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Happy Hour: Radical Friendliness - Nikki Mirghafori

The following talk was given by Nikki Mirghafori at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 07, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Happy Hour: Radical Friendliness

Introduction

Hello everyone, and welcome to Happy Hour! If you can hear me okay, give me a thumbs up. Audio is good? Fantastic. Hello and welcome. I'm Nikki, located in Oakland, welcoming you to this edition of Happy Hour.

Who is here who wants to say hi and share their friendliness in the Zoom room and on YouTube? We have people from Dallas, New Hampshire, Houston, Japan, Sydney, Toronto, Oahu, San Diego, Chicago, New England, Perth, New York City, and San Francisco. Lots of hellos, very sweet. A busy Friday night and Saturday morning!

Let's formally begin. If you're new to Happy Hour, you are warmly welcome to join the mailing list; it's pretty low traffic. We also have a document to look at as an invitation to offer yourself and others care and safety when you engage in the small breakout groups later. I changed the settings so one can't mute oneself, and chats will only come to me, but I ask you to keep that channel quiet as well, otherwise it can be quite distracting for me to read chats while I'm teaching.

I'm going to start recording now for the sake of Audio Dharma. Hello everyone, and welcome. Lovely to be with you. What a joy! Being towards the end of the week, what I'd like to invite us to do is to practice together, and the teachings will come during the practice. I'll keep it relatively light so that we can have a spacious sit together.

Guided Meditation

Let us arrive in our bodies. Let us arrive in this moment in time, letting go of thoughts, plans, preoccupations, and whatever has come before. Releasing completely, giving our heart to this moment.

However it's showing up, can we receive it? Receive this moment, this experience, with benevolence, with kindness, with friendliness. Meeting this moment with friendliness. Whether there is pain in this moment, distraction, sleepiness, or heartache, can we meet this moment with friendliness and steadiness of heart?

For steadiness, it helps to connect with the breath, the sensations of the breath in the body. Not as a yardstick, not as a "should," but as a way to support ourselves. As a way to soothe and stabilize, the same way that an anchor can stabilize a boat from drifting here, there, and everywhere. And yet, don't let it be so heavy-handed, this anchor of the breath. Let it be feather-like, gentle, loving, calming, and collecting.

Meeting this breath—just this in-breath as a friend, this out-breath as a friend, this sensation as a friend. How do you usually meet a friend? You open your arms, you embrace them, perhaps you smile at them. You're glad to see them, even if they're weary. Meeting this breath as a friend. See what can shift in the way you are being in this moment if you take that perspective.

If your mind starts to wonder about what it means to meet this moment, meet this breath, and whatever is happening in the body and mind as a friend, just remind yourself: how do you behave around a friend? How do you meet them, welcome them, greet them? You know this already. You know this through and through all your inner wisdom.

If you find your mind is wandering, and you meet it with kindness, benevolence, and friendliness, see what happens. We are practicing meeting this moment as a friend. We are practicing being friendly with experience for the sake of ourselves and all beings.

Can I be friendly towards this body breathing, sitting, maybe aching, pulsating? Can I be friendly? Can there be steadiness in my intense attention and friendliness together? And if there's no steadiness, it's okay. Can I be friendly? Through friendliness, reinvite steadiness, not through ill will.

Connect and sustain. Every moment connecting breath with this experience, and sustaining my awareness, my connection. Connect and sustain.

And if the mind is distracted in this moment, try to connect and sustain your attention with the sensations of your body—maybe the feet, your sit bones, your hands. Really connect with the breath. Become more embodied with a friendly attitude.

Radiating friendliness. Drop it in, see what might show up. Radiating friendliness to yourself, to the moment, to others.

As we bring this sitting period to a close, can we offer friendliness to ourselves for whatever showed up, or didn't show up, without judgment? It's okay. Can we appreciate that we showed up, did our best, and planted seeds? Can we meet this moment of ending the practice with friendliness, not with frustration or regret? Just simply with appreciation. With friendliness. We showed up. Yay!

Thanks everyone. Thanks for your practice.

Reflections and Breakout Instructions

Before we turn to small groups, maybe I'll ask you all to share a reflection. What's coming up for you in this moment? How are you feeling after this practice? Just one word or phrase.

A sense of happiness. A little more steady, and a little more settled. Steady, grounded, sleepy—that's perfectly fine. Kinder, more friendly, content. Everything is fine. Self-compassionate. Proud of myself. [Laughter] Yeah, it's great! You brought yourself to this practice, it's beautiful. I think whatever is showing up, whether sleepiness or not, letting there be kindness and friendliness. Giving love.

Someone on YouTube says "Peaceful". Another says "Disappointed". That's fine too. Can we be friendly with whatever is arising? This is really the cultivation of friendliness and mettā¹. That's what we try to cultivate here with this practice. Could we be friendly with whatever arises instead of having an antagonistic relationship? "At peace with my distractions," says another one of you.

As we turn to small groups at this time, here's the invitation. The invitation is to explore for your own sake: what does it feel like to be friendly with experience? What does it feel like for you? What are the challenges? What are the gifts? What is your growing edge?

The two other people in the room are just holding you as witness. They're not going to ask you questions or clarifications; that's not the purpose. If you're listening and you didn't understand what the person said, it's not for you to understand. You're just holding friendly space for them. You're beaming and radiating friendliness as they explore out loud with the benefit of your presence.

You offer one nugget as you're exploring, then pass the baton. Go in reverse alphabetical order according to first name. One person will explore, for example: "For me, to be friendly means not being so hard on myself and being less judgmental; that's my growing edge." The next person offers something, and then it comes back to you. So you go around a few times. Be kind to yourself, be kind to each other. No questions, no advice, no cross-talk. Just let yourself explore for your own benefit. Give it a try, it's precious.

I will open the breakout rooms now. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Be kind. It's such a privilege to be interacting with fellow travelers. Here we go.

Q&A and Reflections

Welcome back, everyone. We have a few minutes for reflections and questions. What did you discover from this practice? I especially like to invite those of you who haven't spoken recently. What did you discover, for the benefit of yourself and everyone?

Amy: I feel a sense in the last week or two of some progress that feels nice. I wrote on my mirror, "I love you." Every time I'm doing the dishes—I'm in a tiny little Ohana unit, so my sink is for the bathroom, the dishes, and all the things—I look at it and I just smile at myself. I'm able to pause and notice the inner critic, and just be like, "Oh, there you are, and I love myself." I'm giving myself the benefit of the doubt that I'm doing the best I can. Even though there are too many things to do and never enough time to do them, I'll figure it out and I have the best of intentions. So I'm going to love this love story you've mentioned. I'm dedicated to it. I'm going to do a ceremony for it. I'm going to love myself, for better or for worse!

Nikki: This is so beautiful, Amy. What you're speaking about is the wisdom of the ages. We need to deeply appreciate and love the goodness, the beauty, the challenges, and the faults of this being who is doing their best. That's how they're going to grow. They're not going to grow and become the best they can in a container of self-judgment and self-hatred. It just does not happen. It is in the container of love and acceptance that one actually takes responsibility for one's faults and challenges. Like, "Yeah sweetheart, you screwed up. I still love you, and we're going to do better next time." I am just overjoyed to hear that you're dedicated to it and the message is getting through. This is so beautiful and so creative to write it on your mirror.

Amy: I do think it's giving me the capacity to show up for others in the same way. That's the purpose of it, right? It's a much bigger purpose than the individualized nature of meeting the inner critic differently. It's for a bigger scale, so that we may be of benefit.

Nikki: Exactly right. We need to start with ourselves so that we can have a loving, caring stance towards all. Thank you, Amy. And Megan says in the chat, "I finally understand how important self-love is. Thank you." Exactly. We don't do this just for ourselves; we do it for all beings everywhere.

Audrey: I had an interesting experience with Mara² on my sit. I was feeling a lot of anxiety in my body, and I told Mara I saw her, but I told her I would take care of her and that it was okay. I trust her to be with me. That was really nice.

Nikki: Beautiful. And what happened?

Audrey: My anxiety dissipated. I also told myself, "Well, it's not going to kill me." I just liked the embodiment of the trust that it would be okay and then I could take care of it.

Nikki: Nice. It's a beautiful expression of friendliness towards the moment and towards challenges. Instead of adding more aversion to what is challenging, meeting them with kindness and seeing how they get transformed. Because, of course, we've tried pushing them away and being angry with them—how well did that work? Let's try something different for a while. Thank you, Audrey, I love it.

To contextualize for those who might be new: what Audrey is speaking about is not giving in to the distractions. Some people might wonder, "What is this Mara they're talking about?" In Buddhism, Mara is the personification of the hindrances—the ill will, being distracted, sleepy, restless, and all the things that get in the way. It's unhelpful to try to push them away when they arise on our path, whether we're meditating or in our daily life. The Middle Way is the wise path between suppression and indulgence. You don't want to indulge them, but you don't want to suppress them either. What Audrey was describing is this wise relationship: "Can I accept that you're here? Can I be friendly? Can I soften around you, not give in to you, and yet not hate you?"

Thank you so much for your practice. Thank you for cultivating your heart, being a resource for yourself, and being a resource for one another. I really appreciate you taking the time to practice and cultivate this in service to all beings everywhere. May all beings be well. May all beings be free, including ourselves.

Thanks everyone. Take care, be well.