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Happy Hour: Metta as Healing Waters

So we are going to explore metta^[1], friendliness. This goodwill, sense of ease, happiness, health, and well-being. This friendliness and goodwill, well-being, as one of the four elements in Buddhist cosmology^[2], as the water element today.

And I'm not going to say much. I'll just lead you through it and maybe make some comments after we've gone through it together.

Guided Meditation

Okay, so with that, I'd like to invite you to get into your meditation posture. I'm going to do some housekeeping here to keep us safe from zoom bombers. Okay, all right, excellent.

So inviting you to settle in your posture, whatever is comfortable for you. And allowing yourself to feel a sense of fluidity. The sense of fluidity of water, how it flows. And if you're warm where you're sitting, maybe you can imagine sitting in a cooling bath. And if you're cold, you can imagine a warm bath. Whatever feels most comfortable right now. As if you were held, supported in waters with just the right, perfect temperature. Maybe it's just not cool, but kind of lukewarm, just a tiny bit cool, pleasant. You could just sit in it.

Whatever is most inviting right now. Healing, comforting.

Imagine your body, every cell of your body relaxing. Landing. Feeling nourished and soaked, as if you were sitting in healing waters. This water you're sitting with, that holds you, caresses you, comforts you, invites every muscle of your body to relax and soften.

Imagine this as healing waters. Sacred healing waters of metta, of goodwill. It's freely offered. It's touched by grace. And as if you had visited, in this moment, these ancient healing waters, famed for their powers of healing. You're sitting in them right now. The healing aspect just feels nurturing, safe, completely safe. You feel safely held as you relax in the waters, feeling the safety.

The power of these healing waters is also to bring more joy, more happiness. Feeling more well-being and joy in your heart. Happy waters. Feeling, tapping into the healing aspect now of the waters, physical well-being. If there are any aches and pains, they are held with care, with kindness, with metta. Soothing, healing waters.

The fourth aspect of the metta phrases, metta wishes, is ease and peace. Imagining yourself in this location wherever these healing waters are, whether it's a pool, a pond, maybe a lake in beautiful surroundings. Maybe it's an alpine lake, clear, fresh, calm, surrounded by nature, trees, birds^[3]. Sense of peace, sense of peace. Offering up, giving up any anxiety, worry. Letting yourself be held lovingly in the healing, loving waters.

And imagining this wish, these wishes of metta from the healing sacred waters for you. May you be safe. And you feel it. You feel the wish of metta, the wish of safety. The water cocooning you, holding you the same way that in your mother's womb the water held you in safety. In that environment, this water offering safety. May you be safe. Lingering with this feeling of safety.

Now I'd like to invite you to connect with the second metta phrase, the wish for happiness, mental happiness. And imagining that these healing waters have this magical ability to enliven, to soak through your skin, through your muscles, into your heart. And there's a little spring of joy, a little bubbling of joy. A little bubbling of joy. It's the offering of the healing waters to you, reawakening the spring of joy that lies within you. And just receiving what's already there. Just receiving what's already there. May I be happy. Feeling it from the waters. May you have joy. Offering you joy. Reawakening the flow of waters of joy within that have flowed before and know how to flow again on their own. It might surprise you.

Now connecting with the third metta phrase, about physical well-being. The first was safety. Second, mental well-being, happiness. The third, physical well-being, health. And connecting with the healing aspects of the waters. How physical well-being is offered to you freely. Soothing, healing. If there is an ailment or pain, these magical healing powers of this water imbued with metta: May you be healthy. May you be strong. May I be healthy. May I be strong. Connecting with this offered in the water.

And you're welcome to be creative. Maybe there is an image of water washing through, purifying, rinsing away any ailments, any pain, any bacteria or pathogens that there might be. Just purifying, rinsing through, clearing. Imaginary water moving through cleansing, healing.

And connecting with the fourth wish of metta, the fourth metta phrase: May I have ease. May my life flow with ease. May you have peace. And imagining this body of water, healing, loving waters of metta, in whatever setting is most peaceful to you. Just being in the water, a sense of peace. Held in ease and peace. Receiving, letting yourself be soaked, every cell of your body calmed, soothed, soaked, pacified by healing waters of peace.

Letting yourself linger with any of the four metta phrases, wishes, as offered to you by the healing waters. Whether it's safety, feeling safe and held. Whether it's joy and happiness, the spring in your heart that's awakened. Whether it's physical well-being, health, healing waters washing through you. Or a sense of ease, calm, nourishment. Linger for a while with one of them perhaps, or all of them, whatever is supportive to you right now. You get to be creative.

And now you're welcome to stay with yourself if you wish. And if you want to experiment, here is another invitation. The invitation is, now that your whole being has been soaked through and through with the healing waters of metta—healing, nurturing, loving—as your heart, as your whole body has become soaked, drenched, malleable. As it's been offered to you, you soaked it up as if a sponge—now it's a part of you. And it flows through you. This universal metta, well-being wishes, goodwill flows through you.

And everyone that comes into your mind's eye, all the beings that come into your mind's eye, as if they are lightly sprinkled with holy waters of metta, they're blessed. And they immediately feel the goodwill. They're touched. Their bodies relax and soften. They feel your wish of goodwill that's moving through you, through your fingertips, lightly, just a mist. They feel more ease, more joy, happiness, health, and ease as you share these wishes for them without attachment to outcome. Just sharing freely. Sharing freely what's been offered to you, with generosity, spreading the goodwill.

Maybe some beings who are dear to you come into your mind's eye, some people you care about, some beings you care about. And let it be not effortful. You're not doing it, it just happens, as you're just being this goodwill. The mist, the waters, the droplets of goodwill, well-being, just touch others. And may it be offered freely as you're in the world to all beings.

And for the last moments of this practice period, connecting again with a sense of flow, as if metta waters were flowing through you, through your veins, nourishing, nurturing, supporting you through and through. And if there are any thoughts or emotions, perhaps self-judgment arising for what this period was or wasn't, letting them be soaked in healing waters of metta. Letting the healing waters be transforming to any self-criticism or judgment, and see what happens.

Reflections

Welcome back everyone. I'm happy to report so far I'm not hearing any burst pipes of water in my apartment, so maybe this was safe tonight, we'll see.

So I'd like to invite us, if there is a word or phrase that's coming up for you, you're welcome to type it in chat and share what's coming up for you. If you want to unmute yourself, you're welcome to do that also. And what's coming up for me from this meditation is I enjoyed working with the water element. There is a nourishing, healing aspect of water and flow. Especially the idea of the spring of joy. I wasn't necessarily happy or joyous before we started this meditation, but conjuring that image up, there was a sense of, "Oh, there's a little spring of joy. Hello spring, how are you?"

So Susan offers, "Supported." Thank you, Susan. Any other reflections? One word or phrase you want to share? All, everything welcome. I'm still hanging out in the lake, I have to say. "Settlement... settling." Thank you.

And April, I see you're unmuted, would you like to say something?

April: Well, two things. One, I can't type in the chat room for some reason. And two, I thought the water was a good image because it's been so hot.

[Laughter]

Nikki: Great, lovely. Yeah, I felt the same way. For me the water was cooler, but I can imagine it may not be so hot where everybody is.

Kim offers, "Metta in my veins." Oh lovely, love that. Thank you Kim, thank you April.

Victoria, I see you're unmuted.

Victoria: I was just testing it. I haven't been able to unmute or to chat the whole session, and I just wanted to see if it was working now. Obviously I can share something after this. After this meditation, I brought back the fire from yesterday just to warm up a little bit. They're both very, very nice meditations, thank you.

Nikki: You're welcome. I love it. I love the contrast too. It's sweet, it's wonderful. So much of this practice is skillful means, really finding ways that are skillful.

On YouTube, Andrea offers, "This is my first time working with the water element. Thank you." You're welcome, Andrea.

And Nancy offers, "Physical integrity" is what comes up for her.

And Andrea also offers, "Sharing the soothing feeling with my newborn grandson who shared this session with us." Oh, how sweet.

NP offers, "Healing in the body." Lovely. Lovely, beautiful reflections. Thank you everyone for sharing your reflections. I have to say I feel nourished myself. And just also to say, one reason for offering, especially for offering these tonight and last night with working with the elements is, as times have been so challenging—with heartbreak and sadness and anger, and also uplifted by hope for a turning point—I think it's really important for us to take time to nourish ourselves, nourish our hearts, and also to share it with others.

Yes, and Jess now offers, "I feel free swimming in water, so yes the image of water is very healing." Oh that's lovely. Yeah. Thank you all for participating and sharing the images that came up for you.

And also just to say about the practice period, I offered you a couple of options at the beginning. A was working with the water element with metta. B was lingering with each phrase. And I ended up—if you noticed, many of you noticed—I actually merged the two. So that people who had voted for B also got their piece, because we lingered with each phrase instead of usually going through the four phrases one after another. We just lingered with each one for a long time and really soaked them in.

So with that, I'd like to invite us for a brief time to hold each other now in healing waters of metta, offering metta to each other and feeling ourselves held in community in small groups. So I invite you to try this out and see what it's like to just share a few words, connect on how you are in this moment with people in a small group. And if it's not right for you tonight, it's going to be a brief six minutes, so it's fine to bow out right now before I make the breakout rooms, which I will do now. So here we go.

Closed, and everybody is back. Great.

So we just have a couple of minutes if you'd like to share any reflections about practicing in your groups, in this sense of holding each other with metta, holding yourselves with the healing waters of metta. Or you can also comment on the first part. Reflections, questions, complaints, everything is welcome. So please, especially if you haven't spoken before, don't be shy, and you can unmute yourself or chat. Just unmute yourself or raise your hand, I can unmute you. How was it? What did it feel like? Did you actually feel like you were still resting in the healing waters of metta, and other people were kind of held in the zoom space and metta with you in the lake and the cooling waters? Anyone?

Christine: I'll say something. We really just kind of chatted about our meditation practices and things like that. But you know, since I'm not doing a lot of chatting with people, particularly with strangers in the same way that you normally do like talking at the grocery store or at the coffee shop or things like that, it was really lovely to just have that shared experience with three people who I may see again on Zoom or I may not. But yeah, there was something really lovely about it. Sweet.

Nikki: Lovely, thanks for sharing that, Christine. Yeah, I think there are a couple of aspects to what you shared. One is just the loveliness of connecting with other human beings in this way, and it's particularly lovely because all of you have had this shared experience of soaking in metta. So there is a different quality that's really brought into the interaction that I think makes it probably doubly lovely to be swimming in that space, and speaking from that space, and being held in that space. Thank you for sharing that. Lovely.

Well, it's seven o'clock. And yeah, may you all have peace, well-being, happiness. And may you spread it through your mind, through your heart, through your actions to all beings everywhere. And may all beings be free, may all beings be happy. Thank you all for joining on this Juneteenth. Yeah, thank you everyone. Be well and spread goodness in the world through your actions and thoughts. Bye.