WEBVTT
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This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Happy Sunday,
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00:00:19.460 --> 00:00:21.960
party people. How we doing? Today, we've got a guided
3
00:00:22.019 --> 00:00:25.879
meditation from my friend, Jay Michelson, who's our teacher of
4
00:00:25.920 --> 00:00:29.500
the month for February over on the new app that
5
00:00:29.519 --> 00:00:33.030
we just launched, 10% with Dan Harris. Normally, you have
6
00:00:33.049 --> 00:00:35.119
to sign up of the app to get the meditations,
7
00:00:35.159 --> 00:00:37.719
but we're dropping this one for free. It's a loving
8
00:00:37.780 --> 00:00:41.750
kindness practice, but with a twist. Instead of phrases, you'll
9
00:00:41.770 --> 00:00:45.250
be working with a visualization here. Please do not worry
10
00:00:45.270 --> 00:00:48.670
if you find any of this stuff barftastic at first.
11
00:00:49.270 --> 00:00:51.240
As Jay says, just fake it until you make it.
12
00:00:51.609 --> 00:00:54.810
And the fascinating thing is, even if you're skeptical, the
13
00:00:54.829 --> 00:00:58.640
way I was at first with this practice, it still works.
14
00:00:59.859 --> 00:01:02.520
I mentioned my new app. Just want to quickly remind you,
15
00:01:02.679 --> 00:01:06.040
you can get it if you head on over to danharris.com.
16
00:01:06.719 --> 00:01:08.629
We've got a lot of stuff going on there, growing
17
00:01:09.290 --> 00:01:13.230
body of guided meditations from amazing teachers like Jay and
18
00:01:13.290 --> 00:01:17.489
also Joseph Goldstein, 7A Selassie, I could go on. And
19
00:01:17.530 --> 00:01:20.439
we do weekly live video guided meditation and Q &
20
00:01:20.159 --> 00:01:24.980
A sessions. Join the party. We'll get started with some
21
00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:26.739
meditation with Jay Michelson right after this.
22
00:01:29.709 --> 00:01:33.420
This guided meditation is a variation on the classic meditation
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00:01:33.459 --> 00:01:37.459
practice of loving kindness. If you've done that practice before,
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00:01:37.799 --> 00:01:40.319
you know that it involves bringing someone to mind and
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repeating a phrase as if you're speaking to them. A
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phrase like, may you be happy, may you be healthy,
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and so on. This is a great practice, and I
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recommend it, but sometimes I like to take away the
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verbal element. The words can sometimes bring me into a
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story of what would make this person happy, or compassion
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00:02:01.730 --> 00:02:04.920
for when they're feeling unhappy or unwell, and it can
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00:02:04.939 --> 00:02:08.539
be a little heady. Sometimes, I just like the quiet.
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00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:12.840
So I also like this version of loving-kindness practice, with
34
00:02:12.879 --> 00:02:15.979
more of a somatic element and fewer words, taught by
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00:02:16.060 --> 00:02:19.840
my teacher's teacher, Venerable Ayakima, who was a German-born nun
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00:02:19.979 --> 00:02:23.000
in a Sri Lankan Buddhist lineage. She taught this to
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00:02:23.039 --> 00:02:25.300
my teacher, Lee Brasington, and he taught it to me.
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00:02:27.060 --> 00:02:30.539
So first, let's allow your eyes to close, and we'll
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00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:33.120
take a moment just to ground in the body, feeling
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00:02:33.139 --> 00:02:38.379
the body in stillness. If you're seated, maybe you're feeling
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00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:42.870
the weight of the body on the chair. And in
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00:02:42.909 --> 00:02:46.370
that stillness, we notice the feelings of the breath coming
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and going. Here, let's direct our attention to the chest
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in particular, because for this practice, while we won't be
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focusing on the breath, we will be doing a kind
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00:02:57.460 --> 00:03:01.560
of visualization using the heart center of the body. Not
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00:03:01.620 --> 00:03:04.909
necessarily the physical organ of the heart, but we could
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00:03:04.949 --> 00:03:12.409
say the center of our embodied being. So, we're resting
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the attention on the center of the body. The practice
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00:03:17.219 --> 00:03:19.500
is to imagine that in your heart there is a
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golden warm glow of light. This light doesn't take any
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effort to cultivate, It's already there. And best of all,
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it has no limit. Of course, this is an imaginative exercise.
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If thoughts come up about visualizing a warm glow of light,
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I encourage you to just let those go and see
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00:03:44.139 --> 00:03:47.939
if you can have the experience. As the Beatles once
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00:03:47.979 --> 00:03:50.539
told us, the love you take is equal to the
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love you make. We cultivate this feeling of loving-kindness in
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00:03:54.650 --> 00:03:58.889
the form of this warm, nourishing light. And then, it's
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actually possible to feel it. It's the ultimate magic trick,
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something out of nothing. And don't worry, you can fake
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it at first. So, let's come back to the heart
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center and this golden, warm glow of light. Now let's
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imagine this light filling your whole body, head to toe,
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with warmth and light and a feeling of contentment. Again,
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you can fake it till you make it. This light,
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if you imagine it, can fill and surround you with warmth.
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And it can grow. Imagine someone for whom it's easy
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for you to feel loving kindness. That could be a
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family member or a friend or a pet. Maybe not
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someone with whom you have a complicated relationship, but someone
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for whom it's just easy to feel love or metta,
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the Pali and Sanskrit word for loving kindness. Just imagining
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this person in your presence and now enlarging this golden
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field of light to include them as well. There's plenty
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of this light. It doesn't diminish as you do this.
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In fact, it increases. the more you spread it, the
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stronger it gets. And this warmth, this warm light that
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you're radiating, is the light of care and compassion, of
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well-being and contentment. And you can imagine it emanating from
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your heart to this person or being with you. So again,
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we're seated and still. We imagine that in the heart
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is this warm golden light, and it's filling your body
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and spreading out to this person with you. Surround them
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with this free gift of well-being, of loving-kindness. You can
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even smile if you like. No one's watching. Now, there's
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plenty of warm light to go around, so you can
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imagine one or two or three other people or beings
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joining in this abundant field of warm light. People in
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your life for whom you can easily extend warm light
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of loving-kindness. For example, a sibling or a spouse or
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a friend. Whoever comes to mind, it's not a contest.
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The circle of people grows as you bring more people
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into it, and yet the light doesn't dilute or get thinner.
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It just expands. There's just more of it. we can
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next expand this warm light of loving-kindness to people who
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have been teachers or benefactors in your life. Maybe a mentor,
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or a parent, or someone who's helped you in your
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work life or your personal life. It could be a therapist.
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All of them are welcome, because there's plenty of light around. So,
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with gratitude, we imagine that warm light extending to them
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as well, including them in this field. we can recenter
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back on the source of light in the heart center,
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and then expand it outward. And because there's no limit
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to the amount of warm light that you can radiate out,
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we can include people for whom we don't have strong feelings,
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but who we encounter in our day-to-day lives. Sometimes this
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is called the neutral person, someone who we see at
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a store, or a colleague, or an acquaintance. You might
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not feel the same intensity of loving kindness for this
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person as for the first ones, but that's part of
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the point. We want to extend this feeling of well-wishing
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to these neutral people as well. And it's the same
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loving kindness, the same sense of well-being and contentment. And
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it's experienced as the same warm light coming from the
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heart center, now including people close to us, our benefactors,
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and those in our lives to whom we may feel neutrally.
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And in your heart, this warm light continues to glow,
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perhaps even more as you do this practice. And it
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has such a warm glow that it can include even
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people with whom we have difficult relationships. Let's not jump
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to the hardest ones or the public figures with whom
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we disagree the most, just people with whom we have
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a little friction in our lives. All we're doing is
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extending this warm light, visualizing the light, including them as well.
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The light is not about judgment or forgiveness. We're not
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saying that everything is okay or that every action is okay.
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It's not an evaluation. We're just extending loving kindness in
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the form of this warm light, even to people in
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our lives with whom we have difficult relationships. Ultimately, we
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want them to be happy and safe as well, even
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if we have boundaries that protect us. We can include
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them in this warm light because there's no limit to
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the light. And the more we tend it, the greater
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it grows. It's a light of loving kindness and well-wishing
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and compassion, of wishing that there not be suffering. You
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can imagine this light radiating out to people who are
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around you, whether it's the town or village or city
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or block or building where you find yourself right now.
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you can imagine the expansion of the boundaries of this
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field of light. It can feel almost physical that there's
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this field of light emanating from you that radiates out,
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including all of the people and beings that we've mentioned
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so far, and everyone around you. And finally, expanding this
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circle in our imagination to include a wider area just
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noticing the feeling of expansion. We turn our attention to that,
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to the expanding of the boundaries of this field of
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loving-kindness and compassion. Expanding, expanding, to the point where it
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becomes a general wish of loving-kindness for all beings, people
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we will never meet, animals we may never see, to
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the point where we are no longer at the center,
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since we're not really the ones generating this love and kindness.
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This is the field in which we exist. In our experience,
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it's centered in our heart center, but in fact, it's
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widely available. We can close this meditation by imagining that we,
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in our bodies, You, in your body, right now, are
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within that field of light. Just as you create it,
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so you receive it, and so you float in it.
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It contains us. You're welcome to stay here for a while,
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and when you're ready, you can open your eyes. This
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is the practice of loving kindness.
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Thank you, Jay, and thanks to you for practicing with us.
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And if you want to do more meditation with me
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and all my friends, you can sign up for my app.
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It's called 10% with Dan Harris, and you can get
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it at danharris.com. In fact, there's a free 14-day trial
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if you want to check it out before you buy it. Finally,
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thank you very much to everybody who works so hard
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on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasily.
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Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks
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over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer.
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Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our
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executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote
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our themes.
1
00:00:04.660 --> 00:00:19.399
This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Happy Sunday,
2
00:00:19.460 --> 00:00:21.960
party people. How we doing? Today, we've got a guided
3
00:00:22.019 --> 00:00:25.879
meditation from my friend, Jay Michelson, who's our teacher of
4
00:00:25.920 --> 00:00:29.500
the month for February over on the new app that
5
00:00:29.519 --> 00:00:33.030
we just launched, 10% with Dan Harris. Normally, you have
6
00:00:33.049 --> 00:00:35.119
to sign up of the app to get the meditations,
7
00:00:35.159 --> 00:00:37.719
but we're dropping this one for free. It's a loving
8
00:00:37.780 --> 00:00:41.750
kindness practice, but with a twist. Instead of phrases, you'll
9
00:00:41.770 --> 00:00:45.250
be working with a visualization here. Please do not worry
10
00:00:45.270 --> 00:00:48.670
if you find any of this stuff barftastic at first.
11
00:00:49.270 --> 00:00:51.240
As Jay says, just fake it until you make it.
12
00:00:51.609 --> 00:00:54.810
And the fascinating thing is, even if you're skeptical, the
13
00:00:54.829 --> 00:00:58.640
way I was at first with this practice, it still works.
14
00:00:59.859 --> 00:01:02.520
I mentioned my new app. Just want to quickly remind you,
15
00:01:02.679 --> 00:01:06.040
you can get it if you head on over to danharris.com.
16
00:01:06.719 --> 00:01:08.629
We've got a lot of stuff going on there, growing
17
00:01:09.290 --> 00:01:13.230
body of guided meditations from amazing teachers like Jay and
18
00:01:13.290 --> 00:01:17.489
also Joseph Goldstein, 7A Selassie, I could go on. And
19
00:01:17.530 --> 00:01:20.439
we do weekly live video guided meditation and Q &
20
00:01:20.159 --> 00:01:24.980
A sessions. Join the party. We'll get started with some
21
00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:26.739
meditation with Jay Michelson right after this.
22
00:01:29.709 --> 00:01:33.420
This guided meditation is a variation on the classic meditation
23
00:01:33.459 --> 00:01:37.459
practice of loving kindness. If you've done that practice before,
24
00:01:37.799 --> 00:01:40.319
you know that it involves bringing someone to mind and
25
00:01:40.420 --> 00:01:43.450
repeating a phrase as if you're speaking to them. A
26
00:01:43.489 --> 00:01:46.689
phrase like, may you be happy, may you be healthy,
27
00:01:47.230 --> 00:01:50.730
and so on. This is a great practice, and I
28
00:01:50.790 --> 00:01:54.379
recommend it, but sometimes I like to take away the
29
00:01:54.420 --> 00:01:58.209
verbal element. The words can sometimes bring me into a
30
00:01:58.290 --> 00:02:01.549
story of what would make this person happy, or compassion
31
00:02:01.730 --> 00:02:04.920
for when they're feeling unhappy or unwell, and it can
32
00:02:04.939 --> 00:02:08.539
be a little heady. Sometimes, I just like the quiet.
33
00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:12.840
So I also like this version of loving-kindness practice, with
34
00:02:12.879 --> 00:02:15.979
more of a somatic element and fewer words, taught by
35
00:02:16.060 --> 00:02:19.840
my teacher's teacher, Venerable Ayakima, who was a German-born nun
36
00:02:19.979 --> 00:02:23.000
in a Sri Lankan Buddhist lineage. She taught this to
37
00:02:23.039 --> 00:02:25.300
my teacher, Lee Brasington, and he taught it to me.
38
00:02:27.060 --> 00:02:30.539
So first, let's allow your eyes to close, and we'll
39
00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:33.120
take a moment just to ground in the body, feeling
40
00:02:33.139 --> 00:02:38.379
the body in stillness. If you're seated, maybe you're feeling
41
00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:42.870
the weight of the body on the chair. And in
42
00:02:42.909 --> 00:02:46.370
that stillness, we notice the feelings of the breath coming
43
00:02:46.409 --> 00:02:51.469
and going. Here, let's direct our attention to the chest
44
00:02:51.560 --> 00:02:54.520
in particular, because for this practice, while we won't be
45
00:02:54.599 --> 00:02:57.419
focusing on the breath, we will be doing a kind
46
00:02:57.460 --> 00:03:01.560
of visualization using the heart center of the body. Not
47
00:03:01.620 --> 00:03:04.909
necessarily the physical organ of the heart, but we could
48
00:03:04.949 --> 00:03:12.409
say the center of our embodied being. So, we're resting
49
00:03:12.449 --> 00:03:17.080
the attention on the center of the body. The practice
50
00:03:17.219 --> 00:03:19.500
is to imagine that in your heart there is a
51
00:03:19.580 --> 00:03:24.159
golden warm glow of light. This light doesn't take any
52
00:03:24.280 --> 00:03:28.389
effort to cultivate, It's already there. And best of all,
53
00:03:29.210 --> 00:03:35.520
it has no limit. Of course, this is an imaginative exercise.
54
00:03:36.340 --> 00:03:39.860
If thoughts come up about visualizing a warm glow of light,
55
00:03:41.659 --> 00:03:44.099
I encourage you to just let those go and see
56
00:03:44.139 --> 00:03:47.939
if you can have the experience. As the Beatles once
57
00:03:47.979 --> 00:03:50.539
told us, the love you take is equal to the
58
00:03:50.580 --> 00:03:54.610
love you make. We cultivate this feeling of loving-kindness in
59
00:03:54.650 --> 00:03:58.889
the form of this warm, nourishing light. And then, it's
60
00:03:59.009 --> 00:04:03.199
actually possible to feel it. It's the ultimate magic trick,
61
00:04:03.620 --> 00:04:07.139
something out of nothing. And don't worry, you can fake
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it at first. So, let's come back to the heart
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center and this golden, warm glow of light. Now let's
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imagine this light filling your whole body, head to toe,
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with warmth and light and a feeling of contentment. Again,
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you can fake it till you make it. This light,
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if you imagine it, can fill and surround you with warmth.
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And it can grow. Imagine someone for whom it's easy
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for you to feel loving kindness. That could be a
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family member or a friend or a pet. Maybe not
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someone with whom you have a complicated relationship, but someone
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for whom it's just easy to feel love or metta,
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the Pali and Sanskrit word for loving kindness. Just imagining
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this person in your presence and now enlarging this golden
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field of light to include them as well. There's plenty
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of this light. It doesn't diminish as you do this.
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In fact, it increases. the more you spread it, the
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stronger it gets. And this warmth, this warm light that
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you're radiating, is the light of care and compassion, of
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well-being and contentment. And you can imagine it emanating from
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your heart to this person or being with you. So again,
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we're seated and still. We imagine that in the heart
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is this warm golden light, and it's filling your body
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and spreading out to this person with you. Surround them
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with this free gift of well-being, of loving-kindness. You can
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even smile if you like. No one's watching. Now, there's
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plenty of warm light to go around, so you can
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imagine one or two or three other people or beings
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joining in this abundant field of warm light. People in
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your life for whom you can easily extend warm light
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of loving-kindness. For example, a sibling or a spouse or
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a friend. Whoever comes to mind, it's not a contest.
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The circle of people grows as you bring more people
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into it, and yet the light doesn't dilute or get thinner.
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It just expands. There's just more of it. we can
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next expand this warm light of loving-kindness to people who
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have been teachers or benefactors in your life. Maybe a mentor,
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or a parent, or someone who's helped you in your
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work life or your personal life. It could be a therapist.
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All of them are welcome, because there's plenty of light around. So,
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with gratitude, we imagine that warm light extending to them
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as well, including them in this field. we can recenter
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back on the source of light in the heart center,
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and then expand it outward. And because there's no limit
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to the amount of warm light that you can radiate out,
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we can include people for whom we don't have strong feelings,
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but who we encounter in our day-to-day lives. Sometimes this
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is called the neutral person, someone who we see at
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a store, or a colleague, or an acquaintance. You might
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not feel the same intensity of loving kindness for this
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person as for the first ones, but that's part of
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the point. We want to extend this feeling of well-wishing
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to these neutral people as well. And it's the same
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loving kindness, the same sense of well-being and contentment. And
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it's experienced as the same warm light coming from the
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heart center, now including people close to us, our benefactors,
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and those in our lives to whom we may feel neutrally.
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And in your heart, this warm light continues to glow,
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perhaps even more as you do this practice. And it
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has such a warm glow that it can include even
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people with whom we have difficult relationships. Let's not jump
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to the hardest ones or the public figures with whom
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we disagree the most, just people with whom we have
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a little friction in our lives. All we're doing is
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extending this warm light, visualizing the light, including them as well.
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The light is not about judgment or forgiveness. We're not
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saying that everything is okay or that every action is okay.
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It's not an evaluation. We're just extending loving kindness in
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the form of this warm light, even to people in
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our lives with whom we have difficult relationships. Ultimately, we
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want them to be happy and safe as well, even
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if we have boundaries that protect us. We can include
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them in this warm light because there's no limit to
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the light. And the more we tend it, the greater
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it grows. It's a light of loving kindness and well-wishing
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and compassion, of wishing that there not be suffering. You
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can imagine this light radiating out to people who are
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around you, whether it's the town or village or city
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or block or building where you find yourself right now.
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you can imagine the expansion of the boundaries of this
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field of light. It can feel almost physical that there's
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this field of light emanating from you that radiates out,
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including all of the people and beings that we've mentioned
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so far, and everyone around you. And finally, expanding this
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circle in our imagination to include a wider area just
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noticing the feeling of expansion. We turn our attention to that,
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to the expanding of the boundaries of this field of
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loving-kindness and compassion. Expanding, expanding, to the point where it
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becomes a general wish of loving-kindness for all beings, people
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we will never meet, animals we may never see, to
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the point where we are no longer at the center,
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since we're not really the ones generating this love and kindness.
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This is the field in which we exist. In our experience,
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it's centered in our heart center, but in fact, it's
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widely available. We can close this meditation by imagining that we,
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in our bodies, You, in your body, right now, are
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within that field of light. Just as you create it,
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so you receive it, and so you float in it.
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It contains us. You're welcome to stay here for a while,
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and when you're ready, you can open your eyes. This
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is the practice of loving kindness.
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Thank you, Jay, and thanks to you for practicing with us.
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And if you want to do more meditation with me
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and all my friends, you can sign up for my app.
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It's called 10% with Dan Harris, and you can get
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it at danharris.com. In fact, there's a free 14-day trial
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if you want to check it out before you buy it. Finally,
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thank you very much to everybody who works so hard
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on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasily.
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Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks
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over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer.
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Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our
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executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote
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our themes.
