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Happy Hour: Gratitude for Challenges

Hello and welcome to Happy Hour, everyone. Lovely to be with you, to share the space with you, to practice together.

For today's practice, I want to invite us to explore the practice of gratitude. It's nice to explore gratitude on a Friday, or for some of you it's Saturday already, like Mary Christine in Australia, and maybe others will be listening to this on Audiodharma later. But the practice of gratitude is just to brighten the heart. As you know, as always, we take different approaches to practices. There are so many different ways to practice mettā^[1], gratitude. Each of these practices has so many ways in, so we'll find our way in a different way tonight: in the way of appreciating, having gratitude for not just what's good and easy and wonderful and things that we're typically grateful for, but also for challenges. Gratitude for challenges.

I'll share with you that I've been contemplating this, and as quizzical and paradoxical as it seems, although illness is hard, sickness is hard, and I've been down with a bad cold for many days, over a week. And yet, what I found in my heart is—and of course, not that I like being sick; I don't like being sick, I don't wish it upon myself. So this is not a masochistic way of being in the world or in the head. When things are the way they are, when sickness, lack of health, and lack of energy are there, can I be grateful for this too? What are the gifts that this thing that I don't like, that I don't wish upon myself, but yet is here and has an unpleasant feeling tone—can I be grateful for it? Are there gifts in this darkness?

That's something that I'll lead you in tonight. But just to share, for me, I have been grateful for my illness because even though there were many things on my to-do list that I didn't get to do and accomplish, or come and be with sangha^[2] and teach Happy Hour, it forced me to slow down, which is a gift. It forced me to be in bed, it forced me to spend all those hours being with this body that wasn't feeling well at all. To meditate, to be aware of things as they arise and pass. When the mind doesn't have the energy or the uplift to even read, to even do, to even watch a movie, but just enough energy to just be aware. That is a gift. That's a tremendous gift. So illness in that way is a gift, becomes a gift. Hence, having gratitude for illness or anything that seems to be difficult or undesirable. It's a nuanced practice, and yet with a little bit of creativity, I trust and I know that it can be available to all of us.

So that's the setting, that's the way I would like to set up our practice. The inspiration, the framing.

Guided Meditation

Let's explore together, friends. Let's explore together. I'd like to invite you this time, this moment, to turn, to change, to shift into your meditation posture. You may need to move from the cushion to a chair, or from a chair to a cushion, lie down, or stand up. See what this body needs to be comfortable. As comfortable as possible, but yet alert and awake, and landing, arriving. Arriving in this body in this moment.

Letting the breath be received in the abdomen by the entire body. Not the head, but the sensations of the breath be sensed by the body itself.

Let there be awareness. Let awareness pervade the entire body. Parts that are tired, achy, heavy. Parts that are comfortable, pleasant, warm. The parts that are energetic, energized. Are there parts in the body that are all of these and more at the same time?

Can we rest, let go, release? Release, release, release more holding, more tension.

Aware of this moment, whatever is arising in this moment in this body, with curiosity and interest. Oh yes, look at that, there's achiness there. Hello achiness, you're welcome to be just as you are. Or, Hello lightness, comfort, coziness in some other parts of the body. You too are welcome to be appreciated and relished.

What's present in the body? Not thinking about it, but letting it be felt. All these sensations. All these sensations.

Even if some are unpleasant, can we have gratitude for the unpleasantness, for the pain in the body? Because after all, sensing pain means that our pain receptors are working. That our spine is not cut off. The system is working, it's sending the signals. We may not like the signals, but can we be grateful that they exist? What if we reframe the unpleasantness in the body, the fact that we have a body that has sensations?

Can we appreciate and enjoy the breath? [unintelligible]

Can we enjoy and appreciate this moment of quiet sitting and practicing, simply being aware? So much gratitude for the simplicity of this moment of being able to sit, to just be.

Expanding, expanding, and knowing from our heart, the middle of our chest, a sense of presence, connection with ourselves. Can we be grateful for this moment? Simply being here, being aware. Here, I'm here.

Can I love, be grateful for this moment just as it is? Not needing or wanting it to be any different. Appreciating, relishing the normalcy in some ways. And maybe in some ways it's not normal. Of this moment just as it is unfolding. Even if there are many thoughts arising, or aches in the body, or you are distracted or sleepy. It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be perfect. Can we appreciate and love it just as it is? Just this.

What we consider to be normal, boring, not good enough, not exciting... Someday we will look back. Someday when the present moment belongs to the long past history, by god, this moment would be part of the good old times. Ah, when life was like that, which I took for granted.

Can we not take it for granted? Look at this moment from the perspective of the future looking at this moment in the rearview mirror. Ah, the good old times, when so-and-so was alive, when I was at that age, when that was happening, which maybe was challenging, but oh, looking back at it all wistfully. Can we appreciate it now before it's gone? While it's here, relish it. Really relish this life, these circumstances. The safety, the shelter, the people in our lives. The opportunities, the challenges. The full catastrophe, the full beautiful catastrophe of our lives. Can we relish it, appreciate it, be grateful for it? Not needing it to be any different in this moment.

As if we are opening our arms wide and hugging, just hugging, embracing ourselves, our life just as it is in this moment. Savoring it. Beautiful. The challenges, all of it. All the goodness. And yes, the challenges are part of the goodness.

Embracing, embracing our lives. With arms wide, appreciating, loving what is here. Staying embodied. Not thinking about it, not planning. Let it be a reflection dropped into your body. Stay embodied. The feeling of appreciation, gratitude, love for what is. This amazing mysterious thing called my life. The whole enchilada.

And from this perspective, can you embrace the good as well as the challenges? It's a part of this beautiful, complex painting, this play that's your life. This piece of art.

Is there a recent challenge, maybe you had earlier today or this past week, that you can include? See the goodness of it. Maybe how it helps you grow in compassion and care and wisdom in ways you wouldn't otherwise.

The opportunities hidden in challenges. The gifts within the challenge. Maybe life isn't all about getting what you want, but growing through getting what you don't at times.

Grateful for it all. Let the body be relaxed. Let the body be relaxed and receptive. Receiving, receiving your whole life in this moment just as it is. With an open heart, open arms. One breath at a time.

Looking at this moment from the perspective of the future, the same way you would look at the moment from your past. From this perspective, Oh yes, I remember. Oh then, oh yes. Oh the good old times when I was at this age. Oh so-and-so was in my life. Those were my challenges. Ah, the sense of perhaps bittersweet tenderness looking at this moment of your life with the same perspective.

And for the last minutes of this practice period, holding yourself with kindness for whatever arose or did not arise. Can I appreciate, love whatever happened in this practice period, even if it was sleepiness or distraction? Just as it is, just as it was.

And sharing our goodness, the goodness of our practice, of our heart, our intentions. Generously sharing it with all beings everywhere. May all beings everywhere know, cherish, and appreciate the gifts of their circumstances, whether easy or challenges, to support them, to support us all to grow. May all beings everywhere, including ourselves, be happy. May all beings be free.

Thank you all. Thank you for your practice.

Reflections & Q&A

So we have a few minutes. If there are any reflections you have, you'd like to share them, you're welcome to type them in chat. If you type them to everyone, I'll read your name. If you type them just to me, I will read the reflection but not your name, so you'll be private. You can also raise your hand. Invited to share for the benefit of all beings: what did you discover? What was interesting? What was challenging? Any aha moments?

Claire says, "Have been told that gratitude is wanting what you have." Yes, exactly, exactly. Not having what you want. Which actually can put us on a hedonic treadmill: keep wanting, keep having what we want, keep going after what we want. Whereas it's the other way around. Exactly, gratitude is wanting what you have. "Yay, this is what I have! Yay!" So actually wanting it, appreciating it. Yes, thank you, Claire.

David on YouTube says, "What if we reframe the signal? I'm hearing the hiss of mindfulness loud and clear. Thanks to you and the Dharma Deep House." Thank you, David. Yes, it's reframing. So much about reframing in the other insights and the other aha moments.

One person says, "Having joy for surviving my injury." Yeah. And what gifts there can be in the injury. Actually none besides surviving it, but actually the ways that maybe it slowed you down, maybe it gave you more time to be with yourself, with others, or whatever else. What other gifts there might have been.

I'll take another pause for any reflections that might have come up. The aha moments, anything you noticed when you looked at your life from the perspective of the future, your challenges. Hugging your life, how was that with arms wide open?

Mary Christine says, "Grateful for the awareness this practice brings me." Yes, indeed.

Catherine, I see your hand, please.^[3]

Catherine: This kind of exercise has always been really hard for me because I try and understand it with my mind, and then I just feel guilty that I haven't been appreciating my life, and I can't quite grasp it. And the same with appreciating challenge. I've done this unconscious exceptionalism where I'm like, "Okay, other people can get that, but not me." And I just kind of listen and keep it at arm's length. But lately, because of loving-kindness practice and deep embodiment practices, I have recognized that my body understands this. This unified wisdom that is my whole being understands things like this about how I can appreciate my life now, imagining the future, or how I can feel grateful for challenge. And it's just this shift of letting my mind take a little bit of the back seat and opening to this greater wisdom that understands all this and that I am deeply grateful for.

Nikki Mirghafori: Yay, Catherine, I'm celebrating this! I'm getting chills as you say this. Beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing your insight, your wisdom for the sake of others. It is so beautiful to go from this place. That's beautifully described: trying so hard, understanding, and then feeling guilty. The sense of trust: trust the body, the embodiment with kindness. There is opening to the wisdom of the body and the mind, the embodied mind that gets it, and deep, deep gratitude for that, as you said. Beautiful. I so appreciate you sharing that. It brightens my heart, thank you.

Oh, sweet Sarah, please.

Sarah: Hi, thank you first of all. And kind of to piggyback off of that, what I was experiencing during the meditation was just this experimentation with moving the locus of how I understand me from my head into my heart. As if I had eyes in my heart, because I think that's a lot of where vision—like I see out of here, so I'm located here—but trying to drop that down into my chest. It's the first time I've ever tried that, living from an awareness here instead of here. It was interesting for me.

Nikki Mirghafori: Yay, thanks for sharing that. That's beautiful, I love that. Was there something that arose, and again if there are no words for it don't feel like you're on the spot, but if there's anything else I'd love to invite you to reflect on it out loud.

Sarah: Yeah, I think it got less judgmental immediately. And it felt really challenging too, I will have to say, because it's so habitual to live from my eyeballs and my brain. And in some ways I'm like, can I get plastic surgery these days good enough to bring my eyeballs down here? I don't know.

Nikki Mirghafori: Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you for saying that, that's lovely. So both it is challenging because habitually we associate our perspective with our head, not from our heart, and yet as you said, judgments drop, there's a sense of heartfulness. You've discovered this, yay, beautiful, keep exploring, keep experimenting.

And also, if others wanted to experiment with that, I would invite actually this improv exercise or practice I've done when I've done mindfulness and improv day-longs, which I haven't done for a while thanks to the pandemic. But anyway, you can imagine that there is an orb, an orb of light, which is compassionate and loving. And imagine that's in your chest and you're leading with that. You're leading with your chest into the world. Not with your head, not with your hips—actually you can try all of those ways of walking in the world—but you're leading with your heart. You're leading with this orb in your heart, and you're looking around. Look at this orb, this light is looking around in the world. So I invite you to check that out.

So it's time to turn towards small groups. I want to make sure we have enough time for them. Claire, I do see your hand, we're going to come back to you at the end. So I'd like to invite us to practice in small groups to take these insights, to take this way of being together to the way we have been alone. And actually, let's practice with this orb of light in our chest. Let's take this show on the road. So as you enter the small groups, try this on for size, and it might be clunky, it might be challenging as just reported by Sarah, or it might actually drop the judgments, like "Oh yeah, there's this sense of brightness in my heart. I trust there is this brightness in my heart, this goodness. It's there, and that's what's shining when I'm talking. I'm talking from the center of my heart."

Practically speaking, we'll be in roughly groups of three, and each person will have a nugget they'll share, and then the next person will share a nugget, and the third person, round and round. So it's not a long monologue, but just one nugget you're sharing from your own experience. Not managing, asking others about their experience, but just staying close to your orb of light, of goodness shining, and receiving others. Receiving others with care, with love. See what that feels like. I'd love to hear your report when you come back to see what this improv experiment is like.

So with that, I'm going to open the rooms. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and here we go.

[Small group break]

Okay, the rooms are closed, everyone's back. Welcome back everyone. So even though we're at time, I'd love to hear maybe one person perhaps, maybe they would share quickly what it was like experimenting with this orb of goodness, of light in the chest, which was inspired by Sarah's report. Anybody would like to share that? Please raise your hand, don't be shy. Did you experiment with it? What was it like? Going once... you can also type in chat if you're shy. Any experimenters? I don't see any.

Okay, I see Sarah again. All right, Sarah, you get the last word.

Sarah: I actually was gonna defer to Vicky, she had wanted to raise her hand.

Nikki Mirghafori: Oh there's Vicky. Okay Vicky. Oh you're muted still Vicky.

Vicky: Okay, I had an experience because I was so in the middle of this. I think you just opened your eyes as my cat knocked off something that came crashing to the floor, and so I grabbed the cat and didn't have time to see what it was, but spent the rest of the time trying to forgive myself for being reactive. And then in the end it was a light bulb. And so I had a lot of experience to say, well coming back to this, it really didn't matter. The cat was playing cat. Just the fact that it was a light bulb when we were talking about bringing light to something. And, "Oh my gosh, Nikki's gonna think I'm the most reactive person in the world, in the middle of meditation, completely involved with what you were saying and then reacting."

Nikki Mirghafori: That's hilarious. I didn't even notice all this story, all this papañca^[4], this story of "what will Nikki think of me, I'm a terrible meditator." I didn't even know that, I didn't even see anything!

Vicky: Oh my god, but I was compassionate for the cat, because in the middle of my meditation it's gonna hurt its paw, so I have to get out of my presence here. So it was an interesting meditation. [Laughter]

Nikki Mirghafori: I appreciate that. Actually, you know what, I'm going to say one last thing and then wrap it up. The fact that it was a challenging meditation and then actually there are so many lessons in the quote-unquote challenges that the mind was creating, right? There were so many chunks like, "What is she gonna think? Oh, I'm reactive." It's like, oh, the cat was doing its thing. It's okay. It's all okay, and it's much ado about nothing, right? And that is the point, right? That's the gift of this challenging meditation. That's just beautiful. Thank you Vicky, that's great.

Lovely. And Kitten says, "The light often shines way ahead and not in proximity, and what keeps us from keeping the beam close are constructed emotional concepts of fear or anger." Very well said.

All right, dear ones. Oh my goodness, we've gone way over time tonight. Thank you for your patience and humor. Wasn't my intention but it was juicy. Gratitude for challenges. So take good care. May all beings be well. May all beings be happy and free, including yourselves. Thanks everyone. Take good care.