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.

Happy Hour: Safety and Love

Introduction

Hello everyone, and welcome to Happy Hour. If you can hear me okay, if you'd give me a thumbs up... Oh, thank you Marie Christine, I see your thumbs up.

Let's take a moment. Wait, I still need to fix a few settings here. Give me one moment. Ah, okay, disable the waiting room. Doing the various settings... okay, here we go.

Let's start our hellos. If you want to share how the weather is, that would be nice, too. I'm Nikki, I'm in Mountain View, California, on unceded Ohlone land, and today has been a sunny, warm 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Who wants to say hi? You're welcome to unmute yourself and say hello.

Neil in New Hampshire says, "It's 55 and sunny and windy." Nice! I see the background is kind of... is that windy? Is it? Oh my god, this is so cool! I love your background, it's great. Welcome, Neil.

Marie Christine, how's the weather down under? "22 Celsius," she says, "but the breeze is cool." Ah, entering your summer period, right? Or wait, no, fall! You're entering fall, that's right. Yes, the other way around.

Hi, Bill in Dallas! "It's trying... it's trying to rain here." Okay, trying, not quite succeeding. Great.

Anybody else want to say hello? I see Terrence is unmuted. Hi, Terrence. "Hello, hi Nikki, thank you." Hi, thank you, welcome.

Anybody else want to say hello and check in? Hi Kenneth from Albuquerque! How's the weather where you are, Kenneth? "It's good, it's a little windy, but it's about 65 out." Nice. Yeah, similar to California here, except for the wind.

Hi Fred from Canada! How's the weather up in Canada, Fred? "It's night right now." Oh, it's night right now. Okay, so where in Canada are you, Fred? "I'm in eastern Canada... Quebec area." Ah, yes, Quebec area. Tends to be chillier, I think, right around this time. "It's a bit chilly, yeah." Nice, welcome. Lovely to have you.

Great. Anybody else want to say hi and share how the weather is in their piece of the world this Friday? This is kind of fun.

Okay, no more takers. All right, so let's get started. Oh yes, thank you, Neil, for sharing information about the Happy Hour Google Group, where folks can connect, share information, and also receive poems and resources that are shared online. Please join if you'd like to stay connected.

This is the time that I change the settings so accidental unmuting will not be possible during the guided meditation and talk. If there's anything to chat, it will come to the host only. Changing that setting, and also turning on recording for the sake of AudioDharma.

Here we go. Great, so hello again everyone, and a warm welcome to Happy Hour for this Friday edition, after another week in this interesting world of ours.

There are a couple of themes I'd like to invite us to explore tonight. Given that it is Friday, I think I'll have a quieter Happy Hour with a lot of space. So there could be a lot of silence to settle in with the body, with the breath, and just have the sense of refuge, of quietness. That's one thing that we'll explore.

Another theme I'd like to bring in from Wednesday is the theme of safety. We explored offering safety: May I feel safe. May I be safe. Offering safety to ourselves and others. Towards the end, with the reflections, it came up that offering safety is a precondition, or perhaps even synonymous, with love. When we offer safety to someone and let them be just as they are, they can be themselves. It's a way of loving them. It's a way of allowing them to be completely safe.

And guess what? It's the same for ourselves. Offering safety to ourselves completely, to whatever is coming up—which might be challenging emotions or challenging physical sensations—allows them to be however they are in the moment instead of fighting with them to make them go away.

There is this idea of offering safety to our fear, for example, or offering safety to our disappointment or sadness, instead of squashing it or wanting it to disappear. Saying, "Enough now, enough, no, no," we instead offer it safety: "Okay, yes, you can be here. You can be here, it's fine." And there can be resilience, there can be spaciousness. There can actually be love holding it all, so that whatever we're offering safety to doesn't become the focus. First of all, there's no battle. And also, there's plenty of space for a lot more to arise, for gladness, for happiness, for ease and peace to be there.

So those are the two themes tonight, within this context of mettā^[1]—loving-kindness, friendliness, love that we explore towards ourselves. I think that's enough for setting the stage. Let's practice together.

Guided Meditation

Ah, so I invite you to get into your meditation posture, whatever might be appropriate for you in this moment. Moving, maybe see what your body needs to sit comfortably or maybe to lie down comfortably.

Landing. Landing with this body.

Landing with the breath. Inviting the body to relax, to let go.

Letting go of whatever thoughts, preoccupations, concerns have come before.

Landing in this moment. Intimacy with this moment of being alive that has never been and will never occur again.

Relaxing into this body with each breath.

Embracing, as if we're embracing this moment with ease, not with tightness.

Same sense of ease, embracing this moment as if you're lying in a hammock, comfortable, with ease. Feeling safe. Your body relaxed. A warm breeze.

Breathing the warm breeze outside.

Creating the warm breeze inside your breath.

And letting go of the thoughts that are rising right now. There's nothing wrong with thinking per se, but just now as we're trying to settle and arrive, thanking the thoughts. "Thank you, please come back later. Right now I'm giving myself wholeheartedly to intimately sense, feel, be open to refuge."

Solitude. Busyness in this moment.

Letting this moment be a refuge. A safe haven. Offering your heart, your mind, a refuge. Turning away from busyness.

Feeling safe. Contained. Content. The simplicity of this moment as refuge.

What would it mean for you to fully offer safety to yourself in this moment? Drop that question into your body.

So that emotions feel safe. The body, however it is showing up, with fatigue, aches, pains, excitement, story, whatever it is.

For all of it to be completely okay just as it is.

No part of you rejected in this moment. Parts that disappointed, etc., etc. It's all okay.

Fully embraced, received one breath at a time.

Making yourself a safe refuge for yourself.

Breathing in safety, breathing out safety.

In what ways does offering your heart safety feel synonymous with offering your heart, yourself, love and acceptance?

Especially with respect to self-judgment. Can you see how offering safety to yourself can be synonymous with self-love, self-compassion? Ways in which one is the precondition, or perhaps similar to the other.

A soft, gentle smile is an evolutionary way we signal safety to strangers, to others.

What happens if you share a smile with yourself? An inner smile, offering yourself safety and care. See what happens. Experiment.

You're welcome to explore phrases if you wish, or continue without phrases.

May I be safe, or may I feel safe. From inner and outer harms.

May I be happy and joyful.

May I be healthy and strong.

And may my life flow with ease. May I have ease in my life, take care of myself happily.

And now, what if we were turning to safety and offering others safety? Can we make ourselves a safe haven for others? So people in our life feel safe with us, at ease with us, have no reason to be afraid in our presence.

May I be safe. May I be safe.

And sharing the safety, goodness with others. Turning it outward.

May all the beings whose lives I touch, may all of them be safe. Feel safe.

Giving this gift of safety, this wish freely. Cultivating our heart, knowing too well that life is uncertain. Without attachment to outcome externally, we offer this wish, knowing it may or may not be realized, but we offer it nevertheless. A wish of goodness.

May all I come in contact with, directly or indirectly, may all the beings in my life be safe. Feel safe.

Knowing full well that may not always be possible, but sharing the good wish, the good will.

Expanding further. May all beings everywhere... may all beings everywhere, may they feel safe, be safe.

Sharing the generosity of our heart and good will.

And into all beings, including yourself or myself. May all beings, including me, feel safe, be safe from inner and outer harms.

May all beings, including myself, be happy and joyful.

Thank you.

May all beings everywhere, including myself, be healthy and strong.

May all beings, including myself, have ease.

And for the last moment of this practice period, offering safety to yourself, to whatever arose the past thirty-some minutes of this practice period. Whether there was sleepiness, distractedness—it's okay. You showed up as best as you were able to. Offering safety instead of self-judgment to yourself.

May all beings, including ourselves, be safe from inner and outer harm.

May all beings, including ourselves, be free.

Reflections and Q&A

Thanks everyone for your practice. So we explored, as promised on Wednesday, following up on the practice of safety: offering ourselves safety and others safety as a precondition for love. To see what it feels like, this offering of safety to ourselves, so it's synonymous with care, with love to ourselves. Also, what it feels like when we offer it externally.

I'll share one reflection. As I was practicing with you, I found this particular emphasis to be so soothing, calming, and really just a sense of refuge for this being who's me. Just very calming, soothing, and grounding.

I would love to hear your reflections. You can type them in chat, and if you type them just to me, I will consider them private. I won't say your name when I read them. Or you can just say "private" and I won't even read them. Or you can type them to everyone, in which case I'll read your name. Or you can raise your Zoom hand. I'd love to hear some reflections. What did you discover? How did this go for you? Did you notice some things about offering safety to yourself with self-judgments, with emotions, with body pain? What happened?

Erica says, "Soothing is the word. It was like a warm bath for my neurons." I love it. Thanks, Erica, that's how I feel too.

Bill asks, "How does one offer safety to negative thoughts and yet discourage these same thoughts?"

Yeah, it's the same way. The image I like to bring up is with a young child who's misbehaving perhaps, or there's a behavior that's challenging. You don't beat up the child to shape them up, right? You want them to feel safe. You want to offer them safety, and then as they feel safe, they wouldn't hide any mistakes from you. Because if they're not safe, they will hide mistakes from you. They'll hate you, they'll run away. So you need to offer the child inside you safety and say, "Oh sweetie, this is not a good idea, please don't do this."

So it is a wise balance. You offer safety instead of trying to beat yourself into shape. "Yes, you're safe, you're doing the best you can." And yet, you have certain values or intentions. So you try to learn, you try to steer the ship. Again back to the example of the child, you want to be clear of what is desirable, and yet you don't want to beat up the kid. So that's the same idea, Bill. You offer safety like, "Oh, I see you, I see you. Yes, this is not very helpful, dear." As you put in your question about negative thoughts: "This is not very helpful, dear. Yeah, I see where this is coming from—causes and conditions. And yet it's not very helpful. It's not very inspiring." So that's how I suggest working with them.

And yes, love your comment, Erica. Lovely.

Ben says, "It is so important for parents to take care of their inner child." Yes, indeed.

Jerry says, "It helped when you said that life is uncertain, and this made it realistic. Then wishes of goodness and safety to yourself and to others made this real despite the uncertainty." Thank you, Jerry, yeah. I really appreciate how that landed for you. Exactly, so we're not trying to disregard impermanence. Yes, it is impermanent. We don't know, and yet we offer this wish of safety and goodness.

And Bill says, "Thank you." You are welcome, Bill, hope that was helpful for you. Yeah, thank you all for your reflections and for your practice. Also gratitude coming on YouTube from Jairo—if I'm saying your name right here—welcome, glad you're with us on YouTube.

So dear ones, the invitation for practicing in sangha^[2] is to practice and see how we can offer ourselves safety and offer others safety. Can we make ourselves safe for others, just listening to them with care? And also offering safety to ourselves, so that we don't have self-judgment. "Oh, I shouldn't have said that!" And if that comes up, it's okay, can you offer that safety? Offer yourself safety with that. This is a really important practice. So I hope you stay and practice in this way. This is a great sandbox, these small groups that we do within a supportive community, which we can then take out into the world.

If you have to go because you have childcare, etc., thank you for practicing, come back soon. But if you can stay, please do. All right, so I will create the breakout rooms, and let's start with 15 seconds of mettā for each other. Here you go.

Post-Breakout Reflections

God, that's so cool. Hi everyone, welcome back.

The rooms are closed, so we have a couple minutes for reflections on what you noticed and what you learned. So please, you can raise your Zoom hand if you like or type in chat. How was it? What was it like? What did you discover? I would love to hear your wisdom, if you would be so kind to share your wisdom or questions with the sangha. I see some smiles.

Jerry says, "Just wishing the folks in the group mettā made me feel safe." Ah, great, great insight, Jerry. I love you saying this because actually, when we wish mettā for other people, we feel safe. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that interesting? So what you just shared is really profound. In fact, it is said that that's why the Buddha taught this practice to begin with: for safety, for a sense of safety. You wish mettā for others, you feel safe. It's wild! So great, I so appreciate you bringing that in.

Bill says, "I found this a very satisfying experience. Thank you, very calming." You're welcome, Bill, glad you're here practicing.

Sarah says, "To me, safety and love aren't the same thing, but safety is a prerequisite for feeling love and giving love." Beautiful. Thank you, Sarah, for that exploration. To see that for you one is the prerequisite of the other, great. Whatever you discover is fine, is great, is your own discovery. There's no right answer here or wrong answer.

Gita says, "For the first time for me, the need to say 'I' in all of this diminished. It was less personal, the relationship to difficult emotions..." Ah, very interesting! Would you say a little more, Gita?

"Yeah," Gita shares, "sorry, unmuting myself. It was interesting because when I tried to be in my body and experience the space for emotions, the ones you mentioned, and then you brought in the phrases of may I feel safe, suddenly I thought it wasn't necessary. It just felt more natural to experience this as there is safety or may there be space for safety, which then also made it less important to distinguish between being safe for others and for myself. Conceptually, I guess that makes sense. And it's quite common, I think, to talk about in our general sort of community, may there be safety or may there be this. But I must admit, for the first time, I was seeing that there is a possibility of dropping the 'I'."

Fantastic! Fabulous, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, beautiful. May there be safety, just feeling the safety. Well, when that self-referential frame just as you described it drops in, there is no need for it. It's just offering safety internally, externally... just safety internally. It's beautiful. Thank you, Gita, I'm delighted that insight came up. Beautiful.

Kathleen says, "It seems that being and feeling safe with myself will enable the vulnerability needed to love more." Beautiful, thank you, Kathleen, great insight. Yes.

And Jeannie says, "Wish machine turns healing... oh may you heal, may you heal." Terrence, yeah, so I was about to read that publicly, but maybe I won't... anyway.

It is time, it's 7:02. So thank you all for your practice. May you all be safe. May you all be... may there be safety for everyone, all of us, all beings everywhere. May all beings be free. May all beings be happy, including ourselves.

Thanks everyone. What a pleasure and privilege to practice with you. Thank you.