This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Happy Hour: Metta Shapeshifs into Compassion as it Meets Pain. It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Nikki Mirghafori at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
Hello everyone, and welcome to Happy Hour. It’s lovely to be with you and to practice together. For today’s practice, for tonight’s, or whatever time zone you are in—it may not be night where you are—I’d like to lead a more stilling, more silent, more embodied expression of metta1 and compassion. I’m going to be starting with metta, leaning into compassion. Compassion, essentially, is when metta—goodwill, friendliness—holds suffering, holds pain, or any challenge that there might be in the body or in the heart. So we’re going to go back and forth between these two practices. That’s the plan. I won’t say a whole lot more; we’ll just explore and discover as we go. How does that sound?
Let’s get settled. Let’s get settled and arrive in our bodies, in this moment in time.
Arriving, settling, and then inviting ourselves to first and foremost feel this feeling of just sitting here, having your body. What does it feel like to be sitting here and having a body? To have a body. And can we relax into this body? Notice if there are areas of tightness and holding in this body.
How is the neck? How are the shoulders? Can we have a sense of kindness about the neck and shoulders and invite them to relax, to release however much is available? Or perhaps simply bringing a caring attention to the neck and shoulders. We don’t pay enough attention with care to this body. How about we gently, gently bring care, appreciation, gentleness, friendliness to the muscles in the neck and shoulders, and proverbially put down the weight of the world just for a moment. We can all pick it up again—all the worries and fretting—if we choose to later. But right now, choosing to put it down. Putting the weight down. Just this moment.
And then inviting our hands also to settle, to relax. As if we were breathing with our hands, let our hands take a breath. These hands have been doing so much—perhaps feeding us, cleaning us, working. Whatever they’ve been doing, so much. Maybe give them a moment of rest with care and appreciation and goodwill. What does that feel like?
Perhaps borrowing from the practice last night we engaged in: what is not wrong in this moment with these hands? What is not wrong? They are not broken in my fingers; they’re not bandaged right now. What is not wrong this moment, right now?
And can we invite our feet to also relax? Our feet and our legs, to offer their weight to the Earth with friendliness. Dear feet, dear legs, especially dear feet. They carry the weight of the whole body—quite an accomplishment. The fine structure of the bones, muscles… wow. Relax, dear feet. Rest, dear feet. Dear, dear feet. Thank you for all the steps you’ve taken today.
And inviting the sit bones also, the area of contacting, connecting, settling, releasing this body onto the cushion or the chair. The sit bones relax, offer their weight to the Earth, to gravity.
And can we invite the breath to flow just as it is flowing, any way it wants to flow? And allowing the breath to be received through the body, the sensations of the breath within the body, receiving them with kindness, gentleness, with friendliness to this entire body. Breathing, digesting, healing, pumping blood—all that this body is doing. Dear body.
And appreciation, friendliness for the dear mind. Planning, usually thinking forwards, backwards, past, present, future. No need to do that right now, but not to make an enemy out of thinking and the mind and the emotional states. Can there be a sense of spacious friendliness with what it’s like to be human? To think, to feel? Having a spaciousness about it, not diving into it right now, but having goodwill, equanimity. Yeah, this is what it’s like, dear me, to be human. Yeah. Appreciating the whole, the whole catastrophe, with a smile.
And if the mind starts to feel busy and active, we release gently, with friendliness. Release the thoughts and come back to the breath, the sensations of the breath in the body. Just rest. Just rest. Nowhere to go, nothing to do. Just rest with kindness, gentleness. A reprieve for a moment.
Maybe allowing one part of the body to come forward to receive a bit more metta, a bit more friendliness, goodwill. What part of the body is moving? If all the parts of the body were standing in line, one part is like, “Oh, I need a little more love. I need a little more love tonight,” or appreciation. What might it be? It could be a part of the body that is challenged, perhaps. Maybe it’s the back, lower back. Mine is stepping forward like, “Yeah, I’m hurting a bit. I can receive a little more love.” If there was no discomfort, it might be, say, the hands, like, “Oh yeah, I’ve done a lot today. I can get some more love.” Or maybe you went for a fast walk, and the feet step forward in line and say, “Oh yeah, I can use a bit more love.”
A bit more metta. Perhaps, if that feels appropriate, allowing that part of the body to be wrapped in more care. The whole body wrapped in the blanket of metta, but this part even more so. Appreciation with care. And if this part that’s volunteered to receive more metta is perhaps in pain or has a bit of discomfort, maybe this practice then becomes a practice of compassion. Because when goodwill, friendliness meets pain, we’re practicing compassion. Just as simple as that.
So simply bringing goodwill, kindness to the body, to this part of the body. “Oh, dear part of the body, I appreciate you. I care for you. May you have ease.” Maybe there are words, maybe it’s wordless, just radiating goodwill and care wherever it’s needed.
If you’re working with areas in the body that are challenged, can you imagine that you’re putting a soothing salve, a soothing salve which is enriched with your care, with your love, with your friendliness on that part of the body? Giving extra care. Not to get rid of the discomfort—that’s not the purpose. It’s just to care. Just to care. Because if we have the agenda of applying metta, goodwill, in order to get rid of what we don’t like, it becomes an aversion practice. Allowing it to be just as it is and showering it with care.
And as we’re showering our body, a particular part of the body, can we bring this metta, this goodwill, to the whole, to the gestalt, to the complete whole of the body parts and this being who is me? Wishing yourself well. “I wish myself well. I hold myself with kindness and care. May I have ease. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be safe. May I have ease.” In whatever order you like, whatever order these metta phrases work for you. Or perhaps simply, “I love and accept myself just as I am,” or “I wish to grow to a place where I love and accept myself,” or whatever nuance. Or maybe just sticking with, “I wish myself ease. May I have ease. May I be a friend to myself.”
Can there be kindness both to yourself and also if judgmental thoughts are rising? Can there be kindness to them, to these thoughts, and a very lightweight, lighthearted gentleness? “Oh, here they are, the usual army of judgmental thoughts.” You don’t have to believe them.
And as we turn to bring this meditation to a close, appreciating yourself for having showed up as best as you were able to, planting seeds. Planting seeds of kindness and spaciousness, wholeheartedness, friendliness. And trusting that there’s been co-created goodness in our practice together, and with generosity, sharing all this goodness with all beings everywhere. May the cultivation of my heart be a cause and condition for all beings everywhere to be happy, to be free, including myself. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free.
ding ding ding
That’s our verbal bell. Thank you all for your practice.
The arc of our practice tonight was we started by wishing parts of the body ease, inviting ease, settling in the neck and shoulders, putting the proverbial weight of the world down for just this little while, knowing that we can always pick it up after the session. Just to have a respite, so that we can have more stability to be in the world as things keep changing and shifting and being impermanent in the way that they are, and challenging in the way that they tend to be.
So, neck and shoulders, our hands, inviting them to rest, having gratitude, imbuing them with appreciation. Our feet, similarly. Inviting the breath to flow as it likes to flow, with appreciation. And then the whole body, a sense of goodwill, friendliness, gentleness. So, metta as a way of gentle friendliness for body parts.
And I invited you, if there’s one body part that needs more care, to wrap it in more care. And if that body part happens to be in pain or suffering, having a difficult time, then our metta practice, our goodwill practice, becomes compassion practice. Because remember, care or metta, goodwill, plus suffering—when it holds suffering, that’s compassion. Compassion is equal to metta plus suffering. Metta plus pain. Goodwill plus pain. So in that way, metta, goodwill, shapeshifts into compassion when it meets suffering and pain. And it shapeshifts back into goodwill when we’re meeting, perhaps, the body if there’s no suffering or pain.
So we explored that a little bit. And then I invited you, if you’re opening up to the whole body, body parts, then, well, guess what? This whole, you know, my self, my dear self, is made up of all these parts. So can we wish ourselves well? “May I be well. May I be safe, happy, healthy, have ease,” or whatever phrases work for you. And staying with those phrases. So, that was roughly the arc of our practice.
Diana: This was a wonderful meditation, really bringing me back to all that’s good and present, and so I really enjoyed it and got a lot of benefit from it. I have a question about something you said earlier, about metta shapeshifting into compassion when there’s pain. For me, it just seems like it happens automatically. Is that what you meant? In other words, sometimes compassion comes without me thinking, “Oh, what do I need here?” It just pops up.
Nikki Mirghafori: That’s exactly it. That’s what I mean, Diana. That’s exactly it. It’s a surprise, somehow. Yeah, it just shows up. A couple of different things. I think one is, yes, it’s lovely that it comes up when it’s needed, right? That since you’ve practiced compassion for so long, and part of Happy Hour, when there was pain or suffering or difficulty, oh, compassion is the automatic response of the heart. Instead of beating yourself up or beating somebody else up, like, “Well, you’re having a tough time today, well, get it together, girl.” Instead of that, it’s like, “Oh, sweetheart, you’re having a hard time. Okay, do you need care? What do you need in order to feel better and be able to meet the world in a wiser way?” So that’s the automatic response that comes up, right? Instead of the former, the latter. That’s one part of this.
But I was making a different point, Diana. The point I was making with the shapeshifting is the following: sometimes some people have this conception that compassion is one practice and metta, loving-kindness, is a different practice. But what I’m saying is that they’re joined at the hip. It’s really metta, it’s goodwill. So goodwill is the basic expression of friendliness of the heart. And when goodwill comes across someone who’s suffering, or if that someone is ourselves, when metta meets suffering, it becomes compassion. It shapeshifts. It’s the same thing. It’s not of a different ilk; it’s just the circumstance of what it’s meeting. But it’s the same kindness, goodwill, care of the heart. It’s not a totally different practice. It’s the same practice of the heart that now is meeting difficulty. That’s what I mean.
Diana: I thought that’s what you were saying. I just thought it was a wonder. It’s just something for me to wonder about, as in a wonder. A miracle or something. Thank you.
Nikki Mirghafori: Thank you so much.
Claire V: An extension of Diana’s question: would empathy fall into the same mix?
Nikki Mirghafori: Yeah, so that’s a really good question. Think of empathy as a constituent of compassion. It’s not—empathy is not equal to compassion. Empathy is a constituent. So we need empathy to feel our own pain—it sounds strange to say that—but to feel someone else’s pain. And to think of that aspect as the meeting of the pain, the acknowledgment of the pain, right? So compassion has two aspects: it’s meeting and acknowledging the pain, and then holding it with care. Okay? So the empathy is the meeting of the pain. It’s just meeting. And if you stopped at empathy, that would be empathy practice.
And empathy practice alone, without that care, warmth, kindness, can veer into empathic distress because you’re just feeling the pain. “Oh, this is painful. Oh, this is hard. Oh, poor you.” You can veer into actually pity also, or empathy distress, which some people think of as compassion fatigue, but it’s actually empathy fatigue. So empathy is a constituent, but it doesn’t have the complete picture of holding the difficulty, not just meeting it, but also meeting it with kindness and care and warmth.
And some people consider, again, going one step deeper, you can think of empathy, especially as you’re empathizing with someone else’s pain, as the way that our bodies, our hearts, our brains light up. There are areas in the brain that become more activated when we see other people being in pain. So there are studies where if you see someone, for example, being poked by a needle, then you feel pain, like, “Ouch, ouch,” right? That’s the mirror neurons. That’s the empathy. You’re empathizing with someone else’s pain. That’s not compassion, right? Compassion would be, “Ouch, that’s painful. Oh, that’s hard. Oh, dear one, I wish you well. I wish you freedom. I wish you ease from this pain.” There’s that care that you bring. And different areas of the brain light up when it is compassion, not just the mirror neurons, the pain centers, but also the filial, the warmth, the care areas of the brain get more activated when you do compassion practice, because it’s both. It’s feeling the pain and holding it with care. And that I cannot emphasize enough. Makes sense? Thanks, Claire. Thanks for that question.
Metta: A Pali word meaning loving-kindness, friendliness, goodwill, or benevolence. It is the first of the four brahmaviharas (divine abodes) and is a practice of cultivating universal, non-attached, and selfless love. ↩