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Happy Hour: Contentment vs. Hungry-Ghost Mind

Introduction

Hello friends, and welcome to Happy Hour. My name is Nikki. I'm in Mountain View, California, on unceded Ohlone land. As we always do, I invite you to warm up the space by saying hello with your greetings in the chat. We are definitely international this evening, this morning, this middle of the night, whatever your time zone is!

Okay, let's formally begin. I'm going to turn on recording for the sake of Audio Dharma.

A warm, warm welcome, dear Sangha^[1]. Let's dive into practicing together, and I will introduce the theme for this evening during the meditation, as I sometimes do just to mix it up.

Guided Meditation

Let's arrive. Let's arrive in our bodies.

Arriving in this body. Maybe start by taking three deep, diaphragmatic breaths. We'll take a deep breath, hold it for a few seconds, and then let it out with a sigh.

Let's do it together. Breathing in, into the belly. Hold, and release. Let your shoulders come down, let your whole body release.

One more. Releasing deeply. Let your breath be received in the belly.

Third one. Hold, and release.

You can do more if you want on your own time. Return to a natural breath. As we do in mindfulness practice, letting the breath be natural.

After you have settled, after you have found it, opening up the body—especially the lower abdomen. The whole body, starting from the lower abdomen, to receive the breath. To receive all the sensations, whatever is present. Opening your heart to whatever is present. Settling. Arriving.

The question: can I be content right here in this moment? Just taking refuge with the breath in this moment. Solitude and silence. Can there be contentment? Can I meet it? Can I stop running, needing more, seeking, becoming, just in this moment? Can I try it out?

And if the answer comes back "no," can I be content with the resistance? Can I embrace that? Can I hug the resistance with kindness and warmth, if there is any? And if not, can I make space for myself to just be? Rest.

Can I put down planning, wanting, needing, becoming? I can always pick it up later. Right now, can I experiment with releasing into peace, into just this radical acceptance?

Has the mind picked up something else? A thought, a plan, a becoming? It's okay. Totally fine. Can you be kind with this wanting mind? "Oh, dear sweet wanting mind. It's your habit, isn't it? It's okay." Can we let go, sweetie? Can we let go for just this moment?

Putting it down. Just being with the breath. Taking refuge. Being enough. Whatever has happened or not happened, to be enough. Just in this moment. See what it's like. Breathing with being enough. Contentment is kindness.

Let go of thinking, becoming, wanting. Just in this moment. Make peace with the contentment of just being here, being breathed. This moment in time, everything that has led to this—embracing a bounty. The enoughness, the plenitude, the plenty of this moment. You are just enough. It's more than enough. It's abundant in so many ways.

Can we turn to that? Not turn to the lack, what's missing, or what should or could be. Can we choose to turn to the abundance? The enoughness.

Rest. This is enough. Rest.

Breathing in, breathing out.

Can you be kind to the mind, to the heart that wants to plan, wants to remember all of that? It's okay. You are gently, kindly, lovingly reminded that it is enough in this moment to just be. Remind the puppy of the mind and heart that it's enough in this moment. There's abundance right here. It can rest and be nourished.

Nourished with the breath. With the entirety of the in-breath, the entirety of the out-breath. Just this one breath, and then again this one breath. Just one breath at a time. Be nourished by it. Not planning for five or ten breaths. No, just this one, and then begin again.

As we turn to bring this meditation to a close, can we embrace and be content with whatever this period of practice was like? Whether there was contentment or not, maybe a whiff of it or maybe not. The mind was wandering, wanting this and that. Can we be content with that? As a radical act of contentment in this moment: This practice showed up for me exactly as it needed to in this moment in time, given all the causes and conditions. Can I accept that? Can I release into peace with contentment? Yes.

And trusting that there is goodness here, co-created through our practice, our engagement, our effort. Sharing this goodness, offering it freely for all beings everywhere, including ourselves. May all beings everywhere know the taste of contentment, ease, and goodness. Not as a way to resign—it's not a resignation—but as a stepping stone for growth.

May all our collective practice be of service to all beings everywhere. May all beings be well. May all beings be free, including ourselves.

Thanks everyone. Thanks for your practice.

Contentment vs. Hungry-Ghost Mind

So, a couple of words. One is, in societies and cultures where there's always one thing more, and more, and more, and more, practicing with exploring contentment is a radical act. It feels quite radical. Sometimes even unfamiliar, it feels like resignation. And it's not. It's not resignation. It's a way of accepting. Contentment is turning towards what is enough, what is good.

And oh yes, it doesn't mean we don't engage with growth. We don't engage with the practice. We don't engage to cultivate and continue to cultivate wisdom, compassion, our hearts, and our minds. It doesn't mean that we say, "Oh, I'm content with just what is." It doesn't mean that. But there is a level of contentment that's needed with what is, so that we don't become a hungry ghost^[2].

There is this story in Buddhism about the realm of the hungry ghosts. They are these creatures on one of the hell realm levels. They have a very long, narrow neck and also a very small mouth, but they have a huge stomach. They're always hungry. They cannot get enough to eat. They're never satiated. Because they have a huge stomach, they want more and more and more. But their necks are very tight and their mouths are very small, so the realm of the hungry ghost is a pretty tough one.

Whether we believe in the Buddhist cosmology or not, we can actually see it in this world. Sometimes we become a hungry ghost. We want more, more, more. More of this, more of that. We are in this realm of suffering of more. So, we turn towards contentment to release that hungry ghost-ness.

Again, just to repeat myself one more time, it doesn't mean that we are resigned. It doesn't mean that we give up. We continue to cultivate a practice. But if you explored it tonight, the sense of exploring contentment gives rise to a release. It's letting go, like "Ah, okay." It brings a sense of stability. And then actually, the mind and the heart can be more available, more ready, more open to engage in a different way. Not in a hungry way, not in a grasping way of "want this, plan this, remember this." It's an open, different way of being.

So for tonight's inquiry together, the question that I'd like to invite you to explore is: How do I experience contentment in this moment? We'll go around in breakout rooms and each person will say just one word or a phrase. Maybe "I experience it as release," "I experience it as freedom," or "I experience it as my breath feels more free." Then the next person offers something. You can also say "pass" and just hold compassionate, kind witness to everyone. You don't have to speak. Let's explore maybe a couple of rounds and then we can open it up for reflecting together.

Remember, you're just sharing from your own experience. You don't ask about other people's experience. Even if you don't understand what they say, you don't question it. Just offer from yourself and receive whatever is offered in the space with contentment.

So again, the inquiry question is: How do you experience contentment in your body, in your mind, in your heart? Okay, I'm creating the breakout rooms. Be kind to yourself, be kind to each other. Here we go.

Q&A and Reflections

Nikki Mirghafori: Welcome back, everyone. We have some time for reflections, observations, aha moments, challenges, and questions. Especially if you haven't spoken for a while in the big group, I would love to invite you to step forward for the benefit of yourself and others. What did you notice with this practice, both with the sharing and the guided meditation?

Jane: Yes, it was more of a question, Nikki, that came up and prompted in my small group. Is contentment a synonym or involved with acceptance, surrender, and love, even? I just wondered what you might think of that.

Nikki Mirghafori: Thanks, Jane. Interesting. Contentment is definitely... I think of a Venn diagram with circles, and it's not exactly the same as the ones that you named, but there is some overlap. There is some overlap with acceptance, but it's not exactly that. Contentment has a more nourishing quality to it. There's an uplift, there's more of a sweetness to it. And it's not exactly synonymous with love, though this aspect of contentment feels loving, it feels kind.

I'm so glad you brought that up because it's a lovely curiosity to explore what these different beautiful heart qualities are like. They're all a little different and similar. I share this because when I was practicing with my Burmese teacher, Sayadaw U Pandita^[3], there were these very, very nuanced states of mind that he would have me explore and look at, and really feel into what they were like. At first you think, "Oh, this is like that." But then as you really feel into it or explore it, you're curious, like, "Oh yeah, this feels qualitatively different." So with the question that you raised, Jane, I invite you to be curious about the similarities and nuanced differences between all of that. How does that sound?

Jane: Thank you, Nikki. That sounds good. I appreciate this practice.

Nikki Mirghafori: Thank you. Thanks for that question. Charles Lee, please.

Charles Lee: Oh, yeah, thank you. I missed the meditation practice, but I was here in time for our small groups and had a wonderful content experience, so very recursive. What came up for me is just that feeling of warmth, but also an idea that contentment is always available. I think prior to my practice of Buddhism, I kind of accidentally ran into contentment every so often, but I had no idea that there were ways to bring about contentment almost at will. It's just been so wonderful to be able to do that. One of the people in my group had mentioned that contentment was like a home. I thought, is it a type of Brahma-vihāra^[4]? You mentioned loving-kindness and mind states, so it gave me a lot to think about. But yeah, contentment, kind of the Buddhist joy, it's not fireworks, it's not this super sense-pleasured place, but gosh it just feels so easy.

Nikki Mirghafori: Beautiful. Thank you so much for these reflections, Charles Lee. Just beautiful. So many important points you raised. One of them being that it's available. It's here, it's always available. There's something about the beauty of this practice that lets us appreciate that. It doesn't mean that all conditions have to be perfect—this and that, relationship and finances at the moment. It doesn't have to be perfection. There's this sense that an ordinary mind has: "Oh yes, I'll be happy, I will be content when X and Y happens. When I'm in the perfect relationship, that's when I'll be content. When I get my degree," and all of that. And yet there is this obvious contentment. It's just this beautiful, soft, easy feeling, as you said.

As you were talking, I also realized, in addition to what Jane said about beautiful states of mind, it also relates to equanimity^[5]. There's a sense of equanimity resting in this spaciousness of the heart and mind. Thank you. Beautiful, wise reflections, Charles Lee.

And I smiled when you said in the group it was recursive. Are you a computer scientist? That's the recursion. I was just delighting; I haven't heard recursion in this context!

Charles Lee: Oh, sorry, dropped my device. I'm a neuroscientist, that was my degree in college, so not as smart as a computer scientist, because recursion is a particular term. I thought all the nerds on this call would probably get it. I've seen Neil, who I know is also a fellow nerd, and I was like, "Oh yeah, recursion." But anyway, just an inner joke of a particular way an algorithm is coded. It's kind of recursive. [Laughter]

Nikki Mirghafori: Thanks for bringing that in, Charles Lee. That brought a smile to my heart. That was fun. Great. Thank you.

Bill says in the chat, "This was educational. I don't remember ever seeing the mind still hungry and to then realize that it is the normal state of my mind 99.9% of the time. Can we do more of this?" Yes! And somebody hearted that request. Yes, we can do more. This was such a fun exploration. Thank you all.

And Serena says, "I don't think any path owns contentment. Every human can be capable of contentment, even the people who don't follow a particular path." Of course. Contentment is part of the range of our human capacity. I think what I was saying, and agreeing with Charles Lee, is that many of us don't realize that it's available to us. If we don't have a training—and it could be any kind of training: Buddhist training, Christian training, Stoic training, any kind of training that points to contentment—we're usually stuck in negative states of mind. So for me also, this practice really supported me to get in touch with contentment.

So thank you all. I feel full and delighted and happy and content with our practice this evening. It brings so much joy as we come together and practice. Thank you all for showing up, cultivating your heart and mind, exploring equanimity, and exploring contentment for the benefit of yourself and in service of all beings everywhere.

May we all know contentment. May we all be free. Thanks everyone. Take good care.