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Happy Hour: Gratitude and Vicarious Joy

Warm welcome everyone, from wherever in the world you are joining in this moment in time. Lovely to be together.

So for today's practice, there are two things we're going to do. One is a practice of gratitude. In a time like this, it is so easy for our minds to turn to what is challenging, what is difficult, and make that the primary focus of our minds and hearts. And of course, that's normal and natural because as human beings, we have a negativity bias. Naturally, we tend to focus on what's negative, and that's evolutionarily handed down. Because the ancestors who were more tuned to the negative signals in the environment, they would survive because they would notice the danger. They would survive. If they didn't have a negativity bias and they had a positivity bias, if they noticed the berries more than the saber-tooth tiger, then they wouldn't make it. So guess who survived to pass down their genes? Of course, yes.

So we all have the negativity bias. All of us in the human family, wherever in the world you are, we all have the negativity bias. We turn to focus more on what's negative, what's not good enough, what failures you've had during your day, or imagined failures, what you haven't accomplished, what you're not good at. That's what our mind really focuses on, instead of what actually is good, what is wholesome, what you have accomplished, what is beautiful inside of you, what's beautiful about others, what's available—all the gifts and blessings that are in your life right now, in all of our lives.

So in order to tilt the negativity bias a little bit so that it actually becomes balanced, we have to make an active effort to turn our awareness towards what is good. In order to make it more balanced, the practice of gratitude turns the mind towards what's good, helps that shift happen for us.

And earlier in our introductions and our hellos, as I asked Bill how the weather is in Texas, he said, "Great." And I said, "Wonderful, I'm happy for you." Practice of mudita^[1]: I take joy that the air is good somewhere. And he said, "Oh, that's great. That's something I like to practice more." And I thought, oh great, I can bring that in too, because actually, guess what? The practice of mudita, which is vicarious joy, happiness for the good fortune of others, happiness that somebody else is breathing clean air right now and has sunshine, or has had sunshine. I see sunshine right now. For people where it's morning their time, I see sun coming through. We haven't had sun for a few days, but I'm so happy that, yay, somebody is enjoying sun and good air. So this practice of mudita, happiness for other people's happiness, vicarious joy, is when it's turned outwards.

This is one of the four brahma-viharas^[2], practices of the heart. One of them being metta^[3], loving-kindness, which is what we usually practice. The second one being the practice of compassion, when goodwill or friendliness meets suffering. The third one is mudita that I am bringing up tonight, which is the practice of when goodwill meets good fortune. So in number two, compassion, when goodwill meets suffering, it becomes compassion. When goodwill meets good fortune, it becomes vicarious joy: "Oh, I'm happy for your happiness." And the fourth one being equanimity. So with mudita, with vicarious joy, when it turns outwards, when you're happy for somebody else's good fortune, it expresses itself as vicarious joy. And the Dalai Lama says it's the fastest way to joy, because if you're just happy for your own happiness, you have a one in seven billion chance. But if you're happy for somebody else's happiness, your odds dramatically increase because there's some goodness somewhere in the world for other people.

So when this goodwill, this feeling of benevolence, turns outwards for other people's good fortune, then it becomes vicarious joy, mudita. When it's turned inward for our own good fortune, it becomes gratitude, because now we have a sense of appreciation for our own good fortune. So you see how mudita for others as well as gratitude for ourselves are basically two sides of the same coin. It's the same practice. It's the same practice, external and internal. So nod your head if that made sense and shake if it didn't. Okay, I'm seeing more nods. Okay, great. So again, I don't see all of you, so I have to keep going back and forth. Great. Oh, and Bill gives me a thumbs up, that's great, I can see that. Fantastic.

So with that, that's what we will engage with tonight. And it's a happy-making practice. These practices will bring more gladness to the heart. And just to say at the outset, sometimes the mind can fall into envy or jealousy when you're doing mudita or vicarious joy, appreciation for other people's happiness. Like, "Oh, I wish I had that." If that should happen, it's okay, don't worry about it, you're not doing the practice wrong. It can fall into that.

Then realize that in that moment, ah, you're the one who's suffering. Ouch. Because there is a sense of tightness and wanting and contraction. So then turn the goodwill, the friendliness towards your own heart, because in that moment the practice becomes a practice of compassion: "Oh, sweetie, I know you would really like that too." And it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. So don't beat yourself up: "I'm not doing this practice right, I'm supposed to feel happy for somebody else." No, be where you are. If sadness is arising, ah, kindness and gentleness: "Oh, sweetie, this is a hard time. I know you're having a hard time." As long as you turn appreciation and kindness towards whatever is arising, you're doing this practice great, even if it's towards sadness and challenging tight emotions. Okay, so don't judge yourself. It's all good, whatever comes up needs to come up and practice kindly with respect to it. So I've spoken a lot tonight. Let's get into our meditation.

Guided Meditation

Ah, so I'd like to invite you now, perfect time, to get into your meditation posture. If you need to lie down, you need to sit up more straight to feel a sense of integrity in your sitting position, and landing. Landing in your body. Landing. Landing in your sit bones. Letting go of all the thoughts, of all the talk, all the words that came beforehand. Greeting your own body with openness, with a sense of appreciation. Hello, body.

Inviting each and every part of the body to soften, relax, to receive the breath. With each out-breath, relaxing and softening some more. Allowing the breath to move through the body. Massaging, massaging, relaxing. Your abdomen, your belly. Massaging your chest. Massaging and relaxing your back, upper back, ah, lower back. Massaging and relaxing your neck and shoulders. Arms and hands. The breath received. Massaging your face from the inside. Your eyes resting. Your jaw, your forehead. Your breath massaging, relaxing your sit bones. Ah, landing more deeply to your bottom touching the cushion, and your legs, your feet. The entire body receiving the breath. Being massaged, internally relaxed, receiving.

Your gaze turned inward with the body sensations and the breath. Feeling embodied, connected to your body, receiving the breath throughout the body. Just as you're sitting with your gaze turned inward, feeling the breath, receiving the breath. Feeling something, appreciating something that feels nourishing, feels good right now. This might be the sense of the breath moving on its own, or maybe a sense of comfort and ease of sitting in the chair or the cushion, maybe a slight sense of ease or calm. Sense of comfort with the temperature, not too cold, not too hot. Something that in the present moment experience feels pleasant. Let yourself take delight: I really appreciate this goodness, this gift in my life right now. And it's best to stay with it for a few breaths instead of jumping from one to the next, to the next. The practice works best to stay and relish for a few breaths, or longer if possible.

Now I'd like to invite you, as you stay embodied, as you keep connected to your body so we don't get too enmeshed in thinking and stories, but as we're staying embodied, connected to the body, feeling the body and the breath, to open up your awareness. To open up to other gifts, other goodness, blessings in your immediate environment besides your body. Maybe there is no pain right now, or there is a relative level of health. Maybe in your environment, you have a roof over your head, a comfortable dwelling safe from the elements, enough food in the pantry, etc. Let yourself bring to mind, and then take time with each. Again, instead of jumping from one to the next, stay with each for a few breaths of appreciation.

And feel free to open up to the things in your life, things in your day, the past week, events that have occurred. So much goodness, relationships that you're grateful for in your life. Take the time to relish, appreciate, feel grateful for, with an expansive heart. If any sense of guilt arises at any point, it's not really helpful to make ourselves feel small. It doesn't really serve us or serve others. But by opening up to the goodness in our life, we can appreciate our heart to feel full and serve, be of service to others. So let yourself appreciate all the goodness in your life one by one, staying embodied, breathing through this.

You could imagine your life without that goodness or blessing for a moment. If it wasn't here, and then bring it back in your mind and feel even more grateful that it is in your life.

Now if you wish, I'd like to invite you, if you wish you can stay with gratitude for yourself. Or if you feel well, to invite you to bring to mind someone who's dear to you, you care about. And bring to mind something in their life that is wonderful, that they're happy about. There could be other challenges, so not every aspect of their life may be filled with good fortune, but this aspect feels good, feels like a gift. And wishing them well, feeling happy for their happiness, sharing in their happiness. Imagining them enjoying this blessing, this good fortune. Feeling your heart lifted, elevated together with them. And if you wish, silently reciting: "I'm happy, I'm happy for your happiness. I'm happy for your good fortune. May it continue, may it increase and never wane. I'm happy for your happiness. May your good fortune continue. May it increase, may it never wane." Or simply, "I'm happy that you're happy."

And for the last moments of this practice period, holding yourself with kindness and appreciation that you showed up. What a gift you've given yourself. Regardless of what happened or did not happen, no attachment to outcome. Gratitude for this gift: you showed up and practiced, and were able to show up and practice. The technology, time, enough health to show up without attachment to outcome. Thank you all for your practice.

Reflections and Q&A

So I will change the settings so that you can unmute yourself and chat with everyone. Ah, I feel happier than I did before. These are joy-making practices. And I would love to hear, actually, so let's see. I wanted to run a poll, so this poll... huh, okay, I can't run the poll. I didn't set it up ahead of time so I don't have a poll.

Well, I'm informally wondering. I'd like to ask you, we'll see how we can do this. So I love the practice of mudita, which is vicarious joy for others, happiness for the happiness of others. That makes me so happy, it uplifts my heart. So I'm curious for whom that was actually more happy-making than gratitude for yourself. If that was the case, give me a thumbs up, and I'll ask the other way around. So here's the question: if mudita practice really worked for you, it really uplifted your heart, maybe raise your hand or wave, and I'm going to look around. One, two, three, okay four, five. Okay, great, all right, got it. Thank you. So now the other question. If gratitude for yourself actually worked better than mudita, now if you would raise your hand. Okay, great. Okay, cool, let's see. I'm still appreciating this informally, I can't quite keep count but it looks about the same to me in terms of counts. Next time I'll actually have the poll set up ahead of time. This is great, yeah, love it.

So yeah, I love these practices. I love both practices. And sometimes I do mudita first to prime the heart, and then do gratitude for ourselves, and then sometimes do the one for ourselves and then for the other. So if you like to type your experience or some reflection in chat, or how you're feeling right now or what came up for you, you're welcome. Or you can also unmute yourself and share a couple of reflections, please, what happened.

Casey: I'd like to say something. Hi Nikki.

Nikki: Hi Casey.

Casey: So I was a little bit distracted in the beginning and the middle, but I feel a little bit more grounded and settled. I really appreciate your talk before the guided meditation, and it was really much needed. But another thing did come up for me while you were talking about mudita and gratitude, is that I've noticed that when I practice mudita, sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard depending on what the object is. So like if the person has something that has maybe been a huge void in my life, or it comes from a place of hurt or whatever, then it's harder. And then other things are easier. So I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about that.

Nikki: Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up because that is absolutely natural and normal. So start where it's easy. Start the mudita practice where it's easy, not in areas that feel there's a void in your life and you really want it and this person has it and you wish you had it too. No, start where it's easy. You really are happy that they have this blessing and, yay, your heart can just delight in that. And then little by little, when you feel readier, your heart feels more strong and more capable of holding that mudita with a lot of strength, then work your way towards it gently. Keep the biggest ouch for last. By the time you get there, your capacity for mudita will be stronger already. Actually, this can really help with the practice with jealousy, and if you're still working towards it and then the ouch comes up, ah, then make it a practice of compassion. Then it's compassion for your sweetie: "Yeah, this is hard." And then when there is enough stability, then go towards it again. Go towards it again, see if there can be working on that edge, working on that edge ever so gently. Yeah, be gentle with yourself and slowly, slowly. Thank you.

Um, yeah, thank you for the reflection. So I'm going to share a couple of reflections in chat. Let's see.

Sheila offers: "Felt same about both practices. Had nice warm feelings about showing up. Thanks for pointing it out, otherwise I wouldn't have been grateful to myself." Ah, that's great. I'm grateful you showed up, Sheila. Yay, um, and I'm glad that you felt a sense of warm feeling showing up about that appreciation you get to offer.

"Surprisingly my mind switched to someone I felt had come by some recent good fortune by utilitarian means rather than someone I am close to. Even more surprisingly, I felt happy for that person and a lightness in my heart. Very unexpected." Beautiful, thanks for sharing that, Gita. Lovely, it makes me happy. Yay. In fact, just to say that traditionally this practice, the practice of mudita, happiness for someone else's good fortune, you start with someone who has really good fortune who may not necessarily be dear or close to you. However, given that traditional path, the traditional way of doing it might actually bring up a little more envy or jealousy for some people. Then I like to start with someone whom you care about so that there is more connection. And so what Gita points to is really more the traditional way that this practice is taught. The category you start with is someone who's had good fortune, which is what naturally came up for Gita. So thanks for sharing that, Gita.

Bill offers: "It was easy to feel joy for a friend who is a father, partly because I have no desire to have kids." Yes, I love that exactly. So when there's good fortune and there's not a sense of wanting, it's very easy. So that's a great place to start. Fantastic. Thank you, Bill, for sharing that experience. Yeah, lovely.

Now I see you're unmuted. Would you like to share something?

Participant: Yes, um, thank you for the practice, Nikki, as always, my gratitude. I have a question about envy, and sort of looking at this the other way around, is: can the subtler forms of envy show up if you don't feel sympathetic joy for people?

Nikki: Say a little more about your question so I understand.

Participant: Yes, with envy, I found this practice a bit difficult because it was a very neutral feeling towards people that had good fortune for me. So I wonder whether that neutrality was a kind of very subtle envy.

Nikki: Ah, thank you for clarifying that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it may be, because when mudita is really pure mudita, pure feeling happy for another person's good fortune, it has the same flavor of metta that's given unconditionally. It's unconditional. There's a sense of generosity of the heart. There's just this generosity: "May you be happy, may your happiness increase, never wane." Like there's just an outpouring, right? So with that, I would say when there's a sense of neutrality, I would be curious about that. I wouldn't necessarily say it's envy, it might just be that one is not really connecting with a sense of metta and goodwill with the other person's good fortune. So maybe there's not connection, so it could be that. Or it could be a slight pushing back. So I'm not sure. I would invite you to explore and investigate. Only you can tell. Yeah, great, thank you.

So let's get into our groups as time is flying by on you. Appreciate Yuka's offering: "I felt that the reason why people want to do something for someone from an early age is because they realize this function." Ah, what a beautiful reflection. Yeah, there is something about feeling happy for other people's happiness, isn't there? As children when we give, like, "Oh, their delight makes us delightful." I have a little cousin, love that she feeds others. Like, ah, you know, feeding them makes her happy. It's kind of cute.

So with that, here is the invitation for our practice now in small groups. So the invitation... actually this is quite beautiful, this is such a beautiful practice to take to small groups. So these two other people you'll be in a group with, and don't sign off just yet, listen to the instructions and invitations. So holding these fellow human beings, just like you, they want to be happy. So holding their good fortune with happiness. The prompt we're going to use tonight is different from other times. The prompt is: each person will talk for a couple of minutes about what brings them joy, what makes you happy. So each person will talk about it, maybe for a minute or two, and see what you and other people just receive that with mudita. It's like, wow, and from having done this before, it's such a lovely experience. So even if the guided meditation worked or did not work for you, I invite you to hang in here unless you have to go and you have obligations and kids to take care of. But this can make you happy in real time, hearing about other people's good fortune, what makes them happy. So check it out, people. Let's do small breakout groups, and it'll be pretty brief tonight.

Welcome everyone, the rooms are closed. Welcome back. So we're right on time, but I'd love to hear maybe one reflection of how was it? How was it to hear other people talking about what brings them joy? And especially if you haven't spoken before, please unmute yourself and go.

Michael: Hi, this is Michael, and I had huge mudita for some of the shares as they were going on. They really warmed my heart, and I just wanted to thank you for your beautiful guided meditation this evening. Deep bows.

Nikki: Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Thanks so much. Yeah, that was a lovely quick reflection. Anybody else dying to share? Yes? Make space for one more. Going, going... okay, gone. Great, we'll leave it at that.

So huge mudita, vicarious joy for all of you showing up and practicing together. It really just warms my heart, makes me so happy. So thank you all, thanks for your practice. May you be well, may you be happy, have a great weekend filled with gratitude. And also tomorrow, just in case, I'm doing a half day tomorrow. It's on the calendar, on the IMC calendar. It's California time 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., so it works for California and East Coasters. Not for people in Asia, sorry about that, but the topic is about embodiment and resilience in challenging times and turning our hearts to joy and goodness. So maybe you want to come tomorrow, would be lovely to see you. Information on Zoom is online. So thank you all, take good care. May you all be happy and well and joyful, and all beings everywhere. Thank you, thank you, take care. You can unmute yourself everyone. [Laughter]