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Happy Hour: Embodied Joy

Introduction

Hello and welcome, everyone. Welcome to this rendition of Happy Hour. It is lovely to be with you, to feel your presence from so many different time zones, joining through these different media.

For today's Happy Hour practice session together, I'd like to invite us to engage with the practice of mudita^[1] in the form of appreciation. What is mudita? For those of you who may not be familiar with the term, it is the Pali^[2] word for vicarious joy. Basically, it means turning towards joy—whether it's joy for our own goodness and blessings or the gifts of other people. It's a way to really relax and savor goodness.

The gift of this practice is especially important because our minds tend to gravitate towards challenges, towards dukkha^[3], towards trauma, towards what's hard, difficult, and "ouch." In order to feel resourced—to remember, "Yes, there is goodness here, there is so much goodness here"—this practice allows us to open up to the goodness in our lives and in the lives of others. This is especially true when there is difficulty in our lives and when there's difficulty in the world. It's not a way to put our heads in the sand—not at all, it's not escapism—but a way to open the heart to really fill up our sphere of experience with the fullness of life.

We've practiced opening to joy and gratitude in different ways, and tonight I want to get into it slightly differently than I usually guide it. As you know, I always like to invite you to explore your heart and your mind through different entryways. As we enter through different doors, we end up in different chambers of the heart, thinking, "Oh wow, I didn't know this was possible," as many of you have shared and reported. As we try different doors and windows, it's not always the same thing, just creativity. This practice of the Brahma Viharas^[4]—the heavenly abodes, which metta^[5], mudita, and gratitude are a part of—are really creative practices to plant seeds.

If you happen to be new to this practice, what I like to say is: whatever arises is okay. Don't feel like you're a failure just because you cannot generate joy, or you cannot connect with gratitude, and feel you need to in order to be successful at the practice. It doesn't work like that. As long as you turn towards whatever arises with kindness—even towards difficulty with appreciation (I'll talk more about this because you might be thinking, "What is she talking about, towards difficulty with appreciation?")—if it can become available, then you're doing the practice right. You're planting seeds. It doesn't have to look a particular way. In fact, this practice amazes us. It surprises us in ways that open us to the dimensionality of our humanity, in ways we don't quite know ourselves. We take ourselves to be these limited, little two-dimensional beings, and then these practices open up our heart to so much possibility. Let yourself be surprised.

I won't say more about how we're going to enter, so that you just enter through a different path today. Whatever arises, again, turn towards it with kindness. It's all okay.

Guided Meditation

I think I have said enough to set the stage. I would like to invite us all now to enter into our meditation posture, landing in this body. If you need to lie down or stand—the different postures the Buddha has taught—that's perfectly fine. If you're sitting, for a moment, maybe move your shoulders, move back and forth, reconnect with this body, and see what this body needs.

Land in your sit bones. Land with your feet. Land with your breath. Breath in the abdomen, let it be received. And breath out. Just spend a few minutes being settled, connecting, letting your awareness connect with your body. Your feet on the ground, as if your breath is moving through your feet into the earth, connecting deeply, rooting.

Feeling the sensations of your hands on your lap. Releasing, relaxing. Your bottom on the cushion. Releasing the weight of your upper body unto your sit bones.

As thoughts arise, as they inevitably will, it's okay. See if you can attend to them, know them, not with judgment, but appreciatively. "Oh, this mind, this brain works. Thinking is happening. Oh, thinking about this." And then with kindness, with a smile, saying, "Thank you, and not now. I appreciate you. Please come back later."

Let's just settle in the body and relax. Nothing to do. Nothing to accomplish in this moment. Nothing at all. No doing. Just let the body, the heart, relax. Just be breathed. Taking refuge into simplicity by doing nothing.

Can you enjoy just really enjoying having no agenda right now? No agenda. And just to enjoy being in its mysterious simplicity. Just opening your awareness to joy, delight. What's nourishing in the body, in the heart? Maybe you feel some buzzing in your body. Maybe with each out-breath there is more letting go and settling. Nourishing contentment.

Sometimes we forget what it's like to just sit contentedly. Always a need to do, to accomplish, to be, even when it comes to the dharma, to the practice. Radical, radical simplicity of letting go. It's like a free fall where there is nothing to fall onto. It's safe. Just enjoy. Enjoy the release.

If thoughts arise—"I don't know what I'm doing. Ah, is this right?"—simply smile and release. No need to believe all the thoughts. You are doing it right. Whatever doing there is in this non-doing, release and open your heart to enjoy. Inviting all the flowers, the birds, the deer to come to the watering hole. Wait long enough, they will show up.

The birdsong of the breath—maybe you notice it's enjoyable. Or the sense of heaviness in your body after a while. Wow, how nice. Be patient. Release and enjoy. There is so much. It will become clear.

At the beginning, we put more emphasis on the release. There are more thoughts, more doing, wanting. Release and enjoy. And when you notice your heart has settled into refuge in this moment, open wider to enjoy.

When we look, when we perceive through the lens of enjoyment, we notice more joy that we hadn't noticed before. Maybe the sensations of the breath in a particular way, in a particular place, become a source of joy and enjoyment. Or sensations in the body, or sound, or maybe there is nothing, and that nothingness becomes a source of contentment and joy and ease. Your mind, your heart can enjoy what is subtle more than you give yourself credit. Open up to that possibility.

Relax and receive the joy of the present moment. Relax, release, and receive the joy of the present moment.

You can stay in this subtle, present-moment embodied presence, appreciating the subtle contentment with what is.

And if you like, you may drop in—still in the subtlety, but like a dropper that picks up a drop of color—drop in one goodness, one blessing in your life, and let it reverberate. Maybe it's friends, family, health, a roof over your head. Something that's personal to you. Drop it in this reflection. Not to think about it, drop it into your body and let yourself savor, enjoy. Take delight in, with your heart fully open, this goodness and this blessing.

Now you can drop another dropper full of something else, another drop of another blessing. Let it be appreciated, enjoyed. Not thinking about it, feeling it in the body, just relishing this goodness. Maybe now another dropper, another drop of something else, another goodness in your life. Drop it into your body.

Now, as we've been taking this dropper, taking a drop of our own life's blessings, now take a drop of color from someone you care about. The blessing in their life, something good in their life. Drop that drop of color into your sphere of experience. Let yourself savor, appreciate, be happy for, enjoy their blessing, their cause for happiness, as if it were your own.

Let yourself feel it in your body, in your heart. Your body relaxed, released, just enjoying. Your heart savoring this deliciousness of this goodness as if it were your own. May every aspect of their life be happy or blessed, but just this one drop now.

Another drop, the same person or another person in your life. Drop it into your heart, this blessing. Let yourself relish it in an embodied way. Maybe, for example, this person is enjoying sports and is very athletic. As you drop the joy of the sports into your body, your heart... ah, as if it's your joy, your body feels alight with gladness, appreciation, happiness, energized. As if it were your own.

As we bring this practice period to a close, let there be appreciation in your heart, in your body, contentment for whatever arose or did not arise. And if there was one moment of goodness and appreciation, yes, planting wholesome seeds with gratitude, appreciation. Offering our goodness, offering our gladness as a gift of generosity to all beings everywhere. May all beings everywhere know to savor, to appreciate, to delight in the goodness in their lives and those of others. May all beings everywhere be happy and free, including ourselves.

Thank you all. Thank you for your goodness, for your practice.

Q&A and Reflections

So we have some time if you'd like to share reflections. If you'd like to raise your hand to share a reflection—what came up for you, maybe something new—you're welcome to. You can type it in chat. If you type it to me privately, I won't read your name; if you type it to everyone, I'll read your name. What was this like for you? Any aha moments, any challenges, any gifts? Don, I see your hand, please.

Don: Yeah, Nikki. Thanks so much. It was really interesting. I was pondering enjoying, I'll call it, suffering or pain. That's a slippery one for me. Every once in a while I sort of go, "Oh, that's really interesting, that's really cool," just seeing or feeling pure sensation. But it's tough, and I'm just curious to hear your reflections on observing difficulty.

Nikki: Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up. And don't mute yourself just yet, Don, let me ask you something here. I'll say more about what I mean, and yet I think there's something very important here that you're raising from your own experience. It feels like something opens up for you in the way of, "Oh, actually there's some... maybe there's gratitude or openness to dukkha, to suffering, seen a different way," and then it's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, this is a slippery slope. This is not safe. This is not okay." Is that how it's showing up? Let me hear it from your words.

Don: The slippery part is it just reverts to suffering. I'm not sure if it makes any sense, but just observing the pure sensation... yeah, I can enjoy that, and sometimes it's suffering or it could be pleasure. But in the case of suffering, oftentimes it just reverts to, "Oh wow, this is really painful." And so there isn't that joy. I heard at one point you mentioned to be patient, and yeah, that's the part that's like, "Oh okay, how patient do I need to be?"

Nikki: Right, right, right. Very interesting. What I'm hearing in your own experience is it sounds like you're talking about physical pain—because there are so many different types of suffering, but you talk about physical pain. It sounds like both mental and physically. Maybe there is a moment of opening up to just seeing a different perspective on suffering, and then it reverts back.

What I mean by that—again, it's not meant to be, it's not at all a masochistic way of enjoying pain. It's not that at all. It's the furthest from that, so I just want to say that at the very beginning. But what it is is that our perspective can shift. Our perspective of what we take to be reality or experience, what's good, what's bad—it can shift.

Sometimes it can be surprising. Maybe one way that's easier to see is not enjoying suffering, but maybe the word gratitude for suffering. I think that might be more present for people, that might be the way to enter. So I'll drop that for now because that can be more obtuse or weird. Let's work with appreciation for suffering. I think that can be more accessible, because sometimes you can actually see the goodness. We can see the silver lining in the suffering that's intertwined with it. So there's a sense of gratitude for it: "Because of this, there is that."

And yet sometimes this perspective shifts so much that it's not just the silver lining, but it's like, "Wow, even suffering, this is grace. To be human, to have the joys, to even have the sorrows. This is amazing. This is grace." The mind, the heart, can open to that perspective. And yet, don't push it. Just knowing that that can be available, that that can be a possibility. Does that help, Don?

Don: Yeah, thank you.

Nikki: Great, thank you so much for bringing that in. Any other reflections before we turn to practicing in community? Anything else that opened up for you today in this way of getting into this practice of mudita from a very different way? I'm really curious about that. If you noticed just relaxing, releasing, and enjoying, and then taking a dropper full of your own enjoyment, then a dropper full of somebody else's enjoyment into your life... like, "Wow, this is another way to feel joy for others' joys."

Mary Christine, oh my goodness, I see you and Bodhi. Bodhi boy is all of a sudden very loving, joyously. [Laughter]

Mary Christine: Is it that the suffering gives us... are we grateful because the suffering opens an opportunity to explore? Is that what you're saying, or have I misunderstood?

Nikki: I think that's the first stage of it. That's the first stage that can be more accessible for people—that it's through the suffering that a lot of growth happens. There are so many studies about post-traumatic growth, etc., that we wouldn't be the people we are if it wasn't for the challenges we have in our life. So yes, I'm saying that, and I'm saying there's another level to that, which is above and beyond that.

Mary Christine: Okay, thank you from Birdie and I.

Nikki: Ah, thanks to both you and Bodhi. Oh, so sweet. Oh my god, so cute.

Any other reflections? A quick one perhaps, again, how this different way might have affected you, impacted you, entering this metaphor of the dropper full of appreciation for your own or somebody else's?

Maybe I'll share since I don't see any hands or written reflections. For me, again, this is another way to get into it. Instead of going into, "Imagine somebody else's happiness and feel happy for them," this really brings it home. This really brings it into this embodiment of happiness, joy for ourselves, delight, appreciation, and then for them, it's just such a physical thing. What I was sharing at the end, for example, imagining someone that I know who's very physically active with sports, and just imagining taking a dropper full of their energy and their joy for all these sports and dropping it in. You're like, "Oh yes, it's as if it's my own." There's such a sense of embodied appreciation, embodied mudita, vicarious joy, which is different from a heady appreciation. That's what I was hoping you would tap into.

Anyway, dear ones, let's turn to holding each other with mudita, with appreciation, with joy. I will create the practice discussion rooms with another couple of people. The invitation always is to just share from your own experience, and the next person will hold space. If you don't want to speak, that's fine, just pass and hold kind space for each other, and then the next person speaks. It'll go around a few times, so be sure not to monologue. No interruptions, no asking questions, just sharing from your own experience. And not facilitating the group either, just showing up and letting other people show up in whichever way is safe and comfortable for them, and holding each other with kindness.

Tonight you're invited to say, if you like, something about how this practice was for you, or maybe something that you're grateful for—just a dropper full of your life or somebody else's life that brought you this sense of gladness. So, opening the rooms. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Here we go.

[Breakout rooms session]

Okay, all the rooms are closed, everybody's back. Any final fast, quick reflections before we close? Anything urgent, anything that you'd like to say to feel complete? Okay, going once. Mary Christine, make it quick.

Mary Christine: Thank you. Could we explore this topic a bit further next time, please? Is that possible?

Nikki: Yes, I think it'll be explored at some point. It may not be next time, but yes, we might. Appreciate it, Mary Christine. Take good care.

Well, thank you all. Thank you so much for your practice, for showing up, for cultivating your own goodness for your own sake and the sake of all those whose lives you touch. May all beings be well. May all beings be free, including ourselves.

Thanks everyone.