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Happy Hour: Dancing in the Rain

Introduction

Hello friends, hello and welcome to Happy Hour. If you can hear me okay, give me a thumbs up. Audio's good? Fantastic. Great. Welcome, welcome to Happy Hour. I'm Nikki in Mountain View, California, unceded Ohlone land. And as we always do, we start Happy Hour by saying hello, warming up the space with metta^[1], our greetings. So who wants to help warm up the space? Take it away.

Hi Jesse, you in New Hampshire. Hi Neil, good evening my friend in Oakland. Hi Fred. Hi George from Texas, welcome. Susan in San Mateo. Hi Susan. Vicky from Oakland, hi Vicky. And hello Bill from Dallas who says hello in chat. Anybody else? Stephen in Houston. Hi Steve. And hi Karen from Santa Clara. Hello.

Okay, all right. Well, we're going to declare the space warmed up with our metta and hellos to each other. Thank you for posting information about the Happy Hour Google Groups to the chat. We have a low-traffic mailing list, and if you are new to Happy Hour, you're warmly invited to click on that link and become a member of the Google Group, where information, links, poems, and things like that are shared. It's pretty low-traffic, and also you can keep in contact with the sangha^[2].

At this time, I will change the settings so that accidental unmuting won't be possible. The chat is also now changed so that chats will only come to me as the host, but I ask you to keep that channel quiet during the guided meditation and the little dharmette^[3], because it can be very distracting to receive chats while I'm teaching. I'll open it up afterwards. And last but not least, I will turn on the recording for the sake of Audio Dharma. Here we go.

Great. Hello, hello, and welcome everyone to Happy Hour. It's lovely to see you. It makes me happy to see you and for us to come together to practice. What a beautiful way to spend our time, to cultivate kindness, cultivate goodwill, and presence for this very life. This life that seems to keep passing very, very quickly. Impermanence in full force, full regalia. Impermanence arising and passing every moment of our life.

I wanted to bring a couple of quotes for us to play with tonight. They have to do with the passage of time and really how we show up for our lives, the way we intend to show up for ourselves and for others. One is by Allen Saunders. You have probably heard this one: "Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans." Life is what happens to us while we are busy making other plans. Another one from Vivian Greene is: "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." And here is the third one by Anonymous: "Life is what happens when you're busy worrying about the future."

These are the things I want to bring in, with the invitation not for us to worry about the future and let life pass us by, but actually to notice if we happen to have that tendency to be worrying about the future, or not really being present with our lives. That's one invitation—to land in our seats and be present for this beautiful, amazing, mysterious, challenging thing called our lives. Can we be present for it? Not waiting for the storm to pass. Not waiting or bracing ourselves for it to pass, but can we learn to dance in the rain with kindness, with patience, with generosity, with gratitude, and with spaciousness for ourselves and for others? Shifting our relationship to the way we show up for our lives, for the sake of ourselves and others.

This is, of course, a theme that we explore at Happy Hour: cultivating kindness, compassion, and gratitude in these practices of the heart regularly. This is another way of leaning into presence, being present with kindness and spaciousness for what is. Instead of bracing for it to be over, can we celebrate the fullness, the busyness, the being as things are, even if they are not exactly what we would want them to be? But they're here already. Can we be present for them with spaciousness and a sense of celebration even so?

I think I've said enough to set the stage, so I will bring these themes in as we meditate together. Let's arrive, let's land in our bodies, and start meditating.

Guided Meditation

Arriving. Arriving in this body, in this moment in time. We invite our feet, our legs, to rest on this earth. Sitting on the chair, letting the bottom of both feet rest onto the earth.

On a cushion, the bottoms of our legs, the underside of our legs, and our bottom on the cushion, on the chair. Relaxing, releasing, arriving fully.

Taking your seat. Both figuratively and literally, on this earth, in this moment. Taking our seat. Taking our seat.

Taking our seat on the earth in this present moment. As if experience comes and goes, as if there was a revolving door. Comings and goings. And yet, as if we were just resting, standing by this revolving door of experience. Planting ourselves in the present moment, watching the flow of the comings and goings. We don't have to accompany them and travel with them, but just resting right here. This open revolving door. Comings and goings like this.

Can we be a kind, patient, wise witness? An attendant at this revolving door of the present moment.

Letting the breath, the movement of the breath, sensations of the breath in the body be a support to hang in, to hang by. This revolving door of the present moment. The breath can be like a friend who supports us. We can lean on the breath, be more present for the arisings and passings. Leaning into the breath. Spaciousness.

Release thoughts from the past, plans for the future, worries in this moment. They can be released, and trust that the past is already gone. If we can be present, fully present, cultivating wisdom, kindness in the present moment, the future will take care of itself when it becomes the present moment.

Can we be here, right here, right now, supported by this friend, our breath? In-breath, out-breath. Spacious. Present.

Sitting by the revolving door of nowness. The revolving door is arising and passing. The door is the revolving door; it's always now. It's always now. Can we just release, open our hands for a moment, and appreciate? Take delight. In this moment's presence. A sense of full presence.

Perhaps you can imagine yourself, if you like, as an attendant standing by a revolving door. A friendly, kind attendant who has goodwill, who smiles at whatever passes through the revolving door. Arriving, passing, moving through. Greeting all phenomena with an open, friendly heart of goodwill. Not attaching, getting clingy, or jamming up the door. Not joining any travelers moving to the future or the past, but just staying right here at the revolving door of the present.

If you find the mind is wandering, not a problem. No worries. It's okay, it happens, this is what minds do. Gently inviting awareness to come and rest with the breath. Resting with the present moment where it's most restful, right here.

Resting in the presence with a smile. Greeting all visitors that come and go in this moment, all phenomena passing through.

And if it gets overwhelming at any point, there's so much passing through, just stay with the breath. Just resting with the breath.

Being present for our life in this moment, in this passing moment. Resting with the breath, with kindness and goodwill for ourselves, or whatever is arising.

And if there is currently a storm in your life, challenges. Is that possible? You imagine yourself dancing in the rain. Learning to dance in the rain. Instead of bracing yourself for the storm to pass. Is that possible? If not, it's okay, don't push it.

Maybe the heart opens just a second, in some way, to see yourself embracing what's difficult, what's challenging. Being rained on, being soaked, being undaunted by the deluge. May there be a connection, even for just one second, a sense of uplift or joy in the midst of this rain, the storm, the deluge. Getting soaked.

Here. Here. In this moment. This passing moment. Spacious moment.

Then as we turn to bring this practice to a close, feeling into this metaphor one more time. If there are challenges, rain, storms, can we connect with the freedom of getting soaked, dancing, singing in this rain, even for a moment? If it's available. If not, it's okay.

Letting that go, connecting with the metaphor of sitting, resting with the breath. In-breath and out-breath at the revolving door of experience. Spaciously present here. Not leaving our post, going after experience into the future or the past. Spaciously just here.

With kindness, goodwill for ourselves, and everything and everyone that passes through these gates, these doors of awareness. And as we cultivate, plant seeds of presence and kindness, may we meet ourselves with goodwill. May we meet whatever arises with goodwill, even if there are challenges, with spaciousness, as much as possible. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free, including ourselves.

[Music]

Thanks everyone, thanks for your practice.

Reflections

As I mentioned at the beginning, we're working with a couple of themes. One was this metaphor of sitting by the revolving door of the present moment, nowness. It can be a very helpful metaphor sometimes. Greeting everything that passes through with a smile. All events, instead of having a sense of aversion or clinging—one or the other—with phenomena that arise. That was one.

And then the other was: can we, for a moment, have the sense of dancing in the rain? A few quotes that I shared at the beginning connected to the practice today. One is by Allen Saunders: "Life is what happens to us while we're making other plans." So the invitation was to be right here with the revolving door of experience, instead of connecting and accompanying some experience into the past or future. As a training. Of course, it might have happened a hundred times during this practice that you did that, but we do it as a planting of seeds, as a training. And this other quote by Vivian Greene: "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, but about learning to dance in the rain."

It's funny, because a few days ago I was listening to this AI-generated playlist of songs. And something that came up, which I hadn't listened to or heard for a long time, was the song "Singin' in the Rain." Oh yeah! What an interesting, happy song. And what a concept, this idea of singing in the rain. I think the lyrics were something like, "Singing in the rain... I'm happy again... I'm singing in the rain." I was like, oh, how interesting, right? Imagining us embracing the rains of our lives and just dancing and singing in the rain.

It can really shape our practice. The Buddha taught with so many similes, so many metaphors. My goodness, the suttas^[4] are filled with very helpful similes. These metaphors really open us up to possibility. Instead of just, "be with the in-breath, be with the out-breath." Yes, those instructions are very helpful and prescriptive, but metaphors can be so helpful to open our hearts and minds to the possibilities that we know, but maybe don't relate to perhaps as readily if they were just prescriptive. Same with poems.

With that, I'd like to invite us now to take advantage of practicing with the community, with the Happy Hour community in small groups. The prompt for small group practice tonight is this: was there something about working with either of these metaphors that you found supportive or opening? Or was there something particularly challenging? You're welcome to share from your own experience what arose, or you can pass, just be part of the group and hold silent, kind presence for yourself and others. Perfectly fine, you don't have to speak.

If you do choose to participate in the small groups, let it be a sense of kindness to yourself, kindness to others. Just like me, we're just like each other. We're just practicing, cultivating our hearts and minds as well as possible in this limited time called human life. Share from your own experience. No questioning, not directing the group, but just sharing your own experience. Let's do first name, reverse alphabetical order for the groups. Be kind to yourselves, be kind to one another. The breakout groups are also called "breakthrough groups" because we often discover so much about ourselves and about each other. They can be supportive. I'm creating the rooms now, take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Here we go. The rooms will close in about 10 seconds. We'll wait until everyone gets back.

Okay, the rooms are closed, everybody's back. Welcome back everyone.

Q&A

We have some time now for reflections, questions, comments. How was that practice for you? What did you discover? And also what you discovered in discussing it, perhaps, in the small groups with one another. If you haven't spoken in the large group ever, or for a while, I would love to invite you to come forward. And if you've spoken recently or often, pull back and make space for those who haven't spoken recently. I would love to hear your reflections.

Lisa: Hi Nikki, thank you so much. I found myself kind of teetering between being... it was kind of really obvious what was coming up for me. It was not a lot of "in the revolving door," like it was okay, this kind of emotional tangle of things that I was being with. But it's like I was teetering between noticing a little resistance to it and then going into it, like being in it. Versus having a little of this friendly, kind space around it. And then when it was passing at the end, I was like, "Is it really going? I don't know. Am I sure?" So it was like that nuance. But yeah, I don't know, is that just something that happens? Or do you have any instruction or guidance around being in the thing versus coming out into kind of a space around it? And I guess I associate that with the singing or dancing part, and then the rain maybe is my direct emotional thing that's happening to me.

Nikki: Yeah, it's beautiful. I so appreciate the way you described it. Actually, this is lovely that you observed that at some point you're in the midst of it, you're entangled. It was like you're in the revolving door, you're hanging out with all the people, all the things that are coming and going. And then there was some spaciousness that happened like, "Oh yeah, it's coming and going, it's happening, but there's some spaciousness of presence." And you associate that with the ease of dancing in the rain, being with the difficulties or whatever it is arising and passing. Actually, you described that beautifully, Lisa. That transition yourself. In terms of any guidance or support, I think leaning into the breath a little bit, kind of leaning into the present moment, can allow that spaciousness. But also, observing what you just observed about, "Oh yeah, I can be in the midst." There's a difference between the mode of being entangled with it, and it's slightly different when, yeah, it's still arising, but there's just a little bit of space of observing it arising and passing. So, I think you already have it. I'm basically affirming the wisdom you already have and the way you engaged with it wisely yourself. It's quite lovely. Thanks Lisa, that is so great.

I actually forgot to open up the chat, so the chat is now open either to me privately or to the whole group. Pietro?

Pietro: Hi Nikki. Hello everyone. So, thank you for the meditation and the theme, the passage of time. I was just reflecting in the group how much time I spend planning and worrying. So that's very humbling. But yet, I also have sometimes this experience—I think we all have that—of just boredom. It happened today a lot at work, there was just boredom coming up. And it's kind of like you want time to go faster in those cases. And it's really sad because, as you were reminding us, our time is so limited, and yet there are those times, those days when you actually want it to go faster. And it's not pleasant to be in boredom. So I was just wondering if you had any suggestions, ideas, how to be with boredom, especially when you're at work and maybe it's not as easy to just engage in a different activity.

Nikki: Yeah, beautiful. Thank you so much for bringing this up. This is so important, kind of the other side of the coin. There's a range of human experience, right? We realize we're spending so much time in thinking and we're losing out on the moment, and then we're losing out on the moment because we want it to end, right? It's a different way of wanting it. Either we're in some difficulty, bracing for this challenge to end, or it's boring. So the mind is really evading, basically, in relating to the present moment. A way of pushing it away, wishing for a future moment. And then when the future moment comes, "Oh wait, I just missed out on that wonderful..." So you're bringing out another aspect of it. Great.

Boredom is such an interesting experience. It's not so much about what it is that's happening, but it's the relationship of our minds to what is happening. I will venture to say there is nothing that is inherently boring, including sitting with your eyes closed doing nothing. That's not boring, because there's so much that is happening that we can become curious about. If we already know as meditators that we can sit with our eyes closed and nothing is happening, and yet it's interesting, wow. We can become curious. The mind can become more curious and subtle about the subtle arisings and passings in the mind and the body, turning the awareness to itself, to be curious. Even this can be interesting, as we know.

So how can whatever thing it is that you're doing, how can that be boring? Can we bring more curiosity not just to the act itself, to the function that you're doing? I'm going to recommend two things. One is to bring curiosity and interest to the task that is deemed boring. Can I learn more? Can I do this with panache? Can I do this with alacrity? Can I do this with interest? Can I do this with joy? Can I do this with a spirit of service? Like the task itself, can I do this singing in the rain? There are a lot of different attitudes that you can bring in to just explore, to keep learning. To keep learning about yourself, about the task.

And yet another whole area is: become curious about the boredom itself. Be really curious what is happening. What are the words, what is the message right now that "this is boring, I don't want to be doing this"? Oh really? Okay, well tell me why. What's boring about it? Let's explore this together. Explore how boredom feels in the body, in the mind. The moment you learn to become curious about boredom, you are never bored. It's fascinating. It's such a transition. It rarely does come up for me that I'm bored. And yet there are some moments where I've noticed that the mind is like, "Oh, bored." "Oh really? What is this mind state that says boring? I'm curious about this mind state." Any moment in life becomes fascinating. Does that make sense, Pietro, what I'm inviting you to explore?

Pietro: Yes, yes.

Nikki: Be curious with boredom. Be curious with boredom, and then you're not bored anymore. Yes. And also challenge yourself with whatever task there is, with the attitude and with different ways to learn and serve and be with it. This task, is it to serve? Use it to serve others. Are there other human beings that are impacted? How can you relate to this task to find more meaning, more interest in it?

Pietro: Thank you.

Nikki: Thank you so much. Such a great question, really great question. So, thank you all. This has been such an interesting period of practice. One of you just sent a chat to me: "Singin' in the Rain is an energizing song." It sure is. May you bring that in as an inspiration.

Another question in the chat: "How to think about serving when doing chores and cooking, especially when I'm bored?" But that's exactly it, you're serving your family. When you're cooking, when you're doing chores, you're serving your family. It's an act of service. And then again, have curiosity about boredom itself. The mind is so interesting, it just labels the most interesting things as boredom. And we just believe it: "Oh yeah, this thing is boring." It's just a label. Don't believe all labels. Have a beginner's mind. Have a beginner's mind, and dance in the rain.

Thank you all. Thank you for your practice. Thank you for your cultivation. May all beings be well. May all beings be free, including ourselves. Thanks everyone.