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Happy Hour: Loving Care for this Body

So for the practice this morning, what I'd like to offer is a reflection, a guided meditation on kindness, on care, the perspective of care towards our own bodies. We all have bodies that age. They get sick. They have aches and pains. They might be creaky in the morning when we get up. They get hungry. You have to take care of them multiple times a day. We need to feed, we need to clean, wash; we just need to take care of this body. And sometimes we ignore this body, or when it doesn't perform as well as we want, there might be this sense of, "Oh, you're letting me down. You're an ally that's letting me down," instead of taking care of it, or really caring for our bodies with a sense of love and care.

And to know that a sense of care that's cultivated towards ourselves, towards our bodies, also extends to our own psychological state when we are suffering. Not just physically suffering, but psychologically suffering. To really bring care to it instead of more self-judgment or self-flagellation. Instead of saying, "Oh, you're being lazy, get up and do things," and then realizing, "Oh, actually, wow, my body is sick, it's tired, it hasn't had enough sleep, or has some kind of an ailment." So cultivating an attitude of kindness and care for our physicality can also support our state of mind, and then can also support other people in extending our kindness to other beings.

Guided Meditation

So with that as the theme for today, I will lead us first in settling the mind with the breath, grounding with the body, and then an invitation for turning towards kindness, gentleness for ourselves. So, it's a perfect time to get comfortable in your seat if you need to move, and settle.

Settling in your body. Arriving. Landing. Landing in this moment. Letting go of whatever has been.

And as if you were saying good morning, or good afternoon, or good evening—whatever your time zone might be—to your own self, greeting yourself. Greeting yourself at your heart's door. Hello. Meeting yourself. Meeting yourself wholeheartedly, as if someone was knocking on your door, ringing the bell. You opened the door and it was you. Hi.

Maybe you would greet yourself by giving yourself a hug in your mind's eye. Hi, glad to see you. Come sit. Relax. What do you need? How can I support you? The same way you would treat a good friend. This sense of friendliness.

And greeting this body with a sense of care. Goodwill.

Starting with your hands. Inviting your hands to relax, to soften. Hands that do so much. Inviting them to relax and soften with care and appreciation. Inviting your wrists, your lower arms, your upper arms, your shoulders, and your neck to all soften and relax. Give up any tension. Hello dear arms, neck, shoulders, and hands. The sense of care brushing them with gentle awareness, with a smile.

Turning with gentleness and care towards your face. Your forehead, inviting it to relax and soften. Your eyes, they too can rest in their sockets. Your cheeks, your jaw, your chin. As if you were nourishing, as if your attention is this nourishing. As if you're watering the garden of your body with your loving attention. Inviting your whole face to soften and relax with appreciation.

Moving down your chest, abdomen, upper and lower back, your whole trunk. Feeling the movement of the breath ever so gently, and inviting your chest, abdomen, and back to rest, to put down any tension they're holding. With a sense of appreciation for all the organs that are working. This miraculous interplay, interaction of all these organs and cells. It's a miracle that anything works at all as well as it does in this body.

Continuing to your sit bones. Softening, relaxing, grounding. Perhaps even thanking this part of your body for supporting you and functioning as well as it does in your sitting.

Continuing with the upper legs, lower legs, and feet. Giving your loving attention to the rest of the family of your body. They carry you in walking, moving, inviting them to relax now and soften.

Now bringing awareness to your whole body as a whole. A sense of care and appreciation with every breath. This body that is you, that you haven't chosen. It's not like you were given a catalog before you were born: "What kind of eyes do you want? No. What kind of genes?" There was no such choice. Here is this body that is yours. Intimately yours, and yet mysteriously has a mind of its own. It seems it has a wisdom of its own in repairing itself, in healing, in aging, in hurting, in being vulnerable.

And letting yourself offer this sense of care and gentleness to all of this body, as you would have with a young child, a newborn, or a young puppy. Connecting with each in-breath and out-breath. The movement of the breath through your body as a messenger of care and love internally for every single cell of your body. One breath at a time.

And if you like, you can either stay with this wordless mettā^[1] for yourself, for your body, or recite silently the phrases of mettā for yourselves. I'll offer them in the long form and then the short form. And if you like, you can put a hand on your heart center, the center of your chest—not the physical heart which is on the left for most people, but the proverbial heart center—to connect with yourself as you say these phrases as an experiment.

May I be safe. May I be safe from inner and outer harm. May this body be safe. May I be safe.
May I be happy and have joy in my heart.
May this body, may my body be healthy and strong as much as possible.
And the fourth phrase: may I have ease, may my life flow with ease.

May I be safe.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I have ease.

May I be safe.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I have ease.

Letting each mettā phrase really land, be received by your whole body as goodwill for yourself. Nourishment. As if you're watering your own garden with your own care and love. Nourishment.

And if there are parts of your body today, in this moment, that are not doing great, that are suffering, hurting, or tight, bring special care and love to them. Well-wishing, thanking them for all the service they have done and continue to do, and acknowledging that this part is struggling right now and is deserving of your care and compassion.

And for the last minute of this practice period, turning the kindness, the friendliness from inward to outward to all the beings who are practicing together with you right now in this moment, either in the Zoom room or on YouTube concurrently. All the beings who have bodies too, just like you. They have bodies that experience pain, sickness, aging. Wishing all of them well. All beings practicing with you and all beings everywhere.

Wishing them safety, happiness, health, and ease.

And appreciating yourself for having shown up and practiced in this way. Thank you, me.

Reflections

So, if you'd like to share a word or phrase by typing it in the chat about what's arising for you in this moment, it would be nice to offer that if you wish.

I'll start by saying what's coming up for me. I feel a lot more settled, and a smile is showing up on my face right now. And I feel more appreciative or kinder to all the creaks in my body. I'm more aware of them, but as if I'm holding a little newborn like, "Oh, sweetie. Yeah, you're creaking. You're hurting here and there." So, that's what's coming up for me.

Paula offers, "Perfect timing for this topic. Grateful." Thank you, Paula.

Shannon offers, "Exhale, release. Nice to hear the idea of being safe from internal and external dangers." Yeah, that's a very profound part of the mettā phrase that I love, because I realize when I practice intensely, yes, we know the external harms, but what hurts me the most are the internal harms. They are the thoughts, or the confabulations, or the getting stuck on things. I hurt myself more than anybody else hurts me throughout the day. So being safe from internal harm can really be a profound wish.

"Capacious" from Charlie. Thank you. We also have on YouTube, "Delight" from Sarah. "Connectedness" from Bill. "Gratitude" from Lisa. "Peacefulness" from Betsy. "Alive" from NP. "Very relaxed, not judging" from C. Cleaves. "Content with this aging body." "Relief from stress" from David. "Safety and love" from Janice. "I'm surprised" from Tom. "Warmth and kindness" from Corey. They're lovely offerings. Thank you all. Beautiful.

Small Group Connection

So this is the time in happy hour that we turn to a few moments of connection in small groups. So if you are on YouTube and you want to join the small group connection, I've posted the Zoom address. And if you are on Zoom, this is a lovely chance for just a few minutes of connection. It'll be pretty brief, just five or six minutes. Six minutes will be the timer I set for the Zoom rooms for interacting and connecting in small groups before we come back. So, if you're on the fence, try it. See what it's like to just be held with kindness by two people you don't know from across the country, and to hold other people with a sense of kindness and appreciation who have aging bodies just like you. They might be in different states of their aging, but just offer this common humanity to each other.

So, I'm going to create the Zoom rooms right now. And if you decide it's not for you, it's perfectly fine. You can bow out right now before I make the rooms, which would be easier to do now than later. So, here we go.

Okay. So creating the breakout rooms... Created. And setting up. Okay, here we go. It takes a moment to set them up. Thank you for your patience. Okay, I think the rooms are ready. Here we go.

Q&A and Reflections

Hello everyone. Welcome back. Great to see you. We have a few minutes if there are any reflections you'd like to share about the first part of the practice—the practice of loving-kindness for our own bodies, for our body parts—or the practice in community. If you would like to either type it or raise your hand, I can unmute you. Great, Lynn, I will unmute you. Here we go. No, let's try that again. There. Okay, you're unmuted. Yes, please.

Lynn: Hi. Thank you so much, Nikki, for being so gentle and loving. It was very much needed, the loving-kindness to my body and to my sister's body. So I thank you for being here for us during this difficult time.

Nikki: Thank you so much for saying that, and it makes me happy that it was timely for you, and supportive for you. Thank you. Tom, hello.

Tom: [Laughter] So, I wanted to say I was really surprised by how little I seem to care for myself compared to the care that I try to give to others, and it often comes very easily for me to give to others. But I feel almost ashamed to give myself the same care, and it really helped me the way you did it. I hope other people felt the same way, but there was a separation of myself from myself. It's a visualization exercise, right? So I was able to hold myself, and it wasn't easy to do for me. I think I've got to try this again.

Nikki: Yeah. Wonderful that you realize this because we often have these not-so-friendly relationships with ourselves without even realizing. We go on years and years and it's just operating in the background. But when it becomes seen, it's kind of surprising, as you're saying, like, "Wow, really? This is..." And a sense of surprise or even shame, as you were saying, comes up either for not caring for ourselves or for caring for ourselves, like, "Wait, who am I to care for myself?" So these emotions have their way of showing up willy-nilly whichever way they want to.

And yet what I'm appreciating in what you're saying is not just the realization that surprised you, but really the intention to: "Oh, this is something that I want to try again." You recognize that this is a cultivation, something that's not going to happen overnight. The realization has just happened, but the cultivation is going to happen over time. So that's why the mettā practices, loving-kindness practices, we call them cultivation practices. You incline your mind towards kindness, towards yourself, towards others little by little by little, so that when something happens naturally in your daily life, the pattern of reaction will be one that has been conditioned towards kindness. And it will happen little by little by little. I've been doing this practice for a long, long time, for years. So, I'm just delighted to hear how it spoke to you this morning. Lovely. Thank you, Tom.

Any other reflections you'd like to share, or any questions you want to ask about something? I think it's Peg. Yeah, let's see. Here you go. I'm unmuting you, Peg, please.

Peg: Thank you. It's delightful to be able to see other people who are participating in this exercise today, and it warms my heart just to hear those words of loving-kindness towards ourselves. There's a power in doing it in community for me because it's like we're all joining hands together. It makes it just much more intense and much more heartfelt for me. Thank you for doing this. I've been going to Gil's^[2] mornings every day during this pandemic, and it's been a beautiful gift. A wonderful gift. So, thank you all there for doing this.

Nikki: Thank you, Peg, for really naming the power of the community. And I've noticed that on YouTube all these mornings, there's just such a beautiful sense of community with all the hellos from all over the world that people share at the beginning and at the end, and words of gratitude. And it's even more powerful I think, just as you named, to actually get to see the faces, to actually share a few words. This sense of separation that we feel, especially with being sheltered in place and separate from others, it melts away with a sense of, "Oh, here we are all together practicing." It's the sense of time and space, especially the sense of space goes away. There's an intimacy, an immediacy that I experience every time I'm teaching online which I love. Especially seeing people's faces is really powerful for me, so thank you for naming that.

Any other reflections? Oh, Trudy, I will unmute you. You're unmuted, Trudy. Please.

Trudy: Okay. There was a gap between Friday and Sunday, and you were nice enough to fill in the gap and I really appreciate it. So, this is cultivation day. Thank you.

Nikki: Thank you, Trudy. Yes, it's sweet to be with you this morning on Saturdays. Yeah, it's true, I hadn't quite thought about it as the gap, but yes, there is one. And it's Saturday morning; as I shared last time with folks, I'm not a morning person. And this is just so sweet to wake up in the morning. In fact, today I'm teaching an online retreat through Insight Retreat Center (IRC), and starting in nine minutes I need to give the guided instructions for the online retreat that I'm leading. So it's a rich day of teaching, both being with you this morning and with the yogis who are sitting the intense weekend retreat. It's quite sweet.

So with that, thank you Trudy, thank you so much. Thank you to all of you for showing up, practicing together. May your bodies, may your hearts, may your minds be safe from inner and outer harm. And may you be well in every way. And may all beings everywhere be well. Thank you and take care. Have a wonderful Saturday. Bye.