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Happy Hour: Cultivating Stability to Be With What Is With Presence & Self-Care - Nikki Mirghafori

The following talk was given by Nikki Mirghafori at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 07, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Happy Hour: Cultivating Stability to Be With What Is With Presence & Self-Care

Hello everyone, and welcome to Happy Hour. It is lovely to be with you, dear Sangha. It makes me happy to see you.

For today's practice, I would like to invite us to sit with embodiment. Trust that coming to our bodies—bringing awareness and knowing to our bodies and the breath—can bring forth a sense of stability and resilience. I have mentioned before that we often find ourselves overwhelmed by thoughts, fears, and future-oriented reflections. We become like top-heavy blow-up dolls.

I love the simile of the pop-up doll. You might have seen them; they have sand at the bottom. If they fall down—whoop—they stand up again because the weight is at the base. If we have mindfulness of the body, this sense of resilience, together with kindness and compassion ("sweetheart, here, here"), creates a sense of stability. As the storms of fortune and the world come and go, there can be a sense of stability: "I can understand this. I can withstand this."

However, if the sand is at the top—if we are top-heavy and overwhelmed by thoughts, fears, stories, and what is happening in the world—we get toppled over. It is really hard to right ourselves because we are so overwhelmed by the stories. So again, it is very helpful to be embodied, to have that sense of stability as we move through the world. There will be plenty of storms. We have already weathered plenty of storms, and there will be more. That is what it means to be human on this earth.

Can we have stability? Can we cultivate a sense of calm presence to support ourselves, to be present for the sake of ourselves and all beings whose lives we touch? That is our practice tonight. I am going to invite silence, presence, embodiment, kindness, and compassion. I will keep the words light so that we have time to settle together.

Guided Meditation

With that preamble, I would like to invite us to arrive and settle in our seats. If you need to shift left and right, or forwards and backwards to find your sit bones and center of gravity, please do so. Maybe roll your shoulders back a few times to open your chest, ensuring you do not have a collapsed posture, but rather one that is open.

If you are sitting on a chair, make sure your feet are firmly planted on the floor with a wide stance, the bottom of the feet connecting with the earth. If you are sitting on a cushion, make sure your base is wide and stable.

Land in our sit bones, allowing our torso to be tall, rising up towards the sky. Really feel that our feet, legs, and sit bones provide a stable base—the sand on the bottom. Feel the sensations of our feet, our legs, or sit bones, and relax into the breath in the abdomen.

As thoughts arise, let them arise and pass. Release them. Perhaps kindly and gently tell them, "Thank you, I'll come back to you later. Not now. I am giving my whole heart to this practice." Connect with the body with each breath. Sensations of the in-breath, sensations of the out-breath.

With kindness, let there be gentleness in the body and in the heart. If it feels right for you in this moment—if the body calls for it, given everything that has been happening in our world the past 24 hours—put a palm on the center of your chest. Hold yourself. "Oh, dear heart. It’s been a lot. It’s been a lot."

Allow yourself to connect with the in-breath and the out-breath with kindness. Relax the body as much as possible, taking refuge in the simplicity of this moment's presence in community.

Let the knowing of the breath be soothing, calming, settling, and nourishing to the heart. Breath by breath, soothing self.

Here, dear heart. Simply here in this body. Sensing the sensations of sitting, breathing, and being alive. Not missing what it is like to be alive—the raw sensations of being here. Firmly and gently grounding ourselves in the felt sensations.

So sweet, just to be here, present in this passing moment.

Allow yourself to sit tall like a mountain, with integrity and dignity. Allow the breath to be just as it is—full, deep, or shallow. It doesn't matter. As long as we sit, simply sit knowing that we are breathing with gentleness and kindness. Notice more stability in our posture and in our heart. More uprightness and courage become available in our heart.

Open your heart and chest just a bit more to yourself and to others.

Before we close, let's sit together and pay attention to the body, heart, and mind. Is there more spaciousness available? More stability? More groundedness? Maybe more peace or gentleness in your heart? Maybe just a tiny bit more? By paying attention to it, it will help it grow.

If there is one word that bubbles up in this moment—something more grounded, stable, or upright—what is that word for you? As it bubbles up, let yourself inhabit it more. As if you are taking a mist sprayer and spraying the mist of this quality throughout your body, face, heart, and mind. Spray all around you. Spray all the parts of your body that need the most drenching. Maybe it is your toes, or the back of the knees that need more spaciousness or stability. Be playful. Be playful in your mind, spraying this body and heart with the quality that you are inhabiting and would like to inhabit more.

May our practice serve as a cause and condition for more stability, more peace, more groundedness, and more civility in our world for all beings everywhere. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free, including ourselves.

Reflections and Discussion

Thank you, everyone, for your practice.

I would like to invite you to share the one word that came up for you at the end, as I invited you to spray yourself with this quality. I will share mine in the chat: Stability.

Here are some of yours:

• Expansive
• Dispassion
• Inner peace
• Ease
• Calm
• Softer
• Solid
• Love
• Lightness
• Spaciousness
• Equanimity
• Sweet mist of compassion
• Community
• Metta¹
• Sweet letting go
• Embodiment

I am loving these qualities that you are all seeding. Someone loved the image of the sand-filled blow-up doll—yes, grounded. Beautiful. Thank you all for filling the space with your care, love, calm, peace, dispassion, and expansiveness. So much goodness.

The practice today was really about simple embodiment. It is very simple. Especially when the mind is feeling overwhelmed by news, by what is happening, looking backwards or forwards. "Oh, dear heart. Come to the body." Here, simply breathing in community. Bringing awareness to sensations of the body and breath—calming, soothing, gently holding with compassion and care. It makes a difference. We can have these qualities support us so we can be more upright. Not just for ourselves to be non-reactive and not sunken in the world, but available for ourselves and others.

A couple of last words coming in from YouTube participants: "Tranquility" and "Soothed." Thank you.

On Zoom, I would like to invite us to take this opportunity to show up with stability—with our feet stably on the earth, our bodies stable, and with mindfulness of the body. Listen internally and externally, holding space for ourselves and one another.

(The group breaks into small discussion rooms and then returns.)

Welcome back, friends. We have a few minutes for reflection. What did you discover as you explored out loud the quality that was meaningful for you?

Noella: I was so fortunate to be in a group with two people joining us for the first time. I have been doing this continually for a year, and usually, I was with people who had been doing it for a long time. This time, I felt like I could be the one who brought the experience of practicing wholeheartedly for a long time. I could be that person that I have always admired in others.

Nikki: Yay! I see hearts showing up. That is very sweet. As we hang in here with the practice, little by little, it is like walking in the mist. You keep walking in the mist, and you become drenched by the Dharma². You become that person who is just slowly walking—nothing special—just walking in the mist. "Oh yeah, I am drenched with the Dharma. I am that person holding space for others." That is so beautiful. Keep walking. And to the new people who joined, keep walking. It is lovely to have new folks joining us.

Diana: I have felt a true shift today. Last night as I went to bed, but especially this morning, I woke up with it, and I really noticed it tonight in the meditation. The physical idea of stability, the body really planted... I felt that. But I have felt that mentally all day today. The shift comes from a couple of weeks ago, going around with true fear, anxiety, and nervousness.

Today, I began to peek and cheat a little bit and look at numbers. After a while, I could see there were some big numbers here and there. The shift was that I began to have a real curiosity. It is still there with me. Instead of judging, I started to think, "I wonder who these people are in this state? I wonder what they are like, what their causes and conditions were?" They voted by a couple hundred thousand this way as opposed to that. "I wonder what that is about?" It was quite simple. It wasn't with any judging; it was more, "I wonder what is there?" In an open, curious way. I don't have an answer, but I just felt open. That was the change.

Nikki: Thank you for sharing this, Diana. This is exactly it. With a judging mind, we are othering others—"they are different," "they are bad," whatever the mind comes up with. Yet, to bring curiosity—"Human beings just like me. I wonder what their causes and conditions are?"—this curiosity softens the heart. Really, that is the way to heal ourselves. Through curiosity.

Serena: I really saw the fruits of the practice this morning, and I was so grateful. What arose within me first was being a bit upset to hear the news. I worked at the polls, and I was so tired last night. We hardly had any breaks; I woke up at 4:00 AM and worked until 8:30 PM pretty much non-stop. When I got the news, I first felt a little bit upset. Then I felt a lot more upset when my nephew sent me a text related to this, which was a really difficult text.

At a certain point, I drew a line and said, "I am not having this conversation with you by text. I'm sorry, I am not doing that." That was the turning point for me. I got this tranquility because I saw that this was causes and conditions. Instead of being entangled by all these ideas about why this happened, it was like, "The conditions were such that this got to happen." Somehow, I got some equanimity and serenity, and I had my courage back. It gave me the courage to ask, "What is my purpose in life? What am I supposed to do in any situation?" It gave me the courage to go and do what I needed to do, remembering what is important.

Nikki: Beautiful. Remembering what is important. Thank you so much for sharing, Serena. This is quite a milestone. To almost go down the rabbit hole with a family member, and then—oops, pause, stop. "This is not skillful. I will not do this."

This is what the Buddha teaches in the Four Wise Efforts³. One of the Four Wise Efforts is to abandon unwholesome states that have arisen. You abandoned an unwholesome state that was arising in a text exchange with your family. You said, "We are not going there." When you abandoned it, there was this understanding of causes and conditions. And then, what I love at the end, is connecting with your values. "What am I here for? What can I do with the capacities, time, and skills that I have?" This is so uplifting.

Richard: I just want to say that I just don't have the energy for fear, anger, or hatred.

Nikki: I love it. Well said. You just don't have the energy for fear, hatred, and anger. Love takes so much less energy. It is so much easier to love.

We have come to the end of our time. Thank you all for your practice, for your presence, and for cultivating your hearts away from unskillfulness, hatred, fear, and overwhelm. Cultivating presence, care, love, stability, and our values. You give me hope.

May all beings everywhere be happy. May all beings be free, including ourselves. Thanks, everyone.