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Happy Hour: Metta and Wisdom of The Inner Smile

Introduction

Hello and welcome, everyone, to Happy Hour.

For our sitting together today, there are two themes I would like to bring in. One is the theme of imbuing mettā^[1], imbuing kindness, into awareness. This is a theme from a recent week-long retreat that people reported was very nourishing and a different way of practicing for many.

I like to bring this in because mettā doesn't need to be different from wisdom practices. In wisdom practices, where we pay attention and become aware of what is arising and passing, this awareness can be imbued with kindness, care, warmth, acceptance, and love. There are many different nuances of mettā for different occasions, but basically, it means intertwining our knowing with a sense of ease, care, and love.

For example, when judgmental thoughts arise, know them, but do not push them away by saying, "Oh, stop it right now." That never works. If you try to punish yourself or work with aversion, it doesn't really help; it just becomes more conflictual. Instead, try noticing and becoming aware with curiosity, acceptance, and love. You might think, "Oh, a judgmental thought. Okay, let me be curious about this. Let me open up to it and understand it a little more." Awareness can be imbued with this spirit of mettā and openness. That is one theme I invite us to sit with and explore in the guided meditation.

The other theme is that we will primarily be working with ourselves—our bodies, our thoughts, and our internal realm. We won't be going external with other beings as much as we sometimes do in concentric, widening circles of mettā. As the Buddha said, if you search the whole world, you won't find anyone more worthy of your own love, care, affection, and mettā than yourself.

That is all I want to say to set up the framework. Let's transition into our practice space.

Guided Meditation

I invite you to shift or move if you need to. Change position if you need to lie down or sit up a little straighter. Notice what this body needs right now. Arriving and landing.

Greeting this body. Greeting not just the body, but also the space in which the body is sitting and being held.

Become aware of the body. The earth element—the body with heaviness, weight, earth on earth. And be aware of the air element inside, the breath that moves through the body. While noticing the body as grounded and stable, allow the shifting of awareness, the shifting of your weight to move down through your sit bones, to your legs, to your feet. The earth element, grounded and stable.

Invite the whole body to relax. Your hands, your arms, your shoulders—let them drop their weight. Invite your legs to give their weight to the earth. Feeling supported. Invite your whole trunk and your sit bones to let go, to release any tension that you might be aware of holding.

Do the same for the face—the muscles of the forehead, the jaw, the muscles inside the face. Invite the muscles to release and let go of any tension you are holding.

Let awareness expand to feel the entire body. Hold the entire body. With each out-breath, dropping in, dropping more, releasing more tension.

Notice that this body—earth element, earth on earth, grounded and rooted—is breathing. It is being breathed. Noticing and aware of the air moving in and out on its own. The body being breathed. It is not so much that we are breathing consciously. The unconscious parasympathetic nervous system knows how to do this perfectly well. Simply relaxing and letting it be known.

As awareness is turned internal, intimately knowing the breath—the entire in-breath, the entire out-breath. Can the knowing be tinged and imbued with friendliness, as if you are greeting a friend who is visiting? Every moment is a new arrival. Awareness greeting and knowing with friendliness whatever it comes in contact with, whatever is known. The breath. Sensations.

As thoughts arise, maybe thoughts of judgment like, "Oh, you're not doing this well," or, "Oh, you're getting distracted," can awareness meet these visitors too with an openness of heart and friendliness? They are just visitors.

Even if aversion arises—not liking something or wanting to push something away in our bodies and our hearts—can that too be met and known with ease, a relaxed, open, friendly attitude?

If anything arises that is challenging: "Hello, challenge. Hi, how are you? How's it going?" Or aversion to something, wanting it to stop or go away: to that wanting to stop or go away, "How are you? How do you feel? Let me know you, it's okay. I'm open to knowing you with ease and friendliness."

For some things, you don't need to linger. Some thoughts can be known—"Oh, it's like this"—for a moment with friendliness, and you can come back to knowing the breath and receiving the sensations of the body.

Receiving the sensations of the breath in the body. Greeting this friend, this breath, this one visiting. This in-breath visiting, and now this out-breath. Getting to know the entirety of them, not just casually, but intimately, from the moment they arrive till the moment they leave. Taking care of this, serving tea and cookies to this breath, just this one.

You might even experiment with smiling at thoughts, especially if they are judgmental. Receive them with a smile and let them pass. Greeting them and letting them be on their way. We are smiling at the breath, receiving it with friendliness. Smiling is such a powerful tool for imbuing awareness with mettā.

What would happen, what may shift or change, if you smiled—physically smiled—imbuing your perception and the knowing with the friendliness of a smile? Please try it. If you are hesitant or feel ridiculous, try it anyway. Experiment like a scientist; see what happens. Smiling.

And whatever arises in the field of experience in this moment, whatever it is, receiving them all. Even if there is a crowd of sorrows, receiving them with a smile. Everything—sensations, body, breath, thoughts, sounds, emotions.

It is hypothesized that smiling is an evolutionary way to offer safety and friendliness, to signal that to others. Can we signal that friendliness and safety, and offer it to ourselves? To whatever arises in the field of experience.

And for the last moments of this practice period, hold with appreciation, offering safety and care to yourself for having practiced, for having shown up, even if you were just connecting with the practice for one second. Know that you are planting seeds by continuing to show up as best as you are able to. Appreciating this being that is me for showing up and practicing. Whatever arose, or did not arise, it's all okay. Offering safety, goodwill, and appreciation.

May all beings be safe. May all beings be free.

Reflections and Q&A

Thanks, everyone. Thanks for your practice.

We have some time for sharing reflections, observations, questions, or sharing your practice if you wish. You can raise your Zoom hand or type in the chat. If it's typed in the chat to everyone, I will read your name; otherwise, if it's sent privately to me, I will only mention the comment or question and not the name.

As I invite your reflections, I'll share one thing that came up for me practicing in this moment, in this way. It's so interesting that any thought, emotion, or tightening that was greeted in this friendly way, with this smiling awareness offering safety, actually released much more easily or quickly. It just released. So that was an interesting observation—to see that they were greeted like, "Hi, you're visiting. Okay, now we'll go." What did you notice? What came up for you? Did you find this an easeful way of practicing?

Hi, Lisa.

Lisa: I think one thing I'm noticing—and I guess this pertains more to strong emotions for me right now—is saying "not now" versus pushing away, denying, or not feeling the emotion. I notice how my version of engaging with the emotion is often falling into it, that empathetic distress. So there is this way that it can actually be okay to notice, "Oh, anger is here, but you know what, I really want to practice mettā right now and feel good because I really need it." So just saying, "Okay, not now." I think maybe it's because there is some kindness towards the anger. I'm not sure, but that maybe makes it possible. That's kind of what I've been working with or noticed today.

Nikki: Great, thanks for sharing that, Lisa. Oh, brilliant. I love how you describe that, how you've noticed sometimes in the past falling into difficult emotions and empathetic distress. And here now, there is this wisdom in deciding, "Actually, hello visitor, anger. I could practice with you, I could use RAIN^[2] or let you move through the body, but right now it's wise, and I'm going to say, 'not now, later.' Right now, I'm going to choose to do this because I want to resource myself, and I'm kind of tired right now." Brilliant use of wisdom to know when it is appropriate for challenging emotions to arise, or when to say no.

This is something we discussed this week in the practice: the Four Right Exertions^[3] (or wise efforts), having the skillfulness for unarisen or arisen states—in this case, where anger has arisen—to skillfully say no and to support it to go away. Again, what you described didn't sound like aversion to me; it wasn't like, "Go away!" It was like, "Not now, I'm going to come back later, we'll work later, but now I'm giving myself to this practice." Brilliant. Thanks for sharing that, Lisa. I love it.

One reflection has come through the chat: "It is easier to stay focused while smiling." Great, what a wonderful realization. Please know that is always available to you. If there is difficulty staying focused, smile at whatever is coming up.

A reflection from Forest: "When you said 'only this breath,' something in my heart felt really good. I will remember that." Oh, lovely. Thanks for sharing that, Forest. Only this breath, right here.

And Abraham, I see your hand. Whoops, I tried to ask you to unmute. I can hear you now, Abraham.

Abraham: Hi, Nikki. Thoughts about the smile. Maybe this only works for extroverts like myself; maybe the introverts all know how to do this already. But I really resist somebody telling me to smile. And I find that if I smile in such a way that nobody can see it, it still feels like a really nice smile. So I get the benefit without feeling like I'm doing what the teacher is telling me to do.

[Laughter]

Nikki: You crack me up. I love how you're smiling underneath. I am absolutely delighted and my heart is joyous that the practice of smiling underneath is working for you, Abraham. Thanks for sharing how it shows up for you. I put another chalk mark for the smiling practice, personalized however it works for a given person. Of course, you personalize all these invitations for yourself to see how they work. That's a very sophisticated, deep mettā practice, the secret smile practice.

Abraham: Yes, absolutely it is. I'm joking, but that's fine, I like it.

Nikki: Great. Let's see. Susan says, "Thank you, Lisa, that was helpful." And Holly says, "I was able to uncover a fear driving the thoughts I was having. I think the smiling helped this." Thank you for sharing that, Holly. There is something evolutionary and biological about smiling, which is about offering safety. You can really use this whichever way works for you, offering it to yourself in the practice. And Elizabeth says, "I love the idea of the secret smile, Abraham. That's great."

So dear ones, let's transition to our practice in small groups and community. The invitation is starting with 30 seconds of mettā. If you choose to smile at each other, or secretly smile, that's your choice. You can experiment with that and see how that feels in interactions on Zoom. If not, that's okay, just start with 30 seconds of mettā. Then you can share as much or as little as you wish in community. This time is very precious, as many of you have spoken about the value of practicing in community. I'm going to open the rooms in a moment. Here we go.

...

Welcome back everyone. The rooms are closed.

We have just a few minutes. If you would like to share some reflections: what did you notice? What came up for you? How was it, please?

Jerry says, "Wisdom." Nice. Do you want to say more, Jerry?

Jerry: I'm always impressed by the wisdom of the group. It amazes me. When you're in your head, and then someone else is talking about their life, and even seeing people actively listening to what you're saying, it's one of the most profound things. There's a lot of profound wisdom in these groups.

Nikki: Thank you, Jerry. Thank you for that.

Kathleen asks, "Could someone put the group web address up in the chat?" This is something that Neil usually does, so if somebody else can do that... I don't have it handy. Come again tomorrow, Kathleen; probably Neil will be here and we can share that, unless somebody else has it.

Any other reflections? I'd love to hear maybe one more reflection. What did you notice about this slightly different way of practicing—imbuing awareness with this kindness, with mettā, offering safety to what comes up internally as a way of doing mettā for ourselves? I would love to hear maybe one more reflection if anybody would like to talk about how the smiling practice was. We're calling it the smiling practice now. Hi, Holly, please.

Holly: Hi. I'm going to have to keep doing the science experiment, but I think that the smiling helped calm me down. My anxious thoughts were less likely to keep spiraling. Does that make sense? So I'll keep experimenting and see if that's true.

Nikki: Absolutely. It sounds like a great first draft of the report of your experiment as a scientist. We are all scientists of our own minds, seeing what works for us, how it might work, and keeping making discoveries. I look forward to hearing more about your experiment, Holly, and seeing what you discover.

Also, thank you, Clark, for sharing the Google Groups information in the chat.

Thank you all for your practice. Thanks for coming together and doing this practice not just for your own sake, but for all those whose lives we touch directly and indirectly. May all beings be happy, which includes us. May all beings be safe. May all beings be free. Thank you all.