This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Mudita Samadhi 4

Hello everyone and welcome. Today's subject for appreciative joy is what is called the neutral person. A person that maybe you see regularly but have never talked to, never had a relationship with, and you don't really have many real, solid feelings for or against. I mean, there might be some little bit in that direction because that's pretty natural to do, but you don't really know them. There's no charge behind it. The person's relatively neutral in your life.

In terms of liking and not liking, wanting to spend time with or not wanting to spend time with, it's just an uncharged relationship. Maybe someone who is almost a stranger. Someone you can bring to mind, but maybe someone you see regularly in some kind of simple way.

The idea is to consider their joy, their happiness that certainly they have from time to time. Happiness, joy, well-being—they've had it in the past. And to appreciate that deeply, to feel delighted in that, and in that kind of uplift of inspiration around the possibility that that person can be really happy, and that happiness can grow. To appreciate them, and appreciate all the ways in which they have and can be happy, successful, and fortunate in their life.

Of course, we know that they might be challenged as well. And we don't want to ignore that. That's a little bit the role of compassion practice, which we did. But now it's the time for filling the whole range of how we see people to include a kind of resonance with their happiness, their capacity for happiness. Because it's important to see the whole of the person. It's important to see ways of supporting that to happen.

The beautiful art around samadhi^[1] of mudita^[2] is that we're learning how to really open ourselves up. Here the openness, the inspiration that we have, the joy we have, the love we have for the well-being of someone else really takes precedence almost. It's not that we get lost in it, but that's where the juice is because they're a neutral person. We don't know exactly what's going on for them. And we're learning how to be present for people, to appreciate them, to respect them. By doing this, to be able to stop and really take in another person with eyes that are delighted, eyes that take time to appreciate them, to feel joy. And it's easier than you often think to pause and take time.

I often do it at the supermarket when I finally get to the front of the line maybe, and with the checkout clerk, to pause and really look at them. Sometimes they ignore me and sometimes they look back and there's some little spark of delight or appreciation of hello that goes on there. Appreciation. Something gets lifted.

And then we're talking about samadhi, and when we go into samadhi, it's a deep state of harmony, a deep state of really mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual health that we step into. Samadhi is not like a playground. It's not like some altered experience that is just really cool and fantastic and psychedelic to have. At the heart of it, deep samadhi is a chance for our whole system to come into homeostasis, into harmony, into health.

As we feel this samadhi and this goodness of it arising, we can have more appreciation that other people have this ability too. In one way or the other, people have had some—not necessarily samadhi, but they've had really good states of mind and they are capable of that. And may this person have that. May this person be seen to have that ability. May we appreciate them. May we delight in them. In this rich field, we understand better what their potential is because samadhi teaches us ours. Built into it is this appreciative joy.

So, assume a meditation posture and gently close your eyes. Take time with appreciative eyes to gaze upon your body from the inside out. Gaze upon, feel your body with an attitude of appreciation. Feeling and recognizing what is going well in your body. What is going well to be able to sit here in meditation. Finding where in your body, in spite of other places maybe being uncomfortable or challenged, finding where in your body there is some degree of well-being, of ease, something that you appreciate. Maybe it's a kind of place that can be a homecoming, a reminder, maybe a place of your goodness. And breathe with that. Breathe through it. Breathe around it.

Trusting that even the smallest place of well-being inside... This is not a way of abandoning or denying important things that you're feeling or knowing, but it's a way of preparing yourself to be with the challenges in a better way, in a useful way. Taking a time out to spend time with what is going well here and now in your body. Taking a few long, slow, deep breaths, expanding what is good inside as you breathe in, relaxing as you exhale.

Might there be ways in which your mind, the control tower, is holding itself away at a distance from settling into a place of ease, a place of comfort inside, a place of well-being? As you exhale, relax the mind into your torso, into your belly. Letting your breath be normal. But still gently, softly staying close to where the breathing touches. An inner sense of well-being. Harmony, health.

And then bringing to mind a neutral person. Someone you know or have seen around. Maybe you never talked to them, or maybe only slightly. There's no real charge or strong feelings in any kind of way. It's so neutral that it's a kind of situation where you maybe don't even have to say hello when you see them because it's a little bit at a distance.

Considering that this person has had happiness, joy, has a capacity for more, and this person too can smile and be delighted and feel safe and comfortable in their own skin. And not just to wish them well, but to wish, hope: may this person's happiness continue. May whatever is right in this person's life grow, may it continue.

As a way of cultivating samadhi, don't spend a lot of time thinking about this person or imagining or debating. Keep it very simple with a simple phrase, "May your happiness continue." Appreciating them, appreciating yourself. Feeling the joy. A joyful way, a happy way to wish them well. On every exhale, settling into this appreciative joy. Immersing yourself in the feelings, the intention, the image, the wish. Somehow dipping into the deep waters of appreciative joy. With every breath, letting all things out, all other thoughts and ideas float away.

Perhaps with a gentle cycle of breathing, let there be a gentle cycle of appreciative joy. Wishing well. Maybe like waves rising and falling. Joy. Joy for this person. Feeling your joy for them. Sharing. Like we share the same air to breathe. We share capacities for joy and harmony.

As we come to the end of this sitting, consider it invaluable to offer others the gift of love, of friendliness, of appreciation of their basic human worth and value. Showing them they are valuable. By looking at them, being present for them, openly, clearly, with kind eyes, as if it's a wonderful thing to be with this person, to gaze on this person. Something to be thankful for and delighted in. To be there in this open way. Then maybe you would like to be appreciated or seen by someone you care for, someone you feel safe with. And to have the appreciative joy of a neutral person be a place where you develop an interest in bringing this kind of appreciation into the world.

The instinct you have is to not judge other people, be critical, be afraid, or avoid. But something in your heart, your chest, your mind, is there to be present with appreciation. And may this be a way that we bring happiness into this world. We wish everyone well-being and happiness. And we aspire to be a person who contributes to that possibility. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And may we contribute to that by our capacity to appreciate others. Appreciate their well-being and what's going well, what's good in them. May all beings be happy. Thank you.

Dharmette: Love (63) For Neutral Person

Hello and welcome to this fourth talk on samadhi of appreciative joy, mudita samadhi. The classic way of doing this samadhi of appreciative joy is to do it towards a category of people. And the categories I've used this week so far are the easy person, the benefactor, the friend, and today the neutral person.

A neutral person is someone who there are no particular feelings for or against, liking or not liking. Someone who's maybe not really involved in your life, or you're not involved with them. Maybe someone who you see in the distance sometimes, someone working in another department that you see periodically walking nearby, or you see someone in the distance—maybe you walk by and see someone through a shop window that works there, and you've seen them repeatedly but you never really thought about them.

To discover something about the treasure, the richness of love with people who we don't really have reason to love, reason to appreciate, but to find some deeper way to open our hearts, open our kind regard, open our appreciation of this person as well. This is a fascinating and rich area.

Some people consider this the richest area of appreciative joy, maybe even of love—to discover how and why and when to be able to open up to people who there's no obvious reason to love. They're just neutral. They have never done anything for us. We're not going to get anything from them. We don't have some great attraction to them. But to discover some very deep, peaceful, unassertive, unambitious, not-wanting-anything-in-return kind of love... it's like medicine to ourselves.

This is part of the fascination of this appreciative joy, or this whole Brahma Vihara^[3] or love series, is that benefiting self and other are not so different. Loving self and other is not so different. Appreciating self and others kind of come together. The more these occur together, the richer they become for everyone. If we leave ourselves out of the picture entirely, then the love will become partial. If we focus entirely on ourselves, then the love is partial. The fullness of love is in relationship to others. Just as the fullness of language is in speaking it with other people. To have a private language doesn't go anywhere. But to speak the same language as other people, that's where all kinds of richness of communication can happen. So, to share appreciative joy, to have this ability to love even neutral people.

One of the ways to do this is maybe through an act of imagination. A little bit imagining that they smile. Imagining that they've had, at some time in their life, happy occasions, delightful occasions, times that they felt safe—maybe with their family or with friends, or someplace where things were going well for them. Maybe they find a lot of joy being cozy at home, being alone or with their close ones. You just delight in this. You just imagine this a little bit so that you can begin opening your hearts and feel some delight, feel some joy. With the idea that over time, you don't need to imagine anything. You just wish them well. And that wishing well takes the form of wishing whatever is going well for them, may it continue. And may it develop and grow.

As a samadhi, the samadhi is actually also a means of cultivating strong inner mental, psychological, and spiritual health for ourselves. I think of samadhi first and foremost as a deep state of harmony that we come into because we're not scattered, we're not divided, we're not caught and spinning and distracted. We're really quiet, coming into a kind of homeostasis where all the parts of us are settled and working together. We're not actively jumping around to what we're afraid of, the future, the past, what we want, what we don't want. We're here.

To do that around appreciative joy embodies the joy, fills it with health, makes it fuller and better and bigger. Samadhi makes whatever we're focusing on fill the field of awareness in a fantastic way. So, the sense of pleasure that comes with samadhi, the joy that comes with it, the sense of well-being that comes with appreciating others in this open way is sometimes clearer when we're doing it with a neutral person than someone that's easy to love. Because a neutral person is not necessarily giving us a lot of feedback, the reasons to be delighted. But our delight stands out in highlight and we're sharing it with them. We're using that as a way of being fully present for them, even if in meditation it's part of our imagination. "Yes, this person too I will include in my heart. This person too I'll include in my appreciation, my respect, my offering them time, offering them presence, being able to listen to them."

It isn't that you have to do these things. It isn't that you have to go find them and listen to them and be present. Rather, you're cultivating this capacity to be that way. It may be in your regular life you don't do it with that person for a variety of good reasons, but maybe it makes you just ready for the next person you do encounter.

Maybe you're standing in line someplace and the person in front of you asks you a question, and you're there fully for that person as if they're the most important person of the moment. You're just delighted to be able to be in a relationship with them. They've started a relationship with you with a question, and you're delighted to appreciate them, to share it, and be with them. Appreciative joy is beginning to teach us how to appreciate people that normally we don't appreciate, to expand our capacity. And to do it in a way that we enjoy. To do it in a way that is not a "should," not an obligation. It's not like we're forcing ourselves to do this, but something inside of us wants to do this because it feels so good, because it feels so right.

This is part of the art of samadhi: samadhi is not a forcefulness, it's not a requirement. It's something that wants to arise, that wants to emerge. And with that emergence can come, if you're doing appreciative joy, more appreciative joy, more willingness, delight, and joy to do this with others.

One of the things I'm trying to say today is that we're putting ourselves into a kind of rich area of interconnection, interbeing, and mutuality, where our love, our appreciative joy, someone else's joy, someone else's well-being and happiness kind of go together. We're in a sort of feedback loop. There's a connection between these things. Our own joy and well-being grows, and in growing, our ability to be with others in loving ways grows as well.

Wishing people well in a particular way of appreciative joy is to want whatever is going well in their life to continue. And for most people, there's more going well than they recognize. Just simply the fact that we're alive is a phenomenal undertaking. It's a phenomenal gift to be alive, to be present, to wake up in the morning and be conscious. And to appreciate that, to understand that, to value that—not as a "should," but because we're settled enough. We're not agitated, we're not caught in our thoughts, we're not caught in our judgements, caught in our resentments and negative thinking about things, but something in us has gotten quiet and settled.

The reactive mind no longer has us by the nose. The reactive mind is not how we're measuring and thinking about and evaluating this world. The reactive mind in samadhi has become quiet. And that makes a world of difference for our capacity to love, to care, and to appreciate other people. May all of us appreciate others.

The exercise I'd like to suggest for this next day for you is maybe from a little distance, so that no one has to know you're doing this, begin to do a kind of subtle, unobtrusive people-watching. Where you look at people walking by, sitting on a bench, walking down the sidewalk somewhere. Kind of just take them in. And see if you can appreciate them or value them and be delighted in them. Even if they're rushing and you don't know much about them. Certainly, there's a capacity for compassion for a lot of people, but here, is there some way to be delighted? Some way to meet them as if this is the wonderful person of the moment. And wish them well. Wish that whatever is good in their life continues.

Experiment with that. See what happens inside of you. See what shifts in you, how that works for you, what doesn't work, and the resistance to it. Hold it all lightly, but just experiment. Stretch yourself in this. Do something maybe you don't usually do. And find your way to a genuine way of being able to value each person you see.

Thank you. Maybe we'll have one more day on appreciative joy tomorrow. I appreciate this chance to share all this with you.