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Happy Hour: Simple Unentangled Caring Presence is Profoundly Beautiful

Okay, hello and welcome everyone to Happy Hour. Lovely to be with you and see you in cyberspace on Zoom, seeing your smiling faces and your two-dimensional presences. Wonderful. It warms my heart.

So for our practice this evening, what I wanted to do is actually try something a little different, which is not say so much about what I'm going to do. Sometimes I frame it, sometimes I give a little Dharma^[1] ahead of time, and sometimes I do the guided meditation and say something about it afterwards. So tonight, what we're going to do—which is different, which is what I do but not as frequently—is let's just sit together. Let's just sit together and explore with a sense of curiosity these invitations for settling in the body with the heart, with metta^[2]—with kindness, goodwill—with a sense of presence, and see what unfolds. With a sense of curiosity, let that lead us. So without further ado, let's sit together.

Guided Meditation

If you're sitting in a chair, let there be a sense of integrity to our body. Maybe sitting a little more upright, rolling our shoulders back, expanding our chest, making sure feet are flat on the earth if you're sitting on a chair. A sense of integrity. Of course, you could be lying down if that's what the body needs right now. Make sure maybe your arms are at 90 degrees or maybe eyes are a little open to stay awake. Maybe you're doing standing meditation, which is perfectly fine.

If you're sitting, feeling your sit bones on the cushion or the chair, and landing. Landing in this body. The felt sense of this body. Gathering, collecting, and relaxing. Both alert and relaxed at the same time.

Inviting the forehead to relax. Noticing if there is any tension in the face, the eyes, the upper part of the face. Moving down to our cheeks, the jaw. Let the tongue be soft, resting. Relaxing the face some more. Muscles noticing any tension to be released.

Noticing if there is tension in the neck, shoulders, arms, elbows, hands. Release. Let their weight drop.

Releasing the chest. Releasing the chest area, surrounding the proverbial heart center, the middle of the chest. The upper back. The lower back. Upper abdomen, lower abdomen. And as we bring awareness to these areas, releasing tension, letting go. Ah, notice that they may feel more expansive.

Releasing the sit bones, relaxing. The upper legs. For the out-breath, you're unhooking, unbinding tension, tightness. Grasping and binding, letting go. It's okay just as it is. Nothing needs to happen. If there's tightness and pain hanging around, that's okay, it's alright. Offer it a lot of space.

Continuing the awareness of the body, moving down to the legs. Upper legs, knees, lower legs, feet. The bottom of the feet release onto the earth.

Feeling the breath moving, being received, invited into the lower abdomen. The whole body if you like. It's not so much that we are intentionally breathing, making it into a project—doing the breath. No, let the breath happen just as it has been all these years. If there is any doing, it's just bringing gentle knowing. It was already happening, this breath. Already moving on its own.

Your awareness just hangs around, hangs out with this good friend, the breath. Breath knows how to breathe you, no meddling needed. Let the attention, awareness, just hang out with this good friend. Spending time, spending loving care with the sensations of the breath in the body.

If your thoughts, balloons of thoughts, want to take you away here and there, past, future—gently, lovingly release them for now. Thank you, not now. Later, later.

I'm giving my heart this practice right now. Soothing, healing, nourishing. Just to be. Just to be receiving sensations of the breath in a relaxed, as much as possibly relaxed, body. An expression of care, of kindness, for ourselves.

If there is a cacophony of thoughts wanting your attention, clamoring for your attention, it's okay. Let them be. You don't have to get entangled. Ah, it's enough to just be here with the breath and the body. It's a courageous act of shifting, turning habitual patterns. Not to get entangled, but to just be present, kind. It's courageous. It seems simple, but it's profound. We didn't get in the ring. Stay here, receiving the breath in this body with kindness, with patience. It's a sublime training.

If the clamoring gets loud, say, Thank you, please come back later. You can be kind to yourself, to the thoughts, to everything that passes through this sphere of awareness. Just this breath, this relaxed body, here.

Can you feel the expression of goodwill for yourself ever so subtly present? The fact that you are sitting, you're practicing—there is movement towards care, goodwill, for yourself and others. And you see how that is informing, imbuing this entire act of sitting here. Take heart. Take heart in the goodness of this goodwill. There's goodness in coming together with others. That too, right in your heart.

The goodness of you and fellow practitioners, multiplied, as we just meet this moment in this body, this mind, in this heart, with patience, with kindness, spaciousness. Such a radical act in our society. Just this breath, this moment. Planting the seed of goodness for so many moments to come. Here, here.

Radical kindness to just be present with our reactivity, for ourselves as much as possible. Getting support for the body from the breath, sensations that ground us. Profound training in care and non-reactivity right here.

Appreciating there is goodness and beauty within. So much beauty within. Not turning always towards the challenges, but also the beauty, the goodness that's here. The beauty of our kindness towards others, ourselves.

And as we turn towards bringing this sitting period to a close, celebrating even one moment of cultivating goodness, presence, patience, expansiveness. It's a moment of living beautifully. It's a moment of a beautiful life lived beautifully. Beauty within. There can be so much beauty with patience, care, awareness, presence. Living a beautiful life internally, and sharing that goodness, that beauty of our heart. Even if there are challenges internally, externally, everywhere, sharing that beauty, that goodness with all beings everywhere. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free, including ourselves.

Thank you all. Thank you for your practice. For sharing, for cultivating moments of beauty. A beautiful life, an internal life to be shared, to be brought out into the world for others, for ourselves.

Reflections

So today's practice was subtle, I admit, but that was the intention. Not so much the words of metta, but the subtleness of goodwill that can be very subtle. Really imbued in the fact that we're showing up for ourselves with others. There's so much goodwill, so much metta. And the metta of non-entanglement in what arises. Subtle but profound.

Jerry says, "Well, what a nourishing practice." Thank you for that reflection, Jerry. I'm glad it was nourishing for you. That was the intention. Not too many words.

Pat also says on YouTube, "Basic simplicity. So nice. Thank you, Nikki." You're welcome, Pat.

Sandy says, "Wow, hope posted to Audio Dharma as want to re-listen multiple times." Yes, I will surely post it tonight to Audio Dharma. You are welcome.

Sridevi, you like my sweet and soft voice. You're welcome. It's not me, not mine. I was born with it, so I can't claim any credit, right? It's just impersonal.

I welcome reflections. What did you discover? If you want to share, you can post in the chat. If you send them to me alone, it'll be considered a private reflection. I would just read the reflection, not your name. And if you want to raise your hand, that's great, too. You can speak your reflections if you want. Questions, comments, it's all welcome. And also, nothing has to be said. It's all okay.

It was nourishing, right? Maybe there was one nourishing moment. Yay, celebrating that beauty, that goodness.

Maybe I'll say one more thing if there are no reflections, and that is this concept of living a beautiful life. It's not an external concept, it's internal. There are so many different concepts of beauty. It's not about things. It's not about ease in the external setting of our world. But there's a sense of internal beauty, internal wholesomeness, internal goodness. Living a beautiful life internally. There could be plenty of challenges, plenty of pain in the body, challenges in our lives, difficult emotions—it's all part of it. But moments of grace, beauty, touching into this dimensionality of life that is both ours and beyond. Bigger than me. There's a sense of perhaps interdependence that arises. Maybe it's through awe, maybe it's through love, through loving-kindness, through just the sense of ethical integrity. There's a sense of beauty, living a beautiful life. And it can feel very simple. It's not complicated. Somewhat like the invitations tonight. Very simple but profound.

So how about we turn now to sit together in small groups, in group sizes roughly the size of three. We'll see how it turns out. The invitation is to maybe share what arises. You don't have to talk; you can just hold silent presence with others. It's a gift to yourself, it's a gift to others.

The prompt is: feeling into an internal sense of beauty. When I invite you to conjure up or feel into a sense of beauty, internal beauty, living a beautiful life—however those words might work for you. A sense of grace, a sense of presence, a sense of service, love. However that beauty expresses for you, maybe you say a few words about that, or maybe not. Maybe your sense of internal beauty is expressed by holding silent presence for others. Like, Oh yeah, this is how I offer my internal beauty tonight. It's perfectly fine. If you do share and intend to say something, say something brief, make space for another person. Maybe they pass, or maybe they say something, and then the next person, and it comes back to you, so you can go around and round if you wish. Or you can pass every time.

But feeling into that sense of inner beauty, a sense of beauty in our life. What is the sense of beauty that you have an inkling towards? Maybe there's a sense of, Oh yeah, I feel a sense of beauty when I'm aligned with my ethics. When I don't just open my mouth and say whatever comes. Actually, there is a sense of beauty, there's a sense of goodness. Maybe that's when the sense of beauty shows up. Or maybe when I'm really serving, or loving, or whatever it might be. So with that, I'm going to open the rooms. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and let's go with alphabetical order, okay? Be kind. Here we go.

[Breakout sessions occur]

Okay, the rooms are closed. Everybody's back, and we have a few minutes actually for reflections that might have come up from this inquiry about beauty, inner beauty, living the internal beautiful life, how you connect with that. So I'd love to ask if anybody would like to share reflections about that specifically, what came up. You can type them in chat, you can raise your hand. Fred, please.

Fred: Thanks, Nikki. Yeah, we had a lot of things that we talked about that were beautiful that I won't go back into, but I think we were all feeling that it was beautiful that we've been able to do this for some time. And the three of us who were together, though we've never been in the same physical place, we feel an affinity and friendship for each other. It only has been possible for us because we've been meeting here, and because it's something that you facilitated and make it happen, and that we keep coming. It's mutually reinforcing and all quite a beautiful thing. Thank you.

Nikki Mirghafori: Thank you so much, Fred. Thank you for sharing that sense of co-created beauty, that we co-create together and we have co-created together for a while. So I deeply appreciate your reflection. Yeah, thank you, warms my heart. Yay, happy hour is a beautiful thing. Thank you, Fred. Diana, please.

Diana: I just shared individually on something—that when it was all over, through the various ideas there, I just felt, with the simplicity of this meditation, a very strong sense of presence. I just felt kind of more together and present than I normally do. I wasn't off doing things, I just was kind of together and simple and there. Beautiful.

Nikki Mirghafori: Beautiful. I appreciate that. Thank you, Diana. It just gladdens my heart as you describe the sense of being together, the sense of alignment, the sense of 'together', the sense of beauty inside. It's an internal beauty when there is a sense of presence. How lovely that is.

Thank you. Catherine says, "Simple and powerful practice. I'd love to practice this way again." Yay! Okay, I hear you. Yeah, sounds great.

Okay, dear ones. It's 7:00 PM in California, and the time has come to dedicate the merit^[3] of our practice together. May all beings everywhere be safe, happy, healthy, have ease. May all beings be free, including ourselves.

Thanks everyone. Thanks for your practice. See you on Wednesday.