, accepting, loving towards this person who is me. Knowing I'm doing my best, having limitations like anyone else. It's okay. It's part of being human.

And can we extend this goodwill to others? Maybe others we've interacted with or been entangled with. They too are doing their best. And we offer them kindness, goodwill, appreciation. They too have so many causes and conditions for how they act or show up in the world. Wishing them well. Generosity of heart.

Sharing this generosity of spirit, this goodwill with others. Expanding the circle. People we have interacted with, directly and indirectly impacted. So many circles of beings who directly and indirectly impact us, and we impact them. Wishing them well.

We're not so different, we're all doing our best with what we have, the causes and conditions of this worldly existence^[1]. And offering our goodness, the goodness of our practice, the merit, the wholesomeness of our practice, to all beings everywhere.

May our practice be a cause and condition for our own waking up, freedom from sorrow and suffering, cultivation of kindness, compassion, and wisdom. May we be free, and may all beings everywhere, too, be free.

Reflections and Q&A

Thanks everyone. Thank you so much for your practice.

So we explored, we practiced with, first becoming embodied with our body and breath. Being with the in-breath and out-breath^[2], connecting, settling. And then we opened to appreciating ourselves. A sense of appreciation, kindness, goodwill for ourselves for having done our best. And maybe with something that there might be a little bit of "ouch" with. So when goodness, when kindness meets the "ouch," it becomes compassion. Practicing compassion for maybe a tiny "ouch" that has happened recently, and acknowledging that we've done our best. Letting there be forgiveness, letting there be an appreciation of goodness. And then extending your kindness and forgiveness not just to ourselves, but to someone else, maybe someone we interacted with or were entangled with, and then spreading out to everyone.

And oh yes, there was an invitation to imagine impermanence as an angel, the angel of impermanence inviting us to let go. That was a new element tonight we explored. We experimented with letting go. It's all impermanent. We learn the lessons, we make amends if needed, and then we don't hold on, we don't hang on. We let go. We open our hands, our fists.

[The group breaks out into smaller discussion rooms, then returns]

Okay, all the rooms are closed. Everybody's back. I do see some smiles; they make me happy. Let me turn on the recording. There we go, great, and welcome back everyone. So we have some time for any questions or reflections. What was this like for you? I'd love to hear from you.

Ali: Hi Nikki, thank you for the practice. I came to the practice because of the wisdom aspect of it, you know, those two wings of the bird^[3]. I'm still heavy on that, so that's why I came to the Loving-Kindness Happy Hour, because I know that is the ultimate wisdom, just to have that one. Having said that as a background, when you were talking about throwing in impermanence, I was glad. It was something I could chew on and turn around in the mind. But I was able to see that it's like, "let that go." I was glad you threw that in there. That's where I am, and that's what came up for me. It was interesting that I saw, "Alright, she's talking about that." That's it, thank you.

Nikki: Thank you, Ali. I appreciate what you brought in. What I heard you say was, given that you and many people lean into the wisdom aspect a lot more, as you said, wisdom and compassion are the two wings of the bird. If you have mostly wisdom and you don't have compassion, the bird is not going to fly; it's going to go around and around in circles. The compassion aspect, the practices of the heart, are so important. Actually, I have seen wisdom arise just from doing the heart practices. Ultimately, at some point, if you're just doing wisdom, compassion might arise at the very end when you see emptiness^[4]. But the whole path could be pretty bumpy without kindness.

I also heard you say when I brought in impermanence, it was like, "Oh yes." And yet, maybe the way I heard it was a sense of wanting to think about impermanence. But it's actually not something to think about, and you know that. It's really something to relate to in our hearts. It's to relate to the wisdom of impermanence in a heart-based way. Because usually we grieve impermanence—that's the twist I wanted to bring in tonight. We usually grieve impermanence, like, "Oh, it's impermanent and I want it to stay." I was kind of playing a little Aikido, shifting it like, "Here is the angel of impermanence telling us to let go. It's okay to forgive, it's okay to be kind, it's okay to put it down." So that's how I was reframing it. Thank you, Ali.

Erica, please.

Erica: Hi Nikki. I have a question because I personally have said this in groups before: impermanence is one of my North Stars. I really appreciate knowing that everything changes. The funky stuff is going to get better, and the good stuff you don't grasp because it's just going to do the back-and-forth. But when you start talking about the angel of impermanence and sort of put this body to it, I'm a little confused. Can you talk about what that is to you and what an angel of impermanence means?

Nikki: Thank you. I appreciate what you brought in about the way you've been practicing with it. When things are challenging, it's going to change. It's like the saying about the weather in London: if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes because it's going to change. And if it's something good, enjoy it, appreciate it^[5], but don't hang on to it because things are impermanent. Love it, enjoy it, don't push it away.

The invitation is to bring some grace to it. I love the attitude you have toward impermanence, Erica, which already has a sense of grace. I want to invite us to feel some grace about impermanence. It's not just, "Oh yeah, impermanence, one of the three marks of existence^[6]. Yeah, Buddhists talk about everything being impermanent, whatever." No, it's actually the grace of impermanence. "Oh wow, this is the way things are," and there's a grace to it. That's what I'm inviting when I bring in the word "angel"—bringing some grace, or shifting our relationship to impermanence. Does that make sense?

Erica: Yeah, thank you. I love the word "grace," so that's lovely.

Nikki: Great, thank you. Thanks for that question; it helps me give a little more nuance to what I was trying to invite us to explore. Any other reflections? Marianne.

Marianne: I just want to say, you're so skillful as a facilitator in bringing people to the front. I so admire how you do it. Thank you. For me, an angel is also a symbol of protection, and so that makes impermanence easier to come to accept. It was a wonderful pairing for me.

Nikki: Thank you, Marianne. Thank you so much for your kind words. I love this pairing that you just shared: this angel has a sense of protection, a sense of safety, a sense of goodness. To bring that together and explore it in that dimensionality, that door that can open in that way with impermanence—oh, that's deep. That's very interesting. I'm going to sit more with that. Thank you, Marianne, thanks so much for bringing that in. That's lovely.

Beautiful. Anything else to feel complete, dear fellow travelers, practitioners? The chat is open as well.

Malaya: I really liked it when you were saying "angel of impermanence" because it also made me think that, with all the change happening, there's a caring presence.

Nikki: Beautiful. Oh yeah, it's the intertwining of loving-kindness and impermanence. What you named, the sense of care—that's beautiful. Thank you for saying that. It lights something up in me. Beautiful. Thank you, Malaya.

Wow, thank you all for your practice. This is so heartwarming. It's the first time we're bringing impermanence into Happy Hour in this particular way, and I trust it will open more possibilities and more ways to explore it for each of us, individually and collectively.

So thank you so much for your practice, dear ones. Thank you, friends. May you be well. May you be happy. May we all be free.