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Guided Meditation: Mudita Samadhi 2

Good morning. Hello everyone, and welcome.

We'll continue this morning with the meditation on appreciative joy^[1] with the idea that it's possible to have a continuity on this subject, on the feeling, the intention of appreciative joy. It becomes the gathering place for our life at the moment. For these minutes, our attention, our thoughts, our emotions, and our body all kind of center around and get absorbed or immersed in this world of appreciative joy.

Sometimes the word joy seems a little bit too excited. Sometimes the word that's used is gladness. Some people prefer to be pleased, inspired, or delighted. It can be very quiet. It can be very deep and intimate, maybe with a deep sense of contentment, satisfaction, and well-being. Each person has to find what inspires them, what feeling, what emotion is really what we can gather around, what we are happy to be connected to.

Sometimes this appreciative joy is taught so that the real center of what the practice is doing is the wishes we have for someone, the intention, the aspiration we have for them. I love the word aspiration because it has the word breathing in it. It is like we're breathing into a possibility, breathing out kind of like the spring breeze brings forth the cherry blossoms. We're bringing forth our love, our care, our inspiration, our intention, and our wish for someone to feel well, to be successful, to have a sense of well-being.

Yesterday the person was whoever is easiest for you. Today the category is our benefactors. The traditional category is the second, which is to focus on people who have benefited us in some way. Our teachers, our relatives, maybe parents or grandparents. Maybe it's a friend, maybe it's someone who has stepped forward to help us, to support us, to guide us, or to mentor us in a way that is really good for our lives and changed our lives for the better.

For that person, regardless of how happy they are, regardless of all kinds of issues that might make it a little more complicated, because they've been so generous to us, some part of us just wants them to be well. We want to return the gift, in a sense, by wishing them well. Wishing that their life is easy for them or inspiring for them, that what they love, what they enjoy, and what they're dedicated to can flourish for them.

So, wishing and spilling out this appreciative joy with: Yes, may your well-being thrive. May you do well. As a samadhi^[2], we're riding the wave, surfing the wave of this intention. It's kind of like the scooter analogy that I like to use, where we're pushing one foot against the ground and carrying the momentum of the scooter forward. We're surfing, we're paddling, and then we get caught by the wave and we're surfing the wave for a while until we have to paddle again.

We're wishing this person well. May your happiness continue. May your well-being thrive. In my appreciation of you and your goodness, may it continue. Each time we say it, it's kind of like we're on the wave and we're riding that intention, riding the momentum of it, feeling it in our body, connecting maybe to the image we have of this person with a smile. Or remembering how they can be, so that our heart smiles.

There's this all-encompassing engagement, involvement. We are giving ourselves over to the momentum, the slide, the wave. May your happiness continue. May your good fortune continue. And then feeling it. I find it useful to kind of say the phrase on the inhale, with the last word being said at the beginning of the exhale, the beginning of that wave. And then beginning again.

So, choosing a benefactor who is relatively uncomplicated for you. Assuming meditation posture and quietly, softly closing your eyes.

Tenderly letting your attention settle into your body. Like you're settling into a refreshing bath or pool of water. Feel in your body what feels comfortable, what feels nice. Even if part of your body is uncomfortable, is in pain, it's okay. For now, let that be held or supported. But what is that in your body which feels comfortable? Maybe a very broad, panoramic, global feeling. Maybe in a very specific place.

As you breathe, breathe into whatever feeling of well-being there might be for you. As you exhale, relaxing into it. As you breathe in, feeling the thinking mind. And that too, as you exhale, relax and soften it. So it settles. Almost like it can settle deeper into the torso, out of the head.

Bringing to mind a benefactor. Someone who not only benefited you, but brought you joy. A smile in your heart of how you've been supported, your good fortune. How nice. Bring this person to mind. Maybe remembering a time when their eyes sparkled and they were happy. Maybe a time when their generosity, their gift that they provided you, was palpable. And which at some point, when it happened or later, makes your heart smile. Breathe with that. Breathe through that well-being. The goodness of that memory.

Then, with this person in mind, is there some way that you can wish them well? Wish that their goodness continue. That they are benefited and are nourished, inspired by their own generosity, the good they did, the way they supported you. When they remember that, may they also smile. May whatever happiness they have in their life, may it continue.

Maybe the phrase you can use to make it simple is: May your happiness continue. Where may your happiness is said on the inhale, and continue on the exhale. With continue being the wave, the exhale being the wave in which we dip into the intention we have, the sense of this person, the way that we smile or are happy thinking of them. The joy we felt from being benefited. And the joy of wishing them well.

May your happiness continue. The word continue and the exhale is an occasion for the discursive mind to become quieter. So you can immerse yourself in the practice of appreciative joy. So that you become unified or whole for these few minutes. Oriented, directed to appreciative joy.

If it helps you connect and enter more deeply, you might also say the person's name, your benefactor's name. [Name], may your happiness continue.

Imagining yourself bathed in the well-being of this practice. The generosity of this practice of appreciative joy. Because this person is a benefactor, appreciative joy contains within it some gratitude. A feeling, a sense in the body of thankfulness.

As we come to the end of the sitting, perhaps appreciating that this benefactor of yours is a more complicated person than just being your benefactor. They have their joys and sorrows, their positive and maybe negative qualities, challenges. But in spite of that, we still feel inspired to stay appreciative of their goodness, their capacity for generosity and support, and their own capacity for happiness. Wishing them well, wishing whatever goodness they have can continue and grow.

In the same way, we can see all people like that. All people maybe have combinations of good and not so good qualities. They have times and capacities for happiness and unhappiness. But it's good to shine the light sometimes on where people can be happy, where their goodness is, so it can grow, so it can thrive through the recognition.

As we end this sitting, may our capacity for appreciative joy, recognizing the goodness in others, the happiness of others, help us see all beings with goodwill. May we see all beings, so we wish them all happiness. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And may we remember to see all beings for their goodness, for their good qualities. Maybe seeing that one way or the other, all beings are our benefactors.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Love (61) For Benefactor

So, we continue on these talks on appreciative joy. This week, the focus is on how to engage in it as a meditation practice where we give ourselves over to this quality of appreciative joy—the feelings, the sense, the motivations, the thoughts. We really make it a place where we settle and stabilize our attention. We can enter into an immersive experience, a whole gathering of ourselves into this experience of appreciative joy as a samadhi.

Sometimes I like to think of it as immersing ourselves totally in a bathtub of wonderful warm water, or immersing ourselves in a wonderful refreshing cool lake on a very hot day. Just really being immersed in it. If we're immersed in water like that, there's something in our system that kind of opens up and receives it and is available for the pleasure of the water. In the same way, something inside of us becomes available for the pleasure, the goodness, the flow, or the feelings of appreciative joy. All of us is immersed and basking in it.

The classic way of doing this, as I said yesterday, is to start with a benefactor. Then we work through categories of people that become increasingly difficult to have that kind of joy and delight for. The idea is to do it slowly and to choose people who are not too difficult. When moving from the easy person to the benefactor, we choose someone who is slightly more complicated, a benefactor who is a mixed bag. Maybe they have not caused you any difficulties, but they have some way of being that makes them sometimes a little bit too angry, or maybe they are depressed a fair amount of time, or anxious. We feel that there is much more we have compassion for. We have a hesitation for whatever reason, but not dramatically, just enough so we can begin stretching ourselves and seeing that we shouldn't limit our appreciative joy just because they're a mixed bag. Let's include all of them. Let's focus on their capacity to be happy and acknowledge it.

Part of this is a really good principle: the good in people and in ourselves, the capacity for well-being in others and ourselves, is supported by appropriate acknowledgement. Sometimes it's not naming it or pointing to it, but sharing in it, being with people. If people are smiling, smiling too. If people are happy, join in their happiness without necessarily naming it.

Sometimes it is naming it. You know, "Thank you for being so happy today. Thank you for lifting my spirits today because of your smile. Or thank you for being so generous." And offering this not as an oblique thank you or an obligation, but as a way of expressing your delight, your joy, your appreciative joy. Maybe it's a little bit contagious. They see that you've been buoyed, you've been inspired by what they did.

If we focus rather on what's difficult, then that's what gets fed in this world. So if someone invites you to their house for dinner and they make a nice dinner, and you feel appreciative of their efforts, but the dessert they give you is just terrible—overcooked, bitter, or something. As you leave, you say, "Well, thank you for having me over for dinner... but that dessert was awful. I don't know if I want to come here again." If you are still lingering with that, it spoils the whole thing.

It doesn't matter that the dessert was bad. In the bigger scheme of things, what really matters is their generosity and their goodness, and that they were doing something good for you. It's to appreciate that and share that joy. Appreciative joy is that practice of touching into what is really good in people and wanting it to grow, wanting it to continue, wanting their happiness to develop in such a way that we feel inspired, too. It's our own goodness coming to the forefront in seeing and wishing other people well in this way.

If it's challenging to do it well, if reservations come up, that's an area to meet, to relax, to soften, to stretch into, and see if the appreciative joy and the intention of wishing them well can gently and appropriately let that fall to the side. We immerse ourselves in this fullness, a full way of being, fully there, fully here, and not distracted by other things—undistracted love, undistracted appreciative joy. That's what samadhi is.

In meditation, this is the place where it's considered safe, appropriate, and a blessing to put aside those destructive thoughts for the time being. They can always come back later. You can say, "Thank you, and I'll put you on the shelf for now. You can rest now. You've been busy. You're probably tired." Right now, no more distracted thoughts. Those will have a time later. Be willing to let go, to soften that mind, and then enter into this world of wishing people well. In this case, not in the abstract, but by identifying and recognizing a way in which they are happy, joyful, and successful, and sharing in that joy. With the benefactor, share in that benefactor's joy or capacity for joy, and share in their good fortune.

In the meditation, finding a way to have the intention be like the surfboard that we're riding on. It's not a matter of entering into discursive thought, but finding a very quiet part of the mind, maybe almost not thinking at all, that is intending, May your happiness continue. And then riding that, opening to it, being available. That's where you put yourself down into the water to take in the pleasure of the water.

May you continue. And then in the rest of that exhale, just open and feel maybe a tingling, a pleasure in the body, a settledness, a smile in the heart, a delight, an immersion.

To make this kind of immersive fully, each person is going to have to find their own way, but there are these different elements of the practice that we can bring together to support us. How much to use them, and how much to be holding all of this at the same time, is up to each person. There's the memory of the person, the image or sense we have of them. There is their joy, happiness, and well-being, and what it was like for us to feel that when we're in their presence. Because they're the benefactor, there's also our deep respect, appreciation, and gratitude for them that can be there. There is the intention, the words we say or almost say, or the heart quality where there's a nice rhythm of arising and passing, coming and going, like waves lifting us up and down, the scooter being pushed along: May your happiness continue.

Then there are the feelings that happen within us—that gathering, settling, and relaxing into this. This is all we have to do right now. All our concerns and worries can be put aside, they can settle. There's a deep trust in samadhi, a deep trust in this healthy, settled, unified way of being here now. Settled on this with the help of appreciative joy. One joy after another. Renewing it in a very soft, calm, nice rhythmic way with every breath. If that rhythm is not quite right for you, then maybe you have your own rhythm that is not connected to your breathing, where you just stay in the flow and keep it going.

We practice this in our daily lives as well. For appreciative joy of benefactors, maybe anybody who is expressing something good is your benefactor. Because they inspire you, they show you what's possible. Spend more time today looking for opportunities to share in the joy of others, in the goodness, the integrity, the generosity of others. Just take it in, appreciate it in yourself. And then maybe in a very simple, unobtrusive, unassertive, uncomplicated way, offer your gratitude to the other person for what you see, what you're experiencing, or how they are. Offer your appreciation of them, and see if you can find a way to do that which lets things light up even more. Let the shared joy light up. Ah, yes, thank you. That's great. Everyone smiles, their eyes sparkle.

If you want to do the advanced practice of benefactors, then there can be the deep appreciation, the real appreciation of people who are difficult for you. The reason to appreciate them is that they show you where you have room to practice. They show you where you still need to find your freedom or your self-understanding, or how not to get caught in reactivity. They are also benefiting us. But that is the advanced practice, so only use it if it feels like that's going to work for you.

We'll continue with this tomorrow. If you find yourself interested in this samadhi of appreciative joy, I encourage you to meditate more today and this week. If you're meditating once a day, do it twice a day, or do it a little bit longer so you are getting familiar and more deeply connected to this appreciative joy. Samadhi comes from practice.

Thank you very much.