Being A Wise Friend To Yourself With Dr. Diana Hill

So I brought this beautiful bell to share with you.

This is a bell from Plum Village.

And when we start the meditation,

You'll hear a short sound.

And when I was trained on how to ring a bell,

That short sound is just a waking up of the bell,

Sort of like if you were to go and wake up a good friend.

You wouldn't slap them on the shoulder.

You gently tap them first.

Are you there?

Are you awake?

And then you'll hear a louder sound,

Which is the ringing of the bell.

And when I ring the bell,

I invite us all to listen to the sound of the bell,

To bring us back into this moment,

Into our bodies,

To be present.

And again,

I'll guide you through a visualization before we do more of a silent practice,

Okay?

So go ahead and find your seat,

Noticing where your body makes contact with the ground,

Feeling the support of the earth underneath you.

And sometimes I like to push a little bit,

Push a little bit into the ground,

And feel that as I push down,

It also lifts my body up,

Opens my heart,

Opens my chest,

And then letting go of your shoulders,

Letting go of any tension in your face.

And you can keep your eyes gently open,

Focusing on a spot a few feet in front of you,

Or you can gently close your eyes and turn your awareness inside.

Arriving here with the breath,

Breathing in,

I have arrived,

And breathing out,

I am home.

Breathing in,

Arriving in the present moment,

And breathing out at home in this present moment in your body with yourself,

Arriving home.

And you can allow that breath and that mantra to settle you into the here and the now,

The breath and the mantra,

A touchstone for you to arrive and to come back home on that exhale.

And as you arrive here with this breath,

You arrive with a whole history of experiences of you,

Of your life up until this moment.

And as you land at home in your body,

You feel that true homecoming of coming back to yourself as a wise friend,

As a friend who is present,

Present for yourself,

Present for this moment,

As a friend who knows what matters,

Who has deep values,

And as a friend who is flexible,

Adaptable,

Moving with the moment as the moment moves and changes.

So as you sit in this moment of X marks the spot,

You can look back on the day or the week or recent time when you needed a wise friend to show up for you,

A moment of struggle or stuckness,

Uncertainty,

Or maybe you were hooked in a pattern that you tend to repeat and you could use a wise friend.

And choosing a recent time for you,

Not way off in the past,

But sometime more recently where you could have used some help.

I'd like for you to imagine that you could walk back along this timeline of your life and see yourself in that moment when you could have used a wise friend.

Look at how you were positioned,

What you were doing,

How you were stuck,

Maybe even how you were hurting.

And look at yourself through the wise,

Compassionate eyes of a good friend.

Allow that wise compassion to come into your eyes so that you see yourself and you tell yourself,

I see that you're struggling.

I know.

Because only you know truly what it's like to be you in that struggle.

And as a wise,

Compassionate friend to yourself,

You can also remind yourself that you won't abandon you,

That you're there to support and maybe even offer some compassionate touch or just feel what it's like to offer your presence to yourself when you're struggling.

Maybe how you would sit or stand or be next to yourself.

And as a wise friend,

You also know that there's important things to you in this moment.

There's things that maybe are hard that you need to do or there's ways that you want to show up,

That you have deep values that you want to live by.

And as a wise friend,

You can feel those values within your heart and you can remind yourself of what's important here.

You can see that when you are struggling,

Sometimes it's hard,

You lose contact with your values or you get off track.

And you can gently remind yourself to do what is hard to do,

To show up in the way that you know you want to show up.

You feel that in your heart.

And as you look at yourself with these compassionate eyes and this loving heart,

You also can notice that as a wise friend,

You hold a stance of flexibility,

Adaptability.

You encourage yourself to loosen up a little,

Let go a little of your rigid thoughts,

That there's possibility here to see yourself beyond yourself.

So as a wise friend to yourself,

You offer these embodied practices of wisdom,

Compassionate eyes,

Loving heart,

Flexible mind and body.

And maybe in this moment of this embodied wise self,

You can offer yourself a gesture or advice or piece of wisdom,

Something that you needed to hear or feel.

And as you offer this wisdom,

You can also take yourself back along the timeline of your life and come back into this present moment with this wise version of you.

Feeling in the present moment,

Your compassionate presence.

Feeling in this moment,

Your loving heart.

And feeling in this moment your capacity to be flexible,

To go with the flow,

To be adaptable,

To be loose.

And allowing these qualities to deepen and strengthen you in this moment.

As you breathe in,

Breathing in,

I have arrived.

And breathing out,

I am home.

Allowing yourself to rest in this wisdom of compassion,

This wisdom of your values of what's important,

And this wisdom of flexibility,

Of looseness,

Of changing with change.

And you can allow yourself to rest in this space of wise friendship with yourself.

Breathing and being with these qualities.

Breathing in,

I have arrived.

Breathing out,

I am home.

Arrived.

Arriving in the present moment in your body with compassion,

With a loving heart,

And with flexibility and looseness.

Breathing in,

I have arrived.

Breathing out,

I am home.

And as you continue to arrive and return home to the present moment,

You can also feel that this wise friend is not only within you,

It's around you.

And supports you.

And you can dissolve the edges a little bit between the wisdom within and the wisdom around.

So that you can just rest in this loving,

Compassionate,

Wise presence.

This homecoming within and the homecoming all around you in the present moment.

Resting in this wisdom.

Breathing in,

I have arrived.

Breathing out,

I am home.

Arrived home.

And as you cultivate this homecoming for yourself,

This place where there's a friendship,

Compassion and values and flexibility to support yourself.

I also offer you the opportunity to share this friendship outwards.

This wise friendship.

So if you can bring to mind a person or a group,

A plant or habitat or animal that could use some of your wise friendship.

Looking at them first with those compassionate eyes.

See that they may be struggling.

I'm in this with you.

I won't abandon you.

Offering them that quality of presence.

And feeling in your heart the values,

The qualities that you want to offer to support this group,

This person,

This animal or plant.

How you want to show up for them.

What you want to offer them.

You can offer that now.

And holding them with the hope of possibility.

Holding them with flexibility,

With looseness,

With lightness.

And wishing that for them as well,

That they feel supported but also have the room to adapt and change.

And you can offer them the gentle mantra that you've been offering yourself of breathing in,

You have arrived.

And breathing out,

You are home.

Really wishing for them that homecoming.

The feeling of support and wisdom,

Of being at home in friendship.

Breathing in,

You've arrived.

Breathing out,

You are home.

And then ultimately spreading this wise friendship across our whole planet to strangers,

To people with different opinions or beliefs,

To plants and animals and waterways,

Minerals.

Breathing in,

We have arrived.

Breathing out,

We are home.

Breathing in,

Arrived.

Breathing out,

Home.

Breathing in,

Friendship.

Breathing out,

Friendship.

Breathing in,

Wisdom.

Breathing out,

Wisdom.

And we'll close with the Kalyanamita Sutta,

Considering your spiritual friendship towards yourself,

Towards others,

Towards our planet.

A friend is someone endowed with seven qualities.

They give what is hard to give.

They do what is hard to do.

They endure what is hard to endure.

They reveal their secrets to you.

They keep your secrets.

When misfortune strikes,

They don't abandon you.

When you're down and out,

They don't look down on you.

A friend with these seven qualities is worth associating with.

I always like to close meditations with three bows.

The bows represent the Buddha,

The Dharma,

The Sangha,

But I will often say the first bow is to yourself.

Thank you to yourself for showing up to practice.

It's not always easy to get to the place of sitting.

And the second bow is a thank you to our teachers,

The teachers that are here together in this space,

The teachers outside of this space.

And then the third bow is to the Sangha,

To all of you,

To all of us,

That when we practice together,

We support each other in our practice,

So we bow to the Sangha.

Thank you.