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: What Choices Are You Cultivating?

Hello, and welcome everyone to Happy Hour. Lovely to be with you and to feel your presence.

For this week, what I wanted to bring for our consideration as we engage with the practice is a quote that I ran into this week. This quote is often inappropriately credited to Goethe^[1], if I'm saying his name right in German, but actually, the person who wrote it is not him. I will share a link to this later, but I can also put it in the chat right now because some of you are visual, so you might want to actually see the quote while I read it.

The quote is:

"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or dehumanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming."

He wrote this in the book called Teacher and Child, a book for parents and teachers.

Now you get a sense of the orientation as a teacher. I was struck by the power of this quote, especially the way it starts: "I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element." And it is so true. We know this. Our approach, our attitude—as he says, "I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous." In Happy Hour, we've talked many times about this quote, which is the name of a book: Happiness is a Choice You Make.

He continues: "I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated, the person is humanized or dehumanized," etc.

To realize the tremendous power that we have in our choices—that we have a choice. We have a choice as to how we respond to any moment, to any situation. We have choices. The more we practice cultivating and turning our minds and hearts towards making a wise, kind, humanizing, and compassionate choice, that choice becomes more readily available to us in the moment. You know this from your practice. You know that if your mind has been swimming in thoughts of kindness, generosity, and goodwill, that becomes more available as a choice in real-time. If it's been swimming with rumination and difficult thoughts of anger, "why me," or whatever the version might be for your thought patterns, the heart is less primed to that wise choice, to really taking our seat of power to make wise, compassionate choices.

I wanted to seed our practice with that quote tonight. Let's sit together. We'll sit with a lot of silence tonight, calming the mind with the breath. I had some new invitations this past week that you found very helpful, and I'm going to bring those back in: to steady the mind first with the breath in the body, and then turning towards kindness, towards mettā^[2].

With that, let's arrive together. Let's arrive in this body, in this moment.

Guided Meditation

First, let's turn to our breath in the body. Letting awareness relax. Letting the body relax first. Relax, relax.

The more relaxed our body is, the easier the practice becomes. The mind relaxes if the body is relaxed. Let's begin with three diaphragmatic breaths to arrive and settle.

Taking a deep breath. Topping it up a little more. Holding the breath a little bit for a few seconds, and then letting go.

A sound arriving in the body. Another breath. Topping it up at the end can be supportive. Holding. Exhaling.

Third one.

Now let the breath be natural. Relax the body and receive the breath. Making an intention—a relaxed but persistent intention—to connect with just this in-breath, the entirety of it. And now make an intention to connect with this out-breath, the entirety of it.

Renewing the intention to connect, to receive. Relax and receive this in-breath again. Relax and receive this out-breath. Every time we reconnect with the intention, relax and receive the breath.

If the mind is wandering and has gone off to a thought or plan, it's okay. It's really okay. Instead of self-flagellating and judging yourself for the time you've been gone, celebrate that now you're awake. You have a choice. Fifty-fifty. Instead of beating yourself up, choose to celebrate: "Yes, this moment of awareness!" Again, reconnecting with awareness with the breath.

The more we celebrate and delight in the moments that we come back, the more they happen, and the more ease we'll enjoy as the practice becomes joyful instead of feeling like a failure. Everybody's mind drifts. It's okay. Celebrate the coming back. Reconnecting with the intention to be with just this in-breath, out-breath, and then this one.

Let the breath be nourishing. Let knowing the breath be comforting, relaxing.

Experiencing the entirety of this in-breath from the beginning to the end of it, like a beloved friend. Connecting, receiving the out-breath from the beginning to the end.

If the mind has been wandering, we have a choice. It's not a frightening conclusion, but a joyous conclusion that we have a choice. You can either berate yourself for having been distracted, or you can celebrate and delight that the mind is now awake and aware. How wonderful to have a choice.

Let this sphere of awareness be more spacious, to include the breath, the sensations of the breath in the body, as well as whatever else arises. Sounds, thoughts, sensations, emotions. If it gets to be too much, you can always let the breath be the anchor, connecting with the breath. If not, you can let the awareness be spacious. Whatever arises in this sphere of awareness, the mind has a choice: you can be kind, accepting. Not judging, not aversive, not pushing it away. Not resisting reality.

Being present. Kind. With kindness towards whatever arises in the sphere of awareness. The practice can be very simple. Instructions can be very simple. How do we choose to be with whatever arises? Even if they are difficult thoughts or emotions.

Leaning into a wise, kind choice. Kindness, presence, patience. Maybe even wearing a smile. Meeting reality, meeting the moment as it shows itself now.

May I meet this moment with kindness. Whatever arises in this moment, may I meet it with kindness. May my heart be filled with loving-kindness, goodwill.

Expanding the sphere of awareness. Not just internally, but letting it be external. May I be kind. May I meet whatever arises in this moment, in this heart and mind, with kindness. May I meet all the people and beings that I meet, may I meet my world with kindness. The world with kindness, as much as possible and available to me.

May I meet myself with kindness.

As we turn to bring this period to a close, may I meet myself with kindness in this moment for however this practice period was or wasn't. I've done my best. I showed up. Not choosing to judge, rate, or compare. Choosing to appreciate, choosing to be grateful for showing up. Planting seeds of goodness, kindness, presence. It's all we can do.

May these seeds we have planted together ripen, and may they support the happiness, well-being, and awakening of ourselves and all beings everywhere. May all beings be well. May all beings be free.

Thanks, everyone. Thanks for your practice today.

Reflections

I brought in a quote at the beginning which really talks about our choice, how much choice we have in every moment. By actually turning your mind towards wise choices in the moment, we seed them to arise in challenging moments so that the wise and kind choice can arise.

In the practice, I invited us to first relax, receive three diaphragmatic breaths to just arrive, and then we were with the breath. The intention was to be with the entirety of the in-breath and entirety of the out-breath. After settling for a while, we opened the sphere of awareness to include everything. "May I meet whatever arises—not just distractions—with kindness. And the breath with kindness. Whatever arises." Then we expanded it further: "May I meet all beings, all the world with kindness."

The prompt for today is: with this practice, did you notice a moment of choice? Throughout the almost 30 minutes we practiced together, did you notice any moments of choice? By actually saying them out loud and letting yourself be held as a witness, it can be empowering to say, "Yes, I did notice I had a choice, actually. In this moment, I leaned into berating myself, and then the next one I didn't," or whatever it might be. There are no right or wrong answers. Or you might say, "I was distracted the whole time, didn't notice at all." Perfectly fine. Please don't judge yourself. Just showing up and sharing our practice, supporting each other in this community of kindness and goodwill.

Nancy: I was sharing with the group that this meditation just felt very sweet to me. And maybe, in an interesting way, just sort of a celebration of myself and all of the work I've done diving into challenges and not resisting reality. I've been through three and a half years of more people in my family dying, where I was always the person that had to clean up the mess. I kept just diving in. Just being sweet to myself because, even if I'm not live with you, Nikki, I listen almost every day and practice with you. So thanking you. It was a lovely night for me. Very peaceful, sort of just quiet joy. "Wow, I have really done the work and can hold myself and others in love." Thank you.

Nikki: Beautiful. Thank you so much, Nancy. I'm so glad you were able to join live tonight so that we get to see you and benefit from the joy of your practice. Celebrating your own generosity for yourself and your generosity for others. What you describe sounds to me like a deep practice of generosity to others—to step in when it's really hard. As you said, "clean up the mess." When someone passes, it could be so much emotionally and physically for family and friends. For you to be stepping into the fire is such an act of generosity over and over and over again. And now, allowing that generosity also to be shared with yourself. "Nancy, dear, you've been generous." This is so beautiful. It just makes my heart so happy that your sharing is 360 degrees and beautiful. Thank you for your deep, deep practice of generosity.

Amy: So in the practice, when my mind would wander, I would choose to bring it back. I was laughing with the group because recently I've been using the song "Baby Come Back" as an anchor to bring me back to the breath, because it seems so sweet, playful, and light, and it takes away the judgment from it. That's one way I feel like I've been skillful to choose the response. Another is I'm seeing somebody who I feel can be a little negative sometimes, and every time I feel the critical part coming out, I just send him mettā and send the situation mettā. It's become a prompt of choice. I feel empathy, but then I don't get lost in the critical; I just send mettā wanting healing. That feels like a really healthy choice, a more supportive, generous choice. Thank you.

Nikki: Beautiful. Thanks for sharing both of those, Amy. I love using the song "Baby Come Back" because it is light-hearted. You're calling your mind "baby," like, "Hey, come back." It's sweet and playful and fun instead of getting upset. So there's a sweetness. And also the very skillfulness of sending the situation mettā. Disentanglement. Sending the situation, and all those who are entangled in this situation, mettā. "May you be at ease, may you be well." So creative and skillful. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing that, Amy.

Serena: Thank you so much. Yes, I too would like to report that I really got an experience today of this practice bearing good fruit. My sister was extremely nasty in a phone call, and I was able to just get back to her with a positive message. It was reflexive. It was really wonderful that I was just able to not even think about it, that I could just get back to her with something loving. So I'm really very grateful that I've been doing this work. Thank you.

Nikki: Thank you, Serena. Thank you for sharing this. It buoys my heart to no end that through your practice of mettā, this kindness has become a reflexive response. Oh my heavens, so powerful. It gives me chills when our community here reports these success moments of, "This was really hard today, daggers came at me, and then kindness naturally arose."

It reminds me of a story of the Buddha at the night of his enlightenment. Māra^[3] was throwing arrows, and as the arrows came near him, they became flower petals and fell. That is really what happens when people send you daggers: through the power of radiating mettā and kindness, that reflexive kindness shifts the situation. And you're reporting that, Serena. Thank you so much. Thank you for your work, thank you for your practice.

Well, this is absolutely delightful. It makes me so happy. I want to thank you all for your practice, for your continued practice—whether you show up live, whether you listen later, whether you practice on your own. However you practice, yay! May there be more kindness, more goodwill, more love in our world. May all beings be happy, may all beings be free, including ourselves.

Thanks, everyone. Thank you so much. Be well.