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Happy Hour: Instructing Our Minds/Hearts In Joy

For today's topic for practice together, let's continue one more session with the practice of mudita^[1], with the practice of vicarious joy. It is known as sympathetic joy or empathetic joy; there are many different ways it's translated because it's such a profound and beautiful practice to feel happy for happiness, for good fortune, for goodness in the world. This way we notice goodness more.

Of course, this time of the pandemic especially, there might be lots of challenges both for us personally and people we care about. It's wholesome to intend to train our minds to also notice the good, notice the blessings, notice what's good in the world, and feel happy for it.

As I was saying last night, we human beings have the genes of the human beings who were more anxious and worried. As they were walking on the savanna, they were more concerned about the dangers, about the African mammoth. (Not the woolly mammoth; one of you pointed out there were no woolly mammoths on the savanna. Yes, the African mammoth.) They were more concerned about dangers in the environment instead of the positive. The ones who were more attuned to more positiveness in the environment, they were hunted out. They didn't live long enough to pass down their genes. The ancestors who passed down their genes were the ones who were anxious, who were looking out for all the negative and difficulty in the environment.

If you've noticed, when somebody gives you a compliment, it just rolls off, but if somebody gives you challenging feedback, you think about it over and over and over again. You can just see this tendency in yourself and everybody else. It is also said that our minds are like Teflon for good experiences; they don't stick. Good experiences just roll off. Whereas our minds are like Velcro for challenging and difficult experiences; they just stick. These are different ways to think about this natural tendency that us human beings happen to have evolutionarily.

This practice of turning our minds intentionally to notice the good, to notice the blessings, to notice what's good both in our lives and other people's lives, and celebrating—feeling happy for happiness—is a wholesome way to train ourselves in gladness, to train our heart in happiness, which is wholesome. It's not avoidant in that we build more capacity, more resilience to be with what is difficult. It's not about avoiding the difficulty, but building more capacity through joy. Have you noticed if you're in a good mood, if somebody gives you bad news, ah, it's easier to be with it? Than if you're already depressed, somebody gives you bad news, and oh, you're just shattered. In the first scenario, you're more resilient. In this way, we're building more resilience to be able to support ourselves and others. There are so many different ways to think about this beautiful practice of mudita.

So without further ado, let's do it. Let's practice together.

Guided Meditation

This is a perfect time to get into your meditation posture. If you would like to move, shift, sit up straighter, or maybe relax, soften, even lie down if that's what your body is asking you to do.

Ah, and landing. Landing in this body at this precious moment, however it is. Embracing, opening up to the moment with every cell of your body, every chamber of your heart. Inviting your body to land, to soften, to relax. For the awareness to connect intimately with each breath in the lower abdomen. Cherishing, celebrating, embracing, hugging as if the attention is hugging warmly, lovingly embracing the breath in the lower abdomen.

And if thinking arises, gently, kindly ask yourself if it's necessary to be thinking this thought right now. Smilingly, playfully telling the thought, "Not now, not now." Giving my whole heart, my whole body to this practice, this moment, this present moment of being alive. Precious, mysterious, profound.

Just this breath. Just this in-breath, just this out-breath. Intimately connecting. The relaxed body settling, arriving, tilling the soil of awareness. Letting the goodness of this breath—life-giving, enlivening, energizing, soothing—letting the goodness of this breath, right here, this one, this in-breath, right this out-breath, right here. Letting the goodness of it be appreciated.

Opening your awareness to something in your body right now that's comfortable. Maybe it's that you're sitting relatively comfortably in the chair or the cushion, not standing in line somewhere but relatively comfortable. That your body is warm, the right temperature. Appreciating the goodness. Letting your heart relish the goodness of this comfortable sensation. Not taking it for granted.

Inviting yourself to notice some blessing, some other blessing in your environment in this moment. Noticing the good. That you have a roof over your head. Maybe the lighting is good, or wow, that you have a computer, or a phone, or a tablet. Some means that you are connecting right now to this practice. Appreciating the goodness, this simple blessing often taken for granted.

Of course, sometimes the mind can veer off into all those who don't have these blessings and feel guilty, ashamed, etc. We're training our mind to attend. Yes, there are many challenges in the world that we have and others have. We're not avoiding them, we'll practice with them, bring them to mind with compassion and action. In this moment, we're training our mind, we're intending to train our heart and mind to attend to the good. So reconnect with your intention, the power of intention.

Noticing what's good right now, the blessings in your life as we start this practice. Letting your heart open to them and celebrate them. It's okay, unabashedly celebrating your own goodness.

And opening up now to someone who's dear to you. Bringing to mind something that's good in their life, something they are happy about, they celebrate. Could be something as simple as they were sick and now they're healthy, and they're happy about that. Or they didn't have a job and now they're doing something they love, and you're so happy for them. Celebrating their happiness as if it were your own. "I'm happy for your happiness." Or maybe they have a relationship they cherish. Whatever the blessing, the good fortune is.

Something that makes them happy. Not every aspect of their life needs to be hunky-dory and happy, but this aspect, this blessing. Really connecting with their happiness, with their gladness, how they celebrate, how happy they are. And let your heart feel their gladness. Feel the connection to their joy.

"I'm happy for your happiness. May your good fortune continue. May it increase. May it never end." If we choose to recite the sentence, fully well knowing there is impermanence, and yet we share the sentiment as a generosity, as a statement of generosity of our heart, not attached to the outcome that this will continue forever. It may not, but we wish it with generosity, celebrating their happiness without attachment.

"I'm happy for your happiness." Or maybe simply wordless mudita, celebrating their good fortune.

And now bringing to mind someone you don't know very well. Maybe a neighbor whom you have met but don't really know, or someone working at a store you've interacted briefly with, or a delivery person. Somewhat of a neutral person. As a stand-in for all of humanity to bring this person, this human being to mind, that just like you they want to be happy. Just like you, they have a complex inner life that's compelling to them. Just like you, they have sorrows. Just like you, they have joys, they have blessings, things they're happy about.

In this category, it's okay to use your creativity. So maybe as a way in, it's okay to imagine something you are grateful for, you celebrate. Maybe it's a comfortable home, maybe it's a friendship. Maybe it's a relative, a young one in your life that was a blessing for you. Or a work, or a connection, whatever it is. Maybe bringing that to mind, feeling your own gladness, appreciation. And imagining, oh, they happen to have a similar blessing in their life that they're so grateful for, they celebrate. Feeling into how cherished, how happy-making this blessing is for you. And to consider the two of you are similar in this way, this blessing, this goodness.

Be delighted, feeling happy for their happiness, or maybe for both of your happinesses. Celebrating, "May this happiness, may this good fortune continue. May this gladness continue, may it increase, may it never end."

Maybe imagine the two of you, you and the neutral person talking and discussing how happy-making this blessing is in your life, this goodness. "Isn't it wonderful?" Feeling shared joy.

And now inviting someone you have a slight challenge with. Bringing them to mind and noticing that just like you, and just like this neutral person, this person also wants to be happy. They have challenges in their lives, they have blessings too. And again, not condoning the challenge, the hurt, the harm, separating the actions in your mind from the humanity of this person. See if your heart can connect with something good in their life. With generosity, being happy for them, being happy that they have this goodness.

Allowing yourself to feel the generosity of your heart in this way, in this beautiful way. "I am happy for your happiness as if it were my own. Your happiness makes me happy. May you enjoy, appreciate your happiness. May it continue, may it never cease."

Now for the last moment of this practice period, inviting all beings: yourself, your dear being, a neutral being, a being you have challenges with. Inviting them all and celebrating all the goodness. We all have challenges, and we all have goodness in our lives. Letting your heart open to celebrate, feel brightened by this goodness, these blessings.

Then inviting to your mind all the beings in the Zoom room, on YouTube practicing with you, and all the beings who listen to AudioDharma later. Feeling happy for all the happinesses, all the blessings, large and small, we all have. May they continue, may they never end.

Expanding further to all beings everywhere. The generosity of heart. May all the blessings everywhere, all the goodnesses, all the happiness continue. May they increase, may they never cease.

Reflections

Thanks everyone, thanks for your practice. I don't know about you, but I feel happier compared to when we started. I see smiles.

We have some time for reflections, questions, comments. You're welcome to type them in the chat. If you type them directly to me, I won't say your name. If you type them to everyone, I will say your name out loud. You can also raise your hand. If you haven't shared in a while, I would love to hear your reflections. What worked? What didn't? What did you notice?

We had some lovely reflections last night, and I forgot to say since Diana is off for this month, for the first two weeks of March, I'm teaching Happy Hour every night. So tomorrow it's me again, surprise!

Based on some feedback last night, I think you remember Jamie asking about how to better connect, more easily connect with the neutral being. So I changed tonight's meditation guidance to support that, and I hope that was supportive for you, Jamie, and others. I see you're nodding, giving thumbs up. Great. So other questions, comments, it's all welcome, it all supports everyone in the community.

Nikki Mirghafori: Fred, are you trying to raise your hand to speak?

Fred: I am, yes.

Nikki Mirghafori: Okay, yeah, the raise hand button is right underneath that. This is the clap, but it's good, so I can hear you. Yes, please.

Fred: I found your suggestion to use our imagination very effective. I was having the same trouble as was being discussed last night of trying to grasp the happiness of someone I knew almost nothing about, but knowing that my imagining of the person's details of their life and their inner life were probably invariably wrong. You know, I'm mostly wrong about people I know well, so why would I get a stranger right? And that was just fine. It felt like we could move closer in a way that was very gratifying.

Nikki Mirghafori: Great, lovely. Thank you for sharing that reflection. I'm delighted to hear that imagination surprisingly does work with this practice. Yay. Especially with the neutral person, with creating the sense of connection. Because this practice of mettā^[2], mudita, these brahmavihāras^[3] are skillful means. They are ways that we use imagination, we use different abilities, different tools to conjure up a connection, to create a connection with people. Lovely, thank you for sharing that, Fred. Nice.

Other reflections? Any questions, comments, complaints? What worked? What didn't? What surprised you? Please know whatever you choose to share of your practice with the community is helpful for the community. Something was surprising, if you noticed. I'll pause.

Yeah, so I have a question maybe before we go into practice into small groups together, and using the reactions button—the green "yes." If you noticed you feel, or at any point you felt happier, this really tuning, connecting with goodness in the world, give a check mark, give a "yes." I'm curious, this is an informal survey, and I'm going to count the yeses. Yeah, so I see a dozen yeses. Roughly, the number keeps changing. I think it times out after a while. And if it's a "no," do the "x," which is fine too. Great, I think it keeps timing out. The number keeps increasing, decreasing, that's so funny. All right, I'm getting about 15 or so right now. Something like that, okay, great. Nice. Well, thank you for voting, it's nice to get a sense.

Thank you all for—I'm getting thumbs up on YouTube too, that's sweet.

So for our practicing community, as again yesterday we did an informal survey, we'll start with 30 seconds of silent mudita, gladness for other people's gladness. If at this point you usually hop off, notice what happens if you stay in order to support others. As a gift of generosity to others, to see it that way. If you have to go, it's all good, but if you can stay, see what happens if you stay out of generosity to others for the practice. So I will create the practice groups, the small groups.

And oh yes, after the 30 seconds of silent mudita for each other, happiness for each other's happiness, then let's go one round in sharing something you're happy about, something you're grateful for in your life. And you can practice real-time mudita for each other, and then you can share anything you want to share about your practice. So let's see. Here we go. Okay, I'm going to open the breakout rooms and here we go. Enjoy!

[Laughter]

Okay everyone, welcome back. The rooms are closed, and we have a few minutes left for any reflections you'd like to share which became clear after discussing with others, and/or how was it to practice with others in this way? You can type it in chat, or you can raise your hand. It would be lovely to hear your reflections.

Michael: I thought it was really heartwarming listening to one of the shares. About mudita, I just felt mudita listening to the share, it was really sweet. So deep bows.

Nikki Mirghafori: Nice, thank you. Thank you for sharing, Michael. And Nicholas says, "Laughter is such a joy." Yes, yes it is. Laughter begets laughter, hence Laughter Yoga. Tom, please?

Tom: I really enjoyed hearing what other people were joyful about. We finished by agreeing that either singing or listening to a choir was a great joy for us.

Nikki Mirghafori: Nice, nice, that's great, I love it. I love it, shared joy. Sweet. Any other reflections before we close our joyous togetherness this evening, or morning, or afternoon depending on your time zone? I see Trevor's hand. What's up, Trevor?

Trevor: Yeah, I kind of leaned towards leaving for that part, not for really any particular reason, but just was thinking more along the lines of sīla^[4] before I left, and just practicing some thoughtful speech in some way. So using that time, it felt really good. Good stuff.

Nikki Mirghafori: Nice. Thank you for sharing that. What a beautiful intention to stay intentionally to practice wholeheartedness, virtue, kindness. You know, ethical, wise speech, right speech, so many different names just to relate from a place of integrity and kindness and wisdom through wise speech in this little sandbox of interaction. What a beautiful intention to bring in, I love it! Yay, and I'm highlighting it because I think that's a lovely intention for all of us. I see heads nodding, it's a beautiful intention for all of us in this way to practice.

In the past, when I used to—the first year I would say a lot setting up the groups about intention when you go into small groups. And now I don't do that anymore, and your share is a beautiful reminder, Trevor. I think every time it's important as we enter this sacred space of a small group to really show up in this way: "Oh, this is a sandbox. How can I show up with integrity, kindness, wisdom for myself and for others? How can I show up differently and model this for myself and others to take it into my daily life?" So thank you for that, Trevor.

We have come to the end of another Happy Hour together, everyone. Thank you all for your practice. May you be safe, happy, healthy, and well in every way. And may all beings everywhere be happy and free. Thank you all.