Guided Meditation - Brahma Viharas; Cultivating Natural Capacities of Our Inner Life

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Cultivating Natural Capacities of Our Inner Life (Brahma Viharas). It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Tanya Wiser at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on June 05, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation - Brahma Viharas

All right, so I'm going to take a breath, then I invite you to do the same. Kind of find your groundedness in your body. Feel yourself resting into the chair, the cushion. Giving your weight to the support; it's here for you.

And just check in with your system, your nervous system, your sense of ease. And maybe orient to your location, IMC. Right, feel free to peek if you need to look around and help your mind kind of come into this moment, this space right here. Help it kind of bring this energy, this location, here, now.

I'm taking some deeper breaths, so let's lift the shoulders if you wish toward the ears and then roll them back, and even bring the elbows toward each other, so we want to have the curve in the spine, and then push the elbows down toward the hips. And this helps us engage the diaphragm in breathing, opens the chest so we can more naturally take a fuller, deeper breath.

It's at the start of the meditation I often do these things, including these intentional deeper breaths, to help my body, my nervous system shift into a space of more ease, well-being.

So I'll just allow a little bit of silence here, and then I'll begin the guided practice.

A guided visualization, but I want you to know that you can translate the visual into any way that your mind imagines, connects. I also invite you to shift and change any of the scenery or the words so that it resonates with your being. And feel free to tune me out as well.

So we're preparing to go for a journey, and we have ourselves ready, and we're at the edge of a nature preserve, a forest. And we have companions with us. And as you look around at these companions, you recognize softness, gentleness, patience, attentiveness. When you think to yourself, "These are people I would like to have around me."

And as you look up and out toward the path where you'll be walking, you notice that there is a richness, a lushness to the forest. And you all begin to walk together. There's plenty of room, walking at a pace that feels comfortable.

And you start to notice this feeling of inner—what is it? Bubbling joy or peace, a sense of a heart lifting. The sense that we're going somewhere important as we're walking, and it just gets more and more beautiful. And the path is opening up ahead. You can see more light, more space, and a gateway, sort of a large arch of flowers and vines. They're pink and purple, and every color you love the most.

And as you approach the gateway, you see there are some words. And you see that the space and the words on the garden say that they're dedicated—the space is dedicated to the well-being and happiness of all.

And as you walk in, you can feel this clear... the way it's arranged, the places to sit or rest, the shade and the sun. And as you look around, you understand that everyone here is kin. We are all connected. We all belong in this space. And we are all included.

There's a feeling that these wishes of well-being are radiating out into the space, into ourselves, each other. Our attention is warm and clear, like the sun and water for all the plants here, and we notice the feeling and we dwell in it. We feel it spreading. Feeling safe. Feeling happy, healthy, and at ease. Abiding here.

And in the distance, you hear a child. She was laughing, and then she starts to cry. As you hear the child cry, you feel your heart open, caring. You can feel that you are experiencing empathy for this child, care. And you can see that her loving caregivers are attending to her gently, kindly. And it's soothing to you too to see this care offered; it soothes the heart.

And you remember yourself as a child, moments of crying or difficulty, and you see this little being and you think to yourself, "Oh, I see you're suffering. I remember suffering that way too. Just like you, I suffer, and just like me, you suffer. May your pain and sorrow be eased, dear one."

And you rest, knowing she's being cared for at ease. Resting back to the softness of the grass or the chair you're in. Taking in the smells, the sounds of nature. You feel the warmth of the sun; it's shining bright, right now.

And then you hear the child and others giggling, happy and at play. And you just open your heart to this joy, rejoicing in their happiness. Grateful for their happiness. It's like the sun is illuminating and brightening and supporting the joy. And you think to yourself and to this happiness, "I'm happy that you are happy." Radiant sunbeam of happiness and joy shared.

And it's time to move on to another part of this beautiful forest. And you prepare to stand and walk again with your friends, enjoying the scenery as you walk. Marveling at the sounds and the smells. You're feeling serene, a sense of balance and ease, calm.

And there's a clearing ahead. Looking out over a beautiful valley with a mountain lake that's incredibly clear and bright. The scene is so calm, so peaceful.

Breathing in, I notice my body is calm. Breathing out, I notice my mind is calm.

I find a spot at the side of the lake, overlooking it just a bit. I find a comfortable posture. I feel like a mountain, bright, still, steady, strong, committed to being here. And I sit.

Day turns to night, night turns to day. It rains, it suns. And I sit unchanged, still.

Cultivating Natural Capacities of Our Inner Life

All right, it's really delightful to be here with you, and to see many faces, and to know people are wearing masks that feel comfortable wearing masks. Thank you for being here.

So I want to talk about the Brahma Viharas^[1]. And I think the most important things that I'm hoping to highlight as I make my way through this talk are that the Brahma Viharas are natural states. They're natural states; they arise from within. They don't need to be fabricated. They are accessible, and there are things that get in the way, and there are things that help connect with them.

Natural states, things that get in the way are also gateways to them. And there are things that we can do to support ourselves in accessing the states of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. These are the four Brahma Viharas, heavenly abodes.

So if you're not familiar with the role and the place of the Brahma Viharas in this practice, I'll share a little bit about that. I'll say first for myself that accessing loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity is sort of like a compass for me. I notice in myself when I'm engaging or doing something, sort of, where's the heart? How's the heart? Is there a sense of uplift and ease and openness? Maybe joy—it doesn't have to be joy, but just this sense of, "There's space here, the heart is free." And that's sort of feedback for me about how what I'm thinking about doing or how I'm engaging. So tuning in to this inner compass that helps us recognize when we're engaging in this territory, abiding in this territory.

And when I notice that the thoughts that I'm having, the feelings that I'm having, the physical states that I'm having are quite the opposite, then recollecting these practices—like one of my most favorite recent practices, if I'm noticing the mind is just filled with aversion or difficulty or anxiety, I just start to watch it like it's a stream, this flow of content. And I just imagine all this loving-kindness and compassion filling up the waters, so all these thoughts and things that are coming up are being held in this field. And so I'm not trying to make myself feel better or trying to change the thoughts or the content, I'm just, "Oh, may you too be at ease. May you be safe." Just the thoughts, the images, the worries.

So they're really important for me and important in the practice. Very kind of transformative. They can help us dissolve self-centeredness and support us feeling connected, which is huge. Huge.

So in the tradition, they're talked about as cultivating virtuous qualities for overcoming self-centeredness, for deepening meditation practice. They're actually used as concentration practices, and they help the mind settle. They help the mind come into unity, into rest and ease. And they are purification practices; they sort of purify by supporting wholesome states and thoughts to arise. And they help us integrate wisdom and insight. So if we're the mountain, and we're able to sit with the changing nature of life and experience of the nights and days and rain and snow and people coming and going and things changing—if we can embody that spaciousness, the solidness, the groundedness of the mountain, we can be with the ever-changing experience of life in a way that's balanced. We can see suffering and not collapse into it.

So Ayya Khema^[2] was a nun from Germany, and she described the Brahma Viharas as feelings, and she also said they are the only emotions worth having.

And I'm a therapist, right? And so I'm going to contextualize a little bit of the neuropsychological aspects of understanding emotional states and how they're connected to the Brahma Viharas, or how we can connect with them. Thinking about ourselves as living beings with a nervous system that shifts, changes, and is impacted by both inner and outer stimuli, thoughts, experiences. There's a physiology to the Brahma Viharas. Our physiology changes when we connect with these states.

And so we can use the body to support the mind and support the arising of these states. So some of the very simple little things are... you know, a lot of people will do meditations and they'll say, "Put a smile on your face." Have you ever heard that? Yeah, I've never been able to have that help me. But recently I was playing with it, and so I invite you to just like, non-smile. Oh, it's not going to work right now. But to play with—not a smile, but the subtlest lift of the outer lip. Just the subtle, I mean like a micro-movement, so that instead of the more downward slant, there's just even the flat, or just not a smile, just a slight, slight upturn. Just imagining it, so not trying to force some sense of smile that feels manufactured to me. I like that word, manufactured; it's not helpful. But there's a lot of research about why smiling is supposed to be helpful. It actually activates all the nerves that are connected to emotional states in your face, changes your mood states. But maybe a manufactured smile doesn't work. So I played with that, and I found this subtlest little bit helped.

Some other things that we can kind of play with are our tone of voice, in both inner and outer. So really noticing, how are we talking to ourselves? Not just the words, but the quality, the tonal quality. And sometimes that's hard to imagine, so forgive me if you've had me do this with you before, but it works usually. So right now, just imagine hearing your own name several times, just hearing the name. And as you do, just kind of pay attention to what you notice in your body.

Okay, now I want you to imagine somebody who just absolutely adores you saying your name. It could be an animal, anything at all, but somebody who really, really likes you, they get you. I want you to imagine hearing that voice, that tone, hear your name. Just say your name in your mind a few times with this voice, this affect, this tone, and notice what happens in your body.

Can you feel the difference? Hopefully you can. If not, there are ways, keep trying.

Now, just for comparison, because we're going to be talking about different neurophysiological states very briefly. I want you to imagine you're in trouble, and you hear somebody calling your name who knows you're in trouble. Just once or twice, just notice how that feels.

Okay, let it go. Did you feel the difference? Yeah, okay. Some of you I see yeses, some of your heads are not moving, but I'll trust enough of you could connect or know and remember that it feels different.

And you know, we're shifting our nervous system states as we are imagining and connecting with different ways of hearing our own voice. And it's my belief that there are certain neurophysiological states that I'll talk about that are actually the foundation for the way that we feel when we connect with the Brahma Viharas. Now, there are some people talking about this, but there's no literal proof at this point, but I think there will be. They'll be doing studies, and there probably are some already.

But there's something called the vagus nerve in our body, which is a very big nerve that goes all the way down into our gut. And when the ventral vagus nerve is activated, it leads to calmness, a sense of connection, emotional well-being. And this is associated with physiological changes in the body, including our heart rate, breathing patterns, and a feeling of safeness.

So our blood pressure reduces, our digestion improves when the ventral vagal nerve is stimulated, and we have reduced inflammation. Our emotional states are more regulated.

So there's something called state-dependent traits. Have you heard that term? So states are like emotional states, right? And they are dependent on, in this case, the nervous system and where our nervous system is functioning. So if we're in a fear space, right, our nervous system is in either sympathetic arousal or dorsal vagal activation. So there's very clear shifts in our nervous system. This is the most important point: there's like an inner gear shift, and we can learn how to shift into different gears with our nervous system with practice and diligence and attunement.

It also requires courage and determination because, as I said before, when difficulties arise, when things are difficult and we aren't accessing these states, those difficulties can actually be gateways to the Brahma Viharas. If we can turn toward our suffering, our difficulty, and be with it with wisdom and care, and then we activate these practices, they can actually help us access a very different state.

So the Buddha, when he was teaching about the Brahma Viharas and he was talking about these states, he described a farmer who works hard to plant and water a crop but cannot command the plants to grow. Instead, when the seasons have changed, there comes a time when the crops grow, mature, and bear grain. So this comes back to this idea of cultivation, activation versus fabrication, right? Not needing—just like the farmer can't make the plant grow by yelling at it and telling it to. The farmer creates supportive conditions for the plants to grow themselves.

So like the blossoming of a flower, we don't need to do much, but we need to let it have sunshine and water and pull the weeds out from around it, and it'll do what it does. In the same way, we can be the gardeners of our own inner life, and we can cultivate and support the arising of these qualities.

I have a lot of notes. I have so many notes I have to scroll through, you know, kind of skipping around my notes to find what I want to share.

So the role of the gardener. It's the role of the gardener, right, for our inner state. So we're the caretakers of our minds, our hearts, and our bodies. So just like it's so important to have sun and water and good soil, we need sleep, right? We need to eat. We need social connection, engagement. It's, you know, kind of simple but easy things for us to ignore too, right? But very, very important.

And as the farmer does, we need to observe what's happening on the farm, noticing the conditions and devoting time to practicing caregiving, caretaking. And we need to learn. We need to have wisdom and be learning about how to care for our garden, right? So in the field of the Dharma, that's studying the Dharma and practicing the Dharma, and spending time with spiritual friends. And knowing what we want to grow and what we don't want to grow, and being really clear about that. Being clear about the dangers of growing greed, growing hatred, and growing delusion. They will overtake the garden.

So everything—I like this point—that everything is an opportunity for practice, and it can be a gateway to freedom. Things can be weeds or seeds, and the weeds can even be turned into seeds, right, to fertilize, or at least...

So for example, if I'm thinking about a situation in life that might be fairly common. I might think about a time when someone's mind is filled with ill will, a lot of hatred or fear and anxiety, which is also a form of ill will. And when one finds themself in that space, because it can happen to all of us, right, if we recognize it, if we name it and see it clearly, and we can turn toward it in a way that isn't engaging in it, we see the suffering right there. Right there.

And if there's a sense of natural loving-kindness present, we can go right to compassion. But sometimes the foundation is the loving-kindness. So the sense of deep connection with knowing, like all beings, we want to feel safe, we want to feel happy, we want to feel healthy and at ease.

So if, for example, the cause of this hostility is somebody else and what they're doing, it might not be possible to say, "Just like you, I suffer. Just like me, you suffer." Right, we might not be quite there. But we can connect with the fact that we want to feel safe, happy, healthy, and at ease, and we don't right now. So we can start to connect with that wish, the loving-kindness wish for ourselves. And we can start to kind of just—not try and make ourselves feel that way, but recognize that is truly what we want. We don't want to feel miserable, right? We want to feel well. And when that wisdom and that clarity comes in, the loving-kindness can become accessible. And sometimes when we start to feel it enough for ourselves, it's just automatically there for the other person, and then compassion is much more accessible.

And the compassion is really seeing that somebody else suffers just like we do, and they just want to be happy just like we want to. They want to have well-being and ease. And so whatever it is that's happening, whatever's motivating it, we can recognize inside this sense of, "Oh well, this is what they want, and I want this too, and I care."

So if we can just recognize these states that are filled with greed—wanting something that somebody else has, for example. I want that chair, I want that job, I want that scooter, whatever it is. That car, whatever it is. That shirt. That smile. When we see that sense of "I want that, I don't have it, I wish I could have it," ah, there's greed. And the opportunity right there to have sympathetic joy. If we can shift again—foundation is mettā^[3]. So if the mettā is not there, maybe we need to cultivate it a little bit and recognize our suffering, right? We go, "Oh, may I be safe and at ease." And then, "Oh, oh yeah, I'm happy you're happy. I'm happy for you that you have this job, or this chair, this smile. I'm happy that this is bringing you joy." Oh, and yeah, actually as I sit back and take in your happiness, I feel some happiness too. And so we can work—it's just a reminder we've just walked down the wrong path in the garden, and we just need to help ourselves reorient to the same spot, maybe facing a different direction.

Maybe we're lost in thought, and we're trying to imagine exactly how we're going to do this, and then that, and then that. And what if this happens, and then that happens? And we're exhausted trying to figure out how we're going to cope with this, and make this better, and do this, and do that. So we're just filled with building these futures and plans, and it's like a mix of greed and aversion and lots of delusion. Lots and lots of delusion. And we can see if we step back and we see, "Oh look, this is so much activity, so much effort, it's no longer useful, no longer helpful." And we can go, "Oh, wow, yeah, things come and go." We can be like, "Things change," and this—I'm in the middle of change, or change is about to happen, loss, or whatever it is, and we're trying to prepare for it, or adapt to it, or prevent it. Right? Okay. I'm trying to control something that is not within my control. We can cultivate then what? Equanimity, right? By recognizing what's happening, the delusion, the effort, and just say, you know, "Things come and go, they do, it's the nature of life."

And there are equanimity phrases that I really like that I find really helpful, and they just start with, "Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I calm my mind." There's a long time in my practice that's as far as I could go when I came back to equanimity practice. I just kept having to just, "Breathe in, I calm my body. Breathe out, I calm my mind."

And then at some point we can move on to this sense of, "Oh yeah, may I learn to see that things come and go, things change, and may I learn to do this with some balance, with some ease or some sense of stability." You know, sort of connected more with the sense of groundedness, that mountain.

And sometimes when I find that I'm having trouble, even when I kind of know what's going on and I can't find equanimity, it's probably for me because I have some attachment. Usually it's an attachment to somebody else, and how I want them to be, how I want them to feel, what I want them to be doing. And so, you know, I need to recognize that I'm having some attachments.

And so there's these other phrases that go with the loving-kindness practice that I just find so helpful. So you call to mind this dear being, or this annoying being, or whoever it is, and you connect with those wishes of loving-kindness. You know, "May you be safe, may you feel safe." I like "feel," not "be," because there's no sense of permanence in safety, right? Things are changing. So "May you feel safe, may you feel happy, may you feel at ease and well-being." And I think about this person and sort of, yeah, you know, in my best states, I know I want all beings to feel this way. All beings. And if I'm particularly... this is somebody I love dearly, and I just see that they're having a hard time and I can't really do anything, it's really helpful for me to say, "Okay, dear one, your happiness and your suffering, I wish these things. I wish you to be well, I wish you to be safe and happy and at ease. And I see, I know, your happiness and your suffering are a result of your actions, not my wishes for you. My wishes don't create those states for you."

And something in me lets go. And I lean into how much more useful it is to trust that these states are possible for everyone, and that we all need to find our way to cultivating them. And so if I can look at this person with eyes that believe, that trust in their innate capacity, natural states, natural ways of being that they can find them—if I believe that and I see them with those eyes, it's probably the best gift I can give them and myself.

I'm just feeling that myself. As a parent, it's been such a journey to start by really literally taking care of, doing everything. Creating the smiles and the laughter, right? And signing them up for this and that, and doing all these things, painting the room the right color to sort of really support the well-being of my children. And then they get older. They get older, and you see, you know, you try—you're still trying to make everything just right. You're beyond the point that you should, you're still trying. And then it starts to bug your kid, and they get mad at you and irritated, and you know, or they just rebel and they won't put on their coat when they go outside, and you just have to like, let go. Right? You have to trust the natural consequences. If it's something they've got to entangle with, they've got to meet it. They've got to have mistakes, they need to learn.

There are so many ways along the way as a parent that I would get caught, my mind would get caught, "Oh my god, they'll never, ever, ever, ever, ever sleep through the night. Oh my god, they'll never, ever, ever, ever, ever whatever." So much suffering, and that's so much delusion in that, right? Now, over time, if you're willing to turn toward these moments of suffering, you start to collect a library of resources to reference that remind you. "Oh, jealousy. Oh, you know, like wanting to control somebody else. Oh, these things. No. Suffering, suffering, suffering. Okay, what do I do?" And then we have the Brahma Viharas. This place to turn toward, this sort of... even though we don't feel it, maybe it's just knowing that these states exist and knowing they are our birthright. Our absolute birthright. It is something that we just... it's here. It's here, and it's accessible. And sometimes it's harder to access, but maybe just trusting that it's possible, even touching the tip-tip of the states, even just remembering these states can be enough to help.

So the last little bit that I want to talk about are kind of maybe some of the daily life practices that we can do. The things that we can do that we just build into our life that can support our orientation toward these sort of more regulated, expansive, heart-opening states.

So you know, loving-kindness meditation. Nice thing to start your meditation practice with, right? Just orienting toward these wishes can be a nice way to just start.

Centered breathing. You can do driving in the car, you know, just sort of breathing into the heart and out from the heart, letting the breath move in and out, and imagining filling your heart with feelings of loving-kindness and compassion and ease. You can also do counted breathing practices. There's something called soothing breathing rhythm. You breathe in to about the count of five and out to the count of five. You keep this very regular pattern to breathing, and these things can sort of actually help shift the nervous system back into a more neutral space when we're activated.

Gratitude practice. Journaling, or having a text thread that you share things that you're grateful for with.

With social engagement, some of us have social anxiety, right? Sometimes it's awkward to be in big settings. Other people are extroverted and it's no problem. But one thing that can be really helpful is to connect with the fact how you want other people to feel around you. Instead of focusing on what you're feeling, focus more on how you want other people to feel around you, and what would you do to cultivate them feeling at ease. And that can help kind of get us out of the selfing that keeps us stuck, and make other people feel good, which is nice.

Taking little breaks throughout your day when you need them, and when you don't. Consciously saying, you know, "I want to be compassionate to myself, my mind, my heart, my body." Finding ways to stretch or do things that maybe feel like a hassle but you know are what are good for you.

For people who have a sense of comfort with imagination... we all think, you've probably noticed that what you think affects how your body feels, yeah? If you haven't noticed, start practicing tracking the way we're thinking. What we're thinking about will have a direct impact on how your body is feeling. So practicing thinking or imagining things that are cultivated in goodness and well-being and wholesome states, help yourself, help your mind sort of move from that place. And then engaging in compassionate actions toward ourselves and others. It's another way that we activate the ventral vagal complex.

Another little simple thing that I want to mention. Some people have this idea that in Buddhism we're not supposed to like get really attached or enjoy pleasure. That's—my view is not that at all. We need to notice the beautiful, we need to receive the beautiful. And so there's something called hedonic pleasure, which you know is pleasure that's generated by external things—nice ice cream, sunny day. And actually I see that as sort of like the clutch for shifting the gear. So when these natural things happen in our lives, if we don't get stuck on just wanting the next good thing, we can use the positive feelings that arise naturally to kind of put in the clutch, and then move into cultivating eudaimonic happiness^[4], which is actually connected to meaning and purpose and turning toward that which is difficult with determination. Right, this willingness. And we cultivate this sense of like... just by turning toward something in this way, it does create this sense of inner well-being that's more sustainable. It's less dependent on things outside of ourselves and doesn't keep us on what they call the hedonic treadmill, chasing after the next good thing. So little gifts that you get, little nice pleasures, enjoy them. Feel them, take them in, and let them support moving into more sustainable states instead of getting caught in just chasing.

So no mud, no lotus, right? The difficulties, the suffering in our life can be gateways to freedom. And... that was nice. How sweet. Thank you. [Laughter] He's just going like this, so this big smile, it's like, "Yes, I love it."

Q&A

Um, yeah. So what do you think? Thoughts, questions, responses?

Audience Member: Yeah, I really appreciate the talk. Thank you so much. It's very wise and very helpful and deep. It's really profound, you know, leaning into the suffering like you're talking about, where we can really just embrace and have this incredible loving-kindness and compassion for even defilements and the five hindrances^[5]. And with that incredible loving-kindness and compassion for these things, they don't stand a chance. They just disappear. That's right, it's so beautiful. So it just was coming up in the mind when you were speaking, and it just really felt alive. So I just wanted to say that I appreciate the talk. Thank you very much.

Tanya Wiser: Thank you. Anyone else have a question, challenge, comment, other idea about how you work with what I'm talking about? Gene, I've got it, and then Abraham after Gene.

Gene: Oh, thank you so much. Well, the vagus nerve is very interesting, and I haven't heard this corroborated, but I think that's why acupuncturists always put the needle in your ear. And one way to activate it is humming. So taking a breath and then humming out nice, and do that for a bit, and it will change, at least for me.

Tanya Wiser: Beautiful, yeah, yeah. There's some great things—Kristin Neff has a lot of suggestions like warm water and touching your lips. Yeah, so there's some great things we can do. Yeah, thank you, Gene. Abraham, do you want to walk over there and get the mic? Oh, yeah, there we go.

Abraham: Thanks. Just in terms of exploring the body-mind connection. A little while ago I was going through a period where I was quite irate at my son, and it was jealousy. I was really jealous of just how mature this guy was. So much more mature than I felt myself to be. And someone suggested to me that I could send him sympathetic joy to get my mind off of the craviness. And I could actually feel in my body the craving of the jealousy, like, "Give me some of that maturity." And on the other hand, he's been very successful at his business, he's got a wonderful marriage, and just this real joy at his successes. And just feel that move out of my body toward him and much more spacious. So this one, the first impulse was to really become constricted and tight, and the other one was incredibly expansive, and of course freeing of this toxic jealousy that I was having.

Tanya Wiser: So beautiful, Abraham, beautiful. Anyone else have a practice experience? Great.

Audience Member: Tanya, you were talking about making other people feel at ease around you. So yeah, I have a practice for that. Something I learned a long time ago. I noticed I would be leaning forwards into social situations like if I wanted them to work out well...

Tanya Wiser: Wanting, yeah.

Audience Member: So you're leaning forward, you're off balance, and the other person isn't so comfortable, and you know, you're not so happy. So I've been reminding myself to stay in a vertical, kind of a mental, maybe physical mountain pose. And it works so much better.

Tanya Wiser: Nice. Thank you, beautiful. A sea of richness here. Great.

Audience Member: I appreciated the explanation of starting with mettā as a foundation for Brahma Vihara practice. I noticed that I tend to start with compassion and equanimity. You know, there's a lot of suffering and I want to get rid of it, so I practice to get rid of it. But it's kind of fueled by aversion, right? And so just hearing—I don't think I've ever heard about starting with mettā. So the intention of happiness, safety, and peace supporting the whole Brahma Vihara practice, rather than getting stable and getting rid of the suffering so that I can get rid of the suffering.

Tanya Wiser: Yeah, watch your intention. When we're trying to get rid of something, wrong practice. It's going to take you the wrong way. But yes, it's a foundation, it's sort of like the gateway to all of them. You know, they kind of unfold and support each other, right? And sometimes you can move right through. But we really have to be, and maybe it's connected to this idea of the physiological state, right? Where we're in the ventral vagal activation, a sense of openness, ease. This is a foundational practice, the loving-kindness, to help us access that state. If we're wanting to get rid of something, we're more in the threat state. We're in sympathetic arousal, right, which is not going to be conducive to connecting to states that are more open-hearted. Yeah, so start there. And you know, don't try and manufacture it. You have to be patient and just kind of try and connect with the sense that "this is my wish." It may not be what I'm feeling, but it is my wish. Yeah, great. I think one more right... last one. Okay.

Audience Member: I'm a chiropractor, and so I work with the vagus nerve a lot. It's at the base of the skull, and it controls all our organs and basically every part of the body. It's one of these gateway nerves. And so I found it fascinating. You know, I've been meditating for many years, but I find it fascinating—this is the first time I've ever heard anybody correlate the vagus nerve to our mental states as far as meditation, mettā, and so forth. It makes a lot of sense, so that was really fun.

Tanya Wiser: Nice. Hear your connection with that, nice. Beautiful. Well, I really appreciate your sharing your attention, and I wish you lots of mettā, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. So...