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: Change

Introduction

Okay, all right. So let's formally begin. Thank you, Neil, for posting information about the Happy Hour Google Groups where folks can join and receive information, quotes, references, and share information with one another. I also changed the settings at this time for unmuting and the chat. And last but not least, I will turn on the recording for the sake of AudioDharma. Here we go.

Hello and welcome to Happy Hour. Lovely to be with you, to see you, to feel you, whether you're joining in real-time on Zoom or YouTube, or you'll be listening later, joining the sangha^[1] later on AudioDharma or on YouTube.

For today's practice, I'd like to bring up the theme of transitions. It seems like with those of us, well, either in the northern or southern hemisphere—if you're in the northern hemisphere, fall is coming, and the colors on the trees. In California, we're finally having rain, yay! There's a transition. There's a transition in the air. And if you're in the southern hemisphere, like Marie Christine or other sangha members, different transitions, yes. Spring is springing right now, I trust.

So this sense of transitions, change. Change is a part of life. We know this, of course. Yes, change happens, and yet how do we feel? How do we approach change? How do we hold change as it arises for ourselves, for others? And can we bring both mettā^[2] and the wisdom of being with change? Can we bring equanimity? Can we bring a sense of care, warm-heartedness, friendliness to change? Again, somehow the word change sometimes brings up this sense of fear, like, "Oh, change, goodness, change." Whereas sometimes change is positive. Change is good. Changes, yay, rain!

So the invitation tonight in our practice would be to open our hearts and our senses. Can we be with change? The waves of the ocean will always be here. Can we be with them? Can we surf them with warm-heartedness, with mettā, with equanimity, which is one of the four brahmavihārās^[3], one of the four heavenly abodes? So, transitions, change, however they're showing up for us, and bringing more awareness. That is basically the theme, and we will explore it more in our practice tonight. So let's check it out.

Guided Meditation

Let's start by sitting. Let's start by landing. Let's start by landing in our seat.

Can we arrive? Can we embrace this transition? Can we embrace the transition from busyness to stillness? To being here, just here. Can we just arrive and embrace this transition? What does this transition entail for us?

Landing, settling, arriving with the breath. With each breath, and each breath itself is a transition. Each breath itself is the transition. Constant movement. Constant change. Can we settle in, open up to this constant sea of change? With each breath, each in-breath, each out-breath. Staying steady. Staying warm-heartedly steady with all the transitions: the in-breath, the pause between the in-breath and out-breath, the out-breath, and the pause again. Each moment, change.

Present, present to change. With each breath, relaxing into the change. Embracing, opening up our hearts and our awareness to the change. With each breath, in each breath.

And can we open up to all the changes in the body happening, all the sensations coming and going? There is a stillness of sitting, and yet all the inner movements: the breath, the sensations of breathing. All the sensations shifting, moving vibrations. Can we receive them smilingly? "Yes, this is to be alive." Transition, change is part of being alive. Can our awareness be steady, steady and warm, with the transitions? Not turning away and not falling into.

As our minds might wander away into thoughts and memories or plans^[4], like little puppies running around, it's okay. It's all right. It's okay. Notice the transition away from the breath, away from the body, to thought, to memory. Yes, movement, transitions. Can you not frown upon it, to smile, "Yes, here it is. That's what minds do." Smilingly invite awareness to transition back to settle with the body, with the breath, steady with these transitions in the body.

Transitions also in the soundscape: sounds in the environment, the sound of my voice, noises. They're not a problem. Nothing is a problem. All these transitions, from silence to sound, from sound to silence, from one note to another. Can we embrace them wholeheartedly, aware of them? Awareness unmoving. Awareness kind, wholehearted, warm-hearted.

And notice that the mind can become very still. The heart can become still with the awareness of change. The mind, the heart can become quite steady noticing change. How interesting.

If you notice again your mind moving to a thought, memory, coming back—it's all change. It's all change. Be open and spacious with all these transitions. No need for judgment and for you to chastise yourself. Noticing change, aware of change with kindness and wisdom.

Maybe you're sitting comfortably, and then maybe part of your body starts to feel uncomfortable and painful. Ah, bring your awareness to change with kindness. "Oh, here is change. Hello change, hello transition." So not focusing on the content and, "Oh yes, aching^[5]," but the process. The process of transition. It wasn't here a moment ago, now it's here. Can I be warm-hearted, open, kind to the transition?

Or maybe you were sleepy, and now you feel more awake, or feel more relaxed, more spacious, more calm. Yes, you can receive the content, let's say the calmness, more peace, with appreciation. But instead of just the content, see the process. The transition from less peace to more peace, this transition, this change. Can we open our heart to change? Not turn away, receive it with kindness, with curiosity, with stability, steadiness, equanimity.

Relaxing into change. With each breath, change. Notice how relaxing into change with the breath brings non-reactivity, stability of the heart and mind. Transition from thinking into stillness, stillness into thinking. Stability with all the transitions.

Bringing an attitude of mettā, open-heartedness, to our awareness of change every moment, every breath, sounds, etc., can bring a sense of steadiness, stability, peace, and joy. Not the fear of change, but the joy of change. The interest, the energy, zest of change.

If you notice your mind is thinking, just notice the transition. "Ah, interesting transition from peace to thinking. Ah, interesting." Noticing change. No need for self-flagellation. Notice change, notice transitions. And maybe the transition back into stillness, the breath and body, non-thinking.

Change is the nature of the force of life, of the life force in us and others, in life in general, in the universe. Aliveness entails change, transitions. It's not to be dreaded or feared. It is the nature of the life force. Change. Nature of life force, the nature of nature all around us. Nature outside, nature inside, this body nature. This body as nature.

Embracing, opening up to change, transitions wholeheartedly, it is the dharma^[6], the unfolding law of the universe, change. To embrace it wholeheartedly is to step into the stream and to be carried by it, not fighting.

May we all embrace change with wisdom and an open heart. May we be free in the midst of change. May all beings be free and happy in the midst of change.

Reflections and Q&A

Thanks everyone. Thanks for your practice. So, embracing change. Embracing change with openness, warm-heartedness, care. So in this practice tonight, for those of you who might have noticed, this was a practice of bringing in wisdom practices together with mettā. Mettā and wisdom together. So the mettā aspect is the open-heartedness, the warm-heartedness, like, "Yes, here it is, yes." And the wisdom aspect is, guess what, change, transitions, is another word for anicca^[7], impermanence. So we've been practicing with one of the three characteristics of wisdom teaching.

So bringing a warm, open-hearted awareness to change in this way, in this unusual way, can really help us befriend change. Because instead of being afraid of change, it's the way of the universe, it's the dharma, it's the unfolding law of the universe, change. You can't stop it, so might as well embrace it.

So I'd like to invite you all for reflections, for questions, for comments. What did you note? Especially if you haven't shared in a while, I would like to ask you to share, to raise your Zoom hand. And also you can share in chat. You just send it to me, I will read your share, not your name. If it's sent to everyone, then I will also say your name.

So take it away. What did you notice? Did any of you notice that your mind actually became quite steady, quite stable, noticing change? Noticing the breath changing, sounds changing? Yes, I see at least one thumbs up from Neil. Yes, so noticing, oh yeah. And some people... yeah, I see, noticed the total opposite, Marie Christine says. Great, I love all the variety of experiences coming up.

So I'm going to ask you actually, if you'd like to comment. So I'll ask Neil, you first, if you want to say anything about it, then Marie Christine. You don't have to, you're welcome to.

Neil: Yeah, sure. I just found it, you know, very calm. In many ways it felt like a continuation of Wednesday's practice. I mean, things just change, and so they just move on. And as long as I don't get hung up in them being the way they are, it's okay, right? It's the grasping that, you know, and that seems to be the problem.

Nikki: Right, exactly. It's grasping to the content of, "Oh, this changed, and it's this way now, and why is it this way?" It's like, oh yeah, it just changed. It's just like bumping^[8] up one level.

Neil: Right, many of the changes are from pleasant to less pleasant. Which is a bummer, I guess, but you know, it's the way it is.

Nikki: Yeah, exactly. So if you stay not with the content but with the process... "Oh yeah, this transition. Oh, that's interesting." The mind has spaciousness, there's more spaciousness that comes, and you notice that. Yeah, great. That's one thing I wanted to hopefully get across. And if it didn't get across, no problem. There are plenty of other opportunities to practice with this. This can be a significant insight on the path of practice, seeing change and how the mind can stabilize actually seeing change. Not the content, from pleasant to unpleasant and back, but actually, "Oh yeah, there's change, there's change." So thanks, Neil.

Larry, I do see your hand up. I wanted to invite Marie Christine if she wanted to share anything. You don't have to, Marie Christine. Yes? You would like to? Please.

Marie Christine: For me it was interesting. I was trying to observe, I've got a bit of body pain. I wanted to observe as opposed to get absorbed by the content. But as every pain, a symptom kept coming up in my body, it meant that my monkeys were just moving around a lot, because my monkey mind was literally trying to stay with the ongoing change. And then it didn't settle my mind. It was the opposite, it became super active.

Nikki: Right, it does make sense, absolutely. So what I'm hearing you say is that there was so much going on in the body, and what you were trying wasn't to be with the content of the pain, but to notice the transitions, but it seemed like there was so much movement that it was just like, "Whoa, this is too much." Yeah, and that sometimes, when there are so many transitions, exactly, it's like, "Wait, too many transitions. I can't keep up with these, there's too many." Right, great, I'm so appreciative that you brought that up.

Marie Christine: I went back to my phrases. What would you advise?

Nikki: Yeah, great. So one thing you could do, we could go back to the phrases. That's lovely. That's great, that's something that kind of anchors you and stabilizes. Another thing is, if you wanted to still dip your toe with this transition, is to invite it back to be with the breath. Because the breath has simpler transitions, right? It has simpler [shifts]^[9], and afterwards the mind is like a lullaby. It calms down. And then you could open up to the body sensations again, the body transitions again with the mind that went backwards. Thank you, Marie Christine. That's lovely. Thank you. So Larry, I see your hand, please.

Larry: I really appreciated the guidance. Watching change, sort of the ever-changing existence, at times it does really calm me, and I can get very still. And what I felt this time was, I would get still, and then I would move to the future. I was like, "Do I listen to, should I listen to this talk again, and then I'll be in the same place? Or how do I stay in this place?" And as soon as I went to the future, I could feel the clench of, you know, the self^[10] coming right back. And then I could see that, and then I could go back to the still place again. So it was that watching that, watching that, watching that... it felt very useful.

Nikki: Nice. What a wonderful insight that came out of this, noticing that, yes, when the mind went to the future, that's when the clenching of the self came in. The self, the "me," am I going to be in this place? Like, whoa, wait. Just beautiful, wonderful. Thanks for sharing that insight. How important. Yeah, that's great. Thank you.

I see a couple of shares and then we'll transition into the group. Bill says, "Thinking became more stable, but not completely stable." That's fine, that's all good. "Is this more focusing on awareness than on what is noticed?" Kinda, kinda. We're not aware of the content, but we're aware of the transition. So we're not actually aware of awareness itself, it's not that. And we're not focusing on the content either. It's kind of in the middle where it's the transition we're aware of. It's like the derivative, for those of you who like mathematics, that's what we're paying attention to. So yes, I hope that makes sense, Bill.

R says, "I feel like I need to practice this more to really drop in. It felt like open awareness practice and my mind kept trying to decide what to focus on." Right. So the invitation I have is to stay with the breath. To stay with the transitions of the breath. That is your anchor here. So usually our anchor is the breath itself, the content of the breath, the sensations of the breath. Here I was suggesting for the anchor to be the transitions, from the in-breath, out-breath, all those transitions. So that could serve as the anchor here, if you wanted to try this again. So that's what I would invite you.

Excellent questions, beautiful reflections everyone. So touched with your practice, everything that's coming up for you. So juicy, everyone. Thank you so much. So let us transition now to practicing in small groups and bringing a theme from Wednesday: listening with our hearts, sharing with our hearts, and whatever transitions we would like to share or not, it's all good. And let's start with 15 seconds of silent mettā for one another before we engage. I've created the rooms, the rooms are made. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Here we go.

[Breakout rooms]

Okay, welcome back everyone. We have just about a minute left for any reflections that might have come up either during or before. So I'd love to hear from you, especially if you haven't shared for a while. Don't be shy, go for it. Yes, Jerry, I do see your hand, please.

Jerry: Anyway, I can talk and talk a lot, but try not to, like, I learn more when I listen. But anyhow, just to add, I joined late, but it really helped when you said that the essential of life is change. And a reflection came up in the group, and they said, you know, so often in our lives we either want something to change now, which it will eventually, or we don't want to lose what we have. And so we get sad thinking of the loss, or loss aversion. And so I was thinking about that, that happiness or content might be more contentment, which I think is the greatest wealth, as they say in Buddhism, that to embrace change, that it's inevitable, is an essential of life. Actually makes the enjoyment of the moment that we're here for such a short time so rewarding. So thank you.

Nikki: Thank you, Jerry. Well said. Thank you, thank you for that.

And Larry quickly asks, or I'll quickly answer, "Why do we need an anchor if we are watching everything change, if not..." I think there was a typo there, but I think I get the gist of the question. Why do we need an anchor if everything is changing? The idea is that so that our awareness can be stable, otherwise it becomes overwhelming, because it just shifts and moves too much. It's like if you're looking through binoculars, if it's shifting and moving too much, you can't really look through. You want to look through the binoculars so that they're stable, so you can see everything that's shifting really clearly. So that's the idea. That's the reason for that.

And thank you, thank you for all your practice, showing up, your beautiful reflections. And that was a lovely point to end on, Jerry. Love that, thanks for that reflection. And everyone, thank you for coming to Happy Hour, practicing, cultivating your hearts, your minds, for yourselves and the sake of all beings everywhere. May all beings be happy, may all beings be safe. Okay.