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Introduction

Hello everyone. Hi, and welcome to Happy Hour. If the audio's all right, would you give me a thumbs up? Fantastic, thank you.

So let's get started informally by welcoming ourselves, welcoming each other to the space, wonderful sangha^[1] of ours. And I start by saying hi, I'm Nikki. I'm in Mountain View, California, unceded Ohlone land, where the weather has been pretty warm. Today we're going into another heatwave.

So who is here? Who wants to say hi?

Hi Neil in New Hampshire. How's the weather in New Hampshire?

"It's been raining for about nine days, but it finally got sunny today."

Oh wow, nice. Wish we had the rain. Hi Bill in Dallas, Texas. How's the weather in Dallas? Warm.

Hi Ricardo from Brazil on YouTube. Thanks for joining us, Ricardo, the YouTube sangha.

Anybody else? Please feel free to unmute.

"I'm Lish and I'm in Oakland, and it was in the high 70s, which I complained about, which I shouldn't be complaining about because it's really nice."

Yeah, it's about 10 degrees cooler than down here on the peninsula. Good to see you.

And hi, says Gurgel, friendly greetings from Cork City in Ireland. Welcome, Gurgel.

And hello Elaine from toasty Belmont, California. Yes.

And Gabrielle from Montreal. "Hello, glad to be here with you." Glad you're joining, Gabrielle.

And hi Kenneth from Albuquerque. Ken, Charles, Lee all saying Albuquerque. Hi the Albuquerque crowd! Yay, my Parisian accent is coming in with interesting pronunciation of Albuquerque.

Megan, hi from Palo Alto, which is also toasty I bet, Megan. Yes, yes, yes, great.

Anybody else wants to say hi? It's such a nice ritual of saying hello to each other. I just love this part, it just warms my heart.

Hi Mark and Terrence from Sequim, Washington. And hi Claire, hot and humid in New York City. Okay.

Alright, this is sweet to get a bit of a weather report from different parts of our global sangha.

So let's get started formally. Thank you Neil for sharing information about the Happy Hour Google groups, where folks can share information with one another, and also references, quotes, etc., are sent to that Google group. I also changed the settings this time so that accidental unmuting will go away, the possibility of that. And also the chat will become host-only in case my sound drops out or something dramatic. Otherwise, let's keep all the chat pretty quiet for the duration of the guided meditation.

And last but not least, I'm going to turn on recording and it's going to ask you whether you got it or leave meeting. Wait for it, wait for it, it's gonna come. Okay, hi, welcome.

Happy Hour: Well-Being Born of Metta + Anapanasati

So for the theme of our practice today, I'd like to invite us to continue to explore the breath. On the last time we practiced together on Wednesday, I introduced some ideas from this book I've been listening to—this audiobook called Breath by James Nestor. And we did some experiments together as a sangha, and also I got some emails that people would listen to the audio and experimented. So we're going to continue with the breath, experimenting with metta^[2] and breath similarly and slightly differently, having learned from our experiments perhaps.

So here are the ways to consider the practice for tonight. The practice of metta, loving-kindness, is both a cultivation practice, and it's also considered a practice of concentration, or samadhi^[3], samatha^[4] practice where the mind gets settled, quiet, peaceful, and perhaps absorptions, states of jhana^[5], can arise.

So practicing metta really has this dual effect: both the cultivation of the heart, the goodwill for others, for oneself, as well as the settling of the mind really subtly. So bringing in the slowing down of the breath—and supposedly based on some studies, the optimal breath rate is about six seconds per in-breath, six seconds per out-breath. And the exhale, especially elongating the exhale, seems to be important, so that can really support the calming and settling of the mind.

The invitation would be as we'll go through some of the categories tonight, I'll leave a lot more silent space for you to experiment with the pacing. I'll start with the phrases to set the phrasing, and then we'll also simplify the phrases. Instead of perhaps trying all the four phrases as we did last time, which might have been too much to juggle for some and became a little overwhelming—okay, there's the breath, there's the feeling of metta, there's the elongating, there's the exhale, like, oh what do I do?—so we will simplify. And it's perfectly fine to work with simplified phrases.

We sometimes work with the four phrases: "May you be safe, happy, healthy, and have ease." And it's also fine to work with a simplified phrase: "May you be well," "May I be well," and really bring in more emphasis to the feeling, to the feeling of metta. So maybe tonight we'll simplify the phrase. If you wish, if the simplified phrase after a while you want to bring on all four phrases, you're welcome to. And also bringing attention to the slowed down breath—roughly five and a half in-breaths and out-breaths per minute^[6].

Let me see if there's anything else to set the frame. Maybe I'll pause for a moment and ask if there are any questions before I start. Actually, tell you what, if you have questions, I'll be saying a lot more during the guided meditation, so it will all become clear, especially if it isn't. It's all good.

Let's just start together. Let's start practicing together.

Guided Meditation

Landing in the body. Landing in this moment.

Inviting, first and foremost, inviting your body to rest. To let go of anything that's not needed in this moment. Any tension. Any extra thoughts, plans from today, for the future, memories of the past. As if you were putting down the heavy weight on your shoulders of plans and memories. Ah, feeling lighter. Feeling lighter, just coming to this moment. Taking refuge in this moment.

Feeling your feet and the floor if you're sitting on the cushion. Your lower legs connecting to the earth. Letting go of the weight of the lower body onto the earth.

Feeling your sit bones, your bottom contacting the cushion or the chair. Ah, letting go of the weight of the upper body, releasing onto your sit bones.

Inviting your belly, your lower abdomen to relax and soften. Ah, letting go internally.

Inviting the chest to soften. The heart center, the proverbial heart center in the center of the chest. Inviting your heart to relax. The quote-unquote center of emotions. Letting your heart rest in this moment. Whatever has been arising is okay. It can all rest and feel safe.

Softening the arms, the hands. Letting gravity pull down.

Relaxing the shoulders and the neck. The face.

Letting the eyes rest in their socket. The forehead to relax. The jaw to unwind.

For your scalp to settle.

Nowhere to be, nothing to do but to greet, to embrace this moment intimately.

With the in-breath and the out-breath moving right now naturally. Letting them be natural throughout the body. The natural breath through the body.

Now keeping the attention, receptive attention in the body, maybe in the lower abdomen. The sensations of the body.

Ever so slowly, elongating, slowing down the in-breath and the out-breath both this time.

And count to five. One, breathing in five. Breathing out five: one, two, three, four, five. Breathing in five. Breathing out five: one, two, three. Breathing again.

Now breathing in six. Breathing out six: one, two, three. Breathing in six. Breathing out six. Breathing out six: one, two, three, four, five, six. Breathing in six.

Letting the breath be a count of six, but increasing the out-breath to a count of seven. Even slower out-breath. Four, five, six, in-breath. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, out-breath.

Now letting the counting drop, but maintaining the slower rhythm of breathing in and the slower rhythm of breathing out. Stay, no counting needed. You know the rhythm now, trust it. Close enough is good enough.

Letting the exhale be long and full. Letting go at the end of the exhale. Relaxing, softening the body, the mind.

Now with this expansive rhythm of the breath received in the body, inviting someone who is dear to you—a child, a pet, a friend, a benefactor. Inviting their image, their felt sense. And just breathing with them, with the sense, the image of this person who is dear to you, this being who is dear to you.

Slowly with each in-breath and out-breath. Unhurried, you have plenty of time to just sit with them.

Sharing a felt sense of goodwill, kindness, good wishes. Pour them with every breath. Every slow, gentle, expansive in, expansive out-breath.

It can be silent, this sharing of goodwill, good wishes, friendliness. If you wish, you can share, bless them with a simple phrase of your good wishes.

"May you be well, dear one." "May you be well, dear." "May you be well, dear."

You can say the phrases out loud if you wish, or silently repeating them. Feel free to experiment. Or any phrase of metta you wish, or phrases. Remember the expansive in-breath and even more expansive exhale.

Offering your good wishes, friendliness as a gift. As well as your slowed in-breath and out-breath as a gift, the gift of patience to this dear being.

Now including yourself in the wishes of metta.

"May both of us be well." "May both of us be well." "May both of us be well." "May both of us be well."

Unhurried, patient, relaxed. Let the body soften with each exhale.

Turning your metta for yourself.

"May this being who's me be well." Or, "May this being," or, "May I be well." "May I be well."

Or any of the wishes of metta that feel appropriate for yourself in this moment: safety, happiness, health, ease.

No rush to go anywhere. Spending sweet time with yourself. Slowed down breath. Drenched in metta. Drenching your own heart slowly, slowly with each breath in goodwill and care for yourself.

And for the last moments of practice, shining a goodwill slowly, patiently unto all beings.

"May all beings be well." "May all beings be well." "May all beings be well."

Making sure you are included in all beings. Metta touching you first as it leaves your heart, shining onto the whole world.

"May all beings be well." "May all beings be free."

Thank you all for your practice.

Reflections

So I feel a deep calm, slowness, sense of well-being that wasn't here when we started. So calm that I don't want to talk. I wonder if that is similar for you. I see some of you still have your eyes closed.

So I think there is genuinely something to this, to these various research studies about a slowed breath, roughly six seconds for in-breath and out-breath. As I mentioned last time, roughly the same length of time that it takes to chant some of the well-known Buddhist chants, as well as Christian ones, it turns out.

So we'd love to hear your reflections, what you've noticed, what's coming up for you. You can type in chat. If it's to everyone else, I'll read your name as well as the reflection. If it's just to me, I'll only read the reflection, not your name. You're welcome to raise your hand too. Reports from the field, questions, comments.

And Bill says, "Yes, this was very calming."

Yeah, thank you, Bill, for sharing that reflection. And this is the sense of samadhi, stillness, calming the mind, settling the mind, which can arise both from the practice of metta alone, as well as anapanasati^[7], mindfulness of the breath. So we're really bringing these practices together here, and it's almost like supercharging the calming effect, this sense of well-being and self well-being. Like a sense of metta, through the sense of metta and the sense of well-being, that I feel more of. There's more available when I have a sense of well-being; I have more metta, more goodwill to share with others, not just with myself, but I have more capacity to share with others.

Lish says, "May both of us... who was both?" Oops. In the guided meditation, maybe I wasn't clear enough when I invited us to bring the dear being, and then I invited for the self to join them. So both the dear being and yourself. I wasn't as clear as I could have been. Thank you, next time I'll be clearer.

And Gurgel says, "Beautiful practice, lovely voice intonations of the phrases towards the end. Thank you. And lengthening the breath was super helpful." Thank you. Great, thank you Gurgel, thank you for your reflections. Glad to hear it was helpful.

Yeah, one reflection coming in: "There was sending well-being to dear ones who have died." Ah, nice. Did that feel... a person who sent me that reflection, you're welcome to send more reflection or raise your hand if you like. Did that feel calming, soothing? In this case, I'm trusting that that was the case.

"It wasn't so much that grief was arising, but that there was a sense of oh, sending joy." Oh, beautiful. Yeah, lovely. Thank you for sharing that beautiful reflection. Sending joy to dear ones who have died. Lovely, touches my heart.

Any other reflections you'd like to share, especially if you haven't had the chance to speak or ask a question in recent times? We have a couple of minutes. How was this for you if you'd like to share more? Questions? Did you notice more calmness?

Oh, comment coming in: "The singing was like a lullaby, invited me to hold the heart so caringly." Oh, that is sweet. I am so glad. Thanks for that reflection. Not so much a singer, but I was trying. Even if I had a tune. [Laughter]

One more reflection: "This was a wonderful way to move into the weekend. I feel like I have some perspective when I was so contracted when we started. Thank you." Oh, beautiful. Thank you. I'm so happy. That reflection makes me so happy, it gives me so much joy.

And another reflection: "I love the singing." [Laughter]

Well, thank you, that's multiple votes for my singing, in quotes, the lullaby. Maybe I'll do more of that in the future and not be afraid of the out-of-tune. It's sweet, you're very kind, all of you.

Ah, so dear ones, how about we sing little lullabies and take time? Slow down, slow down your breath, slow down yourself, and enter practice space with the small sangha tonight with a lot of spaciousness. Maybe not too many words get exchanged, but maybe the breath is slow, maybe it's spacious.

So I'm going to create the breakout rooms. And Mark says, "Yes, I was really tense. Thank you. More singing." Okay, alright, more votes for more singing. I might have to take voice lessons, you guys. Alright.

So here making the breakout rooms, and let's start with 15 seconds of silent metta. And here we go.

Closing Reflections

Okay, welcome back everyone. The rooms are closed and we have a few minutes for reflections. What you discovered, your slowed down time with yourself and with sangha. Anyone has the desire to share, to speak, the floor is open, and so is chat.

Terence, are you raising your hand? Yes, you are. Okay, let's see here. Oh, it's letting me unmute now. I just wanted to say that I appreciate the slowing down. I like it very, very much. And it's like, it's pretty dependable. I come here and I sit with these people, with this group, and I slow down and I'm better for it. I'm a nicer person. [Laughter]

I love that. Can we quote you? Here is the tagline, here is the advertisement for Happy Hour: "I come here, it's dependable, I sit with this crew, with these people, I feel better, I'm a nicer person, a better person." Yeah, I love that. Okay. I love it, that's sweet. Thank you, Terence.

I'm joking, partly, and yet so appreciate the felt sense of the dependability of... yes, there is something about coming and practicing together here with sangha. Goodness arises, one feels better, more well-being, and also one is kinder, nicer. Just, of course, the two go together. So, absolutely just love that. And what a lovely note to end on tonight. Thank you, Terence, for the reflection.

So let's close our practice together. I'd like to thank you all for coming to the sangha, co-creating the sangha, the space together, for the benefit of yourself and all beings whose lives yours touches.

May all beings, including this being who's us, may all beings be well. May all beings be free.

Thank you.