--- ai_generation_date: '2026-09-20' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview audiodharma: talks: - date: '2020-10-19' mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/12276/20201019-Nikki_Mirghafori-IMC-happy_hour_pillars_of_joy_7_8_compassion_kindness.mp3 speakers: - speaker_name: Nikki Mirghafori speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/229 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: 'Happy Hour: Pillars of Joy (7/8) -- Compassion/Kindness' url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/12276 video_unavailable: false location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: XUzxunugkvE imprecise_upload_date: '2021-05-04' title: 'Happy Hour: Pillars of Joy (7/8) -- Compassion/Kindness' upload_date: null uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUzxunugkvE --- # Happy Hour: Pillars of Joy (7/8) -- Compassion/Kindness - [Nikki Mirghafori](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/229) _This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers._ ## [Happy Hour: Pillars of Joy (7/8) -- Compassion/Kindness](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/12276) Hello and welcome again to Happy Hour. It makes me happy to see you all, or at least as many of you as I can see in this tiny strip on top of my computer. Because I can't see all of you, you're welcome to switch to a gallery view to see each other. Let's continue with the theme we've been exploring for the past few sessions: the eight pillars of joy. This grouping of different factors is inspired by the book by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu called _The Book of Joy_. Towards the end of that book, they talk about these eight pillars, and we've been going through them one by one the past many sessions. They're all on AudioDharma and on YouTube if you're curious about the previous ones. We have spent some time with perspective, with humility, with humor, with acceptance, and with forgiveness. Gratitude was last time, and we've made our way to the seventh one, which is compassion as a pillar of joy. Considering why compassion or kindness would be a pillar of joy, I think in some ways it's an obvious question, or maybe the answer is obvious. When there is kindness, when there is compassion—and the two are different, I'll delineate them in a moment—when there is a sense of kindness to oneself and others, and responding to suffering with kindness instead of self-flagellation ("Oh, I deserve it," or "They deserve it"), there's a gentleness of spirit that allows for the heart to be more free, to be more malleable. The sense of kindness and compassion can give rise to happiness. In fact, these practices in the Theravada[^1] tradition—the practice of _mettā_[^2] (loving-kindness) and the practice of _karuṇā_[^3] (compassion) as a formal practice—are happy-making practices. They make you happy, which is why we call this hour Happy Hour, because primarily the Happy Hour of this 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. teaching is dedicated to cultivating kindness (_mettā_), compassion (_karuṇā_), and other practices. There are various research studies on compassion cultivation and on _mettā_ practices that suggest that people who do these practices become happier. They have more of a sense of satisfaction with their life, and there is more of a sense of social connection that they have in their communities. If they have physical symptoms, they feel more resiliency, more well-being, etc. There are various studies that are suggestive. None of the studies are conclusive because of various reasons—they can't be double-blind[^4], etc., as hard scientists know—but they're all suggestive, all of them together, that these practices really make us happier. The practices of loving-kindness or _mettā_—cultivating kindness, goodwill, friendliness—are slightly different from compassion practices. In the Theravada tradition, this tradition of Buddhism, _mettā_ (kindness, just a gentle friendliness) is the primary practice. In the Tibetan lineage, where the Dalai Lama is the lineage holder in that tradition, compassion is more central. They're both related, they're very close, and we practice both of them, of course, in Happy Hour. But just to share with you what the nuanced difference between these two are: _mettā_, or friendliness, is just a sense of kindness, goodwill that you feel. For example, when you're walking and you see a neighbor, maybe you smile, you greet them like, "Hi, I'm safe, you're safe." There's just a sense of goodwill expressed, friendliness. Now, that basic friendliness, goodwill, kindness, or love (there are different nuances there), when that gentle friendliness meets someone who's in a neutral state, then it's expressed as kindness or as _mettā_. If it meets someone who's suffering—when this _mettā_, this kindness meets suffering—it gets expressed as compassion. So kindness plus suffering equals compassion. When you are suffering, when you're having a hard time, when there is pain and you're being kind to yourself, when you're holding that pain with kindness, that is the practice of compassion—meeting pain, meeting suffering with kindness. Similarly for others, meeting the suffering of others with kindness. If you're feeling okay, like, "I'm neither happy nor unhappy," just wishing yourself well or wishing other people well, then that's a practice of kindness. Both of these, I would say, of course, are part of the pillars of joy; they're happy-making. We will spend this session on _mettā_, on just cultivating goodwill and kindness for ourselves and others, and next session we will then turn the kindness towards suffering. And just to say, if during the guided meditation at any point you're wishing yourself well or others well, and sadness comes up, grief comes up, a difficulty comes up—in that moment, naturally, _mettā_ (kindness) when it meets suffering becomes a practice of compassion. It's okay. You don't have to back off. Be real, be natural. Whatever arises, as long as you're kind with it, you're doing this practice perfectly. Without further ado, let's practice together. Maybe I'll bring in some compassion, we'll see what happens. ## Guided Meditation Let's get into our meditation posture. You may need to sit up a little more straight, or you may need to lie down to take care of your body. See what your body needs. Landing in the body, feeling your sit bones connecting with the cushion, and letting your whole weight, the weight of your body, drop to land into your sit bones, into your legs. Inviting the body, all the muscles to relax. Maybe starting with our hands, thanking the hands for all that they do all day, they've done today, and they will be doing, and inviting them to relax, soften, give up their weight. Inviting the wrists to relax so that the hands can soften some more. Inviting the elbows, the lower arms, the upper arms to all relax, feel heavy, give up their weight, enjoying a moment of non-doing. Inviting the neck and shoulders to relax. We often hold so much tension, carrying the figurative weight in these muscles, inviting them to relax. Inviting the face, the forehead to soften, let go of any tightness. Inviting the eyes to rest back in their sockets, thanking the eyes. They do so much also throughout the day, they can relax now. Inviting the jaw to relax, maybe allowing the jaw to just open a little bit, and exhaling, letting go of any tightness. Letting the face muscles be pulled down, down, down by gravity. Moving down from our face, head, neck, and shoulders to our chest, inviting the heart to relax, to soften. It's okay for it to be tender in this moment, our silence and refuge. Moving down further, inviting the abdomen to relax, and the lower back if you're holding any tension, and the upper back too. Gently touching the whole back with your awareness, the whole trunk, inviting it to soften, letting the breath move in and out on its own through the whole trunk. In a way that you are not so much breathing yourself effortfully, just letting the breath breathe itself, as it has done all this time, all these years. Let it continue naturally. All the doing, if there is any doing, is just to be aware in your trunk, in your belly, that the breath is moving in and out. Receiving it with appreciation, with kindness, as if appreciatively smiling at the breath and at any sounds that arise. Relaxing, softening the lower abdomen, the groin area, giving their weight into the chair, the cushion, the sit bones, the upper legs, the lower legs, the knees, and the feet. Entire body relaxed, soft. Taking the next three out-breaths to ask yourself, "Can I give up, let go of more tension at the out-breath?" and let yourself be surprised that yes, more tension can be let go of. And one more time, letting the whole body receive the breath with slightly more awareness in the abdomen. Now I would like to invite you to bring to mind, if you will, just as you are breathing, resting in the body, receiving the breath, bring to mind someone who represents unconditional care, love, and acceptance for you. It could be an archetype, a being of light, the Buddha, Jesus, or whomever works for you. Or a being in your life, a living being or someone who's passed away. Again, a real being or an archetypal being, or maybe a well-rooted tree, or the sun, a natural image that represents a sense of unconditional care and giving. Whether or not you deserve it, or you feel you deserve it, this kindness, this care is available to you. Bringing up this image—for the narrative, I'll use the being of light. It's an archetype of unconditional care and love, and the love is readily available, shining, gazing upon you just because you're a human being, just because you exist. This conscious, aware human being with all the challenges, ups and downs, hopes, and dreams, just because you are. Completely deserving of this acceptance and care, just as you are. You don't have to do or be any different. Nothing on your to-do list has to be crossed off, and nothing has to be done or accomplished. You're just cared for, held fully, held with all your foibles and all your beauty. All of you is just held. Letting yourself open up to it and receive it, to be held in the grace of it. And if receiving this, any challenges, any pain, any grief, sadness arises, it's okay. Let it be held tenderly. Let it be held tenderly in this unconditional love and acceptance. You can put down the weight. Just let yourself feel held. Receiving, just as you're receiving the breath, to receive the love, the kindness, the compassion. Let it be received by every cell of your body, just as your breath is received and nourishes every cell of your body. Let this love drench, soak every cell of your body. If it's a helpful image, you can see that your breath is maybe entering through your heart center, the middle of your chest, and so too this compassion, this care, and love is entering with the breath, in addition to shining upon you, your whole body completely, both ways. Just receiving, just receiving as much as it's possible without getting in your own way. Who are you to get in the way of this being? This magnificent being whom you don't quite understand or appreciate the dimensionality of, whom you don't quite appreciate the divinity of. Letting this being that is you receive, bask in unbridled unconditional acceptance, love, and care. Breathing, receiving. Letting yourself and whatever arises in your mind—even if it's a crowd of sorrows in your body, in your heart, in your mind—letting it all be held. Feel completely held on the lap of unconditional acceptance and love and compassion. Now I would like to invite you to notice, to see how this unconditional love from another, from an unconditionally loving, caring being, has tapped, has awakened your own care for yourself. As if you were recycling this bigger love and care and joining, sharing, joining in, and wishing yourself well. Holding yourself with care in the presence of this grander care and love, you wishing yourself well with the phrases of _mettā_. Perhaps I'll say the traditional phrases, you are welcome to say them silently. _May I be safe. May I be safe from inner and outer harm. May I have safety._ Letting it land, letting it really land. What does it feel like to wish yourself safety from internal harm (or thoughts, usually) and external harm? Holding yourself with the wish of safety. _May I be safe._ If you wish, if you want to experiment, you can put your hand, your palm on your heart center, to really connect with these wishes for yourself. _May I be safe. May I be safe from inner and outer harm._ _May I be happy and have joy in my heart._ Let it land. What does it feel like to wish yourself joy and happiness? _May I be happy, and may I be healthy and strong._ Letting the wish for health really land. _May this body be healthy and strong, and may I have ease in my life. May my life unfold with as much ease as possible._ Connecting with the wishes for yourself. And for the last minutes of this practice period, sharing your goodwill, your kindness, letting it radiate out. _May all beings, all beings everywhere, may they too have these blessings. May they be safe, and happy, and healthy, and have ease._ May all the beings practicing with me right now in the Zoom room and on YouTube, may all of them be well. May this _sangha_[^5], this community, may all of them be well. Wherever your mind turns, let there be goodwill. May all the people who honk their horns be well. May all barking dogs be well. Whatever arises in your sphere of awareness, wishing well, wishing goodness and well-being, sharing your _mettā_. And wishing yourself well, thanking yourself for having shown up, having practiced, receiving all the goodness not just from the unconditionally loving being, but also from the _sangha_ who holds you with appreciation and care, and all beings everywhere whose lives you touch. Thank you for your practice. ## Reflections Are there any reflections you'd like to share? You can type anything that's coming up for you in chat. You're also welcome to use the blue hand this time to raise your hand for sharing any reflections because we had some people overlapping and talking over each other last time. So, any reflections you'd like to share? I think I'll just share one thing, there's so much I can share, but I'll share. I love this practice, and especially tonight at the end, turning the goodwill outwards. For me, it brought more kindness towards the people who are honking their horns outside or the barking dogs. There's just a tenderness, there's a kindness that everything could be met with in the world, and I feel happier. I feel happier when meeting the world with kindness. When you meet the world with kindness, the world feels kinder to you. **Neil:** "Lovely, my heart is overflowing." Oh, thank you, Neil, thanks for that reflection. So is mine. On YouTube also, we have some appreciation. You're welcome Charlie, Brian, Ellen, and Visaka from Malaysia. Ah, lovely you're joining us from Malaysia. Sweet. Any other reflections you'd like to share? Oh, yes, Vicki, please. **Vicki:** When I think of compassion, I also want to share this practice with other people, but then, you know, I have a lot of trouble doing that without feeling like I'm sounding evangelical or something. Do you have any advice? **Nikki:** Yeah, so when you say sharing it in the way of telling other people about it and teaching them, you kind of like, "Oh yeah, this is such a great practice," that kind of a thing? Yes, you know, it's beautiful. First, just to say it's beautiful that your heart feels inspired in that way, it's lovely. There are stages in practice for everyone where you discover these practices again—and when I say discover, it's discovering again and again and again, right?—how wonderful this is, and you want to share it with others. And yet, you know, people may not be ready for it, right? It becomes a little kind of evangelical, as you were saying. So a couple of thoughts come up. One is, you can speak from your own heartfelt experience to others instead of saying, "You should do this." If there is an ulterior motive ("Oh, I really want them to..."), work with that ulterior motive. Really, if you're speaking from your own personal intention without telling them, maybe they would hear it really as a friend. Another way, actually even the easier way, is when people see you becoming lighter, you becoming more compassionate towards yourself and towards them, and responding more compassionately, they'll notice. They want more of this, more of what you have, and actually, that's the best way. Then they'll start asking you like, "Vicki, what is it you're doing?" So, don't talk about Buddhism, be a Buddha. That's what we say. So that's my invitation. Thank you, Vicki. Great. A couple more reflections. Bill says, "Focused on my lower body, not sure how much I took in what you were saying." No problem, Bill, it's all good, you're still practicing. This weekend I taught a retreat, and there was a lot of embodiment, and I invited Bill to keep practicing with that. So it's all good, Bill, this is great. And Nav offers: "Practice and compassion for challenging people and even the self is an exercise in removing the separation between them that I usually have. Thank you for your inspired guidance." Thank you, Nav, that's a really beautiful observation, a very astute observation. Because there is a sense of separation, exactly, that we usually have, and through these practices, we start to see that we're not so different from them, and they're not so different from us in a fundamental way, a fundamental common humanity way. Yeah, beautiful. ## Community Practice So dear ones, let's turn our hearts to practicing in community, holding ourselves and holding others with kindness and compassion in community, in small groups, which is a part of this practice that I know most of you love and some of you dread. Like, "Oh, we're going to go into groups, I'm going to get off." So, if you're on the fence, if you haven't logged out yet, please give it a try. See what it feels like to actually, after having practiced kindness and compassion, meet others in that way. And if for whatever reason you can't stay (other than fear), then it's perfectly okay, if you have work to do, people to take care of. But I hope you stay and practice. So here we go, I'm going to create the breakout rooms. I need to do a little bit of shuffling around because people just hopped off. You can continue to practice compassion and kindness for a while this is happening. Okay, counts keep changing. I think I might just have to recreate the rooms... Okay, all right. So, dear ones, here we go. I'm going to open the rooms. _[Breakout groups practice]_ ## Final Reflections Here we are. Welcome back, everyone. Great. So, are there any reflections you'd like to share from the practice, either the guided meditation or practice in community, sharing _mettā_ interactively with others? We're going to use the blue hand because there was some cross-talk as I mentioned. So if you want to raise your hand, use the blue hand because I won't see your physical hand. If you go to participants, you'll see the raise hand option. Or you can type in chat if you have any reflections about what it was like, I'd love to hear from you. We still have a minute. **Trudy:** Hi, I would just like... am I unmuted? Yes. I would just like to share what I shared in the group, that I felt that guided meditation was an irresistible invitation to self-compassion. **Nikki:** Oh Trudy, I love your use of language: "irresistible invitation to self-compassion." Love it, that'll be my tagline. Trudy says, "My meditation tonight was an irresistible invitation to self-compassion." Thank you, Trudy. **Trudy:** Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you, thank you, I wouldn't be here if you guys weren't. **Nikki:** Thank you, Trudy. And Claire, Claire, please, one last comment. **Claire:** Yeah, Trudy and I were in the same group, and I agree with you, but on a more serious note, I am very hard on myself. When I studied Buddhism many years ago and then stopped practicing, and when I resumed it, it was really in the spirit of self-care and self-compassion. It has been an amazing change in my life for me to just be kinder to myself. **Nikki:** Yeah, transformative. These practices are transformative. Beautiful, yeah. Thank you, Claire. Thank you, everyone. We have come to the end of another Happy Hour practicing loving-kindness and heart practices. I am so happy that you all joined, it just delights me to see you all and practice with you. What a delight, what a pleasure, what a privilege. Deep bows to all of you, all of your humanity, all of your beauty, and all of your practice for the benefit of yourself and all beings everywhere. May all beings be well. May all beings be free. Thank you, take care, and see you on Wednesday. Tomorrow, Diana is teaching. If you all want to unmute yourselves and say goodbye, this is our tradition, a cacophony. _[Laughter]_ Thank you. I'm going to stop the recording here. --- [^1]: **Theravada:** The oldest surviving branch of Buddhism, meaning "the School of the Elders." [^2]: **Mettā:** A Pali word often translated as "loving-kindness," "goodwill," or "friendliness." [^3]: **Karuṇā:** A Pali word translated as "compassion," one of the four _Brahma-viharas_ (sublime attitudes) in Buddhism. [^4]: Original transcript said "can be double blind" and "heart know scientists", corrected to "can't be double-blind" and "hard scientists" based on context. [^5]: **Sangha:** A Pali word meaning "community," often referring to the community of Buddhist practitioners.