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Happy Hour: Listening With the Heart / Practice As Art

Hello and welcome everyone, dear sangha^[1]. It makes me happy to see you. How nice. What a lovely ritual we have to come together from different parts of the world and practice together.

For today's practice, I'd like to invite us to consider the frame of reference of our practice. There could be many frames in our study and practice, and there's not a wrong frame or a right frame, just different frames to consider. The frame I'd like to invite for us to consider is the frame of our practice, of our life, as art. This open-ended co-creation arising in each moment. This sense of beauty, sense of grace, which happens to be the frame of reference—yes, it turns out to be the domain of art. Art is often where beauty is explored.

So what if we consider our practice, our exploration, not so much with a "this should happen," etc., but with the sense of art in the making? The sense of appreciating the beauty of our dedication, our practice, even if there is fatigue, even if there is pain, even if there are distractions in the mind. What if we treated all of this as part of this art, this beautiful creation?

With this frame of reference of art, if you would imagine for a moment with music—if there's a type of music that you like—how do you listen to the favorite music that you like? With your heart. Opening your heart, opening your mind, opening all your senses to be impacted. To listen with all your senses, not just with your ears, but with your heart. In the same way, if you were looking at a painting, or a photograph, or visual art, really receiving, paying attention, letting yourself be impacted by this sense of beauty. Because the art isn't just what's on the wall or just the music that you hear; it's co-created in the moment with your perception, with your way of attending, with your openness.

It's almost like the sound in the forest: if a tree falls, if there's no one there to hear it, did it make a sound? Did it fall? So here, the sense of this art—this art of your practice—is opening your heart to what is arising. The breath, the body awareness, knowing, "Wow, the most beautiful and profound instrument ever that we take for granted." This co-creation of knowing with various stimuli that arise in the mind, and the heart, and the senses, our thoughts—all of this.

So if you are wondering, especially if you're new, wondering, "Okay, what does that mean? What are the instructions? What am I going to do?" It will become clear. And I also say don't worry. Don't worry. This practice that I will guide and introduce for us to explore is a practice of deep listening. It's just the practice of deep listening. You know how to do this. You know how to do this. It's not new; we've done it a million times. It's a practice of listening. It's a practice of deep listening. Listening with your heart. Listening with your heart, and if cognitively you ask, "What does it mean to listen with my heart?" Don't think about it too much. Drop into the body. Don't think about it. You know what to do. Trust that you know what to do.

I'll say one more thing before we start this practice, and then to say that this practice is a particularly appropriate way of deep listening to ourselves. Deep listening, listening with our hearts, as if our minds, our awareness, our thoughts, our bodies, is this beautiful symphony, this piece of art in the making. This way of listening with our hearts is a particularly lovely practice to bring in when you're tired at the end of the day, when maybe conjuring up, say, metta^[2] ("May you be safe, may you be happy"), or maybe when you wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, and it feels like the mind is tired, but the heart is awake. So listen, just deeply listen to the crickets, to the sound of rain, to the sound of silence, to whatever is arising. Listen with your heart. So these are the simple instructions: listen with your heart. Let's begin by settling in with the body.

Guided Meditation

So let's arrive and settle. Landing in this body. Letting go for now, just because we want to land and arrive first, to stabilize first. Letting go of memories, of thought, of thinking, and just being simple in the body with the breath.

Connecting. Let your heart connect with the breath. Relaxing, relaxing into the body. Nothing to do. This is not a doing practice, just receive. Receive the breath as if you're listening to the breath with your heart. Listening to the sensations of the breath with your heart. Not just the sound, but the sensations. Deep listening.

Opening your heart: "Sweet, dear body, what do you need right now?" Asking the body and listening with your heart, with care in your heart. What is needed? What do you need right now?

Just receiving the breath, receiving the sensations. And if thoughts arise, not listening with your head, but listening with your heart. What is needed? "Dear thought, I wonder why you're coming up in this moment." Let your heart listen.

And if doubt arises, or the various hindrances^[3], maybe your heart smiles and says, "Oh dear, is that so? Is that really so?" Like a caring mother listening. Deep listening. Your heart listening to your body, to your breath. And with each breath that is heard by your heart, relaxing more into your chair, into your sit bones.

At first, we primarily listen right now to the breath and the body just to arrive and to settle. Later we'll open up some more. Listening to the symphony, this music that is my life in this moment unfolding. My breath, these sensations, this awareness, this instrument of knowing. Both knowing and being known. Your heart knowing this instrument of perception.

Notice dropping into your body, opening the heart. Listening. Listening to the body, the breath, and now opening up to the sounds. Opening up to the sounds. Listening with your heart. Is there a slightly different quality to listening with the heart and with the head? Don't think about it. Feel into the heart.

Sounds, noises. They sound different when you listen with your heart. Opening your heart with ease. Don't try too hard. Drop in, let it flow through you. You know. You know how to do this, this listening with your heart.

If the question arises, "Am I doing this right? What am I supposed to do?" The answer is yes, you are doing this right. Just listen. Just listen, that's all. Just listen. Relax and listen with all your senses, with your heart.

Listening 360 degrees, all around. Staying with all your senses within an open heart. The heart that cares listens. What is needed right now? Maybe nothing. Maybe something. Just listen with your heart.

Like art, let it be open-ended. Nothing needs to happen. The beauty, the grace, this moment, just opening our hearts and listening. And whatever is needed for you right now is the right thing. No right, no wrong. Opening. Opening to this magnificent, spacious unfolding, with presence and heart.

And your thoughts, memories, emotions, various colors that arise—listen with your heart. Listen deeply with your heart. What is needed right now to be cared for, to be listened to with your heart?

Do the sounds, even noises back in the background, do they sound different? Transform somehow when you listen with your heart? Not with your head. Receiving the symphony of perceptions, knowings, with care. Are even judgments transformed if you listen with your heart?

Coming back, listening to your body, your breath, the sensations. This is your heart. What care is needed for this body, this breath in this moment?

And for the last moments, can you imagine, with our hearts more than our minds in this moment, we can listen? And listen to the sounds of the universe. This magnificent unfolding of life that we are a part of. Not separate, not an island, completely interconnected. Listening with our hearts to these amazing notes of interconnection and causes and conditions that we're a part of. Receiving, giving.

May our hearts be open to listen to what is needed for ourselves and others to serve as best as we can. Thank you for your practice, dear sangha.

Reflections and Q&A

So, changing the settings now so you are welcome to share in chat, if you wish, your observations, questions, what's arising for you, what you noticed, for the benefit of all beings. You can also raise your hand, your Zoom hand, your physical hand I may not see because of privacy—only I see a small strip, and only my image goes to YouTube. Richard?

Richard: Since you started with music and beauty, I wanted to offer this, suggest this comparison of our small group discussions to jazz and improvisation. Where you have one soloist establish a theme, and everyone else building up on the prior musicians doing their variations on a theme.

Nikki: I love that, yes. Yes, the co-creation of the small group practice, yes. May you make beautiful music together today as you go into small groups. And it's all beautiful. It's all beautiful. There is sorrow, suffering, it's all part of the sacredness of being part of this life. So it's all beautiful, not to shy away and just try to share the good.

Barbara, I see your hand is up. Please.

Barbara: I also appreciated suggesting art and feeling the senses. Before joining the sangha, I went out on the beach and it was a vision of gray tones. There was no color, it was raining, and the clouds were low, and you couldn't see the lights across the bay. It was just gray on gray with little white birds skittering along the shore. And so it was wonderful to get out of my head, and suddenly it was like, "Oh, that was our first rain, how wonderful," and it was wonderful to observe it coming down. My heart feels moistened.

Nikki: As you talk about these images and the moistening... thank you, Barbara. It's lovely, yeah. Getting out of our heads, that was the intention, one invitation for this practice. Yeah.

And Marie Christine says, "Focusing on listening made my tinnitus louder." Ah. And Fred says, "Strangely, it dampened mine." I love the art of all these different experiences, right? It's not one way. And you're welcome to raise your hand if anybody wants to talk more about that.

Yeah, so interesting. And Neil says, "Yay for you, Fred." Yay, I second that. Yeah, and Marie Christine, I'm sorry to hear that. What I would recommend, what I would invite, if you wanted to try this practice, is you know, I was using listening as a metaphor obviously. Maybe something to try if you wanted would be to bring more awareness to the heart center here, as if you're really listening from your heart, from your heart center. And try that and see if it might make a difference. Or maybe this is not the appropriate invitation for you, it's all good. Thank you for sharing that, thank you, I appreciate hearing that.

Mark also says, "That was a wonderful meditation, thank you. I will sit with it many times." Yeah, sweet. Thank you, Marie Christine.

And Neil says, "It put me in a non-reactive place, very equanimous." Yeah, thank you for that. Yeah, it's lovely to hear that. I feel a lot more spacious, and I realize actually my rate of speech is turned down, just speaking a lot more slowly. Just this sense of... oh, and one other thing I wanted to share with you guys. It was interesting noticing the ambient sounds. I don't know, there was maybe a truck driving, and the sounds just felt... yeah, there was a motorbike racing by, and my heart opened up to, "Oh wow, somebody's having the thrill of being on a motorbike." It was not like, "Oh, somebody's making noise being on a motorbike." It was like, "Oh, somebody's going to get through." So it was a very different way of listening and hearing.

He says, "Thank you, Nikki. The sangha is a train building a community of truth and trust, and now making music together. A song of communal love."

And Abraham, please.

Abraham: Okay, thanks. As some of you people know, I'm very, very deaf, and my hearing aids lately screwed up, and I have to bring my hearing aids into my audio center to get them fixed up. So I'm not sure I even heard it. I was just trying to be equanimous. But it seemed like you were talking about us opening up, and so I just opened up, and what was there was just my tremendous love of music when I was a child. How much I loved playing music, and that I don't do that anymore and I don't sing. And then I thought, "Well, this is a real, could be a real pity trip, and I don't want to do that."

And I remembered my high school music teacher who inspired me to music, and how much we all loved him. He was like a hero in our town. And then later I heard that he was very disappointed that he didn't get the position that he was supposed to get or wanted to get as a conductor, and maybe even got into some alcohol. And so I started sending him loving-kindness^[4]. And I thought you would say something about being open for something that you don't expect or has never been there. And I've never sent him any loving-kindness. And it was just beautiful for me to love him for what he gave me. Thanks, folks.

Nikki: Thanks, Abraham, that's lovely. Thank you. I'm delighted. The practice opening up your heart, opening up exactly as it needed to be tonight. And hearing the instructions exactly as they needed to be heard. Yay, beautiful. It's making art, right? This is our life, is art. And our practice is art. It's what comes up, it's what we hear. I mean, I say so many things, and I trust many of you—and for me too, when I listen to guided meditation, there are only a few things I really hear and listen to. And it's amazing to hear the whole thing, but whatever needs to arise. Our practice is art. So thank you all, beautiful.

Such a privilege to practice with you all. All of it included. All the beauties and all the sorrows, the ten thousand joys and the ten thousand sorrows, all of it supporting art. So the time has come for us to turn into making music in small groups. Making jazz, yes.

So I'm going to create the breakout rooms now, and as always, take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Start with fifteen seconds of silent metta for yourself or each other, and then as much or as little as you wish to share. The rooms are now created. They are open. Actually, wait, not open yet, I'm going to shift something around there. Okay, open. Enjoy.

[Small group breakout session]

Okay, welcome back everyone. Welcome back. We have a couple of minutes. I'd love to hear about anything that might have come up. You're making music together, sangha music. So feel free to raise your hand, especially if you haven't shared for a while. Or you can type in chat. Think about your practice in sangha, or this listening with the heart. Anything you noticed different? Any thoughts about practice as art, art as practice? Claire.

Claire: Hi there. Very quickly, it was so funny that you brought this topic up tonight because I was talking to somebody else about it this morning. I won't go into the whole story, but ever since I've started working with you all, my listening skills have increased exponentially. I can't tell you how much is coming to me from the universe and what I'm hearing internally. It's changed a lot of my behaviors so increasingly. And that's the honest truth. And I was talking to somebody else today about what a difference that is doing. And then you bring it up tonight, I thought, "Boy, this is really weird."

Nikki: That's beautiful. Thank you, Claire. The sound is coming and going in your audio a little tonight, but what I heard you say is that ever since you've started to practice with the sangha and training in this way, that there's a sense of you listening. And also some kind of sense of intuition, like listening to messages from the universe and from within.

Claire: Yeah, I'm sorry, I use earbuds when you're speaking because I can hear better, right? But it blocks my speaking, I always forget to take them out.

Nikki: It's all good, heard you loud and clear. Yeah, there's something... and now that you bring that up, I'll say this before closing. I'll share with you that for me also, there's this listening. This listening for me also with my meditation and my path, I feel like I'm much more intuitive. I listen much more, both with people and with a sense of intuition. Again, I don't want to make it sound woo-woo, but there's so much to this world, it's just listening. When we really listen, there's so much that we can pick up in conversations with others, with just what is offered. So yeah, we can listen with our hearts. Thank you, Claire. Thanks for bringing that in.

And we'll give the last word to Nav who says, "Just appreciating the beauty of endless possibility."

Yay, love the poetry of that. Thank you, Nav. Appreciating the beauty of endless possibility, indeed. So thank you all. I appreciate the beauty of the endless possibility of you showing up, and practicing, and cultivating, and all the ripple effects. All the ripples of our practice together. May all beings be well. May all beings be free, including ourselves.

Thanks everyone, thank you.