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Happy Hour: Metta, Wisdom, and the First Noble Truth

Introduction

Hello everyone, and welcome to Happy Hour! If you can hear me okay, and if the volume is alright, give me a thumbs up. Fantastic. We have about a minute before we formally start, so if you'd like to unmute yourself and say hello and where you're calling from, or you can put it in the chat. I'm Nikki, and I'm in Mountain View, California.

[Attendees greet from Alabama, Dallas, British Columbia, New York, and Arizona.]

Let's get started, dear ones. I'm happy to see you. I'm going to change the chat settings so they only come to me, adjust the muting settings, and start the recording for AudioDharma.

A warm welcome to you, wherever in the world you are joining from, whatever your time zone or country. It is just heartwarming to be sitting with so many wonderful folks from all around the world, doing this practice together.

Metta, Wisdom, and the First Noble Truth

The theme for today's practice is exploring the interplay of metta^[1] and wisdom. There are so many different ways to practice or to consider the intersection, and how metta and wisdom support each other. One way I'd like to invite us to consider is that in the wisdom teachings—Insight teachings, or Vipassana^[2]—there are three marks of existence. There are three characteristics of existence that are just the way life is.

One of the characteristics of existence is taught to be, in Pali, the word dukkha^[3], which can be translated as just a sense of unease or disease. It is also translated as stress, unsatisfactoriness, or suffering. There are many different shades of dukkha. But as I was saying last time, the word itself literally comes from a wheel and an axle that doesn't quite fit well. There's an ill-fitting. There's a bumpiness, a lack of ease, like a bumpy ride.

The invitation to consider is that if we feel there is a sense of unease or disease (especially with what is happening in the world now), it can show up in so many different ways. A lot of times we might take it personally. We think, "Oh, I'm not doing enough. I'm not enough." Whatever the condition is: "I'm not doing enough," "I'm not patient enough," "I'm not smart enough," "I'm not hardworking enough," "I'm not calm enough," "I'm not spiritual enough." Whatever your version of "not enoughness" might be. We put this sense of unease or disease on ourselves instead of recognizing, "Oh yeah, this is part of life. This is what it's like being human." There is just a little bit of bumpiness. There's a rub. Things aren't always being on cloud nine, happy and joyous. No, there's a rub in being human. It's just a part of being human.

Recognizing that, for me, my nervous system relaxes. "Yeah, it's like this." Instead of turning to myself with judgment, I can see that while there is always aspiration and inspiration for waking up, we must also recognize this general lack of ease. This discomfort can show up in so many different ways: anxiety, sadness, worry. Of course, there are ways to work with them in the practice, but just recognizing this underlying reality means you're not doing it wrong. You're not living wrong. Being human is hard. Being human is not for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of courage to go through this life with its ups and downs, physical challenges, emotional challenges, and just this whole deal of being human. It has some unease in it.

Recognizing that, we can relax a little bit. "Yeah, it's like this." It's not perfect; it's not supposed to be. Recognizing that imperfection actually gives a sense of appreciation for the beauty. The perfection of the imperfection brings up tenderness in the heart. It brings up metta and compassion in the heart for the challenges of human life. "Oh yes, it's like this. Being human is like this for me and for everyone I know. It's a bumpy ride." Of course, we practice so that we can have more ease and freedom in the midst of the bumpiness, but bumpiness is a characteristic of being human.

So, the invitation for tonight's practice is recognizing this and letting our hearts relax. Recognizing this bumpiness, and as our bodies relax, as our minds and hearts relax, a sense of tenderness and warm-heartedness—a sense of metta and compassion—can arise to meet it. It can arise to meet the bumpiness in our lives instead of self-judgment.

Reflections and Q&A

If you would like to share reflections, I've changed the chat setting so you can type so everyone can see, or you can raise your blue hand.

Meeting a sense of unease, unsatisfactoriness, with warm-heartedness.

Bill: "Thank you. This was exactly what I needed. I came to this with a bad attitude and upset. I feel better." Nikki: Thank you, Bill. I appreciate that this was exactly what you needed. Thank you for showing up every time.

Judy: "Thank you. Beautiful and so, so helpful." Nikki: Thank you, Judy. I'm so happy to hear that it was helpful.

Denise: "I've melted with this meditation. Melted in love, wisdom, and freedom. Thank you very much for your soothing guidance." Nikki: You're welcome, Denise. It melts my heart hearing that you melted in love, wisdom, and freedom. It brings such joy. I feel mudita^[5]—vicarious joy—for your practice, Denise.

Ben: "My abdomen didn't want me to put my thoughts in it. It was right. In that moment, I wanted to let the thoughts be light and transitory." Nikki: Great, fantastic. I appreciate trusting your judgment, Ben. Trusting that wanting them to be light and transitory in that moment is what worked. Sometimes it works for many people to try to breathe with it. Sometimes if the thoughts keep coming up, bringing the center of gravity down could be helpful, and sometimes not.

April: "This practice made me think of a quote that I heard recently, which I'm not sure I agree with, but I don't disagree. It says that kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom. Because that's kind of like the two wings in Buddhism: wisdom and compassion. Then you talked about bringing wisdom into the metta. Maybe one's not more important than the other, but whenever you have one without the other, you're not really flying because it's just one wing." Nikki: I love it, thanks for bringing that in. You're right about the bird needing both wings. Having just one wing is not going to fly. Just wisdom makes the practice really dry, and only kindness and compassion can become what Tibetans call "idiot compassion"—it becomes enabling. So both are needed. What I appreciate about this quote is at first it's quizzical. It says kindness is more important, and you go, "I don't think so." But actually, if you allow that to just be true for a moment, then you open up to wisdom, in which then the two are equal. It kind of plays with your mind a little bit by actually saying something and then disagreeing with it a little later. I like the quote; it's fun.

Don: "Beautiful, tender compassion meditation. Thank you. Gratitude to you and the sangha^[6], and most of all this practice." Nikki: Thank you, Don. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful for you showing up and practicing, being part of the sangha.

Wendy: "Helpful to deepen the exploration of the First Noble Truth and sit with discomfort rather than avoiding it." Nikki: Yes, Wendy, right on. The First Noble Truth, dukkha, is to be known. It is to be understood.

Bill: "Outside of self-compassion, is there any other advice for dealing with negative thoughts?" Nikki: There's a whole teaching. There are five steps in the Visuddhimagga^[7] about dealing with thinking, with thoughts that keep coming up. I'll mention just a few quickly. There are five different ways to work with thoughts as they keep coming up, and they get progressively stronger, like a bigger hammer. The earlier ones are just ignoring the thoughts, imagining they are flies flying around you. They come and go. There's also the idea of thought replacement. The last one is an interesting instruction where you push your tongue to the roof of your mouth and you just push the thought away. That's the biggest hammer, where you really turn your mind away from it. But before that, there are a few other steps. There is a talk on AudioDharma by Gil Fronsdal on working with thoughts—the five different ways. I think I have talked about it too, but Gil has talked about it multiple times.

Claire: "I had shared in my group, and it's so relevant to what you're discussing, that I was very fortunate to have been led to work with one of the founders of the school of cognitive therapy. It's all about changing your thoughts, and it was incredibly helpful. This man was world-famous, and he was one of the most humble people you would ever meet. He always saw himself as just as fallible and messed up as all the rest of us. He never tried to think of himself as better, but he was always trying to help us find new ways of seeing what we were thinking. It was wonderful." Nikki: What a gift that is, Claire. It left such an impression, not just what he taught, but the way he taught by example of showing up in a particular way. I'm glad you're bringing up thought replacement, because in Buddhism we usually don't do thought replacement, but there are teachings in the Visuddhimagga, the Path of Purification—this thousand-page manual—where thought replacement is one of the methods. It's not the primary method. We usually observe the thoughts, see them coming and going, but it's in there. It can be skillfully used.

I see it's 7:02. Time flies when you're having fun practicing and discussing the Dharma. Dear ones, we have come to the end of our time together. Thank you so much for showing up and practicing for your own freedom, waking up, and all those whose lives you touch directly and indirectly. May you be safe, happy, healthy, well, and free, and all beings everywhere too.

Goodbye everyone.