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Happy Hour: Choosing Our Perspectives

The theme I would like to share with us tonight is metta^[1] as a perspective, as a point of view. We have all had this experience where we know that our life experience—how we perceive something that comes up in the present moment—is predicated on what has come before. Perhaps previous experience with a particular person, a particular incident, a particular food, a particular pain. Whatever experience it might be, our perception of it and our reaction to it is dependent on so many things that have come before, and it's also dependent on our perception of what is arising. The same stimulus could be arising—meeting the same person in the park, or the same pain might be arising—but based on our perception, based on our state of mind, how it lands and how we actually perceive it could be very, very different.

In some ways, we do create our own reality. We are creating our own reality every moment. That is both empowering—we are creating our own reality! So we have the choice to create a more wholesome, more easy, more free reality for us. Or we have the choice to create a reality that has a lot more suffering.

One can actually say that one point of practice is to shift the way we see the world. It is to shift the way we see the world from a predetermined, evolutionarily biased way of greed, hatred, and delusion—in a culturally, familiarly zeitgeist kind of way—to shift our perspective and the way we perceive things to have more freedom in whatever arises.

At some point through the practice, this shift of perspective happens on its own. It doesn't feel so effortful. In fact, it won't feel effortful at all. At first, we're trying to be aware. We're trying to see what perspective we have. We do some training in order to bring up a more wholesome perspective. And at some point that more wholesome or free perspective will become the default way in which we see the world. We see humanity. We see reality, because in some very fundamental way, this reality that we live in is an illusion. If you talk to physicists, they can tell you what an illusion this reality actually is in a very fundamental way.

But backing up to our practice, by practicing mindfulness or vipassanā^[2], we become more aware of the perceptions and perspectives that we have. We become more and more aware of them. And through the practice of metta, we can actually cultivate a different perspective, a shift in perspective. Have you often noticed that the way you perceive sounds, noises, yourself, or your day shifts before or after happy hour? If you have, give me a thumbs up so I can see you. Yeah, I see everyone give me thumbs up. Of course, I notice that in myself. Wow, that was nice. There is more ease. I perceive the world to be a happier place, a more friendly place.

It's a cultivation of this perspective. This perspective is also cultivated through vipassanā and mindfulness practice—insight practice. It's not just the practice of metta, but with the practice of metta you can really see pretty immediately after a period of practice how it shifts your perspective. And through practicing more and more, this shift, this different way of seeing the world, will become more part of the way we relate.

That is the idea for tonight's offering. Before I start and lead us in a guided meditation, I want to invite you to notice right now: how are you feeling? If you were a fish swimming in the water of a particular state of mind right now, or a particular physical or emotional state, just become aware of it.

You're welcome to share that if you wish in chat or not. It's all good. What's coming up for me as I ask myself that question, I realize there is tightness in my body, my shoulders, my back. The first thing that comes up is physical for me, not a state of mind. If I were a fish, the water I'm swimming in is physical discomfort. That's the first perspective that comes up, not a perspective of friendliness of the world, just to share that. If you would like to share what's coming up for you, it would be lovely to hear, and if not, that's perfectly cool.

A little backache from Paul. Julie says tightness in the stomach and spine. Feels like I am treading water instead of swimming. A little anxiety in the chest, and calm. A little anxiety, excitement from another one of you. This is great. So, there's a little bit of anxiety, excitement, and calm in the Zoom room space as well as some physical discomfort.

Thank you for sharing all this. Having taken a pulse, whether you've shared it or just taken the pulse on your own, let's start our practice together.

Guided Meditation

I would like to invite you to get into your comfortable meditation posture, whatever that might be. If you need to move, this is a perfect time.

[Sighs]

Landing. Landing in your body in this moment. Arriving fully for a moment. Letting go of whatever has come before. Taking this moment to just open up. To land, to relax, to soften, to arrive.

Noticing if there's any tightness or holding anywhere in your body. And with each outbreath, as if you're opening a spigot of water...

[Sighs]

Letting any holding, tightness in the body flow. Inviting it to flow. The spigot doesn't need to be closed or tight. Opening it. Letting it flow. Flow, flow, flow. As if you were flowing into the earth, grounded. With each outbreath, letting there be a little more flow.

Checking in. Starting with your head, your forehead, around your eyes, your jaw, your cheeks, your ears, your chin. Letting there be flow. Softening, letting go. Letting there be flow in your neck and your shoulders. Inviting any tightness or holding to flow, to move, and be offered up, offered down. Your arms, your hands, your chest, your abdomen. Flow, flow. Your sit bones. As you bring attention to each part of your body, as if you're gently touching with awareness, or as if awareness is touching ever so gently, caressing each part, saying hello, good evening, good morning to each part of the body. Inviting softening flow. Letting awareness embrace your upper legs, knees, lower legs, and feet. Gently brushing down, inviting flow.

Now inviting the flow of the breath as it moves in the body. It's not so much that you are breathing. The breath breathes itself. Remember that. Just allowing the flow, the pleasant inflow and the outflow. Letting this flow, the flow of the breath, be nourishing, calming, soothing, stabilizing. So much so that your awareness wants to hang out, wants to be with the perception of the flow. It doesn't want to wander to a thought or memory.

And if it does, if you find your attention resting elsewhere, letting yourself have the perspective that it's perfectly alright in this practice for attention to move around. It's part of this training. Letting yourself have a spacious perspective, not a tight one about attention moving. And when you notice, invite it back. Invite the awareness and attention back ever so gently, as if inviting back a beloved puppy or kitty to come and rest with the movement of the breath. Stroking, moving gently. And in time, there will be a purring, to just stay. Stay with ease with the breath. Enjoying the flow.

Can we invite a perspective of ease in the body and in the mind? Choosing a perspective of ease in this moment. Let it be a simple invitation, inviting ease, and let yourself be surprised. You don't have to work for it. Just invite it and sit relaxed with the breath. See what happens.

Now, just as you were aware of the breath, the movement, the flow, and have invited a perspective of ease, invite the perspective of appreciation. As if you were breathing in and out, appreciation is perspective. Don't try to figure it out. Just invite it. See what happens. If thoughts, memories, or too much thinking is arising, let there be ease in the mind and the heart. Just breathing in and breathing out. A perspective of appreciation. Keep it simple.

Now, let this perspective of appreciation be one of appreciation for others. Externally, for others, for whatever is offered in your life. If the word gratitude works for you better, you can try that on. Appreciating goodness externally. And see if it's possible for this external perspective of appreciation to be wordless. It's okay if thoughts were coming up before of things you're appreciative for, but see if it can now be wordless. Just breathing appreciation. This perspective of appreciation without specific thoughts. Just breathing in and out appreciation of goodness externally without any particular thing that you're grateful for. Just a perspective of appreciation.

And now inviting the perspective of appreciation internally. For yourself, for this being that is you.

And if resistance is coming up, see if even that could be held with the perspective of appreciation. Just gentle, easy, with some humor and lightness. Let it be light, not heavy-handed. And if conflict arises, simply drop it. There can still be a sense of appreciation internally. Don't get bogged down. If you hear internal judgments of, "Oh, you haven't done this," or "You haven't done that," or "You're not good in this way," see if you can appreciate all that is you in this moment. Thank you. I appreciate all that is this complex being that is me. Can there be appreciation in the way of friendliness? Gently opening your heart.

And now, can there be a perspective of appreciation? Appreciating goodness both internally and externally. Acknowledging that whatever is arising internally is part of nature. This being that is you, with all its complexity, it's nature. It's not all under your control. And externally too. Can there be friendliness? A perspective of friendliness moving in and out. No discrimination between what's inside and what's outside. Perhaps this friendliness, this goodness, is not treated as a perspective that is yours, that you're conjuring up in a limited sense. Yes, that too. It is personal. But what if it's also universal? Your mind, the personal, opening up, tapping into, touching into something more beautiful with more depth, dimensionality, and grace that isn't yours. Appreciating goodness.

And in the last moments, whatever this period of practice was like, whatever arose, to hold it with appreciation, without attachment to any outcome.

Reflections

So, hello. [Sighs] It'd be lovely if you wanted to share either in writing or by unmuting yourself. I'm going to let you do that. If you wanted to share perhaps something about what's coming up for you. If there is a question or an insight, something you realized or whatever is coming up for you in this moment.

"The practice of loving the kitty when it doesn't purr." Love it.

"Appreciated the cool breeze from my open window." Lovely.

"So much ease. It was hard to reopen my eyes." Thanks, Paul. I feel the same way. For me, there is a sense of ease in my body, and somehow the tightness I shared at the beginning is not bothering me anymore. Interesting shift in perspective.

As I was talking about a shift in perspective, Charlie says, "I feel carefree." Nice.

"Tried to vibe my cat to come lie on my chest." [Laughter] Sweet. That's cute.

[Sighs]

I'd like to run a poll to see whether tonight we want to break into breakout groups to practice appreciating in smaller groups, or to stay in a large group. Please vote on what your preference is. It's very close. I'm going to close the poll. Large group is winning. We're going to stay in a large group tonight. It's nice to have conversation and interaction in the large group tonight.

Q&A

Questions, comments? We have time. It's spacious. You can raise your hand and I'll unmute you, or you can unmute yourself.

I have a specific question for you. The theme for tonight was experimenting and becoming aware of our perspective in the world, and how through the practice of insight we become more aware of our perspectives. How through the practice of metta, friendliness, and appreciation of goodness—all of these are synonymous for me—we actually shift our perspective. We cultivate a different perspective that's available to us. Our perspective is so malleable. Have you noticed sometimes when maybe you wake up and you're not feeling so well, your perspective is so grumpy and anything can set you off? Whereas if you've slept well, you wake up and your perspective might be a lot more kind towards the world.

So we have different perspectives, and yet a lot of times we leave our perspective to chance. We might be ruminating on a lot of negativity and find ourselves really tight. Let's say we're engaging in comparing mind, comparing ourselves to hypothetical "perfect" others. Oh, those perfect other practitioners, or perfect other whatever. Fill in the blank. We're engaging a lot of comparing mind or a lot of ill will. Ruminating, ruminating, ruminating, and then we find ourselves in a very tight, painful, difficult place.

Through awareness, through being mindful of where our mind actually is, what perspective we are swimming in, we become more aware of the water that we're swimming in like a fish. When you become aware of the color of the water you're swimming in, it is possible to intentionally change the color. To take a little dropper of a different color, say of metta, and put a little bit of that different color in the water you're swimming in. The practice of metta does that. The formal practice can make it a lot easier for this dropper of metta to be accessible to us in different circumstances. A lot of times we won't even be aware of it, it can just come up. It can color the water when in our minds we're having an argument: "They said this, they said that," and then maybe naturally our perspective shifts to, "Well, maybe they're really having a hard day, and maybe they're really hurt." The perspective might be one of appreciation of their inner goodness.

There are so many examples I can give. What I'd like to invite you in the minutes that we have left is, if you're noticing right now a shift in your perspective, to really bring awareness to that. If you'd like to share it, it would be lovely to hear. Let's keep it around the theme of perspective, or maybe you've just had an aha moment. I'm going to pause and let you raise any questions, insights, or complaints that you have about perspective.

Shai: I think something that I've been thinking about regarding perspective, especially in terms of when things are really hard, is how and when to not try to shift my perspective so quickly in order to bypass feelings of grief or sadness that might need to come up. That's something I'm still exploring, because I don't want loving-kindness to block out some things, but I don't want to only focus on the grief without tending metta to myself during it.

Nikki: Beautiful. I am so glad you brought that up, Shai. It's important. What I would recommend in what you're describing, which is very wise—not trying to just say, "Okay, difficult mind state, shift"—what would be wise instead is to bring awareness first. The awareness then can help you see what the perspective is right now. Is it a wholesome allowing of the grief to move through? Or is it a perspective of "Oh, poor me"? Or is it a perspective of "Oh, I want to shift my perspective because I don't want to experience this"? Awareness will tell you what the wise thing is.

And then you can decide, "Actually, I think I'm now really wallowing and it's not really helpful anymore. I've gone past the good grief of letting it move through to something that doesn't quite feel supportive for me and others in this process." Really allow awareness to invite wisdom for you to decide what the appropriate response is, so that there is no spiritual bypass. Thank you. Great question. The floor is yours.

Austin: I can go. Just today I noticed waking up on one of those days where... well, first of all, I have noticed that if I don't do my sit in the morning, I kind of will have the perception of my mind going crazy. Once I have done that sit in the morning, then like you were saying, my whole perception is a different color. But sometimes not really, and today it kind of seemed like that. It just seemed like everywhere I was driving today, everyone was not really being generous with the road as far as letting other people go. It just seemed like a lot of greed that I was seeing.

And then I went to the grocery store and it kind of seemed like that too. I remember kind of telling myself, "This is the lens that I am seeing the world through right now." Because like you said, it's just the same stimulus that someone else could see, and they could see it in a totally different way. I've just been kind of noticing that today. I've been really looking forward to doing this, to sit with you guys today. I knew that I kind of had it in my mind that once I would do this, I would have that perception switch like you were talking about.

Nikki: Thank you, Austin. What I'm appreciating in what you're saying is the awareness that you're bringing to your perspective. I love hearing that. You're practicing in real time. The same thing could be happening—let's say the person not letting you in on the road—and another perspective might say, "Oh, this person is rushing to go to the hospital," or just a more benevolent perspective. Maybe they didn't even see you. There are so many possibilities!

What I loved in what you shared is noticing, "Oh, this is the perspective I'm bringing. Somebody else might actually be perceiving this differently." That can really jiggle us out of what we take to be reality—that yes, this other person is mean and greedy. We start to see their humanity. Metta helps us shift this perspective to see other people's hurting. If they are acting with a lack of generosity, there's probably something going on. When people are feeling good, they act generous. When they're hurting in some way—when they have a sense of scarcity, worry, fear, or anxiety—they get tightness. That perspective can be one to bring in.

Making a long story short, what I'm appreciating is for you to bring awareness and to also know that this practice of metta can help support a shift in perspective. We're a fish in the water, and as Viktor Frankl^[3] wrote: that is our freedom. Our freedom is how we choose our perspective, our attitude. That is a freedom that no one can take away from us. Exploring and cultivating that—seeing that perspective and how the way we perceive something brings suffering, or the way we perceive something brings freedom—that is a way to consider the teachings of the Buddha.

It is 7:02 p.m., so it's time for us to end.

I'd like to dedicate the merit of our practice to all beings everywhere. May they have an attitude, a perspective of ease, happiness, and freedom, including us. Thank you all for joining. May you be well. May you be free. Take care. Good night, good morning, good whatever time zone you're in. Bye.