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Happy Hour: Taking the High Road, the Road of Compassion & Wisdom

Introduction

Hello friends, and welcome to Happy Hour. If you can hear me okay and the audio is alright, give me a thumbs up. Fantastic. Welcome.

As always, let's start by warming up the space with metta^[1]. I'll start by saying hi, I'm Nikki in Mountain View, California. Who is here and wants to help warm up the space? You can just unmute yourself.

[Various greetings to participants from New York, Chicago, Houston, New Hampshire, Oakland, Richmond, Spokane, Calgary, and Oahu.]

Beautiful. Let's get started. Thank you, Neil, for posting information about the Happy Hour Google groups in the chat. If you're new to Happy Hour, we have a low-traffic mailing list where quotes, resources, and information are shared.

At this time, I've changed the setting so accidental unmuting won't be possible, and the chat will just come to me as host only. Let's keep that channel quiet unless something drastic happens, like my voice drops out, and you need to let me know. Otherwise, let's keep all the questions until the end, as it can be quite distracting. I'll turn on recording for the sake of Audio Dharma.

Choosing the High Road

Welcome to this edition of Happy Hour. For today's practice, I wanted to bring in a couple of different themes. The title I would give to this practice session is "Choosing the High Road." Choosing the road of kindness and compassion.

We live in a world where we interact with people. It's a wonderful part of being human, all these interactions. Of course, some interactions can be challenging, difficult, or surprising. We always have a choice with every interaction—whether it's challenging, easeful, loving, or neutral. We have a choice, for the sake of today's practice, between the high road or the low road.

The high road here is the road of compassion, the road of care, the road of goodwill, and the road of wisdom. I definitely want to bring wisdom in because compassion and kindness without wisdom can become "idiot compassion." I love this term from the Tibetan tradition; it can be coddling too much. The high road is one of wisdom, compassion, and a sense of integrity in our actions. So when we look back at our lives at the very end, we have a sense that we tried with every interaction, as best as we were able to. Maybe not every interaction went flowingly well, but at least we tried to take the high road. We tried to take the road of wisdom, compassion, and care, even if it went terribly wrong in the end. At least we had the intention.

Another aspect I want to bring in is with respect to the difficult and challenging interactions that can arise. Sometimes it's so easy to respond from a place of reactivity. It's important to take our time to literally sit, or do what is needed, to respond with compassion and wisdom. This means not just responding to what comes, but also not just stuffing our pain down. If we think, "Oh yeah, I'm going to take the high road and I'm just going to be wise and compassionate," and then continue to stew, it will show up in other ways. That's not exactly the high road. For the sake of our own heart, if there is a pain or hurt that is left over, we need to honor that, work with that, and acknowledge it. Sometimes maybe the right response is to bless it.

What the heck do I mean by that? I want to give you an example. Often when we give dharma talks and dharmettes, we use ourselves as an example.

I received a text that was very surprising to me from someone. It was surprising and also hurtful. The way I interpreted it, actually, was that this person was in so much pain and suffering that they were pointing fingers. When I received this text in the morning, there was a sense of, "Oh, I need to write back and explain what wasn't the intention and what's going on." Then I thought, "Wait, no, you need to sit with this. Don't respond right away." I actually did a little bit of yoga. I sat, and later I thought, "No, the place this person clearly is right now is that they're hurting so much. Things are so hard that reason and explanation are not exactly what's needed. Just send goodwill."

I decided that no explanation was needed because explanation leads to more explanation, but they're in a place where they're really, really hurting. So after a couple of hours, I decided just to send goodwill. "May you be well." I took the high road of wisdom and compassion.

Then I realized there was still this hurt for me. Something was called out that just didn't feel justified or appropriate, and it didn't feel like the right time to point this out to this person. Sitting with this hurt, I didn't want to stuff it and act out of it later. This idea of blessing this hurt came up. There is care in this relationship to see the goodness, and perhaps the divinity, in this hurt that has come from a sense of care. Blessing it means seeing the goodness.

I can unpack that a little more in the guided meditation. That's the intention for this meditation today and this dharmette. I'm going to pause because I think I've said plenty to set the stage. Let's just practice together.

Guided Meditation

I invite you to let go of all the thoughts, reflections, thinking, history, and cases where you took the high road or the low road. Let go. This is now the time to enter your meditation posture. Let's practice together.

Arrive in your seat. Arrive here. This moment is an opportunity to ground yourself in your body and your heart, and to sit. Open up, let go of thinking, let go of analyzing. Let go of the past stories where you're the protagonist in this book of life, the main character of your own story. Let go.

Connecting with the breath. Each breath in the body. Breathing in, being breathed in, being breathed out. Letting go. Tension in the body, tension in the mind. Let go of stories. Just this breath. This breath, emptying, cleansing, calming, soothing.

Inviting with each in-breath, inviting your own goodness to rest in your heart. To rest in your goodness, your intentions for kindness, goodwill, wisdom. Just this breath in this body. Grounded, stable. With each breath, opening to more goodness. Each breath opens more space in your heart to rest.

It can be so nourishing just to sit, be breathed. If thoughts arise, say, "Not now, thank you. Giving my heart to this practice right now." It can be so nourishing just to be here, resting in your heart for a few minutes. No agenda. No past, no present, no future. Even letting go of the present, not holding on too tightly to this moment.

Maybe more space opens up when I say that. A spaciousness of infinity when even the present is not clung to. Just this in-breath in the abdomen. Just this out-breath. The continuity of being breathed in, breathed out with care. Each breath calming, soothing, grounding.

I'd like to invite you—you can stay here if this is what's needed today, feeling breathed, calming, and soothing with each breath. And if you like, you can proceed to experiment with the invitations. Feeling grounded in your body and your breath, not in your head, but in your body and your heart. Stable. Spacious.

You can invite, if you like, some recent interaction that wasn't too challenging. Please don't go for the most challenging interaction. Maybe even a neutral interaction with someone, or maybe one that's still in process.

Feel into what the high road response and action is. A reaction of integrity, kindness, wisdom, goodwill. What does it feel like in your body? Not to think about what to do—don't think about that. Feel into the relational field of this being. It could be a neutral interaction, or even a kind one, a positive one.

In your body, what does the response of goodwill, kindness, generosity feel like? Feeling their humanity for a moment, the common humanity of what they're going through right now. If you could put yourself in their shoes, their circumstances, for a moment see the world through their eyes. What is it like to be them right now? Every human has their challenges. If you were in their shoes, how would you hope people would treat you? Kindness, compassion, generosity, understanding.

Coming back to your own perspective. Can you just feel into—not into actions or what to say or what to do—but into your own goodness, your own kindness, generosity, wisdom. Just breathing into it. Not thinking, but just breathing, trusting it's there.

Offering in your heart's mind, just as if a dear friend or someone you care about was going on a long trip and you wanted to give them a gift. A small token to take with them as protection, carrying your thoughts and goodwill. Say you would hold that gift in your hands, and in your heart and mind, you would bless it with all your good intentions for this person. All your care, all your love, into this object. Being blessed by your good intentions before it's given to your friend going on the long journey.

In the same way, consider this interaction that we've been sitting with a gift of kindness. Not a physical gift, but in your heart, a goodwill. An empty, infinite box of goodwill that you offer, that's blessed with your kindness, blessed with your goodness, with your good intentions.

Of course, this imaginary box is empty. There's a sense of goodwill and kindness. And you realize in the process of giving this gift, blessing and giving this gift, you feel blessed too, recognizing your own goodness. Your own capacity to be expansive, your best self.

And just in case there's still any hurt or difficult feelings left from this interaction, this too can be blessed. Held with care, with goodwill, and offered up. Offered up on the altar of your humanity.

We don't have to carry all the hurts like rocks and bricks in our sack, making us heavier and heavier. When feeling ready, each rock can be blessed, touched with intentionality, heart, goodwill, goodness. Let go of, offered up, placed on the altar of humanity. So many hurts are part of our human condition, to both benefit each other and hurt each other. It's not unique. So maybe this rock too could be blessed and left, offered up, if the time is ready.

And as we bring the sitting to a close, when we are ready, may all the rocks be released. May all beings everywhere be free, including ourselves.

Thanks for your practice.

Reflections and Q&A

We have a few minutes for reflections, questions, comments, or complaints. It's all welcome. If you'd like to, especially if you haven't spoken in a while, I'd like to welcome you to share your experience, or maybe an aha moment. Eric, please.

Eric: Thanks, Nikki. I just wanted to offer up a joke I made yesterday about the effort of taking the high road. My wife mentioned a person we know, and she said, "Don't you find them so annoying?" And I said, "I'm trying to dislike people less, but they make it so hard." [Laughter]

Nikki Mirghafori: It's so interesting. One thing that comes up for me in situations like that is this reflection: I get to interact with this person once in a blue moon, or one hour a week. I get to interact with them this limited amount of time, whereas this person gets to be in that mind and that heart 24 hours a day. I could have been born as them! It's so random, the causes and conditions of who we end up being.

I try to bring that in. "Oh my goodness, this must be so hard for them." It's not pitying them; it's really realizing I could be them. I offer that reflection. Thanks for sharing. Claire?

Claire: Thank you, Nikki. I just want to say that it's a very funny coincidence you brought this up tonight. Because I do volunteer work, yesterday I found out that some people were added to a team without my knowing it, which I didn't really want to have happen. My go-to place was, "How dare they?" My little ego went way up. "What am I going to do, and how am I going to get them off?"

Then I paused and thought, "You know, it's not going to go anywhere and it's just going to make a lot of people unhappy." The right thing to do would be to send them a note and tell them how happy I am that they're working with us, and how pleased I am to have them. I just wrote it before I came here, because I know that however they feel, I'll feel better.

Nikki Mirghafori: Thanks, Claire. Thanks for the report from the field, that you just went through this contemplation. You reflected, "What do I really want to do? Who do I really want to be in this world?" Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that example. Neil?

Neil: You were talking about feeling hurt or offended. What happens if you feel anger? What's the connection? In the example I picked, there's a lot of anger, and it didn't quite feel the same as the things you were saying.

Nikki Mirghafori: Yeah, what if there's anger? I'll share with you that I feel angry too. In my situation, there was anger too. The feeling of anger can have many reasons, but in this case—I don't know if it's the same for you—it was feeling treated unfairly. Like, "That's not fair, it doesn't feel right."

I'll offer this, which may be supportive for the situation you're working with. It became more released and easier to work with when I really put myself in their shoes. How they're seeing the world right now, what's happening to them. They're in such a difficult circumstance that when I put myself in that situation, something happened to the anger. I could start to see, "Wow, that's so painful what they're going through." It softened it.

It also felt like holding the anger as a blessing. Blessing it as, "Yeah, I see you. There's a goodness, there's a beauty in here." That also released it in a way, putting it on the altar. I'm offering these as some of the ways I've been working with it. It's not one size fits all, of course. I don't know if you've tried this, Neil, or if it hits home?

Neil: Some of it hits. It feels difficult, right? It's comfortable to be angry with this person. I've worked with them for a couple of years, and they do horrible things. But it costs me to be angry too.

Nikki Mirghafori: Exactly. But that's the other thing. Thank you, Neil.

There's one quick question that was posted in the chat that I want to address: "In your view, where is the line between blessing hurts and conflicts, and toxic positivity?"

Very good point. There is a difference, and that's where wisdom comes in. Wisdom tells you what is appropriate. Sometimes the appropriate response is to say, "No, this is not appropriate. You can't do this." And sometimes it's appropriate not to pick a fight with someone who's already hurting. Wisdom can tell you the difference between toxic positivity, which is not helpful, and appropriate compassion.

Jerry says in the chat, "This practice gives me hope that we may develop a different way personally and more widely of working through difficult situations. That this world may survive and thrive hopefully."

May it be so. May it be so.

We usually turn to small practice groups a minute or two earlier, but I'm going to make the breakout rooms now. The invitation for tonight's practice is sharing something about this practice, or a case where you're feeling into the high road. What's the road of wisdom and compassion without falling into toxic positivity? You'll each have a minute to offer something. Let's do alphabetical order so it goes round robin without long monologues, making sure everybody has time to speak. I'm going to open the rooms. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, please be kind.

[Breakout rooms session]

Okay, the rooms just closed. Everybody's back. The time is seven o'clock. Let's close and dedicate the merit^[2]. Thank you all for your practice, for cultivating kindness, goodness, and wisdom for the sake of all beings everywhere, including ourselves. Take good care everyone, be well.