Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Hello.
Is there someone in your life
that just bringing them to mind,
just thinking about them,
makes you feel angry?
(Laughter)
Or hurt?
And you know that if only they could change,
you would have a more loving relationship with them.
Do you know anyone like that?
(Laughter)
I do.
Let me tell you about my dad.
(Laughter)
He was the guy who cut you off driving 100 miles an hour
on Main Street.
He scammed the parking spot you were so patiently waiting for.
My dad needed to be in complete control of his world.
He was known to tell his heart surgeon
how to operate.
(Laughter)
My brothers and I would be deep into a TV program, our favorite program,
he'd walk in,
change the channel without asking
and say, "Hey, Tarzan's on."
He controlled everything in our house from the thermostat
to the emotional climate.
I learned how to appease him to keep peace
because when he felt out of control, it was scary.
But still I longed for the more tender relationship.
In my early 20s, I began an intense study of yoga and meditation.
My dad thought I joined a cult,
(Laughter)
especially when I left my "real" job to teach yoga full time.
But,
when my work began to garner some media attention,
accolades from experts like Dr. Oz,
then my dad claimed he was behind my success.
(Laughter)
But he was right - he was right.
Because it was the discomfort,
it was the pain of harboring anger towards him,
that pushed me to find relief.
I realized that if I wanted to experience more love in my life,
I needed to change, not him.
Pema Chödrön, Buddhist nun and master teacher,
offers a wonderful teaching.
She says, "If someone comes along
and shoots an arrow in your heart,
it's fruitless to stand there and yell at them.
Much better to turn your attention to the arrow in your heart."
Today, I want to share with you an amazing transformational technique
that not only helped me heal my arrow wound,
expand happiness and love in my life,
but totally changed my experience of my dad.
It's called Metta meditation.
It couples creative visualization with mental affirmations.
You can think of it the same way
a professional athlete would do a pre-game run through
to perfect the real-time performance - a pre-game visualization.
Metta is the same.
It's a mental game in which you practice relaxing
and opening your mind and your heart
when you have the impulse to do the opposite.
And what you get good at in your head
eventually begins to manifest in the real moments of your life.
So before I tell you a little bit more about this practice of Metta,
I'd love you to try it with me
so you could feel a little bit about what I'm talking about today.
Would you join me?
Okay.
So I invite you to come to a comfortable seat.
I'm going to make it pretty simple
and just show you a short sample of what it's like.
I'm going to walk you through some guided imagery
and offer you some mental words that you'll repeat, in your head,
and all you need to do is allow your imagination to be playful
and notice how you feel.
So come to close your eyes, if you would.
And take a deep breath with me.
And bring to mind
the image of someone you're grateful to,
someone who has shown you good love or support, care,
maybe inspired you - a benefactor or teacher.
Bring their presence fully in your mind.
See them sitting across from you
and look into their eye.
And I offer you these words to repeat to them mentally:
May you be happy and at ease.
May you be healthy and safe.
May you feel loved.
And take a deep breath and let that image begin to dissipate
and allow an image of a person you do have difficulty with,
a challenge - maybe not your biggest challenge -
someone you can tolerate a little bit.
See them sitting in front of you
and gaze into their eyes.
Whether you think they deserve it or not, mentally offer the words:
May you be happy and at ease.
May you be healthy and safe.
May you feel loved.
And as that image fades, take another breath,
a deeper breath this time.
And bring to mind now: you, an image of you.
Sit across from yourself.
Gaze into your own eyes.
Offer yourself these wishes:
May I be happy and at ease.
May I be healthy and safe.
May I feel loved.
And take a deep breath
and slowly open your eyes.
Simple, but some of you may have noticed a little bit of reaction,
maybe some thoughts, maybe some emotions,
maybe body sensations - maybe you got tight,
or more open.
The practice is to relax,
to notice the reaction
and to soften more.
I wasn't at all surprised when I began Metta meditation
to discover that I was riled up by images of my dad.
I was floored
to discover how difficult it was to offer myself
the wishes.
In fact, I had to pretend that my dearest friend Nicole offered them to me,
just to practice softening and receiving;
to feel worthy of accepting that level of love.
And then I had to work up the generosity with myself,
the care to offer it to myself.
Eventually I did. I befriended myself, fully.
I did.
(Mumbling)
And when I did, not only did I experience love myself differently,
but my experience of my father completely changed.
Around him, I no longer had expectations
of the way he should love me.
Instead, I felt a great empathy
for the way he didn't experience love.
I had compassion instead of criticism
and when I changed like that, he changed around me.
He became more present and more playful with me.
I went to visit him in Florida, where he lives,
and instead of insisting we go fishing -
where's he captain and I'm captive ...
(Laughter)
something he loved and I loathed,
he asked me to go look for dolphins,
something that brought me so much joy -
I was thirty-five and not five - but it still meant so much.
He made such an effort to connect.
He would call me daily
with news about yoga he saw on TV or read in a magazine.
He would make me CDs for no reason and send them to me in the mail -
"The Best of the BeeGees."
(Laughter)
He made every effort to show me his affection and his attention,
and I felt it.
Ironically, my father died on a Valentine's Day,
and I was able to write the most heartfelt, authentic eulogy
that I had always hoped to share about my dad.
Pema Chödrön also teaches - she says that when we learn to open our hearts,
that even the people who drive us the most crazy
can be our teachers.
My dad was one of my biggest teachers
because of the way he limited his heart,
I found my boundless heart.
Each of us has this capacity, this boundless heart capacity,
and when we find it in ourselves,
it's not only good for us - for our health, for our happiness -
but it's good for everyone we're in relationship with.
It's good for everyone we come into contact with.
Metta is not only an idea worth spreading,
it is an idea worth practicing.
Namaste.
(Applause)