Talkin' about joy

You can listen to my talk on appreciative joy, the third of the four immeasurables, here

May you meet what comes without sarcasm

It's Week 4 of the 28-Day Meditation Challenge, and the technique switches to lovingkindness meditation.
I'm a big fan of lovingkindness meditation. It's one of the first practices I learned when I started meditating in 2006, and it's still one of the most profound. You walk through an ever-expanding circle of beings, directing toward them the wish that they be safe, be happy, be healthy, and know ease.
The wishes or aspirations or intentions may be modified; you can use language that's meaningful to you.
I did the practice Tuesday evening, using phrases that I've used often: May you be free from fear and harm; may you be happy as you are; may you meet what comes with kindness; may you be willing to open to all aspects of experience.
Since I just came back from a two-week retreat, I was feeling pretty warm and fuzzy. I settled on a mentor, saying the phrases with deep gratitude for what I've learned from her, and moved on to myself. At the loved one, I decided that my two offspring count as one, and held them both in the warm light from my heart. The neutral person was the new receptionist at work, no strong feelings there. So far so good.
Then I came to the difficult person. And it wasn't working at all. Guess that's why it's called the difficult person?
The problem was that this person seems to be all too happy as he is. And he is all too happy to point out how your happiness is inferior to his. He meets what comes with sarcasm. I imagine that if he knew I was sending him lovingkindness, he would mock it. Loudly. With a distinctive heh-heh-heh.
Now I have some experience with giving out sarcasm. I used to be quite good at it. Not so much anymore.
Sarcasm is deadly defense. It keeps people at an arm's length because they won't risk handing you the dagger you'll use to stab them in the heart. It also keeps you acting and reacting on a superficial level -- everything is deflected with a joke. Nothing is examined or considered. The shield is up, full power.
How sad.
I'm not sure that my thoughts can crack his armor. But they did cause me to take off much of mine so that I greeted him with a genuine smile. I'm not, in turn, reflexively dismissing his comments. Maybe some gentle conversation will cut through.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings be healthy.
May all beings be at ease.

Lovingkindness meditation allows us to use our own pain as the pain of others as a vehicle for connection rather than isolation. Maybe when people are acting unskillfully we can look beyond their actions and recognize that they're suffering, and too want to be happy. Sharon Salzberg

Really

The only wrong way to practice is not to practice.
- Ethan Nichtern

Meditation is a way of life

To benefit from meditation, you need more than just a glimpse. You need to make a commitment to training yourself in meditation. Otherwise, there will be a lot of gaps and missing the point, and you will experience unnecessary confusion. So it’s important to stick with the practice and follow the instructions that you receive. It might be best to look at meditation as a way of life. If you stick with the practice and go along with exertion and patience, you will have a chance to realize yourself, to understand yourself.
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

28-Day Meditation Challenge: Day 1

In conjunction with her book "Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation," Sharon Salzberg is hosting a 28-day meditation challenge -- which is just what it sounds like, a challenge to meditate every day for 28 days. The theory is that you'll develop the meditation habit, notice some benefit, get support, and receive benefits. She outlines the benefits in the book, which is wise and readable and warm.

You can follow for the challenge here:
http://www.sharonsalzberg.com/realhappiness

A number of IDP bloggers will be taking the challenge and blogging on the Real Happiness blog and the IDP blog. Tune in daily to see how we do.

Yes, I am among the bloggers, even though I have a daily meditation practice already. Why would I do this?

Like anything we do over time, meditation can get to be a habit, done without much thought. My practice could use a little freshening up. Just because your posture improves and it gets easier to sit without moving doesn't mean that the quality of the meditation is also improving. You can slack off and still look like you're meditating -- or even believe that you are.

So the challenge for me is not just to sit but to sit with intention, with discipline, and vigor. To shake off the here-comes-a-regular quality.

We're all newcomers to the present moment.

"We miss a great deal because our attention is distracted or because we're so sure that we know what's going on that we don't even look for new, important information." Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness.

Today's Day 1. Who knows what we'll find?

Be kind

"If we begin to surrender to ourselves—begin to drop the story line and experience what all this messy stuff behind the story line feels like—we begin to find bodhichitta, the tenderness that’s underneath all the harshness. By being kind to ourselves, we become kind to others. By being kind to others—if it’s done properly, with proper understanding—we benefit as well.

So the first point is that we are completely interrelated. What you do to others, you do to yourself. What you do to yourself, you do to others."
(Start Where You Are)
Heart Advice of the Week at http://www.shambhala.com/heartadvice/

friend this moment

I once did a retreat with Sylvia Boorstein on the Brahma Viharas, or Divine Abodes (loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity). On the first night, she gave us a mantra and suggested we say it over and over as we went through the hours between the end of the evening talk and the beginning of the morning -- while brushing our teeth, lying in bed, walking to (silent) breakfast, between bites of food.

"May I meet this moment fully; may I meet it as a friend."

How do you see each moment -- as a friend to be welcomed warmly? An assassin waiting to kill you? A trap? A refuge?

How would your life be different if you took an attitude of friendship toward each moment? What would that look like? How would it feel?

Can you give it a try?

Maybe on the meditation cushion? Instead of, "argh, I still can't move?" can you relax into the moment, drop the wariness, take off the armor, and greet the moment as a friend, looking forward to what it brings?

‎"Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have, so we night as well work with it rather than struggling against it. We might as well make it our friend and teacher rather than our enemy." Pema Chodron