--- ai_generation_date: '2026-07-04' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview audiodharma: talks: - date: '2022-02-23' mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/15134/20220223-Nikki_Mirghafori-IMC-happy_hour_the_nourishing_practice_of_metta-infused_mindfulness_of_the_breath.mp3 speakers: - speaker_name: Nikki Mirghafori speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/229 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: 'Happy Hour: The Nourishing Practice of Metta-Infused Mindfulness of the Breath' url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/15134 video_unavailable: false location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: fQSv8tEi8FE imprecise_upload_date: '2022-05-04' title: 'Happy Hour: The Nourishing Practice of Metta-Infused Mindfulness of the Breath' upload_date: null uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQSv8tEi8FE --- # Happy Hour: The Nourishing Practice of Metta-Infused Mindfulness of the Breath - [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.* ## Introduction Hello friends, hello, and welcome. Hello and welcome to Happy Hour. Hi. Good to see you all, good to be with you. As always, we start by saying hello, warming the space. I'll start by saying hi, I'm Nikki. I'm in Mountain View, California on unceded Ohlone land. By the way, it is rather chilly for a change! Who wants to say hello? You are welcome to unmute yourself or type in the chat as you wish. **Dave:** Hello, I'm Dave from Whidbey Island, and it looks like you got your hair done. **Nikki:** I got a haircut, yes, shorter. [Laughter] Easier to take care of. **Participant:** Hi from Columbus, Ohio. **Nikki:** Hi, welcome, good to see you. And there's Jesse from San Rafael, Billy from Dallas, Sarah from snowy Flagstaff, Claire in New York City. Ah, it just makes me happy to hear all the hellos or read them. Your voices. Anybody else want to say hi? **Laurel:** Hi, I'm Laurel from Seattle. **Nikki:** Hi Laurel, welcome. **Linda:** Hi, it's Linda from Utah, and I noticed your hair too, Nikki. It looks lovely. **Nikki:** Thank you, you're very kind. Thank you. Yeah, it's fun. You know, hair is like this body, right? It's ours and also not ours. You can cut it off and you're still you, and there's a part of your body missing, right? Interesting. These reflections, we can take them to interesting places. Kelly says hi from Memphis, Tennessee. Hi Kelly. Terence from Sequim, Washington. Sweet. So let's get started. Let's get started. And hi Gabriel from Montreal! Hello. We're international. So let's begin. Let's begin formally. I am changing the settings at this point so that unmuting will go away for the duration. I will also change the chat settings so that the chat will only come to me if there's anything urgent that needs to be communicated, like if the sound drops off. Otherwise, we can keep that channel quiet, as it can be distracting while I'm giving a guided meditation or a talk. We'll open it up afterwards. And last but not least, turning on recording for the sake of AudioDharma, for our friends who will join later. Here we go. ## [Happy Hour: The Nourishing Practice of Metta-Infused Mindfulness of the Breath](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/15134) Hello and welcome everyone. Welcome to Happy Hour. For our practice today, I'd like to invite us to explore in our meditation together a couple of different concepts that I want to bring together. One is the concept of practicing loving-kindness, *metta*[^1], which has so many different dimensions. It's a cultivation practice, and it makes us kinder and happier in how we feel externally in relationships. There are so many different aspects to this practice, and of course, we've spent many, many sessions tapping into all these different aspects—relationally, internally, etc. One aspect of the practice of *metta* is that it's also considered a unification practice. It's a practice that calms the mind, that pacifies the mind, that stills the mind. It's like petting the mind. If you're petting a kitty... if we gently, gently pet the mind with this practice over and over again, it starts to purr. There's a sense of ease, contentment, and goodness. This nourishment of loving-kindness for ourselves just fills the heart and fills the body, which can be so healing. So that's the aspect I'd like to invite us to tap into. If you've had a long day or a hard day, if this sounds like good news that this is what we're exploring, then yay, because it is. There is an aspect of healing and calming. For this to build up, there are various things that need to be in place. It's a much longer conversation, and we've covered many aspects, but one thing we'll be leaning into today for our practice is embodiment. We keep bringing this *metta* back to ourselves, to the body, again and again and again. When the mind wanders off to a thought or a plan for tomorrow or yesterday, it's like, "Oh sweetheart, it's okay. It's okay, come back to the body. Come back, come back." And if we feel, "Oh, I've had this, I'm done with it, I'm bored," it's like, "Oh, stay, stay, stay, stay. Just keep petting yourself. You hang in there." One concept I want to bring in here—in psychology, this is called the very technical term of "response inhibition." One description of it refers to the suppression of actions that are inappropriate in the given context and that interfere with goal-driven behavior. That's very psychological, but the point here, which is actually this practice, is when you stay. You just stay. You kindly, gently—I know it sounds really clinical, but it's another way to feel into it. It's like, "Oh, I've had it. Okay, it's been twenty minutes, I want to go and watch Netflix, and I've practiced, I've done it." But you just say, "Stay, stay, stay. Can you stay?" The more you stay, the more you might think, "Okay, I want to just fix it and grab my tea and drink it in the middle of meditation, and fidget, and scratch myself." What if I stay? What if I gently stay? Again, not in a harsh way—I'm not suggesting that—but can you gently train yourself to stay? Keep petting the kitty, and see what happens. See what happens at the end, right? If you don't interrupt, if you don't go after all these distractions of thought or mind, just see if the sense of nourishment is there. Again, you need to be very gentle with this. It's not a harsh thing to do, just lovingly: "Oh, can you stay, sweetheart? Can you stay? Okay." So that is the frame for tonight. And again, gentleness, ease, and nourishment. Being nourished and healed is our goal, is our destination. So if anything, if you find yourself becoming too harsh or too tight, that's not the way. Let that go. It's okay. Just breathe, breathe with ease. Kindly turn to whatever is arising as if you're petting the kitty. So that's the frame. I think I've said all I wanted to say to set the frame, so let's begin. Let's practice together. ## Guided Meditation Let yourself be comfortable for this practice. Especially for this practice, let yourself be comfortable. Sitting comfortably. It's good if your spine is straight so there's a sense of integrity in your posture. Lying down is fine; lying down is okay if there's a sense of integrity in your limbs and your spine. Ah, let your body be comfortable. Landing. Landing. Landing. Arriving. Arriving here. Embodied. Embodied. Turning the attention to the body ever so gently and inviting the body to relax. To let go. It might be tired. It might be hurting. Can you release? Ah, can you release into all the nooks and crannies of this body that haven't gotten attention today because you've been too busy? The mind has been attending to the proverbial to-do list. Here. Relaxing. Relaxing. Releasing into the body. Letting the breath be breathed gently, kindly. With each breath, with each in-breath connecting the awareness, connecting with the sensations of breathing in this moment. And with each out-breath, releasing into... Say, your toes. How are the toes, really? Feel your breath release into the toes and the sensations in the toes. Then the feet, and the lower legs. Relaxing in the same way as that image of us petting the kitty. Let the breath embrace different parts of the body. The feet. The out-breath now embracing the lower legs, the knees, the upper legs. Being petted, embraced with the out-breath. Sit bones. Each out-breath released. Released. Felt. Notice when you release each part of the body, as it was being petted by the breath, is there more sensation that's available, more ease that becomes available? The entire lower legs, lower part of the body, and the sit bones. Petted with the out-breath kindly. There's a sense of kindness, gentleness in each breath. The *metta* is infused in with each breath. It's not separate. Then lower abdomen. Take your time. The lower back. Released into the chair, into the cushion, the bed, with each out-breath. The chest, the area around the heart center, with each out-breath, released. As if the breath is lovingly petting a kitty. Here, here, here, here. Dear body, dear kitty. The in-breath bringing awareness, bright awareness to this part of the body, the chest. Bright awareness. The out-breath letting go, releasing. Notice if you're getting sleepy, it might be helpful to bring attention on the in-breath to the aliveness, to the brightness in this body part. Down the shoulders, arms, elbows, lower arms, hands. With each in-breath bringing awareness, bright awareness. With each out-breath, ah, releasing, letting go. The kitty being lovingly petted. The neck and shoulders. The face, the cheeks, the forehead, the tongue, the ears, the jaw muscles. And the proverbial thinking muscle of the brain. In-breath here, bright. Out-breath released. Relaxed into. Let thinking be relaxed, or released. To let it be released. And now the entire body. The in-breath, sense of awareness, brightness here, knowing the body is breathing. Ah, the out-breath, release, relax, let go. Kindly, lovingly, as if the breath, the out-breath especially, is petting the kitty of the body lovingly. It's the *metta*. The *metta* in-breath here, now. I'm here. I pay attention to my dear self, dear body, this dear being who's me. Ah, the out-breath release with kindness here. Here, sweetheart. Maybe you even have an image of the breath petting the whole body. Maybe the body starts to purr after a while, receiving all this loving attention. Let yourself be surprised as to what levels of peace, nourishment, and healing might be possible through continuity, consistency with this practice. And as thoughts arise, pet them and release them too. Coming back to the body. The nourishment of the breath wrapped in *metta*. Releasing, releasing, letting go, the other side of the coin of *metta*. Release into peace. Release into love, loving each part, each and every part of this body with the breath. Can there be *metta* wrapped with each breath, in each breath? Breathing in and out for this entire body, especially if any part is having challenges. Let the breath, imbued with kindness, be nourishing, healing to your heart, your mind, to your body. Breath by breath. Here, here. As thoughts arise, can we release them? Come back here to this body with *metta*. Here, here, this body. Each breath, a breath of kindness. And for the last moments of this practice period, releasing, releasing with the out-breath whatever arose or did not arise. Releasing any judgment, any criticism, and allowing there to be *metta*, appreciation, care for yourself, for this body, for this heart, and this mind. You showed up, you did the best you could, and offering that to yourself and to others. Thank you for your practice, everyone. ## Reflections Ah, I have to say I don't feel like talking so much, but I don't know how it was for you. I'd love to hear it at any point. It was feeling like purring, you know, this purring was petting the cat with the breath, *metta* infused with the breath, the sense of purring. Like, "Oh yeah, this is good. I want to stay here. This is good. I can hang out here." Even if for a few seconds you felt that, yay. How nourishing. How nourishing for us to rest in this wellspring of contentment in the heart. Another way we could see this practice we did together was the merging of mindfulness of the breath with the practice of *metta*, infusing the two together. So that's another perspective we can hold this practice from. So take some time, if you want to share any reflections, any thoughts, observations, you can type in the chat. Typing in the chat just to me would be private and I won't read your name. If it's to everyone, I'll read your reflection if you wish. Or you can raise your hand. Yeah, I see Greg. **Greg:** I really like the idea of taking something that's a tactile process and turning that inward. It seems really novel to me. I do this thing, or I have my whole life with my horses, where I palpate down their spine when I think there might be problems, and then I watch their spinal column relax, and then it radiates out through their whole body. I was just sort of doing that to my own gut based upon your suggestion, so thank you for that. **Nikki:** I love that, Greg. I love that you were doing that to your own gut, and did it have the same impact as you observe on your horses? **Greg:** Actually, it really did. It was just the idea of a gentle sort of massaging of the abdominal area. I noticed a short-term contractile response in which the horse will elevate their spine and then they let it down, and you see the natural arc of their spine drop as they relax, and I had the same sort of internal reaction to that. So it was a beautiful little experience for me. It's really food for thought. **Nikki:** Yeah, it's great. It sounds like it opened something up. And a couple of other things I wanted to bring here—thank you so much for sharing that, Greg. I'm loving hearing about the horses and the rhythmic petting and their releasing. One thing that also comes to my mind is this idea of petting the horse out of care, out of concern, with *metta* for them. So it's the same movement of the heart that you're doing. It's not just a physicality, right? There is that sense of care that you're also bringing, and I wanted to highlight that also, which is what really helps this release. There's a sense of safety and care that makes it happen. So that's lovely. Thank you for that reflection. Beautiful. And glad, yay, something opened up for you. May it continue to nourish you. Any other reflections? Richard on YouTube says, "Beautiful *metta*-phor." Beautiful metaphor and reflection, thanks Richard. I like the playing with the words, *metta*-phor. Yeah, sweet. Any other reflections, discoveries you made, surprises? There were things that didn't work? It's all okay. It's all good things to share for the benefit of yourself to be a held witness, or for others. Especially if you're new. Yeah, Melissa. **Melissa:** Thank you so much. I just wanted to express gratitude. I'm having a really hard day today, and having this space to come to in the evening at the end of struggling so much is so wonderful. I just wanted to express my thanks to the *sangha*[^2] and to you. **Nikki:** Thank you, Melissa. Thank you so much for voicing that care, that appreciation, the nourishment of having this *sangha*, having this practice community to come to after a long hard day. Holding you. Yeah, as we all come together for practice. Hugh says, "*Metta* flows out on each breath." That's lovely. Yeah, what a beautiful metaphor to experience. Lovely. So let's turn, given that the last person who spoke called out the nourishment of being in *sangha*—this wonderful group, community that we have become, practicing together, caring for each other. Even if you're new, completely new, if this is your first time, please stay and just meet a couple of other human beings on this planet, on this earth, who are cultivating their heart towards kindness. Then hold them with your kindness and let them hold you with theirs. Just meeting each other. Hello, fellow humans. So I'll create the breakout rooms now. Let's start with fifteen seconds of silence as always, just silently holding each other with kind gazes. Then you can share as little or as much as you like about your practice, questions, comments, whatever might arise. So, let's see, I will... oops, something just happened here with the room. What's going on here? Something funky is happening. Hold up, I'm in trouble with the rooms. Bear with me, we can do this. Let's do this. Ah, okay, I think it worked. All right, great. So I'm gonna open the rooms, and here we go. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other. *(Breakout rooms open)* Uh oh, you're back. Okay, I think we had some trouble! Oh my god. All right, we had some trouble. Let's try... oh, what happened? Okay, gosh, all right, let me try. We're having some technical difficulties tonight, guys. Hold on, let's um... oy vey. [Laughter] Oh, this is funny. All right, let's see. How can I do this... oh, that's so funny, I have to wait thirty seconds. Well, let's do thirty seconds of *metta*! I have to wait twenty-five seconds for the rooms to close in order to reopen them again. Technical difficulties I'm having tonight. All right, the rooms are going to close in ten seconds and then I can open them up. All right, here we go. Okay, so everybody's back now. Hello everyone. Hello, welcome back. I'm going to recreate the rooms. There were some technical difficulties, I tell you what! Sorry about that. Open the rooms, close the rooms... all right, let's try this again. Hold on. Recreate the rooms. Okay, I think we're good. All right, I'm gonna open the rooms now. All right, here we go. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Here we go. *(Breakout rooms open)* And the rooms will close in about five seconds. We'll wait until everyone has come back. ## Final Reflections All right, rooms are closed properly this time, not prematurely. Hi, welcome back everyone. Any last-minute reflections? We have about a minute left. If anything you'd like to share that has come up for you, especially from being in groups, a quick reflection? Going once, going twice... ah, I see lots of smiles. So I'll let that stand as the reflection, spending time together in *sangha*. So thank you all. Thank you for your practice. Thank you for doing this cultivation for your own sake and the sake of all those whose lives yours touches directly or indirectly. May all beings be happy, may all beings be free, including ourselves. Thank you. --- [^1]: **Metta:** A Pali word often translated as "loving-kindness," "goodwill," or "benevolence." [^2]: **Sangha:** A Pali and Sanskrit word referring to the Buddhist community of monks, nuns, novices, and laity, or in the West, more broadly applied to any community of practitioners.