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Happy Hour: Embodying Grandmotherly Mind

Introduction

Good morning everyone, or hello everyone, whatever time zone you're in. And if the audio is okay for those whom I can see on the screen, if you would give me a heads up if it's loud enough, clear enough... fantastic, thank you. Great. Okay, so we have another minute until we formally start. Beautiful. And if you want to, you're welcome to type in the chat window in Zoom where you're calling from. Lovely to see that we already have good mornings on YouTube from Florida, from Oklahoma, from Boston, Santa Fe, New Mexico... Germany, Ventura, California, Aptos, Sunnyvale, Southern Maine. I can't keep up! Oregon. This is lovely. Great. Beautiful. Thank you all. More Germany. Lovely.

Good morning. Good morning and welcome to Happy Hour. Some of you might be new to Happy Hour, so just to say a word about it: the format this morning will be I'll say just a few words about the theme for today, and then the bulk of our time together is a thirty-minute guided meditation on something that has to do with cultivation of the heart, the Brahma Vihāras^[1] in some way. And then for those who wish afterwards, we will have about fifteen minutes of small groups and Q&A in the live way on Zoom. So you're welcome to stay for that on Zoom or join from YouTube and hop on Zoom to join us for that if you wish. But we're trying to keep it to forty-five minutes this morning. Usually Happy Hour is the full hour in the evenings, every evening we're doing it from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., but in order to be somewhat similar to the format of the 7:00 a.m. sangha^[2], I'm making it forty-five minutes to fit that. So we'll see how it goes. This is an experiment. Welcome.

So the theme for this morning is the theme of what's called the grandmotherly mind. It's actually a well-known teaching in Zen also, so it's drawn from Zen, what I would be presenting, inspired. The idea of the grandmotherly mind is the sense of perspective that we take on, this perspective that a loving, compassionate, wise grandmother would have. It's a prototype. Your grandmother might have been different, but this prototype of this compassionate, loving being who loves unconditionally, accepts unconditionally, and is very wise, embodies wisdom. You can also call it the Kuan Yin^[3] mind, for those of you who are familiar with the archetype of Kuan Yin. This embodiment of compassion, of kindness, of wisdom.

To practice that for ourselves, that's a perspective that we invite in this meditation that I will guide you into. The sense that whatever arises in the body and in the mind, whether it's a pain, whether it's a sadness, whatever it is, it is met with kindness, care, compassion, and with wisdom, with a bigger perspective of what is happening. So it's not turned away from, doesn't cause distress, but it's completely met. It's met warmly with care, with kindness, compassion, and with a larger perspective. So that is what I will be guiding us through this morning.

And just to say that Happy Hour tends to be a little more wordy than silent meditation, just to give you a heads up, just to support you a little more. You're welcome to tune it out if you're already there, but the hope is to actually help and support both myself and all of you to be in a particular invited perspective. So try it on for size. In the guided meditation today, the first half will be a settling, a settling with the body, mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of the breath, and really tilling the soil. So the first fifteen minutes or so would be tilling the soil and arriving with peace and ease in the body, and then turning our mind for the second part of the practice to the invitation to grandmotherly mind. So that's our plan for this morning. So with that, I will mute and here we go.

Guided Meditation

I'd like to invite you to get into your meditation posture. If you need to move in this moment, get comfortable. Whatever is comfortable for you right now, and arrive. Arrive in this body. Settling.

Arriving, settling. Feeling this body landing and giving up any tension or any holding there might be. Relaxing every muscle, softening the muscles of the face, especially the forehead, jaw. Letting the eyes rest in their sockets. Softening, letting go completely of any tension in the arms, the hands. Offering up.

Freeing up any tightness or holding. No need, no need to hold on. Allowing the breath to move in and out of this body freely.

Softening the chest. Softening the abdomen. And as each in-breath and out-breath moves on its own through the abdomen, through the chest.

In-breath bringing in more aliveness, more presence, filling your body with more immediacy. Every in-breath as if each in-breath says "now, now, here, here." And every out-breath letting go. Relaxing, softening completely, melting.

Inviting you to soften, let go with each out-breath, landing more and more into this body from the inside. Feeling the touch points of your sit bones with the chair or the cushion, the contact points grounding you to the earth. As if all the tension, the holding or tightness, and even all the thoughts in this moment as we are settling and taking refuge, they are grounded into the earth through the contact point of your abdomen, your sit bones, your feet, the lower parts of your body.

Now in this landing, grounding, with each breath as it moves throughout the body, calming, grounding.

A moment of refuge and connecting with yourself.

Now I would like to invite you to imagine you are participating in the training of your mind, of your heart and compassion, and for that you're invited to enter, to embody, as if you're entering the statue of Kuan Yin or the body of an archetypal compassionate, wise being. Just to see and feel their perspective. For those of you who might be familiar with the movie Being John Malkovich, as if you're entering this compassionate being's mind, perspective, body. And landing. Feeling your body, feeling your bones. Feeling your breath.

Now whatever thought, emotion, feeling, perception of sensation, of discomfort, it's all being perceived through the embodiment of this compassionate, wise grandmotherly mind. Suppose the thought comes up, "Wow, you're so distracted this morning." What would be the perspective? What is the perception of the grandmotherly mind that meets this self-judgment? Maybe without words, just a sense of ease, sense of wisdom, equanimity^[4], compassion, and care.

Don't think about it as much as feel into it in your body, the embodiment, the breath, the breathing, the embodied feeling of a compassionate grandmotherly presence.

You don't have to figure it out in your mind. Trust that your body, your inner wisdom knows.

Imbuing each breath as it fills your body with the compassionate grandmotherly presence.

Maybe a judgmental thought arises. Maybe the compassionate mind's response is, "Oh dear. Oh sweetie, you're doing the best you can. You're doing the best you can. It's okay."

Inviting, allowing whatever arises in the sphere of awareness, every sensation, every thought to be met by warmth, kindness, understanding, ease.

Note this presence.

I invite you to experiment, as a scientist of your own mind, with wearing a smile on your face as an embodiment of meeting each moment with grandmotherly mind. See what it feels like. Even if you don't feel like smiling, if you just wear a smile, see what changes it makes physiologically in your body and with your attitude. In your training, try it on.

And for the last moments of this sit, whatever arose or did not arise, whether your mind was filled with thoughts, emotions, or fatigue, sleepiness, or whatever else, see if you can meet that with this smile, with this grandmotherly mind, with this compassionate understanding. That you've done your best, you showed up, appreciating your inner goodness, your intention.

Reflections and Q&A

So the invitation is for the rest of the day, when it is remembered, to bring about this presence, this embodiment, this attitude, this perspective of the grandmotherly mind. When something arises throughout your day that's challenging, could it be met instead of being met with self-judgment, grief, etc., maybe even the grief—all of that could be met with the grandmotherly mind. So thank you so much for joining.

And actually what we usually do in Happy Hour, and we still have a couple of minutes, is I invite people if they'd like to share with a word. You can type it in chat if you like, or if you wanted to unmute yourself you could do that also. Just a word of what is coming up for you right now, what's happening. And for me, I'll start, taking my own invitation: I feel there is more gladness in my heart, there is more settledness, there is more gladness of meeting, meeting the world. Grateful, tenderness, gratitude, gosh.

"That was beautiful." That's another comment. Gratitude. Another comment: "Warmth arising." Ah, lovely. Grounded. "Grateful to be a first-time grandmother, even more now." Thank you for that. Sweet, peaceful, calm. Calm warmth. Patience, peace, loving care, lightness. Embodied. Thank you for these beautiful offerings, just really helps support the space offering all of these words. Yeah. Beautiful.

"Touch of sadness." Yeah. "Can't see grandkids at this time." Yes, and can that be met with the grandmotherly mind, that sadness? Can that sadness be met with compassion, with a grandmotherly mind, embraced? Beautiful. Ah, beautiful, mmm, nice. Yeah.

Sweet reflections of someone's grandmother. That's very sweet. Warm, sweet, and rich. Thank you for sharing that Michelle. Lovely. Calm. Mmm, from sunny Scotland. Lovely.

So at this point what we usually do in Happy Hour is we break out into small groups of three just for a brief time to connect across boundaries, across time zones, to just connect in this way, in this very special way after having sat together. A little bit of deep listening. Just a little bit of deep listening for just a couple of minutes, it's not very long. Each person will have about a couple of minutes to share, and the prompt is, "How are you right now? How are you?" Very simple prompt. And the prompt is simple, but the act is profound. The act through the process is sitting and listening without interrupting, with grandmotherly compassion, as if the person could say no wrong. Just receiving, offering your complete attention to the other person as they're speaking for a minute, and now for two minutes. And the same for yourself, just being held and holding each other in this special way as a sandbox for the rest of the day. And especially at this time of social distancing, this can be very nurturing. So even if you're on the fence, I invite you to give it a try. And if you decide it is not for you this morning, it's completely understandable. It's the perfect time to bow out before I make the breakout rooms. All good, it's been lovely to be with you this morning. So I'm going to make the breakout rooms right now. There we go. It's going to be size of two or three participants, and let's see, it takes a moment here, it's always a little... okay, here we go. I'm going to open the rooms now, and I will also send announcements into each room after a minute and a half or two minutes. I'll time it. Here we go.

Okay, everyone is back from the breakout rooms. So we just have a couple of minutes if you would like to share any reflections. You can either type or you can unmute yourself. Any reflections on how you are this morning, the guided meditations, questions, complaints, any insights... anything is welcome please.

"Well I'll say that we did not follow the instructions, and I feel wonderfully connected to people in my breakout group. But we got our 'okay, time to change to the next person', and we're like, 'we didn't do that', but it was just a lovely connection. I had thought I'd opt out, I'm so glad I didn't. So thank you Brian and thank you Paula, and thank you Nikki."

Lovely, thank you. That makes me so happy, that's great.

"My son is traveling to California at this very minute to begin his surgical residency from Maine, and Brian is a doctor in California who has residents from UC Davis where my son will be attending his residency. So I was... I just... it was the most godly, divine, Kuan Yin, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Buddha, everything moment I've had in many days. So I am so grateful Nikki, thank you so very much."

Oh wow, that brings tears to my eyes. That's so moving, that's so beautiful. Magic happens, miracles happen.

"And I'm the one that said I'm the first-time grandmother, and your theme of grandmother is... I'm signing off now so I could just sit here and mute myself and cry."

Beautiful, thank you so sweetie. You all have made my day already. What a beautiful way to start the day. Beautiful. Thank you all.

So respecting everyone's time, we'll end formally. I'll stay on for ten minutes if there are any questions or comments, but formally let's end together and dedicate the merit of our practice together to the well-being, freedom, goodness of all beings everywhere, beyond our imagination and perception, including ourselves. We're including all beings. May all beings be well, may all beings be happy.

Thank you, and have a wonderful Saturday. Bye. And I'll stay on for ten minutes, but I'll stop the live stream.