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Happy Hour: Radiating Kindness & Love With Each Breath - Nikki Mirghafori

The following talk was given by Nikki Mirghafori at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on January 30, 2021. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Happy Hour: Radiating Kindness & Love With Each Breath

Hello and welcome to Happy Hour. It is lovely to be with you in this moment in time.

As we continue to cultivate Metta¹—the cultivation of kindness, goodwill, or a rose by any name—we can translate it in so many different ways: goodwill, kindness, love, warmth, friendliness. We have come to the category of "all beings." Diana shared a meditation on that yesterday, and I did one on Wednesday, so let's linger with it a little more because this can be a fun and joyous category of just spreading goodwill and wishing beings well.

I am going to use some imagery today to loosen us from our usual conception of well-wishing. My invitation to you is to be playful with this. Do not have a sense of "I should be able to wish well for all beings everywhere and I am failing." Instead, have a playful attitude with it. If we have fun with these practices, they take hold a lot more deeply than if we do them as a grim duty. Especially when wishing well for all beings, it is just an easy thing. See where your heart finds connection and what categories you feel drawn to.

I find this particular practice—the well-wishing for all beings—can be expressed in so many different ways. It can be heavy, but it can also be light. It can be happy-making, especially if you are feeling kind of heavy or morose. Spend some time wishing well for others and all beings. You can imagine people you don't know; you can just pull them out of a hat like a magician and wish them well—whatever works for you.

A practical aspect of this is if you have had a tough day, go for a walk and start wishing well for whomever you come across. When you are walking the path, just wish them well. You will soon find you are lighter, you are smiling, and you are happier. I have done this practice in this way, and it is just like, "Oh wow, I feel like I am walking on clouds now." Your whole perception gets shifted. So don't fight it, and don't judge yourself thinking it isn't working. You are giving these offerings as if you are spreading petals of flowers. Without any expectations, you just do it, plant seeds, or use whatever imagery we are going to play around with tonight.

Guided Meditation

I would like to invite you to get into your meditation posture and settle.

[Observation of group video feeds] Neil, is that your background? It looks like you are sitting in snow on your porch in the middle of snow! This is so funny. May you be well, may you be warm. [Laughter] I love the humor of it, this is great. And Forest looks nice and cozy and warm in his blanket. I love this.

Okay great, so let's get into our meditation posture. Landing in this body. How nice to just land and sit in this body, here in this moment. This moment of being alive, right here, right now, just as it is. Just letting yourself be breathed, being aware of the breath and the sensations of the body. And just settling, one breath at a time.

Take this moment of refuge to honor and cherish, just as it is. Not needing it to be any different, but relaxing into this body, this breath. Not fighting, not resisting. Fully embracing however it is showing up.

If thoughts or preoccupations come up, be gentle. Let them be seen to be released. To be released in the current. Holding on to no fighting, no resistance, just release and be aware.

As you receive the breath, I would like to invite you to imagine as if the breath is being received in the middle of your chest, in your heart center. With each breath entering your heart center and leaving your heart center, you find that your care, your goodwill, your friendliness is awakened more and more. It becomes more vitalized, more awakened.

You are welcome to use whatever image works for you. Maybe it is a light that shines brightly. With each breath, it simply becomes brighter and brighter. It is not so much that you are making it brighter; it is becoming brighter on its own. Check this out—interesting. Or if the image of the sacred holy fire works for you, maybe each breath is fanning the fire, becoming warmer, bigger, and more beautiful.

Whatever image works for you in this moment—and you can change later, it is okay—allow this sense of goodwill to shine, to radiate. It is not so much that you are doing it; all you "do" is not get in its way. Let the inner goodness, the inner kindness that we all have—and we often get in its way because we are shy or scared to express it—just let it shine on its own.

A sense of goodwill touching and shining on people you care about. Maybe see your benefactor or your dear friend first. It touches them and brings them your good wishes, friendliness, and goodwill. Wishing them well: May you be well, may you be happy.

A simplified version of the Metta phrases: May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you have ease.

See the brightness, the goodwill shining brightly upwards, downwards, to your right, to your left, behind you, in front of you, all around you. This light of goodwill shines, touching you too. As it radiates out of your heart center in the middle of your chest, it touches you with goodwill. Maybe you relax and melt a little bit as the light touches you first. May I be well. Friendliness, goodness. May I be well.

This light can lie like a nice warm blanket, embracing you and shining all around you. Any being it comes in contact with, it wishes them well, brings them happiness and goodness in your mind, in your wish.

Maybe imagine that you are a human being walking on this earth. Anyone this light comes in contact with as you are walking in your neighborhood—with words or without the words of Metta—this radiance is an offering of goodwill.

Maybe you imagine you are a fish swimming in the ocean with this light shining from your fishy heart center. Every being in the ocean comes in contact, either directly or indirectly, and is touched by this wish of goodness and well-being. Without attachment to outcome, have fun with it. Imagining sharks being touched by these well-wishes. Colorful fish, seahorses, shrimp, eels. Spreading Metta to all beings as you swim in all the oceans, all the waters.

Again, let yourself have joy with this. Maybe you are a dolphin jumping in and out of the water with this bright orb of Metta, shining good wishes joyfully. Swimming and dancing in the water, spreading goodwill.

Or imagine you are a bird in the sky. Let your body be relaxed. May all beings that fly be well. Feel free to explore whatever imagery works for you.

You can be the rain that washes all over the world. All the beings it touches, it brings them wishes of well-being. May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you have ease. Soaking all beings with friendliness and goodwill. See what works for you.

If you are having a challenging time right now, it is okay for you to be the recipient of the rain yourself. Be both the rain and the recipient. Let your body soak in the goodness, the goodwill, the care.

You can't do this practice wrong. As long as you meet whatever comes up with gentleness and kindness, you are planting seeds of kindness. It is all good.

Feel free to use any of the imagery that has worked for you in this practice and just stay with it until the end. If thoughts arise and you happen to think about anyone, just wish them well. Share some Metta and goodwill with this being who has come up in your mind's eye.

If there are any judgmental thoughts coming up—"I can't do this," "It's not working"—can you meet the thoughts with kindness? With a smile, with friendliness? "Oh, sweetie." Don't fight. No resistance. Just kindness and love.

Radiating kindness and love, whatever comes up. That is all. Just radiating kindness and love with each breath. That is all.

May we radiate kindness and love with each breath as we live. That's all.

Reflections and Q&A

Thank you for your practice. Radiating kindness and love with whatever arises—beings, people, thoughts, ourselves. Just radiating kindness and love; it is all that matters anyway in this life.

I would love to invite your reflections. What came up for you? What worked, what didn't work? It is all welcome.

Linda: I realized during this meditation that something I've been doing every day when I walk my dog is like a loving-kindness for all beings, and I think that's why I've been enjoying it so much. I started it when COVID started; I started making eye contact with every driver and just beaming at them because, honestly, I am happy to see a person. I swear now people look for me and they wave enthusiastically—big semi-truck drivers wave. I just got that feeling when you were talking about being the dolphin in the sea, and I was like, "Oh, no wonder I look forward to it." It is beautiful for me, and I get so much enjoyment out of watching their reactions.

Nikki: That is lovely, just lovely, Linda. Thank you so much for sharing that. I feel Mudita²—vicarious joy—as you describe your Metta walks. It is a practice of Metta. It is not complicated; you are just smiling at people, friendliness, you are waving at them, establishing eye contact—"I see you." That is lovely.

Lisa: I was imagining the moonlight as radiating the Metta practice, remembering it is a full moon tonight. So I was able to really connect with that.

Nikki: Lovely, beautiful. I love the idea of the moon, especially in Buddhism and Zen. The full moon is a symbol of a fully awakened being. So when you talk about that, I love the symbolism of the fully awakened heart shining its light of love onto beings. I get chills. Thank you, Lisa.

Neil (in chat): I was like Tinkerbell sprinkling fairy dust of Metta everywhere I flew.

Nikki: Oh my god, that is so sweet.

Bill (in chat): What if my meditation isn't just visual but verbal? I have a fragment of a song that seems to work for me. Is this bad?

Nikki: No, it is not bad. Some people are auditory, some are visual—whatever works for you. Some might be fragrant; you might be giving fragrant roses to everyone. It is all good. If it is a song, fantastic, go with it. It is a cultivation practice.

Jerry (in chat): I love the expression "Radiating kindness and love with each breath, that's all." Especially "that's all."

Nikki: Yes, thank you, Jerry. It feels that way. That is all.

Participant (in chat): My back was hurting for the first 20 to 30 minutes and it took my body a while to physically let go. I felt very tense.

Nikki: No problem. I am delighted to hear that you stayed with it, and it opened up, and you didn't give up. Just gently staying with it. My invitation is if this happens again, and if I am giving instructions about flowers and fishes, direct the Metta to your hurting back. Invite it to relax. It is okay. It is loved. It can be as tense and tight as it wants to be; don't judge it, just love it.

Jesse: For the loving-kindness of all beings, it seems a little bit more open-ended than the other categories. Do you just wait for the occasional animal to come to mind, or do you try and think about just any being?

Nikki: That is an excellent question. It can be either way, and there is no right or wrong way to practice this. Sometimes it might make sense to go through categories, like "all the beings that hop and swim." Other times it could just be open to north, south, east, west—whatever beings show up. "Oh, people who live in the Middle East just showed up, may you be well." "All the birds in Africa just showed up, may you be well." You might find your heart in some sessions is drawn to one way versus another.

Jerry: Does the being need to be sentient?

Nikki: Yes and no. I think in Buddhist practice we go with sentient—"May all sentient beings be well," all the beings that have consciousness. But I think sometimes it is okay to extend that to plants and to Mother Earth. There is a sense of embracing Gaia—this life energy, life force that moves through all living beings. So it doesn't have to be sentient in my opinion, but you can practice either way.

[The group breaks out into small practice sessions]

Jesse: All the best to my group. We got cut off at the end, but appreciate being with you all.

Holly: When sending love out required energy, I switched to receiving love from those that love me, and then without effort, love went back out from my heart. It became circular—receiving and sending out.

Nikki: Lovely, Holly. Thank you so much for sharing that. Indeed, this naturalness of giving and receiving.

Thank you, everyone. We have come to the end of this Happy Hour together, practicing and cultivating, breathing, sharing love and goodwill with each breath. That being all, may you all be well. May you all share, spread, and cultivate your love unto the world in any way that you can serve. May you all be safe, happy, healthy, and well, and all beings everywhere.