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Happy Hour: Opening Our Heart Through Reaching Out

Hello and welcome, everyone. Welcome to Happy Hour. It's just such a delight to be with you, to be sharing the space together. I'm delighted today is, in many countries, celebrated as Christmas Day. And of course, in Australia, as Marie Christine is joining us, and others will be joining us, it's already the 26th. Also, for many countries, it's honored, but it's not celebrated. I was born in Tehran, Iran, where again, Christmas is acknowledged but not celebrated, of course, as big as here.

The theme I wanted to invite us to explore for Happy Hour today is the theme of reaching out. Reaching out to others is an act of metta^[1]. I'm not meaning just reaching out to support them, to give to them, but just reaching out to touch someone, reaching out even for support. Reaching out and sharing of yourself, reaching out and telling people, is an act of metta. It's an act of sharing, connecting with others; it's letting other people in. It could be a matter of reaching out and saying, "Hey, I need support. I need help. I want to reach out to you and talk to you. I feel alone today." That too is an act of metta, not just metta to yourself, but also metta to the other person because you allow them to be there for you.

You are reaching out, allowing, opening this channel, revealing yourself, and being vulnerable. Just as I shared with you earlier—that I wasn't going to say, but hey, yeah, it's true, it's my birthday. There's a sense of vulnerability, perhaps, in that. And then all the good wishes and greetings come. So there is this sense of delight, a sense of gratitude of reaching out. Appreciating that there is this allowing, this reciprocity of metta and care to come back to you, to come back towards you.

Without making it too complicated, as I will lead us in an exploration tonight, it is really acknowledging that opening our hearts, opening the channel—and it might be reaching out to someone, asking for support, reaching out, sharing something about ourselves, asking for help, vulnerability—is actually opening up the channel of metta. Opening this reciprocity, otherwise it's blocked. There is no coming and going that can happen. Our lives get enriched, and other people's lives get enriched because they've been able to be there for us, that they've been able to support, to give, to connect. Connection with care is an expression of metta.

I hope this simple concept makes sense as I'm explaining it. It's basically opening up. It's not just you giving metta, but opening yourself up to receiving, to receiving care. That actually is something that we usually don't consider when we practice. When we cultivate loving-kindness, it's not just for us to share and give, but for us to realize our common humanity, realize our vulnerability, realizing that yes, we have so much to give, and we can also receive.

So let's pause for a moment and think if there's anything else conceptually I want to say before we just dive into exploring this together.

Reflections and Q&A

Thanks, everyone. Thank you for your practice. I'll change the settings if you'd like to share. You can either raise your hand or you can type in chat any reflections that you'd like to share about this realization, this way of practicing. How reaching out is an expression of metta, is opening our heart, and allowing others to reach back out and be there for us. It's a very interesting realization about metta in daily life, in the real world. I would love to hear from you, if you wish. What did you realize? What came up for you? And again, first I'd like to invite folks who usually don't share, who hold back.

Alright, now I'm going to open it to everyone. Whoever would like to share reflections, please. I would love to hear your wisdom, your opinion. Your reflections, your thoughts are important.

Christine says, "Does reaching out give the other person the opportunity to increase their merit points?" [Laughter] Yeah, I think that's one way to think about it in that perspective. Perhaps it's a way of seeing it as a cultivation, right. I appreciate that. It's basically reaching out, inviting them, creating an opportunity for them to cultivate. Yeah, I like that. Thank you, Marie Christine.

Erica says, "I appreciated the visual of the gold thread connecting all." That's lovely. Yeah, thank you. And I see Diana, please.

Diana: Okay, can you hear me? I had such difficulty when it came to imagining. I was moving along and just really relaxed and everything, but the image of imagining my party and the people... There was an incident today. I was about to attend a small Christmas party and it turned ugly. Someone canceled at the last minute, and there's been a habit of this, and it caused such ill will all day, people going back and forth like this. So that's why I was so happy to come tonight.

Finally, I just stayed with listening and stayed with the breathing because I was blocked. I couldn't find anyone to invite at this moment, out of my dear people. What happened was, after a while, it seemed to me, "Well, invite some other people, didn't have to be them." So I reached around. I found a person from the past, and since I was in this mode, I was very grateful for this time. You said, "Take your time," and it can be this person or that person. So I got unstuck and managed to put together a really nice group of people. I got through the metaphor and everything, and it was much better. I think we can do that with a lot of things, but I was in such a fix.

Great, Diana. Thank you so much for sharing. What you shared is such a fantastic example of how our minds—and it's not personal, but how our minds—get fixated on what's hard. Right? And what I love is how you shared this: then you thought, "Okay, how can I work with this? Oh, I'll just invite other people. There are plenty of people in my past." And from what I gather, it was a healing experience. It was just so healing to be in your mind, with your heart, with this group of people whom you invited. And they showed up, and it was healing, and there was metta. Especially after what had happened earlier today, this might actually have been a nice healing experience. So thank you for sharing how creativity, working with not staying stuck, finding ways around it—yay, terrific! Thank you, Diana. That is just lovely.

And Claire, I see your hand is up. Please.

Oops, I lost Claire.

Claire: Sorry. I had an experience today really quickly that I just wanted to share because it was such a great example of how giving metta can come back in the sense of helping one feel wonderful. It was very spontaneous. I live in an apartment building where there are only two apartments on a floor. As I was doing something that involved opening my front door, I happened to notice that my neighbors, who were relatively new in the building and much younger than me, were coming in on Christmas Day with all their luggage. I thought, "Gee, that's a little strange."

I actually had a gift for them, so I said, "Oh, quickly, here, I'm delighted you're here. This was for you. I had meant to give it to you before you left." They had been away. So the husband was going in, he took the package, and he said, "You know, we just lost all our power upstate, and our whole Christmas was ruined because it was freezing cold, and we have two young children." I actually just spontaneously said, "Well, do you have any food?" It was as though I were living in the country. We hadn't had our dinner yet; I would have been glad to have them over, we had a big roast. But it was sweet, they really appreciated my reaching out like that.

Oh, I'm touched as you talk about it. Just as simple as reaching out and then hearing the story. My heart is buoyed hearing that; this is so wonderful. It made my day special. Yes, exactly. It's spontaneous. Beautiful, I love that. It's a great example of reaching out. In this metaphorical example, it was reaching out and inviting. Here you're reaching out, you're giving your gift, and it creates this connection, and you feel better for showing up with your humanity. Thanks for sharing that, Claire. That's lovely. That makes me happy hearing it secondhand, even.

And a couple of quick comments here. Forrest says, "Had difficulty connecting with this meditation, though I'm not sure why. Can you say more about what you feel in your heart when you visualize it?"

It's really a sense of calling. Just as Claire was saying, reaching out to another human being. Just feel into the reaching out. That would be the opening, getting into this practice in this way. That's a quick thing I can say.

And Eric says, "I felt very touched by this meditation. In my party, we held hands and expressed gratitude for being present for each other." Oh, that is so sweet. That's lovely, that makes me very happy. Thank you, Eric.

So, dear ones, time is flying. Let's get into our practice groups tonight. Sharing about reaching out. Maybe in small groups, you're reaching out by sharing your metta, by inviting, by telling people in your group—whom you might have just met, or met before—that you care about them. It's important to you. It's just feeling that thread of connection of humanity between you. So I'm about to create the rooms, and here we go, I'm going to open them.

Okay everyone, the rooms are closed, we're all back, and we have just about a minute. I'd like to invite any reflections you'd like to share. You can either type them in chat. Any reflections from the groups, what that was like. You can raise your hand, type it in chat. I'll stick around a couple of extra minutes after we formally close for singing, as Marie Christine is suggesting in chat. So any reflections you want to share about the group would be lovely to hear before we go, especially if you haven't spoken yet.

Okay, I don't see any takers for reflections.

Catherine says, "It's hard to open yourself up when people you've loved in the past broke your trust."

Yeah. I appreciate you bringing that up, Catherine. I think it is that matter of vulnerability, opening oneself up once again, trusting that yes, people may not accept your invitation, and some people might break your trust. But I think there's more that can be lost in not reaching out at all. Yes, hearts can be broken, absolutely. And maybe they're meant to be broken so that we grow in compassion and care for ourselves and others. Thanks for bringing that up, because I think that can be challenging with this practice too. This is a healing practice. Practicing metta for ourselves and others, to heal and continue to reach out and trust, even if we know that hearts can be broken.

Okay, so I'm going to close the session formally, dedicate the merit, and then we can sing if you'd like to stay and do that. So thank you all. Thank you for your practice, for showing up for yourself and for everyone else, for opening your heart and trusting in this practice. Thank you. May you all be well, safe, happy, and have every blessing. Thank you all.