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Happy Hour: Gratitude vs. Metta

So a formal hello and welcome to all of you to this rendition of Happy Hour. For today's practice, I wanted to invite us to explore metta and gratitude. There was a question last time that came up: how does metta feel? How does gratitude feel in the body? And I thought we would spend some time today on that.

Again, metta—there's metta for oneself, there's metta for others; it's a big field, metta—but we're going to tap into the metta practice of loving-kindness. And then, at some point, we'll turn to the practice of gratitude. We will serve as scientists of our own minds and hearts and say, "Oh, how do these feel differently for us in our bodies, the embodiment? And how do they feel in our minds?" What brings up knowing, observing, having sati^[1], having mindfulness, becoming mindfully aware of how these practices move through us?

Of course, it's both a practice of cultivation—cultivating metta and loving-kindness, as well as gratitude tonight—and an awareness of how these cultivations impact us. So it's a twofold cultivation. One is the cultivation itself, turning our hearts and our minds so that metta and gratitude become the automatic response of our hearts and minds to situations. Instead of so many challenging ways that the mind and heart can respond to situations—"Why me?", "This is terrible," or ill-will—wouldn't it be nice if the natural, reflexive response is one of kindness towards ourselves, towards others, and one of gratitude, even if things are difficult? Even if things are difficult.

So one aspect is the cultivation, and the other aspect that I'm inviting us to turn to is awareness of the impact of the cultivation, knowing how we're shifting and changing. Because it turns out that the more you are aware of what it is that's happening, the more it takes hold in your mind and your heart and your neurons, whatever perspective you take, however you cut the cake. Awareness of the thing supports the thing's cultivation.

So with that as our setup, let's begin. As always, we begin with settling in the body, with the breath, with some minutes of just arriving with calm abiding.

Landing. Landing in this body. Landing with this breath. Landing in our seat. This being here and together, all of us practicing together. Quite beautiful. Letting the breath breathe you in, and out. In, and out.

Just this moment, appreciating the delicious simplicity of this moment. The mind doesn't want to go elsewhere. Just resting, resting here.

You know what to do. Letting go of entanglements of thought. Turning to your sacred intention for cultivation this moment. Taking refuge. The breath, the body, here, just here. Settling, arriving.

Now I'd like to invite you to bring to mind someone you care about. A straightforward relationship with them. It could be a child, could be a pet, or a friend, or a benefactor. A feeling of safety comes over you, maybe a smile of delight. Bringing this dear being to mind in your mind's eye. And noticing what comes up in your body, in your mind, as you conjure them up.

And from this place of goodwill, friendliness, and gladness, sharing the phrases of metta:

May you be safe, dear one. May you be happy, dear one. May you be healthy, dear one. And may you have ease, dear one.

Repeating the phrases silently to yourself, or just beaming friendliness, goodwill, warmth, and kindness towards them, for them. I'll say the phrases one more time.

May you be safe. Fully knowing that they may not be safe from everything, but we're expressing your wish and intention, inclining our mind to wish them well, wish them safety. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May your life unfold with ease.

Keeping the image, the felt sense of the friend, benefactor, the dear one, up so that the mind doesn't wander. And using the phrases as the anchor for the feeling, if you wish. Keeping the image of your dear being fresh in your mind's eye. Their felt sense will support your mind not drifting, and staying with the phrases of metta, the feeling of metta.

Noticing in the moments when metta is flowing, what does it feel like in your mind, in your heart, in your body? Becoming mindful of the feeling of metta.

Now imagine your dear one is looking at you with kind eyes. Let yourself be seen through their perspective, the way they see you. Perhaps with love, admiration, kindness, care. Letting yourself be seen, receiving their care, their metta. And adding your voice to theirs:

May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I meet this moment with ease. (Or, may my life unfold with ease, if you prefer.)

May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I have ease.

Keeping an image of yourself in mind, a felt sense of yourself, so that your mind doesn't wander. Connecting with your felt sense or an image of yourself, whichever works best. And noticing what wishing well for yourself feels like. What does it feel like in your body, your mind, and heart?

And notice, becoming mindful, becoming aware of the feelings of metta for yourself. Whether it enhances the metta for yourself, intensifies it, brings it alive.

One last minute of metta for ourselves. Connecting with the felt sense of this body, an image of ourselves, and the phrases:

May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I have ease.

And now, as we continue to sit, feeling our bodies being breathed, sitting, connecting to the earth, what is one thing you feel grateful for in this moment as you're sitting here? It could be as simple as the chair you're sitting on. It's a nice comfortable chair, or that it's a chair. Nice, thank you, chair, for supporting me, supporting my weight. Or maybe for the air you breathe. Or that there's a roof over your head, you're safe from the elements in this moment. You've had food to eat. That this body is functioning well enough, with cognitive ability and listening and cognizing, that you can show up and practice in this moment. Heart beating, breathing happening, all the amazing functions of this body.

And in your own time, allowing your heart to become alight with gratitude for so much goodness that we often take for granted in this life. Ranging from simply being aware, the miracle of awareness in this moment, to be grateful for that. The limbs of the body functioning. Imagine if one of the limbs was broken right now, how tough your life would be. Caring for yourself, bathing, working, feeding yourself if your leg was in a cast, or an arm. And wow, your arm, your leg is not in a cast. What a blessing, how amazing you can get up after this meditation with as much health as is available.

So take your time, without making your mind too busy. Letting yourself linger with each item of gratitude for a few moments, maybe even a minute or two before moving on to the next. Notice how gratitude feels in your heart, body, and mind.

And for the last few minutes of this practice period, you are welcome to stay with the practice of gratitude, with the feeling of abundance. Or, if you wish, you can cycle through metta for the dear being that we started with, what that feels like again if it's available. And then metta for yourself. Feelings in the body and heart. You choose what's best.

May all beings everywhere, may they be safe, happy, healthy, have ease. May all beings everywhere know the abundance of their own goodness of their heart. May all beings everywhere be free, including ourselves.

Reflections

Thanks, everyone. Thank you for your practice. So we have a few minutes for reflections. What you discovered, what was this like for you? You can either type them in the Zoom chat, and if it's just typed to me, I won't say your name, it will be private. And if you type them to everyone, I will read the reflections with your name. You can also raise your Zoom hand. Especially if you haven't shared for a while, I would love to hear from you.

I'll say a couple of things while I wait for your reflections. What was interesting, actually, becoming aware—because I invited you to become aware of the feeling of metta, first for the dear being, and then for yourself, and then gratitude—turning awareness to the metta, I noticed actually it did intensify the feeling of metta and the feeling of gratitude for me. And also that each practice felt very different for me. Maybe I'll pause until I hear from you what you discovered.

Anthony says, "Grateful for the dukkha^[2]." Thank you, Anthony, that is beautiful. That's a beautiful insight to be grateful for the dukkha. Yeah.

Nancy says, "Aware of how tender my heart is today." Yeah, thank you, Nancy.

Bill says, "Felt more emotional when doing gratitude, metta was quieter." Ah, thank you for that observation. And Violet, please.

Violet: So when I did metta for myself, the body experience was like tingling everywhere in my body except for my heart center. So my heart center felt like this bubble of novocaine. And then when I was doing gratitude, I decided to keep it very literal. I'm holding a very fuzzy pillow, and I love fuzzy things. I was like, wow, so grateful for this fuzzy pillow that I can feel on my lap, and it was so clean. So that felt like a hand was coming out of my heart center and literally grabbing onto this pillow. Like, I'm only grateful for this pillow because it's on my lap right now, but the second it's gone, I'm not going to be grateful for it anymore because I won't have it anymore.

But then I was like, wow, this is so self-centered. Like, I am grateful for what I have; I have this pillow. But then I thought about when we were doing muditā^[3], you talked about how muditā for yourself can be a form of gratitude. So then I zoomed out to like, I'm happy for this being who is Violet who has a fuzzy pillow in her lap right now. And then the tingles went back to my whole body. So it went from just being in my heart to being in the rest of my body when I did that.

Nikki: Beautiful. My whole body tingles as I hear Violet. Yay, beautiful! How with wisdom like, "Oh yeah, with observation, this is what this feels like. Oh, that's interesting. Shifting perspective, muditā for this being who is me." Beautiful, Violet. I am so touched. That's lovely. Yay! May your muditā practice for yourself continue to flourish. It's lovely. Thank you. Beautiful, yeah, it's great.

And a few other reflections here, let's see. Melanie: "So grateful for Nikki's voice and guidance and for everyone here today as always." Ah, thank you, Melanie, for your gratitude, for being here and practicing in sangha^[4]. And I'm so grateful that we're all showing up together. And I'm so grateful for you. That's one thing that came up when I was doing this practice. I'm so grateful for this sangha, that I can support you and it supports me, and it's just a beautiful thing.

And another reflection: "More selfing with metta; gratitude was more spacious." Great, wonderful to observe these differences and the ways that we can find our ways through these practices. Lovely.

And Tara on YouTube says how it was easier to generate metta for a dear being plus all beings. Okay, great, and that it's interesting to notice that. And maybe that can be a stepping stone for generating metta for oneself. And thank you, Patricia from Ireland, joining us on YouTube: "Beautiful practice, thank you." And thank you for your practice, Patricia. Yeah, lovely.

So any other reflections? Maybe as I wait, I'll tell you a few things that I noticed. And again, for each person, they could feel differently; any given day, any given time these practices could feel different. So for me, what I noticed was metta for my dear being felt like beaming generosity and care and love. That's what it felt like in my body. And then for me, metta for myself was really soothing, healing, just calming. As if it was a salve of care. And gratitude felt like there was a lot of joy, a lot of abundance of gratitude in my heart. It was just kind of bubbly, like, "Wow, so much goodness here. Yay, let's turn to it." So those are some of my practice notes from today. Of course, every time could be different.

So dear ones, we can save some time on the other end when you come out of the small practice groups. Because a lot of times, being in small groups really brings up more reflections you hadn't considered before. Like, "Oh yes, that is true for me too," when you hear other people. And also when you're held witness, it can be so supportive for one's practice. So let's start with 15 seconds of silent practice, silent metta for one another when we get into groups, and then share as much or as little as you wish about your practice with one another. Taking care of yourself, taking care of each other. And here we go, I'm opening the rooms now.

The rooms are closed and everyone is back. Welcome back, everyone. And we have a few minutes for any reflections that might have come up discussing together, practicing together in sangha. Peter, please.

Peter: Okay, there, unmuted. So we were talking about gratitude a little bit, Terrence and I, and we both had the observation that sometimes metta is difficult to get into, but for both of us, gratitude is somewhat easy, and there's some similarity of the feeling. And so it occurred that maybe we could, if we're having trouble with metta, use gratitude as a prelude to the metta.

Nikki: Yeah, beautiful observation. Yes, Peter. And absolutely, actually starting with gratitude can prime the heart for metta. And this is also something that I observed tonight at the very end when I invited you, "Hey, after having done gratitude, now you can go through and do the metta again and see what it feels like." And when I turned back to doing the other practices, even though they were really short, there was a sense of, "Wow, there's so much abundance in the heart now, feeling grateful, that it's easier to give." It's easier to give to others. So absolutely, Peter and Terrence, fantastic observation. So next time it feels a little difficult to get into metta, start with gratitude. Beautiful, beautiful. Thank you for bringing that in.

Peter: You're welcome. Yeah, that's something new to practice with that has a lot of promise.

Nikki: Yeah, great. Yeah, wonderful. Yeah, and gratitude tends to be easier. And for some—again, I've learned teaching the dharma to never ever generalize anything to everyone, for each person is different. And I so appreciate, actually, before we went into groups when people were sharing their reflections in chat. You know, for one person gratitude was more emotional, metta was quieter, and this was easier, that was easier. It was just like everybody's different. So really appreciating and honoring all the differences that each of us brings to this practice, and finding our way to practice with these practices. So thanks, thanks, Peter.

Any other reflections, please? A quick one before we close and end.

Well, maybe this has been plenty already, come to think of it. This has been quite rich, it feels like, to me also, hearing all the reflections has been a very rich exploration tonight. In gratitude, and metta for a dear being, for ourselves, and also bringing awareness—which is yet another aspect—bringing awareness to how these things feel. So thank you all for showing up, for cultivating your hearts, your minds, for your own sake and the sake of all beings whose lives you touch and beyond.

May all beings be well. May all beings be free. Thank you.