Joy and Gratitude: A Practice in Nondual Presence
Guided Nondual Meditation by Michael Taft
Hello and Welcome. I’m Michael Taft, and we’ll do a guided meditation for an hour. Then you get the privilege of hearing me talk about something—blab on and on about something for a while. And then we’ll bring the microphone around to anyone who wants to report or ask questions or whatever. And then the very very very very very last thing will be a silent meditation for maybe five minutes, or an hour if people are feeling it.
Okay. So, we’re going to begin with a little bit of movement.
[guided movement]
Okay, let’s do our mani mantra.
[chanting Om Mani Padme Hum]
Good. So just rest in that energy of peace, of kindness, of caring, of joy, of love. Allow yourself to set your thinking mind aside and just rest in simple presence, in openness for a little while here together. If you want to, you can continue to recite the mantra mentally or just sit quietly, but set your thinking mind aside. It’s not necessary. It can continue thinking. It can continue doing its job, but we’re just not really tuning into it. We’re tuning into presence, spaciousness, openness. If you want to, you can, as I said, continue with the mantra or you can just be aware of your breathing, but in a very gentle open way, not hard focus.
So again, just sitting in simple presence, which just means resting outside thoughts, awake and aware to being here. There’s really no technique. You just don’t engage with your thinking and keep coming back to being. If your mind is really racy and it’s hard to disengage, it’s okay to do the mantra or to, as I said, sort of notice your breathing. It can often help to have your eyes a little open just because it keeps you real present—don’t have to, but it’s helpful.
And we’re just easily, in a very relaxed manner, resting in awakeness, resting in the boundless openness of our own awakeness and presence. If you find yourself re-engaged with thought, just let it go and come back to simply being. The trouble, if you want to call it that, with simply being is it might be kind of incredibly boring. Nothing’s happening. That’s, in a way, the good part. We’re not trying to change our state. We’re not trying to go into some cosmic space or trippy experience. We’re just resting in presence and awakeness.
So rather than trying to kind of get involved in some kind of super experience, we’re coming back to the total mundane experience, just the absolute quotidian. Just sitting here being experience. Feeling the body sensations. Seeing lights and shapes and colors and textures. Hearing the sounds of the world around. Maybe noticing some emotional sensations passing through. And in whatever other way, simply being present.
Very good. Now, what I’d like you to do is feel or picture a person, or child, or animal, that you love or care about—even an imaginary one—and feel, or visualize, or kind of put yourself in the mood of, seeing that being as being very happy, doing something that makes them joyous. And then all you’re doing is, as you’re picturing that being experiencing this joy, this love, this pleasure, this exuberance, this aliveless, this thriving, then you’re feeling how good that makes you feel also.
Okay. So again, if you aren’t good at visualizing, that’s okay. You just feel that that’s happening. If you are good at visualizing, that can be really helpful—you actually picture it. But either way, we get in the mood that we’re witnessing, let’s say, a little puppy, or a child, or someone you really love or really care about, just being super happy—and really feel it, or really see it. Don’t just kind of ballpark it or phone it in. It really matters—the details, and how it feels, and how it looks, so that you start to feel that joy rising within you based on another person’s joy.
Notice this isn’t you getting what you want. This is somebody else getting what they want—yet it’s making you feel joyous. And if you want to, you can switch beings, if, for whatever reason, it’s easier to do more than one. But it’s important to not get complicated about it. Make it direct and simple and beautiful—not but that can’t really happen, and you start going off into some sad thing. Stay with the joy in a way—it’s like the Kodak moments, these absolutely beautiful moments of someone’s real joy, and how good that makes you feel. We spend so much time trying to make ourselves happy, but it’s very easy to find joy in someone else’s happiness—it might be even easier. And there’s no minimum amount here. It’s not like you have to be bursting with joy or something. Just notice that you feel happier. Feel the joy in your body.
And then just for a moment, ask yourself, who—or what—feels the joy? Then just look back into your own experience, and try to find the one who’s joyous. It’s so interesting. The joy is real, and at the same time, we can’t find the enjoyer. It’s just joy.
And from this space of greater openness and greater ease, let’s bring up more people. The people around us may be more family members or extended family or friends. But in the same way, in the simplest, least complicated way, see them doing well, or feel that they’re doing well. And really either visualize the presence or feel as if you’re in the presence—or both—doing what they’re doing and becoming really happy, really lively, really at their best—beaming and laughing, expressing true thriving. Feeling the feeling that arises in the body when we picture that.
If you want to, you can use the standard phrases like, “May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free from suffering,” that kind of stuff. Some people find that helpful—with the wish that they be joyous and happy and healthy and free from suffering. But don’t feel like you have to do that. The real sense of these other beings finding that immense amount of joy is itself enough. And really see if you can feel the joy, the happiness, the love, the radiance in your own body somewhere. Maybe in your smile, maybe in your heart, maybe all over. But actually take the time to feel it directly in your body.
Very good. Now, let’s just expand this to the whole world. And this is the challenge and the opportunity, if you like, just feel as if, or imagine that, every being in the whole world is thriving. Every being in the whole world is happy. Every being in the whole world is experiencing peace. Every being in the whole world is free from suffering. Every being in the whole world is happy. And in whatever way, picture that, or feel that, and wish that that be the case. And then feel the joy that comes into your own being with that.
And again, if you want to, you don’t have to, but if you want to, you can use phrases like, “May the whole world know peace. May the whole world know joy. May all beings everywhere be free from suffering. May all beings everywhere, be healthy, and so on—and really feel as if that’s real. Picture that is real and feel yourself. Respond with joy.
Okay, good. Now, we’ll do something a little more challenging. So feel free to not do it if you don’t want to. But I’d like you to do a similar exercise. It’s not the same thing, but a similar thing with someone in your life who is causing you lots of problems, lots of trouble, someone who is a real difficult character in your world. I want you to picture—in whatever way, or feel—as if they’re doing well, and they are at peace, are happy, are healthy, are joyous, and wish them well. May they be happy. May they be healthy. May they be free from suffering, and so on. It’s a little harder. It’s a little harder, but see if you can actually at least wish them well and picture them, or feel as if they’re doing well.
So notice there’s a lot more resistance potentially with this one. And if you just can’t do it because it’s too fraught, then come back to someone that’s very easy to work with. But I invite you to try to work with someone who is really bugging the crap out of you, and giving you a very hard time, and see if you can just wish them well. And not in the sense of well, if they were happier, maybe they’d bug me less. Not like that. Just straight up, may they be happy with no conditions. Well, if he was happier, he wouldn’t be such an ass-hole—that’s not where we’re coming from here.
Notice we have to let go of whether they deserve it or not, or whether that somehow takes something from us or not—all of that. We’re just dropping all of that, and just directly wishing that another suffering being on this planet just be free from suffering.
Okay, good. And again, if that’s too hard, feel free to go back to the easier exercise. But I want everyone to ask themselves the question, who’s even doing this meditation? And look back into awareness itself. Where is the being doing this meditation? Find that being. Look hard. Notice you cannot find one. All you can find is the looking. There’s just the awakeness itself. Awake space—openness, spaciousness—that’s it. And from that place of open spacious awakeness, let’s try an even harder one.
Pick your most hated political figure, whoever that might be. Whatever one you think is the least deserving of anything good in this world, except maybe a good kicking. You just don’t like them. And I want you to find space in your heart to hope that they become happy and healthy and free from suffering and find peace.
And if you can really picture that happening, if you can just actually bring it as an ardent wish. May they actually be happy. May they actually be healthy. May they be free from suffering. That’s hard, isn’t it? But do your best. They were an innocent, beautiful baby once, and are some kind of miracle of creation as much as anybody else.
Okay, very good. Now again, just ask yourself who’s even doing this meditation, who’s having this experience. Look, try to find that being or whatever it is. Allow awareness to look back at itself, so to speak. And notice you can’t really find anything. There’s just awareness—just awakeness and openness.
Now, switching gears slightly, I’d like you to think of whatever the best things are in your life, and just see if you can feel some gratitude for them. Doesn’t have to be giant gratitude—if it is, great—but just think of the best things in your life, and see if you can be grateful for them. And if you want to, you can just do it like talking to yourself silently—I am grateful for this. I’m grateful for that. And it helps to add in a thank you there too. I’m grateful for this. Thank you. And see if you can really feel the gratitude coming up. A sense of in a way how lucky we are.
Very good. And now let’s flip it on its head. This is difficult, but I want you to take the most difficult things in your life, and see if you can be grateful for those, too. The worst, most difficult things in your life. Just try it. If you can’t, that’s okay. That one’s hard.
Okay, good. Now drop all of that. Set all the imagining and thinking and efforting aside again, and just come into simple presence. Just sit wide open, wide awake, totally simple. Disengage from any thinking. Wide open, wide awake, grabbing on to nothing at all. The moment you grab on to anything, just relax and let it go. Come back to just resting in openness. When we grab onto something, then we’re closed down. So just release all grabbing and rest in spaciousness and ease.
Okay, good. And if you want to allow the spaciousness and ease to manifest the mani mantra again with me.
[chanting]
That is the mantra of the bodhisattva of great compassion, just feel, or wish that compassion and kindness and peace and love and health and freedom and joy is radiating out in all directions, to all beings everywhere, and radiating back from all directions, from all beings everywhere. And just feel that ardent wish, that everyone everywhere be happy and peaceful and healthy and free.
Okay, very good. Let’s end that there.
So it’s hard to do some of these. It’s of course pretty easy to think of a beautiful little child and think of them as happy and it makes you happy—and that’s worth doing. It’s a powerful exercise, and it’s a very reliable way to change your mood, and bring about a much more joyous state—especially in the body. You can feel it in the body. It’s important not just to keep it all in your head but to feel it as an embodied experience. The presence of joy, the presence of happiness, the presence of love.
But it’s quite a bit harder to wish that for somebody who’s giving you a really hard time or somebody who’s giving the world a really hard time. And yet, of course, it’s still worth doing—and maybe even more worth doing. We might imagine well, if enough of us wish that, maybe it will really happen—and I don’t know. Maybe, but let’s just set that possibility aside for a minute and just talk about what it does for us.
I don’t know about you, but I can certainly spend a lot of time wishing certain people would die—and the sooner the better, the quicker that happens, the better the whole world will be. And while that may be quite sincere, it’s probably not the most healthy thing to keep going in your system all the time. And again, maybe magically it will work. I hope you know, but it’s like again, let’s just set that aside. Think about what it’s like to just hold in our system resentment, hatred, anger, and negative wishes like that. It’s probably not the best thing for you or your psychology or even your health to kind of hang on to.
I don’t know, like a black magic wish—it’s not it’s not that great of a thing. And of course, if it works, it’s not probably that great karma either. As the Buddha said, if we hold on to our anger about another person it’s somehow going to harm them, really it’s harming us. It’s like shooting yourself and hoping the other person dies—it’s only harming you.
And so to find those places where we really got that kind of energy and—not in a massively guilty or shameful or even you know fervorous way try to deconstruct it, but rather, just, in a gentle, soft, easy, way, kind of open that up a little bit. It’s a very good thing. I play with Play-Doh a lot, because I have a little child, and so we spend a lot of time playing with clay and various clays, not just Play-Doh. But they dry out they get really stiff and really crumbly, so every once in a while you’ve got to put some water in there and then you can’t just put water on the surface of it. You’ve got to spray it and then work the water in. And you’re working the water in and little by little it changes from being all crumbly and dry and stiff to being supple and soft and moldable again.
And with these kinds of meditations, that’s what we’re trying to do with our stiff-ass hearts that are kind of armored up and have a lot of resentment and anger and stuff. You put some, let’s just say, water of love, on them, and try to work it in there. You can’t just spray them. You’ve got to work it in. And you notice, at first it’s not that easy, because we probably don’t spend enough time doing that, and so it gets really dried out and really crumbly and really hard and stiff. And so it’s almost like working oil into leather or something. You just got to work it and work it and work it until it becomes supple again.
So that’s what we’re doing with our own hearts, when we’re doing exercises like that. And hint, it doesn’t matter how much of a master of concentration, or a master of this or that technique, or what retreats you’ve been to, or anything. None of that counts if your heart isn’t soft. If your heart isn’t open, if your heart isn’t loving, if your heart isn’t awake. Doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It just means you’ve got to work on that, you’ve got to work on your heart. The name of the game is having an open heart. And the weird thing is, the more you work on the heart, and you work in that gentleness, and the softness, and the water of love, into there, then the concentration is effortless. Then concentration becomes very easy.
In fact, you may notice if you do some of the meditation we were doing tonight and it starts really kind of working—not that it’s supposed to be a giant emotion—but you can feel the feeling, and it’s genuine. You’ll start going into a very peaceful place that’s very still. So the heart is the key to meditating. It’s not your mind. Everybody thinks it’s how good you are at all this mental stuff, but it’s how childlike and innocent and naked and sweet your heart is. And if you have a haunted old cobwebby, creaky, broken, dry old heart like me, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It just means it needs some refreshing. You go in there and you work it a little bit. You work it a little bit. Nobody’s lost.
But paradoxically what’s the fastest way to get into a super concentrated place? What’s the fastest way to notice awake awareness? So, it’s the fastest way to have your energy rise. It’s all about your heart. Open your heart. And so, I think the biggest misconception, or stumbling block, or thing that we get wrong with these kinds of exercises is that we imagine two things. One is that we think that it has to be gigantic, and if it doesn’t feel gigantic then I suck at this, and I don’t like doing this. Actually, even if you can feel one little molecule of openness coming in—focus on that—there it is, that’s the thing. It’s just like going to the gym. It’s not like, oh, if I can’t bench 450 pounds, why am I even bothering? That’s not how this works. If you’re benching at all, it’s working. Go do it and do a little more next.
Just start where you’re at and give yourself credit. So there’s a weird thing where people feel like somehow it’s a contest and they want to be really good at it. We can just be where we’re at, and you’ll get better at it—if there is such a thing as better at it—but you’ll notice your heart opening more, and becoming softer over time, which is sweeter and kinder, which is incredibly important.
So that’s number one—it doesn’t have to be gigantic. Any at all counts. You know, you get a participation award basically no matter what. And then the other thing is—this one drives me nuts—people think that it’s fake. Well, I’m just imagining that and so this is stupid. Do you ever have any feelings when you watch a movie? Well, that’s fake, right? Those are imaginary. Do you stop watching movies? We like music and movies and stuff like that because they make us feel things. Even if the movie is fiction, the feelings are real. I defy you to have a fictional emotion. Give it a shot. You know, you can’t have one. They’re all real. So just the fact that you’re imagining something doesn’t mean the emotions aren’t real.
And in fact, this is a feature, not a bug. It’s really wonderful that we can imagine positive things and feel good. Right? So that’s the second one. So it’s fine that it’s fictional, and it’s fine that you suck at it. Just keep going, because a little bit is still really helpful and important.
Okay, so that’s what I have to say tonight.
Q: Hey, Michael. So first of all, I didn’t know you could revive Play-Doh with water. I’m embarrassed to admit. So you can. That’s cool. I’ll not waste some Play-Doh in the future. I found that the spiciest thing you said was to be grateful for bad things in your life. Like I can get down with acceptance and noticing that it’s made up, to imagine a world where the bad things are separate and pulled out, and a good thing wasn’t started in its place, or something. But being grateful for them, I don’t know. It just feels like if we’re wishing for non-suffering for ourselves and others, how am I supposed to be grateful for suffering that has already happened or or is happening? Is that even a good thing to do?
MT: Yes, it’s a very good thing to do. Do you know what the mind training slogans are? Are you familiar with that?
Q: Lojong sayings, right?
MT: So, yeah, it’s a set of Buddhist training sentences or teachings. And the third one is usually translated as something like transform adversity into your friend. That’s what it’s saying. Whatever is coming to you in life, it’s good to accept it, but it’s even better to love it. And to fully throw yourself into it, and to see nothing as somehow your enemy. Nothing is your enemy. It’s all your friend. And it’s even if right now it feels really difficult or it feels like you wouldn’t wish it on your worst actual enemy—it’s there. By engaging with it properly, the suffering is gone. By engaging with it properly, we see that it’s actually, in a funny way, empowering. Okay. We’re flipping the script basically is what it boils down to.
Q: So, is it kind of like alchemizing it? It’ll transform you into the person you’re supposed to be?
MT: I mean, that is one way of viewing it. Yeah. But the main view is that, instead of contracting and armoring and resisting, you’re not just accepting—which is kind of just sitting there—but embracing and opening towards, and shifting—and this is extremely difficult. It’s very high level practice—and it also works. So, I put it in the form of the worst thing, but of course, you probably wouldn’t start there. You probably start with easier things that are still adversities, and noticing that you can embrace them and something different starts to happen. It’s a very difficult teaching that I think is very deep—and I’m certainly not a master of it, but to the extent I’ve engaged with it, it is some kind of cosmic alchemy.
Q: Thanks.
Q: Hi. This is my first time doing group meditation, although I’ve been meditating for a couple years almost every day. And so I just want to say thank you for holding this space. That was definitely really special doing that in a group.
MT: Thanks for showing up. Group meditation is really powerful.
Q: Yeah, I can definitely feel it. And then because there were a lot of new people and you said you’re streaming. I find it very funny that when you talked about finding adverse things you’ve been challenged with in life and to be grateful for them. Due to my practice of meditation, it took me a minute to do that, which, if you know me, is ironic.
There’s six types of trauma that somebody can suffer from, and I’ve suffered from every single one of those— lots of time— except for natural disasters. I’ve broken over 90 bones in my body and missing a leg. Got mental health issues and through this practice of doing what we did today, but usually just alone in my room. It’s very funny that in the moment I was like, “What adversaries do I suffer from?” [laughter] And it took me a second. But yeah, I just want to speak to the amazing power that this practice has.
MT: And so, you’ve been practicing seeing adversity as a friend for a while.
Q: Yes.
MT: Yeah. Do you want to add anything, since you have a lot of experience with it?
Q: Not so much. I just felt compelled to speak up so that if other people in the room or listening online are suffering from these things—to me, I’ll use the example of missing my leg. I always thought meditation was really silly and especially for dealing with pain, until my brain was telling me constantly that it felt like somebody was driving an ice pick through a limb that I don’t have. And then through this practice, you can choose to not identify with it. And be it trauma that people suffer from, or physical pain, it is definitely worth sticking through this practice. So that’s really all.
MT: Thanks. I definitely paid him to come tonight. [laughter] No, of course not. I deeply appreciate you sharing that. Thank you.
Q: I was just amused when I was choosing an adversary or someone who caused me grief at some level, that I could wish or imagine them happy, but it was instantly hooked onto well, but if they were really happy, then they’d stop doing this. And it wasn’t like I was wishing them to be happy because I wanted them to stop doing it, but it was just interesting for me how challenging it was to separate those two things.
MT: Yeah, it’s true. And it may be the case that that’s real. Like maybe if they were happy, they wouldn’t do such horrible stuff. But we’re just setting that aside. So it’s like, okay, they just get to be happy. Period. Yeah.
Q: Yeah. Thank you. Hi Michael, thank you for hosting this.
MT: Thanks for coming.
Q: I think what came up for me was the practice of being, which it feels like we are doing here, and really resonates. I think at the same time it feels like—at least on my journey—the practice of doing can sometimes be like another place to be almost. And I was just curious about your thoughts in terms of how to approach that.
MT: Can you unpack that a little more?
Q: Yeah. I think for me it feels like beingness is always here.
MT: It is.
Q: And it feels, I think, sometimes on my journey it feels like practicing being feels like I need to be more here. And I guess I’m trying to navigate how to both practice it, and just allow what is.
MT: I really gave the very clearest instructions I can give on how to do it, which is set your thinking mind aside and then from there there’s no technique. Because as long as you’re in the thinking mind, then you’re trying to do something and you’re trying to make it a practice, and you’re trying—I’m going to be better. I’m going to somehow exist in a better way, or be more here—so we’re just setting that all aside. And then, at that point, there’s literally no technique. There’s just you already being. Okay? So there’s no technique at all as long—as your thinking is set aside. And then what will happen is—nothing’s happening. And so, all this—wait a minute—I want something to happen. Am I doing it right? Why is nothing happening? Shouldn’t I be going, and shouldn’t this be this kind of experience or that kind of experience? So at that point we just have to recognize, no, there’s no particular experience required for being. And so you are in fact just sitting there being that’s it.
You know, there’s a lot of other—as you saw—we did a bunch of different practices, but we did come back to, now just sit here. There’s no way to exist more than you do or to make your awakeness more awake, as long as you’re not lost in thought.
Q: Okay, thank you. Yeah.
MT: All right. Thank you.
We’re just going to silently meditate.
[silent meditation]
Okay, let’s end that there.
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