Aspects Of Loving-Kindness | Mindful Q&A With Wendy Nash #34

In this thirty-fourth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we delve into the various aspects of Metta / Loving-kindness ranging from the more common place to those that may be not as well known and the many aspects in-between this boundless, immeasurable state. Share whatever you'd like about Metta in the comments or just watch to help strengthen your own practice

Transcript

Welcome this is Josh integrating presence and Wendy Nash is back again with me.

Wendy what's up?

Well just before you came on air I got a half an hour ago I got an email from my accountant it's tax time and she said here are the queries that we have you need to send this more information and I went ah and I tried to get everything done and I just I just need to get that one little thing done and I'll do it after the show.

Yes.

Yeah I know how frustrating that is because I had to file this extension for my taxes and I finally got that done excuse me and what a relief that is to finally get that done I know what it's like to have that last little piece and just like want to get it done so you have that to look forward to after this.

Wow my voice is go ahead.

Husky husky.

I'm just waking up here I guess.

So I'm here on gubby gubby country in Queensland in Caboolture and I wanted to know whether in so in Australia everybody has to submit a tax return every year I don't know if that's the case in the U.

S.

You know I mean basically if you're alive you need to pay taxes you know I think it's if you owe taxes then you need to file them and pay them there are instances where you don't like for me I'm a unique case right now because I'm not making enough money what I'm doing now to making a living from it however because I have a business quote-unquote you know or actually a technical business I have to file so I have to spend all this time all my time collecting everything that I've done you know with my website with online with with training and I have to report it all even though I don't owe any money I still have to and then I I don't want to do this so I pay someone luckily I have someone that's fairly affordable to compile all the proper tax forms I mean it's enough for me just to go through gather all the information and submit it to them and kind of have it worked out so where they're not spending so much time and understand all the different things to report so to me it's it's kind of ridiculous but you know and then the Danish tax system is it's really unique it's really complex but I think it's really efficient too so I don't know enough about it to speak too much about that but they say what the death and taxes are the only certainties in life really kind of a cliche but well in in Australia most people you have an accountant and they find you've done research and it's like you use an accountant and you actually get a better return so most people use an accountant in Australia everybody has to submit a tax return except it might not be for people with disabilities so so we had some responses here okay gamers team has says hi bro how are you well there's bro gal so bra bra yeah um inappropriate no I mean uh this is guys talk to each other not really appropriate here but anyway hey um you know if the spirit's good hey how's it going um Melissa Reed chimed in I think on the last one and she said she enjoyed it we made some good points looking forward to the next one so that's cool so let's let's jump into it here and uh taxes are no taxes and I I'm pretty sure in Denmark the the scat the the Danish tat which is interesting because they also call their loved ones scat but it's also the name of the tax system which I think is brilliant by the way yeah yeah it's it's it's I think it's pretty much everybody can just go online and do it themselves unless it's really complex so it's kind of the same way in America if you don't have too much I mean if you're just an employee you have one tax form I think in not a very complicated finance finances then it is fairly simple and you can do it yourself but I mean a lot of people do opt to have either a full professional accountant or like me I have a it's almost like a financial advisor and a tax filer so so it's not a full-blown CPA set or certified public accountant that's really kind of hardcore but you know that you're going to get kind of but yeah so this is somewhere in between and then you can just actually have a friend who really likes numbers and know what they're doing you know help you out and file it for you I guess yeah hey we've got some responses yes apparently we have an extraordinary number of deductions that you can claim so our tax system is really um overly generous and uh yeah there's a lot of conversation about that at the moment but yes we have some comments so zoom 2944 says hello hello back gamers team replied you are girl so at least we know it's a person now not a um not a bot just always nice interesting english by the way though you are girl okay all right well you know you don't know where people come from you know what it's like you don't speak your danish is a bit rough and rusty so there you go well non-existent basically but you know there you go so there you are your name and um mrs reed is hi wendy hi josh well hello lovely to have you here and post your questions we will answer them yes real time so or any comments but i love the questions it is and i actually got one the other day when i was doing a live event on loving kindness i can bring that in here too and get bounce it off you let me read the quick intro i have here um in this 34th installment of the ongoing live series with wendy nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we plan to delve into various aspects of meta loving our loving kindness ranging from the more commonplace to those that may be not as well known and the many aspects in between this boundless immeasurable state please join to share whatever you like about meta or just help strengthen your own practice so this is um you know i would love to even go on a retreat to just do in just one second get the screen bigger here um to just do meta on a retreat and i've never done one of these to just dedicate entire retreat i would love to do that so the question i got the other day though i might as well just jump into that since this is a q a is um somebody said basically along the lines what happens if you're being too passive and people are walking all over you and yeah and so this is um this is what i say all the time i basically said well you know if you're being abused you have to get out of that situation no matter what if you stay on the couch or whatever of a friend but it basically said no i'm not that it's just so then i we talked about boundaries which is what we talked about in the last thing and actually uh being assertive so some people really have a hard time like speaking up or a challenging time speaking up and being assertive while other people are the other way around where they need to dial it down and they come off too harsh and yeah but it's for this the more passive it's about asserting a boundary and then strengthening it and saying hey you need to respect this boundary or otherwise i can't you know take other tactics to to to reinforce that yeah so so how do you view this windy if if someone feels and metta kind of gets a bad rap a loving kindness thing oh people are gonna take advantage you that's one of the most common criticisms we hear i mean i can respond to that but i want to hear what you have to say first yeah so boundaries i always think about it as if you love a child do you let them eat ice cream every day for every meal and of course if you love your child you're not going to do that you create you you know that what is the thing you know they have to eat vegetables and different grains and meat and all these things to be healthy so i think that we do know boundaries instinctively when it comes to that i think sometimes it can be difficult to know how to speak up without being aggressive um or because i think we we can be quite anxious about how do we do it and we bottle it up and bottle it up and bottle it up and then finally we say something and it all comes out wrong because we haven't said it when it's a tiny little thing we've said it when it's like kabang so i think that's a learning curve to experience and to play with personally that's what i think and i think that um it's it's hard sometimes to even know whether you're whether you're whether you're in a and an abusive relationship so i was in an abusive relationship once and it took me 10 years to figure out how abusive it was because that it was very subtle and i thought oh i can't say it was very subtle abuse so and it made me understand how do people get into abusive relationships and how difficult it is to get out and how it can be difficult so i think um if you are planning to leave an abusive relationship i think it's really important to call the hotlines and the support lines there are people who do amazing things and they will help you do that in a safe way because it's not straightforward um but all that aside uh if you're if you're not feeling if you if you don't know how to respond you're feeling like taken advantage of how do you know that it's not always straightforward but i think that often what i do is i will sit down and meditate and i will say and i will kind of bring it to mind this problem and i will say to myself internally inquiring very gently what am i not seeing about this or what needs to be known here or what's being overlooked and i find that that often brings up quite a good awareness and then i go oh that's what's going on and once i've connected into the emotional i guess gate which is open or merged i suppose with the other person so it's like my shadow is somehow merged with the other person i can't distinguish who is me and who is them what is my need what is their need and so that often helps reveal well this is me and that is them and then it's very clear and straightforward i've been teaching a friend of mine boundaries with her kids and that's that's quite not quite not always straightforward because she came from a um quite an aggressive family system and so she doesn't want to do that so she feels mean but we've been working through it so it's been really fun for her to learn and and the kids are heaps happier for it so that's what i would say you know this is um this is a really complex topic you know human relationships aren't always so straightforward simple and easy right we know that and there's so many subtleties involved so many causes conditions intertwined um and then you know the the communication side too so like you're saying and if it is somewhat of an abusive relationship we know that there can be very sophisticated mechanisms of abuse you know there's there's all kinds of things going on from gaslighting to um you know um narcissism and they don't always have to be on full blast either they can be very masterful and they can be very um clunky you know they can be there not all the time um so it is a tough one and i i would like to echo wendy's thing about going inside asking that question and sitting with the answer i found that so helpful in just about every aspect of my life um so you know we can do this um outside of our regular formal meditation practice and sometimes it just happens in the formal meditation practice too you know so it is tricky too with um you know am i seeing this clearly or not and then we start doubting ourselves so that that could be really dangerous too but we all there also needs to be a check that i'm not also overreacting and being diluted either because then i can not only get them in trouble but myself in trouble too i think another tip is um knowing having the wisdom and discernment who to tell and when about it what what of our friends and how much to tell them and then you know um and what not to as well because if i'm completely off then i you know then it might cause more problems than it might get but if i hesitate when i could it could be so much easier on both of us and maybe even other people in in our various circles if i do speak up at the right time to a friend to get support to get feedback you know so this is why friends are so so important and the this aspect of meta i like the translation of unstoppable friendliness it is kind of a it's a friendliness too it's um it's a well-wishing and the other thing i was reflecting on this morning when i was doing this practice is um you know the cultural context that it's in so meta in denmark to me looks and feels so um i would say significantly different than when i remember 20 years ago when i was in san diego california where you have a bunch of just like free-flowing overt love hey man oh it's just so great everybody's so you know warm and loving and and up front and just uninhibited but in denmark everything uh to me it seems so balanced um straightforward you know like i i it's it's like hard to get an end point because it's um i don't know i look at more of an equanimous uh equanimity you know that everything's really balanced and it's also i think important to point out here that loving kindness isn't the right approach for all situations in life but the brahma viharas pretty much i find are one of the best ways to to to relate to the world to our just about any relational aspect it's um there's a flavor of one of these four that i find appropriate even if it's kind of just holding them all together at once and i can go we can go into more about how like each one meets uh whatever situation we're in so i just thought these are interesting things to reflect on yeah so just um ahmed amir has uh joined us and says meditation is a form of prayer for buddhists so i think that's a statement rather than a question and i think i i'm not really one for prayer so i don't know what prayer is like for people but i think it's certainly a wishing anyway i've never really i've not followed that um a belief system like but am i buddhist yes i am buddhist josh i think you are buddhist too is that right i might i may as well be one i don't think technically you know i kind of weasel out of it but i do mostly buddhist practices and study so i might as well even though i don't yeah yeah it's you're a closet buddhist pretty much yeah and uh he says hello exclamation mark so hello and it's funny uh here too is i i also got a question uh the other question i got the other day was is is meta kind of a prayer or can i is prayer a form of of meta and um and what i said is well anyway did you have anything else to say on what i said before i go into that wendy or uh just about denmark i read this week that denmark does compassion training from for children from i think 6 to 14 or something like that every week it's part of their curriculum and they have much lower rates of bullying so i thought that was super interesting and i thought oh well if i ever run into an education minister i might just mention that this is something that happens because imagine you don't have all those horrible experiences of um bullying imagine this doesn't happen so that's great so ahmed amir asks have you ever read about islam i have never read so much about islam i have friends who are muslim but i and i went to their wedding and and everything but um it's a theistic religion and i have never found that christianity worked for me so i can't see that another uh abrahamic religion is going to work for me either so yeah so josh yeah you said um you said they do compassion practice is that what you said in denmark okay yeah yeah and uh i just i i have to i have to kind of agree here on one hand one says you know well maybe people shouldn't teachers shouldn't get involved in in in kind of molding and shaping you know um forcing people to do certain practices but then i'm like no wait a second um you're forced to do a lot of stuff in school anyway and i wish i would have had less bullying i just how it's so awkward to be an adolescent and in school to begin with and then when you get bullied luckily i didn't get too much bullied i had somebody like slam books out of my hand before you know and just silliness like this and throw them on the floor when i was carrying them in the hallway and stuff like that so i mean it's just ridiculous stuff like that it's just like you know it's just like kind of lose faith in the the human race and stuff and there's a whole psychology to to this but i would i would have to agree with this you know anything to improve the quality of life that's authentic and someone wants to do it you know and it's just a basic common human decency i want to go back to this prayer thing in islam i actually lived with a few guys from tunisia when i was in school they weren't really they were i guess they were technically muslim but they weren't practicing or anything like that you know what i mean um so that's that's my little familiarity i haven't actually studied it much i think i read like uh oh there's one um secretary uh sectarian famous author in a spiritual sense uh come here oh i know i'm blanking on the name now no well rumi is really popular in buddhist circles too by the way and i was just going to say that sufi some of the sufi teachings i've heard of too but let me just it's mysticism yeah i mean it's islam it's sort of you know yeah it's and i think my understanding is the rumi text or i have been misinterpreted i think that's yes i've heard that too um now i want to say there's this um i love this really short prayer from shanti deva i think this is in the tibetan tradition and to me this is i i just want to read this real quick because it's it's so lovely and it speaks to kind of all the brahma vikaras and i guess it's technically a prayer but yeah usually buddhists don't pray and one other thing i wanted to mention is pretty soon i might be able to talk uh maybe go on a podcast there's going to be a huge buddhist um a worldwide prayer um time of prayer or something for world peace and it's not the technical thing and i think it's more in the vajrayana but maybe i'll be able to say more about that somebody invited me on to to talk about a certain huge worldwide event that that may be coming up and i that's about all i can say now before i know what i really need to say about it but okay so this is by shanti david says may i become at all times both now and forever a protector of those without protection a guide for those who have lost their way a ship for those with oceans to cross a bridge for those with rivers to cross a sanctuary for those in danger a lamp for those without light a place of refuge for those who lack shelter and a servant to all in need for as long as space endures and for as long as living beings remain until then may i too abide to dispel the misery of the world and i'm just like wow um i think it's i think that's advanced practice josh i think it's beyond advanced practice and you know i i don't want to go too much into this but those on a bodhisattva path who want to stay in this thing you know for who knows how ridiculous amounts of long times that are unfathomable it it kind of gives me um kind of gives me a fright a little bit i mean i can't imagine you know i don't know it's very admirable and these are very high-minded high-hearted things and lovely i mean could you imagine if everybody like had that as their operating system around i mean how much the world would transform but then again i i it's out of reach for most of us i mean you know i look at that i'm just like oh wow what a lovely sentiment but how practical is that for me and other people and you know some things don't have to be practical though so um so in tibetan buddhism i've studied it a little bit and the great masters the great teachers they say anybody who is studying buddhism and looking to be you know aspiring in that in that way so it's not saying so may may i always it's not saying i must always be may i always it's a it's a wish a desire and i think we can say well i do wish that and i try really hard to behave like that but my cat is here and she's whinging and whining at me and sometimes i'm not always patient so you know i'm human too so and i think if you if you don't have joy and lightness and humility oh gosh you're a bore so i think you have to be you just have to be yourself this is really important wendy that's a great notion that this is a kind of an aspirational in a practice it's not a thou shalt not and you fail if you're not doing it to a certain perfective degree and yeah it's a really important part of this method practice and yeah maybe we'll bring in here you know these different flavors and what you talked about there is balancing this out because yeah if you do kind this rejoicing of mudita the other brahma vihara this is uh comes more lightheartedness and rejoicing and in the happiness part instead of this you know meta is considered a well-wishing too which i i like it's just this um wishing for goodness for yourself and others and um yeah so uh you know what's the best way to go about that and i think another aspect that's really important is authenticity what feels real you know and there's some days where it just doesn't feel right so um if we're doing a practice here oops i gotta pop up on my screen um you know what what's accessible what's like what feels authentic right now and some days it can be this notion of you know when that meets kind of suffering it wouldn't met to meet suffering it turns into compassion and sometimes we can't have it's just not accessible so i like a teacher's response with this is can i have compassion for the fact that i can't have compassion right now and i love framing it in a consideration it doesn't have to be okay it either is or isn't it's like can i sometime in the future uh consider maybe perhaps giving it a thought that it might someday be possible you know even like that's a way in yeah so a couple of things i think ahmed amir i'm not sure if you're on the right one but we're on this is a buddhist uh this is a buddhist q a i guess so happy to answer all your questions about buddhism we're not really um i'm not against islam but i just it's not the sort of i guess place for it so just a heads up on on that one um there was something there what was i gonna say you were just saying and i got distracted by by that what were you saying josh a second ago well i said i said i said um like a well-wishing and oh if if you if you know maybe someday in the future i could consider i know what it was so one teacher i don't know if you know her jill shepherd do you know jill and yes i did yeah i love that there's an australian buddhist teacher and i really love her down-to-earth practicality and really helpful especially when it comes to probably the horror practices yeah she's often in australia she's from new zealand but i think she spends a lot of time at oh thanks for yes okay she's she's a kiwi there yeah um and she said one time there was somebody and he really struggled with uh meta practice loving kindness practice and he just and so he he started this thing where it was may i have the possibility that potentially there could be an opening um and towards a direction of um potential suggestion for loving kind you know and he had this whole thing and she said it was like a united nations document that it had so many caveats in there so but nonetheless he did it and he did it for about three days and then he went oh this is ridiculous why don't i just do loving kindness so i think it doesn't it's fine to be really hesitant at the beginning and um and yeah so i think it's good to recognize that this is where you're at and then kind of yeah lose it so and and then just go yeah anyway wake up i'm not i'm not gonna be doing it so yeah you know the the the this is being honest and straightforward with herself too and now um i just read the comment in there and what this brings up for me is um this is a classic antidote to ill will you know um so and it's it's it's interesting because it can be both a kind of personal practice and an impersonal practice you know there can be it can be practiced towards others ourselves you know and actually multiple groups of beings and it's just a well-wishing and it's um an antidote to ill will like i was saying so the the historical buddha he didn't really advocate killing anything other than slaying ill will so that's not a human or an idea ideology this is a energetic reality right that when i have ill will to me how i kind of define that is a thought or a notion arises in the mind and i'm aware of it you know and it's it's it's something where i want to harm someone for some reason whatsoever or no reason whatsoever and then i consent to that i i say that's okay yeah that's okay for that to be there so that's what i consider ill will right so sometimes these um due to our past actions and things like that are just different circumstances these things will arise that i want to you know i i have ill will in the heart that i want to maybe um see someone suffer or have some kind of harm come to them or something like that but if there's a choice then i say no i don't want that that's not me that's not who i am i do not consent to that i do not want that so that i don't consider ill will but when i consciously say to go along with that that that's okay then i consider that ill will that's what i say so metta loving kindness is an antidote to that so instead of suppressing this energy that's you know some of us have and i'm sure we've all experienced this in our lives it can actually turn that energy around on itself and use it to destroy that ill will you know and so um so this um and then i like athena sorbicus practicality about this what if someone is being abusive towards us you know oh you're gonna be may you be safe may you be happy may you know it just doesn't feel right right so what he recommends and i feel this is kind of real um is you say you know may you come to know the errors of your ways and change you know for the benefit of yourself and for the benefit of me and all beings you know so it's actually actively acknowledging that what they're doing is harmful and hurtful and in saying you know may you come to wisdom and know of your actions that are being harmful you know and another thing is um there's this verse from the dhammapada that ill will will never overcome ill will only non-ill will can overcome ill will this is an ancient and eternal law and so you know it's so easy i think to have one have revenge you know they did me wrong and i'm going to do them wrong and then justify all my actions because of it but the thing is it will never end like that this victim victimizer going on and on and on you know and just uh justifying actions through anything you know um through through through deities through you know um ideologies something like that but if we look into that and feel into this for ourselves someone has to choose differently and say okay i'm not going to do this anymore i choose to not do this and look at the really long view and that's the only way i see out of you know this otherwise it just is self-perpetuating cycle for what you know it you know if you want well-being and peace then then someone has to choose differently and choose not to do this and i'll just go into one more quick thing that i love i find so um like a pinnacle of this simile of the saw if even if a bandit was uh this comes from the historical buddhism even if a bandit was ripping my arms limb to limb sawing them and you do and i you if a bandit was doing it to you right and you do not have absolute loving kindness towards them you've misunderstood my teachings i mean if that's actually a possibility i mean i don't see how you can really get beyond that i mean most of us are obviously so far from but it's kind of the spirit of that that that what if that was possible what would the world look like you know um even if we just refrain if even just the whole human race refrain from killing one human being or any human beings in one day how different the world would look and we take that for granted but i know i say this a lot but uh that's not everybody not everybody on earth can say that you know so for sure i was just thinking with her so i came up with this sort of idea a while ago which is um that um i sort of stepped through and i can't remember whether you and i have gone through it before but it's basically you bring to mind an emotional hurt and then you have an identity that emerges as a result of that which is something like i'd never behave like that to someone else did we do this before in another one no and then um you know so you might hurt me and i go oh well i'd never do that to you and then and then there's something about um you don't care about me because you show care in this other situation but you don't show the same care with me and then you bring and then you ask yourself what am i bringing to the table and and then inquiring further which is what is your history when you have behaved like this before so it takes the assumption that you have and then sometimes you can be um you can you can present vulnerability for for that person so there's a way you know maybe um yeah yeah and then also the next one is what emotional blind spot are you unconsciously revealing to the other person that they themselves can't acknowledge about themselves and then um noticing the emotional need does this person have the capacity to have the emotions in the way that you would like them to have so there's a bit of a long step there but um yeah it's sort of interesting to think what am i bringing to the table in this i found that really helpful and i've worked with my friend and she finds it super helpful to go well it's actually me who's being really horrible and abusive to my husband it's actually not my husband who's being abusive to me this is interesting but she's going he does this and he does that and then i'm going i'm not sure it's him actually i think maybe you're a player in this too so yeah it's like yeah you you want it we are q and a today's meta meditation questions so are we still on track with that conversation i think so you know this is um i think any kind of human relationship um meta comes into it and um so in this instance that you're talking about how we meet another person what we bring ideally we bring a heart of goodwill we want the best for ourselves and the other person but like you're saying this um what's theirs what's mine you know um who's doing what who's responsible for what did they really do this can anyone actually um be responsible for how i feel 100 what's my role in that what's their role you know how do we meet how do we not really accuse how do we end these cycles of victimization and being victimized um how do we not victim shame but how do we not stay in victimhood um and use that um to justify all kinds of things and how do we get true empowerment so all these um wonderful amazing questions but when it comes to meta i feel that's what kind of meets everything in our lives and then when it meets suffering then it switches to compassion right and when it when it when we talk about the good side when meta meets um you know someone that's having like a lot of good things happen in their life that turns to mudita and we can rejoice and instead of getting jealous which is so easy to do which i fall into out of habitual things and i think maybe a lot of us do and then i can say oh no i can be happy for their happiness i don't have to be jealous or think that i'm missing out or why doesn't this happen to me why can't i feel good i don't feel good right now why are they feeling good you know and so i can be rejoiced for their happiness and this also this notion of equanimity sometimes um we can't really do anything you know there's not much we can do but what we can care we don't have to be indifferent we can say everyone is responsible for their own actions you know um i can't live their life for them that that what they've um you know it's not the most appropriate thing to say in certain situations say oh you you know you did something in your past because you know so that's what you're experiencing now not really the most uh skillful thing to say but there is there is a lot to that you know when i do um intentional action it's gonna have a result you know if it's skillful it tends to have more and vice versa so kind of realizing that but then um um like when when we there's nothing much we can do i think so this is these are um as far as i know the pentacle of human relations and it's okay if we're we're not there these these are practices these are you know we can aspire to these we can find whatever flavors of these we find helpful and accessible and real and practical you know so what's your favorite meta practice like how do you practice meta so that it's it's actually lands deeply and it changes the way that you are in your relationships with others with people who are difficult and hurtful how do you do this well that that's a really good question i'll just um tell you like what i did my morning practice before i said i was of course this is meta so it made sense to do a little bit more meta this morning but actually my um practice has been a little bit more artificial and wrote lately i'd think um but it's still even that i feel whatever's whatever's possible i would just since i'm more verbal recite phrases you know may all beings everywhere be safe inside and out may all beings everywhere be happy and joyful but actually feel whatever's possible here and that the intention is what matters to really wanting that as authentically as you can because i know it's going to benefit myself i'm the first recipient of all this right i'm going to benefit from it but then when everybody else has the same they feel safe around me and um you know that there's really nothing but benefit that can come from it may all beings be peaceful and calm or no peace in their heart may they be healthy and strong and may they realize awakening and be free so it's this it's this um yeah well-wishing but today you know what i i have these crows in europe you know they are in america too but in denmark and um england especially um they just they creep me out a little bit you know and you watch movies and tv shows there's usually crows um happening when something significant's going to happen to someone and it's usually not the best most positive loving you know uh thing that happens and so i'm like okay i noticed that that you know i have this kind of superstitious pre-loading thing into this and how am i going to be with that you know um so you know it sounds a little bit ridiculous but i'm wishing the crows well you know even though i kind of feel feel i felt this kind of i don't know like dark cloud energy and uh but at the same time there were songbirds singing too you know so a lot of times life is a mix of things um and how much is in the mind you know how much is there something to it and of course in this instance nothing really beyond that has happened and um so so that's that's an example of being more on a remote place like this but as far as human interactions um i do find this thing what we bring to the table um is going to affect how we meet someone is going to condition uh their response back to us if i'm you know it's just really basic common sense in a way if i'm grumpy upset and sour and scowling at someone when i interact with them there's probably a not a good chance that i'm going to be met with something that's completely the opposite and loving and bright and just you know oh oh hey you know because it's our tendency usually is to match the other person's energy this is another thing this um method practice it does informal practice it builds up this reserve this reference point okay i know how this feels i have this feeling now and i i know this energy and it's it's getting strong and and stable and now when i'm mindful in an interaction if someone meets me with a certain energy instead of just unconsciously lowering myself to to to match what they're doing and because we kind of do that naturally to resonate with someone to meet them where they're at now it's it's interesting but when we do have a choice to meet them where they're at but also to stay consciously choose not to match their energy to stay in a more stable ground whatever energy we choose and that meta i find is really helpful to meet so i can meet them be empathetic and know what it is but then choose to respond with a different type of energy a more beneficial type of energy for them and myself when i'm being mindful you know so that's that's one of the things when i am that that i can find very helpful because you know when i go down to some someone and match the same type of thing then i just kind of it's just two people in a world of messiness you know and the other thing is to switch to compassion too is to say hey i acknowledge this i'm not pretending this isn't here i'm meeting this i mean this is painful this sucks and i want it to i wish for it to go away and for you to know peace and i know kind of my limit on what that is and when i need to withdraw and then practice uh kind of compassion for myself because sometimes it can be too overwhelming you know and then what about you indy how do you how do you so it's interesting i was just thinking of two things um one actually was from yesterday so i had a meeting uh maybe it wasn't yesterday maybe it was just this morning and i had a meeting with somebody very senior and um at council and my husband also works at council so i'm an external and i have my community transport group and he he works as a staffer there and he was talking about his experience about meeting this senior manager who i was meeting but another time like a year ago and he just felt this really unpleasant energy and so i was talking about it and we were talking about and we go so how does somebody get to that way like they don't come children don't come into the world like that just watchful and scanning and all the rest and so we just hypothesized about i wonder what happened to him as a little boy you know you don't know we sort of both know his physical size and what could have happened and we we just created a story and we went oh maybe that happened or this happened or that happened and suddenly instead of seeing him as this frustrating person who's xyz we just went ah he's like this and suddenly the little boy was sort of came alive and we could understand and engage with him at the human level as a vulnerable person so it was very interesting and as soon as we had kind of created this story about him we went ah and it felt resonant so we weren't skipping over or masking of oh you know maybe he had this but it was really like well what is it that we experience feeling into that and going maybe that's what happened i mean you just don't know anybody's lives and he's certainly not going to be telling us so it was very interesting because his experience and my experience is so completely different because this person is actually very charming with me so it was just interesting to see that but my favorite practice that i have been doing for several years now probably a decade or so now is just to look for every single thing that someone does that helps me feel at ease which is so so helpful so um like you're here today with good energy you're coming with good spirits and it's a sunny day you've arranged a lovely backdrop um my accountant contacted me before and said i can't complete your tax return unless you provide these and you know at some level i mean if she was not diligent then well i wouldn't be able to do that and so that helps me feel at ease i go oh yeah okay she's doing a good job great i'll send that back very very clear about yep bullet points this is what i want so and that just made it super straightforward and then this morning somebody i had a bit of an exchange i had i met again bumped into a colleague who i haven't seen in a while at a networking thing and we so hit it off and she's going to connect me with this person and that person and then she and i are going to connect and actually this morning i had a cup of tea with a friend and i've been living here for three and a half years and i just bumped in because i'm on a bicycle and she's on a bicycle so we sort of bump into each other we have you know she's married i'm married and we have gone out and done things lovely lovely couple and she said basically she said uh let's meet and sort of uh develop our friendship and she was quite overt about that it was a really sweet gesture that well i don't have any friends and who has friends these days you know like really who has friends that they catch up with anymore everyone's sort of on their phone and you catch up with people maybe going out to dinner or something but i've moved and here there's no restaurants to go to and i don't know that many people we move a lot it's it's you can't go somewhere and where there is a group of people often anymore because there's no group of people you try and do something and then it doesn't work and then that's that so that people try things and then it falls over because there just is no longer this critical mass to keep the community going it's all sort of false so it was really lovely that she just reached out to me to have oh let's have a cup of tea and and came forward with that suggestion so it was really really delightful so these things and really helped me with my day and yeah that that's so cool and going with that and then working backwards um this is it just reminded me of this aspect of metta and how important it is for friendship too if we're doing unstoppable friendliness and this kalyanamita this is a buddhist term for like spiritual friendship and how he even said that's the entirety of the path and windy illustrated this so um importantly how this is happening more in a post-cov world here post whatever lockdown world and uh i i do i do see the same thing and i mean it's a little bit different traveling internationally and being in foreign countries and things but when i was in america after this too it is challenging to get together in real meat space as some people call it um but this is where i have to really um i value the the few friends that i do have i really value this i have i have to take the well i don't have to i mean sure they they reach out from time to time but if i really want friendships um i have to take the initiative and i just done that and i the few relationships that i that i really value and maintain i will actively and it doesn't have to be all the time and another good sign of friendship i find is i can use a long amount of time and then just get back in touch with them and it's like no time has passed the person's not angry or anything it's like oh cool you know and just kind of almost pick up that's a rarity and so i i value it that's really precious to me but like i'm going to house sit for friends when i get back you know i keep in touch um you know when i with certain video calls every once in a while with it with a few people and then i make kind of i i go through the effort to make arrangements to schedule i'll just throw out of time okay well they invited me over to their house so i'll actively just set a time and say hey we can change it whenever and just to have something there we can easily change it but if i don't throw that out and take the initiative there's not a lot of incentive for people to to actively do that you know for for you you know so that's why i kind of take the lead on this for things that i value but i love these chance encounters too they're amazing we have to have opportunity in our life to to make these things happen be open to these things because some of the most amazing things happen when we least expect it but then when i'm too rigid in my ways and say oh no that's a lovely gesture but i'm kind of i want to do this and i have this habitual thing to do this and i'm not opening up to do that but also be understanding that hey even though i like i have a friend here i'm just rejoicing because he got um kind of i have a lot of uh students now a meditation teacher and he just doesn't really have the time to meet up because he's so being so successful right now which i think is overwhelmingly joyful and i'm just so glad for him and i'm actually happy that i can't meet him because he's having so much success because what he's doing is what i want too for myself and for everyone so of course i'm just overjoyed it's a little bit bittersweet of course you know that you know that i'm gonna be a little selfish that i can't meet meet up with him and talk um but that's okay you know i i got that chance before and it's lovely now with the guy um um thank you so much for reminding me of this guy well actually when you say it reminded me of your metta practice of when other people have brought me ease that is i was going to bring up the the original metta sutta and read it again i read it on a past episode so maybe i'll link to that but may all may you be at ease maybe that's that's the of all the different kind of well-wishing in that sutta that's the one that has the most refrain may you be at ease you know not a dis disease a dis ease but at ease and you hear me i'm ramped up here i'm getting enthusiastic you know so in brightening but um it can't be stressed how much how how uh wholesome and usually i think with a protestant work ethic we sometimes confuse this for laziness or you know not doing enough or not caring enough and i think that's another aspect that you what we are human beings you know um we're not human doings we don't have to do say or be any particular way to be worthy and valuable and be here and put a worth on just being you know the state of our beingness not our doingness not this or that but just how we are in a natural state and how much ease and well-being that fosters and how we don't have to perform do anything right or get anything wrong or anything like that or not living up it's just okay just to have things as they are that's totally okay that ease is conducive to samadhi practice too and so i thank you for that because it's so much easier for me to transition into my formal breath meditation when i can recognize okay where where have someone contributed to ease in my life and where have i contributed to ease in other people's life and if nothing comes to mind then i can wish that for myself i can wish that for others and wishing that ease is it it i think qualifies it in some way there and it helps condition the heart even to more towards more recognition of that in priming the mind and my teacher reminded me of this guy and i think it's kind of a cliche in a way but it's still so helpful and actually it's not putting yourself in someone else's shoes uh i just i need more of this because my tendency is to to be judgmental sometimes even though you know i think it's for i won't go into justification but when i just stop and say okay what has this person go through you know this thing that hurt people hurt people so something has happened and i like wendy's way of connecting she doesn't know and it's probably not appropriate to go up and say hey you know um what happened to you where you're such a dickhead you know sorry you can't you know that's not helpful right but so you know um but putting yourself in those other people's shoes and well i don't um just a reflection on that is kind of my tendency wendy has like uh most people connect with the story so when you create a story like that i would say maybe the only danger is then starting actually forgetting and then mistaking that that's actually what happened and that's how he is being very very careful not to mistake that for what happened but it really brings the immediacy right we hear someone's story we kind of connect almost immediately with them we can oh yeah now i get it now i can understand you know so i find that really helpful interesting technique to do that yeah so it's a beautiful thanks for sharing that yeah i was thinking about um so a couple of weeks ago the house opposite new people moved in and when the people when we moved into this house we we i mean i i'm very extroverted so i just go up and i'd say hello to everybody but there is no um but there was there was no kind of help or support i mean i guess we're a middle-aged couple so they thought oh yeah well they'll just organize it there's no help or support so when the family moved in across the street they i said here's a tray and with mugs and tea and coffee and milk and sugar and some fruit for the kids and a knife and a chopping board whatever and it was just a complete godsend for them they just loved it and so when the new people moved in just next to my neighbors that i just mentioned um so they had done a whole lot of renovation works and the neighbors on the other side they had been providing food for the guys the sort of you know i think it was the father in the house and then the grandfather so to speak and um and the other guys who were the mates and so they provided a whole lot of food on the weekends for these guys who otherwise wouldn't eat and then in the house opposite when everybody moved in they got stuff for their kids and my then just opposite me she did something and i gave them cups of tea and what and i gave them some fruit and things and i also gave some tea towels tea towels really handy when you move into it's like oh my goodness and also toilet paper sometimes when we moved in we didn't even get toilet paper so it was so important to like practical things it doesn't have to be just energetic i think sometimes we can mistake energetic help for being helpful but if you're in a flood zone if you're moving house but i would say that um it would be in if you want to build community where you live you start doing that every time somebody moves in you take a cup of you take a kettle and some mugs and cake and tea and coffee whatever fruit and you just give them that and then when they've you know say oh we'll give it back when you're ready you know and so the new people who moved in just like a couple of weeks ago i said they've never come across anything at all like that and they've lived in all sorts of different places so they've bought that house and they just feel oh we have made the right decision instantly they've got you know surround sound kindness that's so beautiful practice wendy um i think yeah hygge in denmark is really but i guess it's different i don't know if it'd be out of place to do that or not but this culture is teaching me more restraint which i can which i benefit from but that is i if i would have known that well they always say if everything else fails try a gift but you can go right off the the big bat it just you know yeah it feels like you're you're you belong you're welcome everyone it's it's a kind of a deep in um ingrained need that people have or even if it's not a need it just feels so kind of welcoming and stable and you have someone that you that has made contact with you know gone out of their way to make you feel welcome that that could be of support and that you know that i can connect with so yeah i mean you can't really say good enough about this then we did a show compassion and action and that's right you know um is everything okay how can i help is there anything i can do you know these are things even just offering that sometimes when we almost know that they're gonna say no no thank you for all but anyway it's just that that gesture of offering and but then actually backing it up if there is something gonna go to whatever makes sense for you to actually do and i i think we don't yeah these these are complementary we can do it energetically but we can do it in real life too so yeah what's most needed in the moment and what do i have available to offer and it being okay with okay i really don't have the capacity to offer that now i might want to and consider it in the future um but even that i think counts is just considering it even if i don't feel like i would that's not my personality style i wouldn't do that but just considering and hey that's a maybe that's a possibility or maybe i can show a similar gesture in in a different way you know um or something like you know just feel what what's uh feel into what feels authentic and helpful and what you're willing to do and i think uh if i can use that practice that would be great and i wish there was more of a tea culture in america but maybe you might just bring like a a soft drink or i don't know what you would bring uh hopefully not junk food or beer or liquor or something but i actually you know yeah it's really just a kettle i don't know if people make homemade coffee like coffee with instant coffee or something like that but you can take it yeah yeah whatever you do to make your coffee that sort of thing exactly here's another instance so um we're about to wrap up in one minute but i'll give you this super short story my longer standing friend texted me the other day to say that her mom had just died and her mother's very elderly and been long awaited so there you go and i said to her people will want to offer to help so designate a friend of yours who lives nearby to be the contact person and you just offer you just give that you know that person's phone number out and then that person can be the liaison person to go how can i help because you don't want to have to deal with all this grief and papers and funerals and everything else and then have to go and how can i help you know you want somebody you want some sort of something useful so yeah that's another way of doing it so let me get that let me get that uh right so you um at a funeral you have a contact person that takes all the people that want to help deal with all the offerings that want to help i think that's really so so she's just like her she's at home and her friend has died and her mom has died but you could say your spouse has died and you're dealing with you know having to make all these arrangements dealing with your own grief you've got family members and you want to you just don't want to have to deal with other people so much and so i said designate a friend to be the contact person so when somebody says how can i help you can say jenny can you contact them and give them some ideas about how they can help so it's so great windy because yeah my instead of saying oh i'm sorry for your loss or things like this i say how can i help you know is there anything you need is there anything is but the people are so i know it's too much that's brilliant you need to give somebody else that task we're at time josh we are so thank you for that suggestion too it's really it seems really helpful so may you all out there have the most optimal loving kindness practice whatever that means for you and may it benefit you and all beings everywhere have fun until next time yes be light and joyful be kind and remember those who promote in your life right so tightly all right thank you all for joining and maybe we'll see you next time