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Happy Hour: Holding Peace for Ourselves, Relationships, and the World - Nikki Mirghafori

The following talk was given by Nikki Mirghafori at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on April 16, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Happy Hour: Holding Peace for Ourselves, Relationships, and the World

Hello and welcome everyone to Happy Hour. Today, I would like to lead a meditation on holding peace—holding peace in our hearts and in our minds. We hold peace both for the sake of ourselves, as we connect and relate to ourselves with balance, and for our relational space as we relate to others. especially if there is any friction in our interactions. We hold peace and spaciousness as we relate to the news of the world.

We hold peace as we think of others, whether they are in a space of suffering, whether they are the perpetrators, or whether they are the recipients of challenges and difficulty in the world. Hold the possibility of peace. Let peace start from within.

Peace and Metta¹ (loving-kindness) are strongly interrelated. When we have goodwill for others, a sense of peace arises in our heart. When we hold this space of peace and balance, which is related to equanimity, a sense of friendliness arises. A sense of "just like me" can arise.

I was really touched by something I heard on the radio recently. It is the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, and National Public Radio was doing many segments on it. In one segment, there was a story of a woman who, 30 years ago, risked her own life to save the lives of others when there was neighbor killing neighbor—Hutus and Tutsis.

I was especially touched by one part of the story where she hides men in her house. Her husband comes back, and in order for him not to be startled, she says, "Oh, these friends you have known, they are visiting." The words she said, which were translated through an interpreter, were: "You know, just like me. Just like us. These people want to be alive and not suffer. Just like me."

That "just like me" really touched me because it is the stance of common humanity. You don't necessarily need to be a Buddhist or be familiar with Buddhist teachings at all; Buddhism does not have hegemony over this simple understanding. Other human beings are just like me. Can we hold the possibility of peace for all of us on this little blue planet? Just like me.

With that as a preamble, I would like to invite us to settle and practice together.

Let us arrive. Let us arrive in this body, in this moment, inviting a sense of settledness and peace. Peace can start in this moment. It can express itself with our stability in the body. Let the body be stable, not fidgeting or moving, with kindness and gentleness. Relax the body. Sweet, dear, amazing, miraculous body, may you be peaceful. May you be calm. May you be well.

Invite the body to be peaceful. Within the frame of the body, invite the breath to be easeful and peaceful, however it wants to express itself. Not forcing or pushing, just inviting and allowing. Invite the body to relax some more, to have more peace.

Now, invite the mind to join the body. When the body is easeful and has stability, the mind tends to settle as well. Starting with the body, invite the mind to settle, to relax, to have peace, to rest with peace. Drop thoughts, worries, or plans running around here and there. Dear body, dear mind, rest. Rest and hold peace. Connect with the breath to sustain the stability of peace.

Being Peace is the title of a book by Thich Nhat Hanh², the Zen master. Can we be peace in this moment? Don't worry about the next moment or the previous one—just this moment. Can I inhabit peace in my body, my mind, and now my heart?

Hold peace in your heart for yourself, for how you are in this moment. Hold peace for personal relationships, especially if there is any strife or challenge. Hold peace as a possibility, as an aspiration. Peace and goodwill.

And for the world... Just like me, all these beings in the world, just like me, want to be happy and peaceful.

Sit like a candle, holding light, holding the flame. A live flame, the light of peace, however that resonates for you in this moment.

What does peace mean in this moment, in this body, mind, and heart? Being peace in this moment. What does it mean to me in this moment to hold peace? Peace with myself maybe means a lack of judgment and kindness. If there are a lot of thoughts, maybe it means setting them down peacefully. It means thinking about some challenges, perhaps with someone, and bringing goodwill. Peace for ourselves, peace for them, peace for both of us.

Similarly for the world. What does it mean to be at peace? To live peace? Inhabit peace in this moment.

Can this in-breath, can this out-breath be known peacefully, with stability of mind? If it is helpful, add some words: May I have peace and ease.

May those I know, those who are near and dear to me, those with whom I have challenges, those whom I barely know or simply lightly interact with—may there be peace. May there be peace in our hearts and in our interactions. May there be goodwill and peace.

May there be peace and goodwill in the entire world.

If it starts to feel too conceptual, come back to the breath. Come back to the body. Breathing in peace, breathing out peace. May I be peaceful. May I hold peace for myself and for others in my thoughts, my words, and my actions.

As we approach the end of this period of sitting together, appreciate that you showed up and tried to align your internal actions of the mind with your highest intention for peace and goodwill. Let go of any judgment for what might have come up or not come up. Trust that you are planting seeds. As long as I am showing up just in this moment, to the best of my ability, with peace towards myself and others, with goodwill, then I am planting wholesome seeds.

May all beings everywhere be happy. May they have the causes and conditions for happiness and well-being. May all beings everywhere be peaceful and free, including myself.

Thank you for your practice of holding peace together—holding peace in our hearts and in our wishes for the world in these interesting and challenging times. Peace starts within. World peace starts from within. It is hard to wish for a peaceful world or have peace in the world if we don't cultivate that stability in ourselves and in our relational space for others.

Reflections and Discussion

Jerry: I like to sync topics. What creates difficulty for peace for me is an acronym called HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. That is a difficult place. The alternative that helps is helping someone else that isn't a direct benefit to myself. I have started not giving money to beggars but going to a store and getting them a piece of pizza or a sandwich. Someone saw me do this and said, "Well, you've done your good deed for the day." It wasn't my intention to be public, but it took me out of my "hungry, angry, lonely, tired" space.

Nikki: Thank you for sharing that. HALT is such a powerful mnemonic—am I hungry, angry, lonely, or tired right now? That is a great self-check. And I appreciate what you shared about the antidote: if we are in that state, reaching out and helping someone else who needs support in that moment can take us out of it.

Fred: That was a very powerful meditation for me. It was partly primed by something I had been reading before we sat down. Initially, I was overwhelmed with the perverse opposite of peacefulness—a kind of immersion in the headlines of the day. Then I found myself searching further beyond the terrible news of the moment to what is going on in my town that I don't know about, which has its own secret horrors.

After a while, I found that I could actually step out of that. I could step into a place where I could repose in my connection with everybody. It came from imagery of what I had been reading: seeing many little pods of light connected and equal. That was a peaceful place to be. It was a visual equivalent of the phrase you were using about how we all share the human experience. We all suffer in ways that aren't dissimilar. None of us is really privileged beyond the other, but none of us is underprivileged in relation to the other either.

That visual image of an endless network of connection—pulsations of light without faces—was a place where I could sit back into calmness and peace. I was struck by how this was a choice, and that I had a fair amount of ability to make that decision. I wasn't going to be swept away by the headlines; I actually could decide to step back into what I preferred and into the peace that we were being directed to be in. It was interesting to see that degree of volition.

Nikki: Thank you, Fred, for the eloquence and nuanced way you shared what came up for you. I want to unpack a couple of things you said because they are very important.

You spoke about "just like me," and how we are neither privileged nor underprivileged according to particular ways of being. I want to unpack that because it could be misunderstood. There is the idea of privilege in the world—some people have wealth, and some don't. Yet, what you are pointing to is with respect to suffering, the unsatisfactoriness factor of life, the deep dukkha³.

In the Three Marks of Existence⁴—impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and impersonality (not-self)—we want to have control and choice, yet we don't. When we really see that, we realize, "Wow, we are all subject to the laws of impermanence and dukkha." It is impersonal and unpredictable. When you truly see that through the eyes of insight, a peace arises. The mind and heart can choose to step into peace.

This ties into a beautiful Buddhist teaching, which is also used as a funeral chant in Pali: "All things are impermanent. They arise and pass away. To live in harmony with this truth brings great happiness."⁵

When you hear this at the outset, it might sound negative. But there is something about it—the heart opens up. If we live in harmony with impermanence and unsatisfactoriness, not expecting life to be satisfactory all the time and not expecting to have control over everything, life goes easier instead of us fighting against it. I hope people can hear the relationship between these points and what you beautifully brought in, Fred—especially this aspect of having a choice. I can choose to see the universal truth of "just like me," and that brings a certain peace.

I see a few notes in the chat as well.

One person wrote: "This is really great contemplation and meditation. Thank you very much for pointing me and us towards peace."

Another person asked: "I know we talk a lot about the inner critic. What can we practice when the inner critic is raging and regular reminders aren't working, possibly due to HALT conditions?"

To the person who wrote that: Mindfulness of the body and Metta. Bring kindness to the body.

Neil added in the chat: "Just like me, everyone I meet was born. Just like me, everyone I meet will die. Just like me, everyone I meet is doing their best to get from point A to point B." Indeed.

One more reflection from the chat: "Maranasati⁶ can feel like it gets in the way of peace for me, but neglecting Maranasati is even worse. I had glimmers of Maranasati supporting peace as well."

Maranasati means mindfulness of death, which is a practice I love to teach. It can bring a sense of balance to all this—an appreciation of radical impermanence.

Claire: My group really enjoyed the practice. I circulate a gratitude list with two girlfriends every day, and that certainly adds to my state of happiness.

Nikki: Thank you. That is the counter-HALT: gratitude.

Serena: One of the things that helps me is I try to notice something positive about the other person. I try to notice something that is alive, and that somehow brings peace.

Nikki: Beautiful. Noticing and bringing to heart a beautiful quality of the other person. That brings so much joy. That is especially helpful if we are having a challenge with someone.

Dear ones, we have come to the end of Happy Hour. Thank you so much for your practice, for cultivating your heart and mind towards peace, and holding peace together. May all beings be well, may all beings be happy, may all beings be free and have peace—abundant peace for all beings everywhere, including ourselves.