Boundless Heart (Talk + Meditation)

This is a talk and meditation that I gave at Aquarius KC on 2/26/22. I talked about the Four Immeasurables and led Metta Meditation. The four immeasurables are kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. There is also a little bit of discussion at the end of this recording.

Transcript

Alright, I'm glad you're all here. Welcome. We're going to talk about open-hearted meditation practices today and some of you I've seen before and that's great and some of you I haven't seen before and that's good too. We're gonna have a fun seven hours to get. . . No, I'm just kidding. So, Open-hearted practices are what we're talking about, Like I said, And I'm gonna tell a little story and this is a Buddhist story, But that being said, You don't have to care at all about Buddhism for this story to be meaningful, I think, But it really exemplifies what we're doing and why we're doing it in my mind. So, This is the story I'm gonna tell is the story, A story that's called, They call it the metta sutta, You don't need to remember that, But the story is that around 2, 500 years ago, These monks, They were students of the figure that we call the Buddha, The spiritual teacher that we call the Buddha. They were his students and they went and this group, They went and they went and meditated in a forest. They were, People just went places and meditated, I guess, And they went and meditated in a forest and just spent their time there doing that and it got dark in the forest and they started to get scared, You know, If you've ever been in the forest by yourself at night, Like it's kind of creepy, Right? So, They started to worry or one of them in particular, And he convinced the other ones that the forest was haunted. So, They thought that there were ghosts and they thought we can't be here, Ghosts are gonna get us, I'm so scared and, You know, It's just regular forest sounds they heard, But they thought it was ghosts. More people, Maybe more people believe in ghosts than, I don't know, A lot of people still believe in ghosts, But so they go to the Buddha, Their teacher, And they're like, Hey, We were meditating in the forest and it was going great, But we think there's ghosts there, We don't want to go back there, We're scared, We're really scared of ghosts. And so, The Buddha thought about it for a second and he gave them this teaching and he said, If you learn this teaching and you reflect on this when you're in the woods, The ghosts are not gonna come get you. And now the truth is, Lots of people believe in ghosts and that's okay, But an aspect of the story is the ghosts in this forest were not, They were made, They were making up the ghosts, The ghosts were not real. And so, I'm gonna read to you the teaching that the Buddha gave to these monks and then we're gonna talk about how it worked for them and why it worked for them. And a lot of people quote this teaching without reflecting on the context, Which I've just given you part of the context of the teaching. A lot of people quote it, It's a very quotable teaching that I'm gonna read to you. I hope you don't hate being read to. So, This is called the metasuta and I'm just gonna read it to you and then we're gonna talk about how this helped these monks and how it could help us too, Okay? So, The metasuta. To reach the state of peace, One skilled in the good should be capable and upright, Easy to speak to and straightforward, Of gentle nature and not proud, Contented and easily supported, Living lightly and having few duties, Wise with senses calmed, Not ignorant and without greed for supporters and should not do the least thing that the wise would reproach them for. One should reflect in this way. This is the part that people like to quote a lot. May all beings be happy and secure. May all beings be happy minded. Whatever living beings they may be, Whether weak or strong, Tall, Large, Medium or short, Small or big, Seen or unseen, Near or distant, May they without exception all be happy minded. Let no one despise another or deceive anyone anywhere. Let no one through anger or hatred wish for another's suffering. As a mother would risk her own life to protect her child, So for all beings should one guard one's boundless heart. With boundless friendliness for the whole world, Should one cultivate a boundless heart in all directions, Without obstruction, Without hate and without ill will. Standing or walking, Sitting or lying down, Whenever one is awake, May one stay with this recollection. This is called the best and most sublime way of dwelling in this world. One who is virtuous, Endowed with insight, Not clinging to wrong view and having overcome all passion for sensual pleasure, Will not be born again. So, These monks learned this teaching. The Buddha said this teaching to them and they learned it and they reflected on it and they really tried to keep it in mind and they went to the scary forest and what happened? Nothing happened because the ghosts, They were imagining those ghosts. They were not real ghosts and they were so busy thinking about being a good person, Being kind to others, Having compassion, Making the world a better place, That they were so busy doing that, That they didn't have time to make up stories to make themselves scared. So, Because they didn't have time to make up stories to make themselves scared, Then the forest was not scary. They couldn't even really remember how scary it was because they were too busy just thinking about helping others and being a good person. Okay, And I have to tell you, At the start of this pandemic we've been in, At the start of it, I was really anxious about the uncertainty. I was really scared and it was these kinds of teachings that helped me because you can just, We can just reflect on helping others and having an open heart and being kind and maybe that takes us away from our own ghosts, Our own ghosts that we make up because we all do have ghosts we make up, Not ghosts literally, But you know, We have where we worry about bad things that aren't even going to happen or where we think awful thoughts about ourselves. You know, We think I can't do anything right. We have all these kinds of things that we carry around and they don't serve us. So, That's the message of that teaching is, Well, We can spend our time trying to cultivate compassion, Trying to have an open heart, Trying to be good to others and be virtuous and if we're spending time doing those things, Then we don't have as much time for the things we do that get in our own way. It's sort of, I heard a diet plan to have a healthier life that involves not taking anything out of your diet, But rather adding a bunch of vegetables to your day every day. Because, You know, If you're eating a bunch of broccoli every day, Maybe you don't have time for the chips and the ice cream that you really want to eat, Right? So, It's that sort of thing. If we can just fill our minds with feelings of goodwill, Then maybe we have less time and energy for some of the other things that we fill our minds with sometimes. That's the point we're getting to. So, With all of that in mind, I'm going to talk about what we call the four immeasurables or the four boundless attitudes, Which don't be intimidated by that naming. That naming is a bit much, I think, But these are four things that are attitudes that we can bring to our experience and they're going to uplift us some. That's the intention is they'll uplift us some. And they are, I'll go through them real fast and then I'll examine all of them, But they're kindness, Compassion, Joy, And equanimity. Kindness, Compassion, Joy, And equanimity. And these four attitudes, If we can bring them to our lives, They're going to increase not only our relationships with others, But they will do that, But also our own well-being. Because the truth is we have this, We don't understand that when we think about others and we think about helping others, That actually increases our well-being. We may be tempted to think that the most happiness we can have is to just obsess about our happiness all the time and indulge in all the pleasures, But that's not true because really you can't have everything you want all the time. No matter who you are, You can't have everything you want all the time. That's a strange expectation to have, But what in fact contemporary psychology is coming to understand is when we focus on other people, It actually makes us happier. It makes us happier because it broadens our horizons so that our vision is not so narrow. Because if we're just obsessed about ourselves all the time, Again, We're not going to have everything we want no matter what we do. No one does, Right? So kindness, Compassion, Joy, And equanimity. At the outset, I'm going to tell you the difference between kindness and compassion because you may not know. Kindness is I want good things to happen to you. And compassion is I want bad things to not happen to you, Right? So these are really connected, But it's kind of a different skill. They're not exactly the same. So I can want you to get a promotion at work and I can want a homeless person to have some food, Right? I can want both of those things and they're related, But they're not really the same. So that's kindness and compassion. And joy in this context, What we're talking about is being happy for another person when they succeed. And not, Not, Oh my gosh, I'm so happy for you. Not that, But actually being happy for another person when they succeed. And I'm not just talking about being happy for your kids when they succeed. That's easy, Right? Well, I hope it's easy. I guess it's not for everyone, But I'm talking about really actually taking joy in someone else's success because the truth is if we can learn how to take joy in other people's success, Then we can be happy all the time, Basically, Right? We can be happy all the time. Why would I say that? But we could take a lot of joy in life if we can really be joyful at someone else's success. Really joyful, Not just saying it, But really being joyful. And then equanimity, I think is a word maybe a lot of people don't know. And it is the ability to have a calm and even mind when both, When horrible disasters are happening, Not falling apart and crying on the floor, But rather being able to keep it together. But also, We don't want to get carried away when really good things happen either. And I think we all know probably stories about really famous, Rich, Successful people who just really mess up their lives, Right? They get everything and then they just start making mistakes. And we sometimes think, Oh, How could they make a mistake that big? Well, They don't have equanimity. They don't have a calm and even mind related to their success. It's sort of, It's two sides of the same thing. We want to have a calm and even mind so we're not falling apart when there's a disaster, So we can still do what we need to do. But we also want to have a calm and even mind when really good things happen in our lives. We need a calm, Even mind in both of those. And if we get off track on either of those, It's going to create some problems for us. So, What am I missing? What am I missing? So, Kindness is helping people succeed. It is wanting people to succeed and it's helping them succeed. And compassion is helping people who are really struggling, Helping people that really need help. I'm thinking of, Well, Today I'm thinking of the people in Ukraine and I'm thinking of, Oh, Let's, We need to give money to the Red Cross or something because they're suffering and they need help, Right? Regardless of political views, People are suffering and they need help. And I think we can all agree to that. And so, Those are the four immeasurables, Kindness, Compassion, Joy, And equanimity. And like I said, They're attitudes. They're not virtues to be cultivated. They are virtues to be cultivated, But more than that, They're attitudes. So, I don't want to come from a place where if something bad happens to someone, I start thinking about why they deserve it. I don't want to come from that place. I want to come from a place of when something bad happens to someone, I'm wondering if I can do anything to help. Or I'm, At the very least, I'm hopeful that they will recover, Right? Because we can fall into that trap, Especially, Gosh, I think we really struggle with the homelessness problem in this nation because it makes us really uncomfortable. So, Sometimes we're really tempted to think that when we see a person that's homeless and holding up a sign or whatever, We really are tempted at times to think they could get out of that if they wanted to, Or some version of that. And that's not a compassionate response. That is sort of building a wall around ourselves so that we don't have to feel uncomfortable because it does feel uncomfortable to reflect on people in that situation. And we don't want to be uncomfortable, Right? So, What we're talking about is opening our hearts and the power that is in opening our hearts and being vulnerable. Our culture sort of teaches us that opening your heart's a weakness, Right? There's like that word that people use, Bleeding heart is a word people use and I think now snowflake is a word people use these days. And it's to say, Don't care about other people, Right? I mean, Nobody out loud says don't care about other people, But that's the context of that. But what if we open our hearts to other people? What if we care about everyone we meet? What if we're nice to other people? We can be, Right? And in fact, We all learned that in preschool, I think, Right? Be nice to other people and care about them. But to some extent, Our culture leads us to sort of me, Me, I, Me, Mine, Right? I want to get everything all the time. Screw other people. I don't care who I have to step on. Our culture teaches us that sometimes. And that does not make us happy. It does not make us happy. So, I'm talking about having an open heart and being vulnerable and letting people in because these are strengths and these really, They help us develop all these attitudes. So, They help us, Especially if you have an open heart, Then you have more equanimity. And if you have more equanimity than when things are hard, You don't struggle as much. You still struggle though, But you don't struggle as much. That having a closed heart takes away some of those skills from you. And that is not to say, And I don't want anyone to take away and think, Oh, Well, If my heart's open, Then I have to, For example, Let my abuser back into my life. That's not what that means. Because we also want to have these attitudes toward ourselves, Right? So, While I do say you shouldn't put armor on, You shouldn't put a wall around your heart, I also say you can let someone in your heart without letting them in your house. You can let someone in your heart without letting them in your house. So, If you have an abuser, This is not to say, Oh, Well, You should invite your abuser over and hang out, Right? No, This is not to say that. But it is to say, Maybe a person that you kind of think is annoying, You could invite over to hang out, Right? We can have a softer heart toward a person we kind of don't like, Without saying we have to put everything into this and we have to be friendly to the person that really harmed us. That's not, Boundaries are part of this too. Compassion for yourself means having the boundaries that you want to have, That you probably need to have for your own well-being and sanity, And still having those. I don't mean to say you should put down your boundaries, But you should put down your boundaries. But I do want to say that your boundaries should be helpful and should keep you safe, But also not have a closed off heart, Not have armor around yourself, Because that gets in your way too. And we've all, I know, We've all been kicked in the heart sometimes. So, We all have reasons to think, Oh no, I can't let anyone in. But that gets in our way. That's not what human beings are meant to do. We are meant to be open with other people, I believe that. So, With all of that being said, I'm going to lead a meditation now, And then keep time at the end for questions or comments, If there are any. So, I've got this meditation written here. So, I want everyone to find a comfortable way that you can sit. I'm going to sit here with my feet firmly planted on the floor and my back straight, Because that's how I like to sit. But what, Whatever way you can sit where you're not going to fidget and your feet aren't going to fall asleep or whatever, Is a good position. And allow your eyes to gently close. And pay attention to your body and make any minor adjustments you need to make. So, We want to sit in a way that feels comfortable and alert, Which I don't, I don't know how to do. I don't know how to do it in a way that feels comfortable and alert, Which I don't, If we were on couches or something, You know, Sometimes people fall asleep. I don't think we're going to struggle in these chairs, Though. So, We will start. I'm going to ring my bell, And then I'm going to direct you. We're going to do concentration practice first, And then we're going to go into, We're doing a kindness meditation today. So, I'm going to ring my bell. And I want you to bring your attention to where you can feel your breath in your body. So, You can bring your attention to either the breath coming into and out of your nose and mouth, Or the rise and fall of your belly. And just bring attention to that. Just notice your breath coming and going. This is happening all the time, But we don't bring a lot of attention to it, Typically, Unless there's a problem. Just bring attention to your breathing. And very likely, You've noticed your mind wandering. This is normal and natural. When your mind wanders, It offers you an opportunity to cultivate mindfulness and concentration. Each time you notice your mind wandering, You're really strengthening your ability to recognize your experience and bring your attention back. So, Each time your mind wanders, We want to just bring it back to our breathing. And this, We'll have to do this a bunch of times, Bring it back again and again, And that's okay. We're strengthening our ability to focus with this practice. And we'll just sit here for a couple minutes, Just following our breathing. So, So so And now, I want you to bring into your mind yourself as you're sitting here right now, And try to connect with your intentions for happiness, Ease, And safety. Don't, You don't have to dive deeply into stories about what you want to make yourself happy, But connect with the natural desire that you have for happiness, Ease, And safety. And we're going to cultivate the intention to open our hearts to our own well-being by mentally, Silently repeating these phrases. So, We're going to say this to ourselves, Okay? May I be happy. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be healthy. May I be safe. May I be safe. May I be safe. So, May I be at ease. May I be at ease. And now, I want you to try to bring to mind someone you care about a lot. A good friend, A loved one, Could be a teacher, Or even a pet. Someone that just means a lot to you, That you really care about a lot. And try to connect with your desire to see this individual happy and at ease. Just like you, This being wants to be happy, To feel safe, And to be healthy. Just like you. And so, We're going to cultivate this intention of kindness for this individual as well. So, Just again, We're going to mentally say to our person, May you be happy. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you be safe. May you be at ease. And you be at ease. So, Now we're going to let go of this person from our minds and try to bring to mind a neutral person. What's a neutral person? This is someone that you see and you really do not know them very well. So, It can be someone, A co-worker that you don't really know, Or a neighbor, Or a friend of a friend, Or something like that. So, Take a minute to consider someone that you would say is neutral, That you have no feelings about at all. And although this person is not someone we know very well, Again, We can still recognize this person wants to be happy. And we don't even, For this, We don't even need to know what would make them happy. We just know they want to be happy just like we do. So, Again, We're going to offer these phrases of kindness, Connecting this intention to care about the well-being of a person we don't know very well. A person we don't know very well. So, We will silently repeat these phrases again. May you be happy. Happy. May you be healthy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you be safe. May you be at ease. May you be at ease. So, Next, We're going to let this neutral person go. And I want you to bring to mind someone that you find difficult. And you may not want to pick the most difficult person in your life or anything like that. And like I said, I don't want you to pick your abuser. But choose someone who's minorly difficult. Maybe someone you find a little bit annoying. Especially if there's someone you find annoying and you can't figure out why. So, Bring to mind someone you don't really like. And we are again going to take a moment to reflect on how even this person wants to be happy, Just like we do. Even this person wants to be happy, Just like we do. So, We are once again going to offer these phrases to connect with our intention to care for this person. And because this is our difficult person, We may not really mean it wholeheartedly every time we mentally offer the phrase, But we're going to make an effort and do it anyway. So, Don't beat yourself up if it's really hard to wish for someone to be happy that you don't like. And don't be afraid to do it. So, We will go through these phrases again with our difficult person. May you be happy. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you be safe. May you be at ease. May you be at ease. And you can sort of slowly open your eyes and stretch a little bit, Move around, And just notice how you feel. If you feel anything, Notice how you feel. So, At this time, I'll take questions or comments if there are any. I want to let everybody know I'm really proud of my two boys sitting here not causing any trouble. Good job, James and Truman. Good job. I didn't know what would happen, But here they are being great. So, I would like to know, Do you guys like the practice? Not like the practice? What do you think? There's no wrong answers. It's no wrong answers. All right, Great. It made me think when we brought to mind the person that made us uncomfortable or didn't like, It physically made me uncomfortable. At first, I thought it and I was like, Is this the person I need to be thinking about? And I was like, Okay, It is. And it really, I don't know, I was emotional for a lot of it. So, I really enjoyed that. That's how you know it's working, Right? If it's hard, That's how you know it's working. Yeah, But I wanted to fight it and I'm like, Okay. I'd like to add to that as well because I don't do a lot of guided meditation. I've done some YouTube stuff, Never reversing. That was really neat. I appreciate you doing this. So, About every time I was to where you were feeling, That sounds like a lot of us were like that. Bam, There you are. Let her go, Let him go, Let it go. And then we're on to that next phase so you don't get stuck. Right, Right. In your meditation or you feel like your mind starts to wander where it shouldn't. That's good timing. It was neat. Thank you for reminding me not to think of my abuser. Yeah, Yeah. No, Some people come to this kind of practice and they think they have to 100% get all in right away or else they're not good at it or it's not going to work or whatever. And like if you tried to have positive feelings for your abuser on your first day, You're not going to do this again because it's not going to work, Right? So, I did think that was very important to add. And build yourself up to it. Right, Right, Right. And maybe never get there and that's okay. Again, That's okay. I've been building on that without knowing. And to hear you say it today, It's good timing. Absolutely for sure. Because I live in this practice right now. Not abuser is a strong word, But I share in that aspect of light and olive branch, Right? First. So, The protection of yourself or ourselves and that. What's the backside? Do you have any input on that? Because we're approaching that difficult person or abuser in your words. So, Protection for ourselves. Yeah, So that's why I really like that. I don't know who said it, But I stole it from someone that you can let someone into your heart and not let them into your house. Like, We can have boundaries and stay the heck away from someone, Right? Without sort of what we do. The bad thing we do to ourselves sometimes is we let them live rent free in our head, You know? So, If this is someone I don't need to be connected to in my life at all, Why am I thinking about them? Right? I don't need to be thinking about them. I just need them to go away. And that I think is really the tool that we have. So, Is the expectation for them to go away or for them to go away to us? Do you understand? I do not understand what you're saying. The expectation for them to go away to us means they don't go away, But they don't affect us. Or is the expectation with them to just move on away from us when you talk about a difficult person? Okay. So, We've had difficult people in our lives that we can avoid totally, Right? That we can just get away from. Especially, I'm thinking of friends. I'm just not going to hang out with that person anymore. But at the same time, We have difficult people who are co-workers or relatives, Right? And there are sometimes pretty strict limits on how away from them we can really be. So, What can we do then? That's the question, Right? Especially if, Well, The biggest problem is if maybe they keep doing something. Rather, Not just this is just they were a jerk one time, But rather they keep being bad. But doing, Being difficult, Difficult, That's the word. They keep being difficult and then what do we do? And you can't just change jobs all the time. Right. So, We have to think of ways we can keep that compassion for ourselves. Keep that compassion for ourselves and avoid this person as well as we can. Right, Right. It would be hard if you leave your job every time someone there is a jerk, You might have a tough time, Right? Every time there is a rude person in this place, I just go away. Well, That's a little bit hard, Right? So, We have to have that sort of mindful self-compassion to know where I need to put the boundaries, Where I can avoid difficulty. I need to as much as I can. And that is going to be different for every situation. So, It's not really something I could speak to because there are some levels where different boundaries are going to be appropriate for different situations. So, You got to handle it differently with say a relative than you do with a co-worker. These are very different things even though it's the difficult person. We've got to have that compassion for ourselves though and remember to stay away, At least stay away emotionally and not be pulled in. Especially if it's somebody trying to start arguments or something. We've got to be able to emotionally avoid them as much as we can. And that, Yes, That's really hard sometimes. Good answer. Thank you. All right. Well, Thanks for coming everybody. We're finished here, I guess.