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Happy Hour: Metta as Feeling at Home

Introduction

Hello, a warm, warm hello, dear sangha^[1], wherever you are in the world.

For today's practice together, I'd like to invite us into the practice of metta^[2], considering metta as a way of homecoming—coming home to ourselves. No matter what is going on, whether we feel challenged, tired, overexuberant, or whatever it might be, it's all okay. We are coming home.

Coming home to ourselves means showing up for ourselves with a sense of presence, even if sometimes it might be so hard to just do that. And it's okay. For all human beings, there might be times that it's hard to show up, and we still do it. We just crawl and show up, like, "Okay, I'm here. Now what?" Ah, it's okay. You've showed up. You are here. You're whole. You're home in your body; you're home in your heart. Landing with things just as they are.

Relating to metta not as a grim duty, not as something that we should cultivate—it's not a "should"—but as coming home. There's nothing that needs to be done. Tonight, as I lead it, if you feel like using the phrases, great. If you don't want to use the phrases, don't. This is just a sense of kind presence, coming home. Reconnecting with yourself, arriving, and being with care. Sometimes that's enough; that's all we need. Sometimes there's more energy for cultivation, for phrases. And sometimes just holding what is here is enough. Whether today you're in a space where you just want to gently be with what is, or if there's more space to expand and hold, it's all good.

I'm leading us into a more gentle way of just being with whatever arises, coming home, and welcoming whatever is here. Even if it's a "crowd of sorrows," as in the poem translated from Rumi^[3] by Coleman Barks^[4], it's okay. They're guests. You're home, just being comfortably home. That is the setup for our practice: just coming home to our body, to our hearts, with kindness.

Guided Meditation

All right, dear sangha, let's practice together in a formal meditation posture, which again might be an easy one tonight. It might be lying down if that's what this body needs. I invite you to choose your meditation posture, whatever is appropriate for you. Sitting, lying down, standing. Whatever posture where this body is comfortable for metta.

It's important, even more important, for the body to be comfortable. If you need to shift and move during this guided meditation, it's okay. Do it with mindfulness, do it with kindness. Not jerking your limbs around, but kindly, as if your body is a treasured, beloved being, moving it for relief, and now landing. Landing in this body.

Greeting... ever so gently greeting. Greeting the sensations of the breath in the abdomen. Greeting any tightness or tension present in your face, in your jaw. Greeting gently with kindness any tightness in the shoulders, arms, hands. Exhaling... greeting the exhale. Greeting your heart, your heart space. Whatever is present, whatever is showing up at home, is okay. Making friendly space, relaxing around it. Greeting the legs, the feet, the sit bones contacting the cushion or the chair.

It is so nice to be home. Connected to the home that is this body, this heart, this mind. With awareness, spacious kind awareness. Nothing more to do, nothing more needed than to just feel at home. Relaxing, softening, landing in this body. Whatever is present is okay.

What makes this home is an attitude. There could be aches and pains, unpleasant sensations, or thoughts, or emotions, and yet, holding the perspective that this is a holy mansion, a hallowed sacred dimension. This being that is you, body, heart, and mind, is spacious. There is plenty of space for everything to be just as it is in the wide spaces. For you to feel cozy at home with yourself. Feeling at home with your arm, your jaw, your forehead, your legs. Your abdomen melts with ease, feeling at home.

If you like, if there is a particular space, a physical location—maybe your bed, or a chair, or a place in nature—that you feel particularly comfortable, cozy, safe, at home, you can imagine yourself in the space. And if nothing comes up, don't worry about it. This is enough.

Feeling at home with this breath. The abdominal cavity feeling spacious. Here, at home in this moment, connecting with awareness. Every moment of kind awareness is a moment of being home. Deeply connected, settled, rooted.

See if you would like to experiment putting the palm of your hand on the proverbial heart center, greeting yourself at your own door. Welcome home, dear. You're at home, it's okay.

Sometimes when we need nourishing and healing in our heart, for this being who is ourselves, it's okay to stay home. Animals who are injured or hurting stay in their lair. When we are sick in the body or needing care, we stay close to home where it's comfortable and safe to nourish ourselves, to be ready to show up in the world again. It's okay to be home, feel connected, just in this moment for metta, with metta for this being. Filling our own cup before we fill other people's cups.

Can we feel home? Connected, present, welcoming, kind to ourselves and whatever is arising. Feeling home, connected, safe, making a safe space for ourselves. The first phrase of metta is, "May I feel safe from inner and outer harm." It's a wish for safety. That's one way to practice it, by expressing the wish. Another is to feel at home. Can we feel at home in our body, heart, and mind with metta? We invite ourselves to feel at home. This is metta, a different expression of it.

The more we feel at home with ourselves with metta and kindness, the more we can appreciate and be present for the mystery that is our lives unfolding, this feast that is our lives.

I will read a poem by Derek Walcott^[5] called "Love After Love." I have read it before, and you might have heard it elsewhere. Let it wash over you with this invitation to feel at home.

The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.

Thank you all. Thank you for your practice. May we all feel home, welcome ourselves home in every moment of being.

Reflections and Q&A

As I mentioned during the guided meditation, the first metta phrase is to wish ourselves and others safety: "May I be safe from inner and outer harm." That's the sense of wishing safety. Another way we found ourselves in it today is feeling at home, feeling safe. For most people, home has a connotation of safety, ease, metta, and love. Really holding ourselves, greeting ourselves at our own door, as Derek Walcott put it. This feeling of being at home is a way of expressing metta. Metta is not just one thing; it's not just the phrases. There are so many ways to practice cultivating goodwill, kindness, and well-being for ourselves so that we can then offer it to the whole world.

I'd love to invite your reflections. Kenneth says, "Nikki, thank you so much. It was exactly what I needed tonight." Thank you, Ken, I'm delighted. The floor is open to reflections and comments.

Jesse says, "Such a lovely poem. Thank you for sharing, Nikki." You are welcome, Jesse. It's a favorite poem of mine, so beautiful, and I trust Neil will send it to the Google Groups afterwards for everyone's reference.

Any questions? Anything you discovered? What was it like, actually, this way of feeling home? Simply connecting with yourself. You're welcome to raise your Zoom hand. Yes, Don, please.

Don: Thank you so much. I couldn't help but smile at the beginning when you talked about just showing up, and that's about what I did tonight. It was great. As somebody just mentioned, it was just what I needed. I was thinking a bit about this sort of "letting be" or making space, harking back to our conversation last Friday about, you know, tinnitus or other sort of issues that one might be having. It was really helpful for me, as I was just having an incurably stiff back, and just going, "Oh, welcome, stiff back."

Nikki Mirghafori: Thank you, Don, for that reflection. It's beautiful that you showed up. That's all there is to life, showing up for ourselves, feeling at home. Thank you for connecting this to our conversation on Friday with making space and welcoming.

Bill asks, "How do you welcome unwelcome house guests like anxiety?" Claire says, "What a wonderful concept." So, anxiety, pain, tinnitus—you name it—making space for all of these. Especially anxiety, if you try to push it away, it can be like a wild horse with energy. If you try to put it in a small pen and contract it, or push it away, it doesn't quite work. Treating it as an unwelcome guest causes more suffering, whereas the guest is here already. Anxiety is visiting. It's a delusion if you try to fight reality. Reality always wins.

A guest such as anxiety is part of reality. Being skillful with it means not fighting it or trying to push it away, but giving it space. If you imagine that wild horse, if you put it in a small pen, it will kick the door open. But imagine you give it a whole wide pasture. I've had many practitioners report that this method of treating it works, and I've explored it myself. The anxiety can be there, it can run around, yes, but there is so much space. Anxiety can be there, but it's not the focus. It's not the only thing that gets the megaphone.

There are no unwelcome guests. If you call them unwelcome, you're giving them more energy. Trying to push them away actually hooks them in place. Laura asks about tinnitus; we talked about tinnitus and similar things on Friday, which is on AudioDharma and YouTube, so you're welcome to check that out.

And now the time has come for breakout groups. Deborah, I saw your hand; let's come back to it after groups. I want to make sure there's spacious time for us to have reflections in sangha. Showing up for yourself and each other in groups, starting with 15 seconds of silent metta, and then sharing as little or as much as you like. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other.

(After the breakout groups)

Welcome back everyone. We have a couple of minutes for reflections. Deborah's hand was up, so Deborah, I invite you to share.

Deborah: I hope it is still relevant, but when someone brought up anxiety, it reminded me of a beautiful story from a spiritual teacher, Peter Rangel. He said that one time he and his little boy, who was like six years old, were in a hot tub. It started getting really dark, and the little boy got really scared. His dad said, "Well, that's just fear." And the little boy said, "Hello, fear." A little while later, he said, "Goodbye, fear." The next night, they were there, and he didn't say anything about the fear, he just said, "Hello, fear." So you reminded me that we can just say "Hello, anxiety," and then it takes it away from enveloping us in some way sometimes.

Nikki Mirghafori: I love that story, Deborah, thanks for sharing. In this way, it's not an unwelcome guest, right? It's transforming it by seeing and saying, "Hello, fear. Hello, anxiety. Welcome, here you are. My old friend, my more and more present friend." And that also has humor, right? It's a way of working with it. Thank you for sharing that.

Thank you all for your practice, for showing up for yourselves, for each other, and being at home with yourselves and with this sangha. May all beings feel at home, may all beings feel their own metta, greet themselves at their own door, and be free and happy.