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Happy Hour: Cultivating Appreciation and Goodwill for Our Benefactors

So, hello, and welcome to Happy Hour. Lovely to be sitting with you, whether it's evening, late evening, morning, or afternoon your time, given all the different time zones and different locations of the world that we all are in this moment, joining each other for practice.

Diana and I decided, given that it's New Year, we would go through the four Brahmavihāras^[1] (the four Heavenly Abodes) more or less systematically. We'll start with mettā^[2] and then continue with compassion, then vicarious joy, and end with equanimity. The four Brahmavihāras, as you might know in the Buddhist teachings, are practiced in concentric circles. One starts with oneself, or in the West, we usually start with an easy being, and then go through the categories of neutral beings, beings we have challenges with, and then all beings.

Last night, Diana started our mettā practice—our cultivation of loving-kindness and goodwill—for a lovable being, an easy being. We always start where it's easy and then go through all these concentric circles in the next days and weeks together. So, continuing along the same lines of where it's easy, in the canonical practices, there are two separate categories for the easy, lovable being. One is a benefactor: someone who's been a benefactor to us, maybe a teacher, a parent, a guardian, or someone who supported us in some way. So there's the benefactor category, which is separate from the good friend category. Sometimes in the West, we just lump them together and make it into a single easy category because these two tend to be easier for folks thinking of someone they care about.

Tonight, I wanted to actually separate them out and lead us in the cultivation of mettā within this easy category of the benefactor. Again, this is someone who supported us. It could be someone in our lives, or maybe someone we have a connection with through their work, teaching, or books. In some ways, they've been an intellectual benefactor that we really care about. We have this sense of care, devotion, and appreciation for them, and we wish them well for having supported us through their work, their teaching, and simply being in the world.

A couple of other things to say as I lead you in this guided meditation. Of course, as always, we start by settling the mind, settling the heart, and settling the body with the breath. We take some time to just settle and arrive, and then we'll open our hearts to the practice of mettā.

You don't have to choose someone just yet; you can choose someone later. If you're choosing someone right now as a benefactor—again, a parent, relative, guardian, teacher, coach, or anyone who's been any kind of benefactor for you—if you're new to this practice, it might be better for you to choose someone who's alive, just so that the complication of grief does not come up. But if you have your bearings, if you've done this practice of mettā for a while and there's a sense of stability in your heart and mind, then it's okay if you want to choose someone who's no longer living and has been really important to you in your life. If you think of a benefactor and this person comes up for you, then it's okay to choose someone who is deceased. Again, this is assuming there's a sense of stability with the practice and it's not going to veer into grief, allowing for just a sense of appreciation and goodwill.

Generally, when practicing mettā, if someone wants to practice for the sake of deep absorption in states of jhāna^[3], we advise them not to choose someone who's deceased. But otherwise, you can work with someone who's deceased unless it veers into grief. It's best to stay away from that until your practice is more established.

Reflections and Q&A

So we have a few minutes for reflections. If you'd like to share, and especially if you haven't shared before or you tend not to share, you're invited to please say what came up for you. Questions, comments, you can type them in chat or you can raise your hand.

Trevor: I don't want to take time away from anybody else who may have something to say and who doesn't speak very often. For the majority of the day, I've been feeling so much shame and guilt, and just such deep-seated, almost primitive feelings. A kind of sadness and depression. It's so interesting thinking about listening to Pema Chödrön^[4] and knowing that there's no way out of that, that to be vulnerable with that and be with it as closely as you can is the only way through, really. When I come to a sit, sometimes there's the relief of that. Like tonight, I thought of my cousin who I'm so close and tight with, and immediately there was a sense of ease. And then at the same time, it's like when you go about your day, you can't do anything else. It's like you're constantly with those feelings. There's school, there's work, or whatever you try to focus on. It's a battle between the fear of being vulnerable with those feelings because they get too overwhelming, and having the courage to be with them.

Nikki: Trevor, I don't know if there is more, but what I heard was it was a challenging day, and I'm so sorry to hear about the overwhelm of the feelings of sadness, shame, and depression. And yet, at the end of this long, really challenging day, as you come and you sit and you connect with the practice, you connect with the goodness of your heart. With the connection that you have with your cousin in this case tonight, the sense of goodness that arises is there.

What I really want to encourage you, Trevor, is that during the day, especially when you feel the heaviness, know that it's there. There's nothing that I came and did to you; you did it all by yourself. This connection, this realization that this goodness is already in you. I'm going to send you a Nikki to sit on your shoulder. You can choose the right or left shoulder. When the day is heavy, she's going to whisper in your ear, "Trevor, go sit for a few minutes and connect with your own inner goodness. You have it." Please do that, will you? Because it's already there. I know it's there, and you can connect with it easily. Here you are at the end of a tough day, connected with it. So is it okay if she sits on your shoulder?

Trevor: It's totally okay with me. Yeah.

Nikki: Alright, great. Thank you, Trevor. Just as a reminder, you can have a visual image of anyone you know. You don't have to have me, but you can have anyone you like on your shoulder just whispering. That works great.

Trevor: I appreciate that. Thank you for taking the time.

Nikki: Of course. Are there any other reflections or questions you'd like to bring in before we go into groups in a minute? Actually, tell you what, let's go into groups so that we can have some time on the other side of it. It's always nice to have just a little bit of time on the other side.

The invitation, as always, is to hold yourself and others in the practice with kindness, with mettā. Here's something I'm going to invite you to try on for size: imagine you're the benefactor of the people who are in the room with you. You hold them with mettā, and imagine they are your benefactors too. Maybe in some previous life. In the Buddhist cosmology, it's said that whomever you meet at some point, they've been your mother, your father, your sibling. So the person you randomly happen to meet is your benefactor. They've been your benefactor in some previous life, so you get to appreciate them. I'm not suggesting you believe it, just kind of play with this overlay and see how that might shift things. At the beginning when you go into groups, actually thank each other for being each other's benefactors. That might be kind of sweet. I'm opening the rooms now.

[Group breakout sessions occur]

Welcome back, everyone. The rooms are closed, so we have time for a few reflections. Again, if you haven't spoken before, or if you tend to hold back, I'd like to ask you to share first. Please, what happened? What did you notice either in the meditation practice or in community practice?

I like to say there is no such thing as awkward silence when you're a meditator; it's just silence and we embrace silence. Delicious silence. But it's perfectly nice for you to interrupt it also. So I'll open it now to people who medium share, or not every time, but opening it to the middle category, and the first category too. Holly, please?

Holly: I was saying it's nice to have my attention off myself. A benefactor was really easy access to bringing up goodwill, so I'm kind of feeling refreshed. Even though I was having nausea and dizziness and all these symptoms come up in my body, the practice made me feel a bit refreshed. It's like a good food, isn't it?

Nikki: Oh, that's lovely. Thank you, Holly. It's a beautiful description. Thanks for sharing that. Let's hear more. Anything you can also type in chat. Megan, please?

Megan: I was just saying my benefactor was my track coach from college. I have his picture over by the area where I meditate. I think one of the things that stood out about that relationship was just his ability to see potential in you when you couldn't see it yourself. It made me think about how I view others, especially the learners that I work with. Am I seeing things with a judgmental mind? Am I seeing what they're not doing right? Or am I seeing them with the mind where I see their greatest potential and help that grow? It was a good reflection.

Nikki: How beautiful. I appreciate what this coach did for you in the sense of supporting you, and also for you to bring that reflection to how you are showing up for others and supporting them. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that reflection, Megan.

Lovely, and it's 7 o'clock. I'll just share one word. Earlier today, as I was reflecting on how we've decided to go through these categories kind of systematically, I was thinking of "benefactor." It actually occurred to me that today I've been honoring my deceased mom, who was my biggest benefactor. She was the primary object of my meditation tonight, really appreciating her and thanking her for all her love and unwavering support. Even though she's deceased, there can still be this sense of mettā, goodwill, connection, appreciation, and just a sense of happiness. Earlier, Holly was talking about feeling refreshed through that loving connection, even when somebody is deceased. So I wanted to share that with you.

Thank you all for showing up for your practice, for yourself, and for all beings whose lives you impact. May all beings be happy, may all beings be free, including us. Thank you.