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Happy Hour: Metta as Friendliness with Our Mind

Introduction

Welcome everyone to this edition of Happy Hour. For today's practice, I want to invite us to befriend our mind. Sometimes it seems like we're not so friendly with our minds. Our minds run around thinking about past and future, causing trouble, and then we are not so friendly with our mind; we're in a little battle with it. So what if we actually befriended our mind?

I want to offer a couple of metaphors. One that I've used before is the idea of a little puppy that runs around just being a puppy. Being a puppy is the nature of the mind to think about the past, future, etc. Another metaphor, which is similar, is like little kittens. Little kittens are cute, and they get into trouble. They can make a mess, they can make noise. It's their nature. There are so many causes and conditions about being a kitten—being curious, being interested, being playful. The causes and conditions of "kitten-ness" is being a kitty or being a little puppy dog.

And our minds, we take them so personally. We take every thought, every emotion, everything so personally. What if we had a sense of kindness and friendliness? We laugh when little kittens make a mess in the kitchen. We kind of laugh, like they're cute, and this is just the way to be a kitten. We don't take it so personally, right? What if we took the same perspective with our minds, befriended our minds with a sense of mettā^[1], a sense of kindness?

Maybe our minds are grumpy. "Okay, grumpy mind," instead of "Okay, I'm grumpy" or whatever else it is. All right, can we have just a little bit of ease? Can we let there be a little bit of ease by not taking it so seriously, so personally? Not taking our minds so personally.

For those of you who are familiar with the teachings of impersonality or not-self^[2], as you might have heard of them in Buddhism, not everything is so personal. There are so many causes and conditions to the thoughts and emotions that are arising. In fact, not a lot of it is controlled or governed by us. We think we have control over our thoughts and our mind, but actually, if you spend just a little bit of time in meditation paying attention to your mind, you realize that while we have responsibility and can condition our minds to be settled and kind, they're not as governable as we'd like them to be.

The best way to have a relationship with our minds is to befriend them. That's the start, because if we don't befriend them, if we beat them up, take them personally, or badger ourselves with blame, it's a non-starter. We can't quite cultivate our minds and hearts. So let's start by befriending our minds. That's the invitation for today's practice.

Guided Meditation

With that, let's sit. If you need to move and shift to be comfortable in your sitting posture, let there be ease. Let ease guide you. Let there be ease in your body and your mind. There are no shoulds, no have-tos. Let there be ease.

Starting with this stance of friendliness towards our mind, towards our body.

There might be challenging thoughts arising, challenging sensations in the body. Can we soften, not take everything personally or believe everything that comes up, and be friendly? Friendly, kind, as we would be with a puppy or kittens making a mess in the kitchen.

Letting awareness connect with the breath. The entirety of the in-breath, the entirety of the out-breath. Help the puppy, the kitten settle a little bit. When you notice that they're running around, not a problem. Don't make it into a problem. It's their nature. It's all right.

Simply notice with kindness what they're settling on, what they're doing, and then ever so gently invite them to come rest on your lap with the breath. Celebrate that they're resting on your lap with the breath for a moment. Celebrate that. Celebrate this moment of being present. If you celebrate it and take delight, more and more of them will happen.

And we befriend our mind. Be a good friend. It is said that in order to have a good friend, you need to have a lot of forgiveness. And we have a lot of forgiveness for this mind. A lot of friendliness.

Befriending the mind, befriending the heart.

When we befriend the puppy of the mind and heart, the kittens that run around, we don't take them so personally, but have kindness, compassion, patience, forgiveness, presence.

How can I be a good friend to myself in this moment? How can I befriend this mind, this heart? Befriending the mind. Knowing with friendliness, befriending this mind.

And as we bring this practice to close together, can we befriend this mind, befriend this heart for whatever arose or did not arise during this practice period? Just as forgiving as we would be to a good friend, understanding that they're doing their best. They've done their best. Trusting that by showing up, and even planting one seed of friendliness towards our mind, towards our heart, trusting that it will come to fruition in its own time. Not our time, not our demands or our impatience, but its own time.

May our practice be of benefit not just to ourselves but to all those whose lives we touch directly and indirectly. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free, including ourselves. Thanks everyone.

Reflections and Q&A

The topic we practiced with or invited us to consider today was befriending our minds. Welcome back, and we have some time for reflections, questions, and observations. Especially if you haven't spoken in community for a while, I'd like you to pull forward. If you've spoken recently, please pull back. You can raise your Zoom hand, or you can also type your reflections or questions in chat.

What did you notice in this practice of befriending your mind? Was there a moment that something shifted a little bit, or became just a little calmer, a little kinder? Maybe you noticed something in the group when you talked with one another.

Don, I see your hand.

Don: For me, it was suspending judgment. Suspending judgment was a kind act. I can be very critical, and the meditation was very nice. I appreciated the prompt of being kind. For me, letting the judgment go was a kind act.

Nikki Mirghafori: Thank you for sharing that, Don. That is so significant and so profound. When we can just suspend the judgment and be more kind, it can be the seed for so much transformation to happen.

Bill says, "Thank you, Nikki. My mind wandered, but I didn't seem to care too much. I enjoyed it. Not sure if that's good or not."

That's a good question, Bill. It's not helpful to be judgmental when the mind wanders, because we're just seeding more judgment. And yet, when the mind wanders and we enjoy the wandering, we are encouraging the mind, especially during meditation if you've decided that this is a time to sit. If you are enjoying the wandering, then we are encouraging the puppy to have bad habits.

We want to be friendly, but we want to give encouraging and helpful instructions to the puppy. If you notice that your mind is wandering, say, "Okay puppy, it's okay." You can be kind, and yet instead of just letting it wander around, give it helpful instructions, bringing it back to the breath, or bringing it back to the body, or to the practice of mettā. It's not helpful to just let it roam around and enjoy the wandering, Bill, so I'll give you that note to pay attention to.

Jamie says, "My puppy was very cute and comforting at a difficult time. I just hope I can resist calling it in insistently when my mind is less settled in future sits."

That's sweet, thanks for sharing that, Jamie. May your puppy learn to be kind and gentle, and learn from the gentle instructions.

Any other observations before we close? Marianne.

Marianne: I just noticed that since I went on retreat a couple of weeks ago, I'm not sure I'm getting less distracted—I don't think that's really changed too much in terms of quantity or percentage of the time—but when I am not distracted, it has a different quality to it. It seems like I'm going back to how it was after a few days in retreat, kind of fast, like connecting to the mothership or some kind of feeling.

Nikki Mirghafori: Wait, let me make sure I understand what you're saying. Seems like your mind maybe has quieted down a little bit, or there's more distraction? Say that again, Marianne, I don't think I grasped it.

Marianne: It hasn't really quieted down that much, maybe a little, but when it does quiet down, it goes deeper faster.

Nikki Mirghafori: Ah, got it, okay. That is interesting. You know, that is the impact of going on retreat. It changes our minds. We come back to the world and have a lot of things to attend to, and yet as you're noticing, when the mind settles, it has learned something. The puppy has learned some new tricks. Or if we talk about it in psychological or neuroscience terms, there are some pathways that have now become more accessible and more learned. So when the mind settles, like, "Oh yes," it goes back into what you cultivated on retreat. Hooray, it's lovely. I'm delighted for you.

So, one question is coming in about: "Would you say a little about how to practice loving-kindness?"

There are so many different ways to practice loving-kindness and mettā. The way we were doing it tonight is a very subtle way of befriending the mind. It's not with phrases, it's not with other beings. The more traditional way is with phrases, with an image of someone or an image of yourself, and a sense of goodwill. Basically, as long as you cultivate kindness, there are so many different ways to do it.

If the person who asked this question wants more specific instructions about the directions and specifics of that, there are recordings on audiodharma.org. If you do a search for "Happy Hour series," there's a long series that has forty or so instructions in it, and that actually covers all the nuts and bolts and nitty-gritty details of it. There are so many ways to practice mettā, compassion, vicarious joy, and equanimity. It's a complete series that goes through all the categories and all the brahma-vihāras^[3]. So that is what I recommend you check out.

Someone says, "Had not thought of it that way. A way to practice mettā is, of course, it's mettā." Yes, mettā by any name! It's just not with the phrases and not with beings, but as long as we are cultivating kindness, befriending our mind, there you go.

Thank you, Neil, you put the series number in the chat, and it's series number 187 on Audio Dharma.

Thank you all for your practice, for your cultivation to benefit yourself, all beings, everywhere. Thank you so much. May you be well, may you be happy, may all beings be well and happy and free. Thank you.