Good Life Project - The Truth About Paradise (It's Not What You Think) | Pico Iyer

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

What if paradise was real? But, instead of searching and traveling a journey to the far ends of the earth to find it, you could touch it at any moment, in any place, no matter how amazing or awful the setting or circumstance. And what if paradise or peace is something completely different than this all-perfect place or feeling a lot of us believe it to be? What if that feeling we so yearn to experience, is here and now, dead center in our lives of complexity and paradox? And, we just had to know what to do to feel it?Today's guest, Pico Iyer, has spent much of his life searching, living, and listening for insight and answers to life's big questions. A full-time writer and essayist since 1982, Pico's insightfulness and quest for meaning have led him to places and people all across the world. From Iran to North Korea, from the Dalai Lama’s Himalayas to the ghostly temples of Japan. He has shared his travels and lessons learned in his 15 books on subjects ranging from the Dalai Lama to globalism and the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism. In our conversation, Pico and I dive deeper into his story and the events in his life that have led him to some powerful revelations that he shares in his latest book, The Half-Known Life: In Search of Paradise. We talk about some key ideas that make up a good life of peace, happiness and meaning. Pico opens up about the losses, opportunities, and, often, paradoxical feelings and experiences that helped him find paradise here on Earth. You can find Pico at: WebsiteIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Robert Thurman about meaning, Buddhism, and life.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED: We’re looking for special guest “wisdom-seekers” to share the moment you’re in, then pose questions to Jonathan and the Sparked Braintrust to be answered, “on air.” To submit your “moment & question” for consideration to be on the show go to sparketype.com/submit. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount CodesPeloton: Access high-energy workouts, instantly. Discover Peloton: streaming fitness classes to you live and on-demand. New Members who choose monthly billing get a 30-day free trial, or choose annual billing and get 12 months of Membership for the price of 10. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My father was a professional philosopher, and I never forget as a little boy, when I was two years old, we had this little radio, an outward crackle every night, the report of this young god-king fleeing over the highest mountains on earth, being pursued by circling planes. So even I, as a little kid, was transfixed. And as soon as the Dalai Lama arrived in exile in India, my father sailed all the way back to India from England to engage him in conversation. And so my father established that connection in 1960, as soon as the world could really speak to the Dalai Lama. And at the end of the conversation, he said to the Dalai Lama, oh, you know, I've got this little three-year-old kid back in England who really took an interest in your flight and plight. And the Dalai Lama, with his gift for making connection with everybody, found a photograph of himself when he was four years old, already on the lion throne in Lhasa, already a spiritual leader of 14 million people and political leader soon of 6 million, and sent

it to me. So from the age of three, I had this photograph of the Dalai Lama as a four-year-old on my desk. And every now and then when I was feeling sorry for myself, you know, the world is difficult for a little boy. I only had to look at this picture of a little boy who is ruling 6 million people and I was freed of my concerns. So bit of a weird question for you. What if paradise was real, but instead of searching and traveling on some journey to the far ends of the earth to find it, you could actually touch it at any moment in any place, no matter how amazing or awful the setting or circumstance. And what if paradise or peace is something completely different than this all perfect place or feeling that a lot of us believe it to be? I mean, what if that feeling

that we so yearn to experience is here and now dead center in our lives of complexity and paradox, and we just had to know what to do to access it? Well, today's guest, Pico Iyer, has spent much of his life searching and living and listening for insight and answers to big questions like, what is home? What really matters in life? And how does one achieve inner and outer peace? Spending much of his time at a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur, California, and much of the rest in suburban Japan, and meeting and befriending the 14th Dalai Lama in his teens, Pico has also spent decades traveling with the Dalai Lama as a companion, a confidant, a fellow explorer of the human condition, and really how to make it better for all. A full-time writer and essayist since the 80s, Pico's insightfulness and his quest for meaning have led him to places all over the world, from Iran to

North Korea, from the Dalai Lama's Himalayas to the ghostly temples of Japan. And he shared his travels and lessons learned in 15 books on the subject, ranging from the Dalai Lama to globalism and the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism. Some of his most known books include the long-running sellers like Video Night in Kathmandu, The Global Soul, The Open Road, which is where I actually first discovered his work, and The Art of Stillness. And Pico has also written the introductions to more than 70 other books, has been writing up to 100 articles a year for places like Time, the New York Times, New York Review of Books, Financial Times, and more than 250 other periodicals worldwide. And in our conversation, Pico and I dive deep into his own personal journey, the events in his life that have led him to some truly powerful revelations that he shares in his latest book, The Half-Known Life, In Search of Paradise. And we talk about some key ideas that

make up a good life of peace and happiness and meaning. And Pico opens up about losses and opportunities and oftentimes these paradoxical feelings and experiences that truly helped him find and understand what the notion of paradise is and how it truly is available to all of us in moments that we never imagined possible. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday, we've been compromised.

The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him.

We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. I was trying to recall my first exposure to your work, and it was in a bit of a funny way. I stumbled upon, years ago, the open road at a garage sale somewhere in the Northeast, thought it looked like an interesting book, picked it up, quickly realized that it was a library book that had very likely never been returned to a library in Las Vegas. And there was something that just felt appropriate about that to me as I dove into sort of like this journey with you and the 14th Dalai Lama and your explorations with him. But I was just immediately drawn in by the way that you tell stories,

which it's not as if you're saying, sit down and listen to me, as if you're inviting people to just walk beside you. And I wonder, having read more of you over the years, if that is an intentional experience that you cultivate in your writing. Well, thank you. I mean, that's such a lovely distinction. And as you say, to think of the Dalai Lama story being read in Las Vegas, I can't think of a better setting. That's exactly the ideal audience. I think consciously, I'm always traveling or writing as an everyman, just a typical bewildered, bungling tourist. And to that extent, yes, indeed, walking by my side insofar as I have no wisdom to

impart, I don't know more than the reader, I'm hoping to know about as much as the reader. And of course, when you talk about walking side by side, that was my notion of His Holiness the Dalai Lama too, which is why I call that book The Open Road, that he's not on high delivering one truth. He's walking along the road with us past its turns, seeing the mountains in the distance, never knowing what's coming next, but a kind and companionable friend by our side. So maybe that's what I would aspire to be. Yeah, I think you convey that really. And as you described, not speaking up, not speaking down, not even it really just sort of like sharing as you go. It's almost like you're narrating

real-time exploration, which is just incredibly inviting. The Dalai Lama, I know he has been a presence in your life, I guess, since your late teens-ish when you went to a Dharamsala with your dad. Curious what the context was when you first, with your father, went over there for this initial meeting. Yes. Well, my father was a professional philosopher and he was interested in really all the great religious traditions of the world. So he knew much more about Buddhism than a typical person in England where we were living might. And I never forget as a little boy, when I was two years old, we had this little radio, an outward crackle every night, the report of this young god-king fleeing over the highest mountains on earth, being pursued by circling planes. So even I,

as a little kid, was transfixed. And as soon as the Dalai Lama arrived in exile in India, my father sailed all the way back to India from England to engage him in conversation. And the Dalai Lama, out in the world for the first time, really had an open-door policy. He was very excited to talk to anyone. And so my father established that connection in 1960, as soon as the world could really speak to the Dalai Lama. Actually, at that point, when he first met His Holiness, at the end of the conversation, he said to the Dalai Lama, oh, you know, I've got this little three-year-old kid back in England who really took an interest in your flight and plight.

And the Dalai Lama, with his gift for making connection with everybody, found a photograph of himself when he was four years old, already on the lion throne in Lhasa, already a spiritual leader of 14 million people and political leader soon of 6 million, and sent it to me. So from the age of three, I had this photograph of the Dalai Lama as a four-year-old on my desk. And I remember now, every now and then when I was feeling sorry for myself, you know, the world is difficult for a little boy. I only had to look at this picture of a little boy who is ruling 6 million people and I was freed of my concerns. And the interesting thing too is so that photograph accompanied me when my parents moved to California and it was on my desk for almost 30 years. And then one day I went upstairs and our house was encircled by 70 foot flames and our house and everything in it, except for me, was wiped out, which reminded me I couldn't really hold onto the photo. But if I held onto

the values for which it spoke and the hopes that it represented, that could be within me as long as I live. So I'd really had that connection with the Dalai Lama since I was a very small boy. It's incredible to carry that with you. And it wasn't just this connection of having carried the image with you. This was an enduring friendship that developed over a period of years and then eventually decades. And you spent quite a significant amount of time traveling with him as well. And I guess part of my curiosity is, and maybe it was due to the timing, it was very early and sort of like when people were trying to say like, I would love to have an audience, but so many people have wanted and been given

the audience. And yet I would imagine the number of people where that has turned into this lifelong friendship is rare, is few. And for you, I'm curious, having not only carried that relationship with you, but now having spent decades traveling the world, going to all these different places, when you step into these different places, do you feel like the conversations that you've had with him, the experience through being a friend for so long informs the way that you step into other worlds when you're sort of like traveling around this planet? I really hope so. And of course, it's impossible to be with the Dalai Lama without learning from him. And I think I've learned as much from his presence and the way he carries himself through the world as from his conversation,

because of course, his words are widely available to everybody and anyone in any corner of the globe can learn from them. But I think it's just going down every morning with him in the elevator at 8.30 in a hotel. And as we arrive in the lobby, the word has got round that Adal Alam is there. And so lots of people clamor around him wanting his blessing or his guidance or an autograph. And just the way he gives himself absolutely to every last small child who comes to him. And over the course of the next eight hours, never spends any time alone. I think his notion is he's here to give himself to people for as long as his energy holds out. And I think that in itself is a great instruction about attentiveness and

just the generosity of offering your ear to somebody because he's always traveling, I feel, as a student as much as a teacher, and he's always traveling to listen rather than to lecture. So it's humbling to see that. And I hope some of it has seeped into me because as you say, I've been lucky enough to travel with him across Japan 10 times by his side every minute of the day. So I remember every time when I walk into his hotel room at 8.30 in the morning, he has a telescope pointed out the window. And that's such a lovely way when you mention travel to remind myself everywhere I go, I have a different angle on the heavens and maybe one I'm never going to have again. This is a unique perspective. Every time you're in a new place, why squander it? And of course, he's the first Dalai Lama in all of history who's had the chance

to travel the world. And I think he's really treated that as a great opportunity to learn from every tradition and every person. And it's interesting what you said about so many people seeking or longing for an audience with him. And I think that's the reason I wrote my book. I thought I'd been lucky enough to spend all this time. I want to share it. And my friends will ask me, oh, what did you learn from him or whatever? But the remarkable thing now is to recall that in the 1980s, when he first started coming

to New York City, nobody even knew who a Dalai Lama was. It sounded like a mythical person or the abominable snowman or some, you know, deity. And nobody realized it was a human being. I remember in 1984, when he came to New York, I was working at Time Magazine and I invited him to lunch to meet the editors because I knew that they would gain from him. And I thought he would be glad of some exposure. And literally two hours before the lunch, one of the editors called up and said, oh, you know, cancel this thing, blow this guy off. Really, we don't want to come into the office just to meet some Tibetan monk. In 84, and five years later, those same editors, as you were saying, were flying across the world just for 10 minutes with him in Dharamsala.

But before the Nobel Prize, nobody really knew what a treasure was in our midst. Sorry, I was just thinking with excitement, because you're sitting in Boulder as we speak, and I've been with His Holiness in Colorado, and I think it's one of the most exciting places on the planet for him. Because I remember as he got out of the plane in Aspen, he looked around him and he said, I'm home. This is exactly what Tibet looks like, which, of course, is why so many Tibetan communities have set up around Colorado. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, not at all. Not at all.

It's funny because as you're referencing him being in Boulder, Colorado, the immediate image that comes to my mind, having been a New Yorker for like 30 years of my life up until fairly recently, was his regular visits to the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where he would go to the Beacon Theater, which was a couple blocks from where I lived. And when he was in the neighborhood, the neighborhood was electrified with people who had traveled from around the world to be there. And there was an energy that was palpable. it was a fascinating phenomenon just as a social phenomenon to walk around and notice what was happening with people, how they were affected just by the notion of being in the immediate geographic area of a person who from everything that I've understand from so much of what you've

written really considers himself like a humble human being, just like everybody else who's curious and open. You use the word attentiveness, which is, you know, he has this stunning capacity for attentiveness for those around him. I'm curious about that in the context of the way that you move through the world as well, because it seems like solitude is incredibly important for you. While you write about and you travel extensively and you wander and you really deepen into community and people, it seems like there's this pulsing thing that happens where you step out into the world and you go into it immersively. And then you pull back and you pull back immersively. And thank you. I mean, it's so beautifully said, Jonathan.

I really appreciate that. And I think, actually, I'm probably too solitary a creature. And that's one of the things I need to learn from the Dalai Lama. Because, of course, the great blessing of his life is he hasn't been on top of a mountain. He hasn't been sitting within a monastery walls meditating. He's been right in our midst on the Upper West Side, in Colorado, in the European Parliament, on the streets of India, where he's most needed as a kind of doctor of the mind. And I remember I used to live in New York City, and I did leave New York City to live for a year in a temple in Kyoto, maybe because I'm so drawn to the solitary life.

And as soon as I arrived, I found it was much more hard work than I'd imagined, not so solitary. But I was lucky enough to meet a Zen master, a man who is in charge of 300 temples around Japan. And probably seeing the deluded romantic young guy in front of him, he said, remember, the whole point of meditation or monasticism or everything is not going away from the world. It's coming back into the world, coming back with a sense of direction and compassion and something to share with the world.

So you're right that I am solitary. It's funny, when I woke up this morning, I scribbled a note for my next book, which is about 31 years I've spent with some Benedictine monks. Because I remember once I was talking to my wife and I said, what do you think is my worst quality? And she said, you wish to be alone. And I said, no, no, no, that's my best quality. That's what's really nice about me. That's a very bold question, by the way. Well, we've been together 35 years. And that's the kind of thing you rely on a spouse to give you. And she gave me a very direct answer. And I said, no, that's my really good quality. She said, no, no, that's the quality you need to cut through or go past. And that was tonic liberating wisdom of a kind. But it's

certainly one of the great lessons of the Dalai Lama that in fact, often when he's traveling, his hosts will very generously say, Your Holiness, do you just want to take 10 minutes by yourself to catch your breath or have lunch alone? He said, no, no, we must be together because his whole vision is interconnectedness and what can you give to another person? And a doctor, which is what I think of him as, is really doing no good if he's by himself. I mean, he may be performing research or whatever, but his real job in life is to come and diagnose illness and to ease suffering. So that's how the Dalai Lama certainly does. I mean, of course, as a writer, I have to spend much of my life alone at my desk. And you're right,

it's exactly that balance of going out into the world, collecting experiences and impressions and some knowledge and coming back and trying to turn it into a form that will be interesting to readers so that they can share that experience. But I probably need to get out more. But I think it's that ability to observe outward and observe inward and then really explore the dialogue between the inner life and the outer life, you know, that both individually and then collectively, that is so compelling because I feel like so often, I'm curious what your take is on this. You know, we get trapped in one or the other for extended periods of time.

Yes. And I think when we do that, you know, it leads to either ignorance or neurotic obsession. And it's the interplay, it's the constant dialogue of allowing the inner to inform the outer and the outer to inform the inner that leads maybe more to, gives us more access to equanimity. What's your take on that? Again, I think that's a beautiful perception. I love the fact that the way you use the word dialogue, then that each depends on the other and each has something to offer the other. I worry that more and more of us are drowning in the external world and are hostage to the moment. And hearing so much about

what happened an hour ago, we forget what happened a decade ago. And we don't think about what's going to happen a decade from now. I always remember that the great German mystic Meister Eckhart years ago said, as long as the inner work is strong, the outer work will never be puny. So I do think the inner is the most essential. And if you have that in order, our relationships, our job, our interactions with the world take care of themselves. And so I feel that's the non-negotiable part. But you're absolutely right. The only reason to cultivate the inner garden is so you can go out with some clarity and direction into the world and both offer something and try to receive something. So some people would say,

I've balanced my life between two extremes because traveling constantly for 48 years and spending a lot of the rest of the time literally in monasteries or sitting in isolation in my desk. But it's my peculiar way of trying to honor both those poles. And as you say, make sure I don't get lost in either one. And I think when I'm sitting at my desk, the fact I've spent so much of my time seeing both the spirited and the embattled people of Yemen or Cambodia or Tibet or Bolivia, that humbles me and reminds me not to get too lost in my own thoughts, I hope. And also reminds me how fortunate I am. You know, I think travel humbles one in a very useful way, both by reminding one how little one knows and also, in my case, how much I have. And so I'm hoping that the external travel keeps

that neurotic obsession at bay a little because I can never have And so I'm hoping that the external travel keeps that neurotic obsession at bay a little because I can never have the illusion I'm the center of the world because I've seen a lot of the world and it's much more central than I am. Yeah, that's so powerful. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot?

Flight risk. Do you have a sense, because I think about, you know, you're somebody who is incredibly well-traveled, but also incredibly well-traditionally studied, you know, educated at the finest institutions. Maybe this isn't a possible question to answer. Do you have a sense for travel bringing you closer to the truth than traditional study? Well, I remember Melville famously in Moby Dick said that the whaling

ship was my Harvard and my Yale. And I have sometimes felt that the highway has been my Harvard and my Yale, that I have learned more from my experience in the world than from the ivory tower. And I think the danger with the ivory tower is it can be a place of theory and abstraction. And I feel that the world we've all sensed is ever more divided these days. And I think that's in part because so many of us, each of us has our own idea. I know more and I know better than you, and this is the truth. And therefore we're deaf to every other truth. And as soon as you're mingling in the world, if you're in Times Square, you know that there

are a thousand truths around you, and they're probably as vital as yours. I remember when I was 17, because I was growing up in England, we had a gap year, which was probably the great education of my life. And so I did spend four months traveling around Central and South America. So when I actually arrived at college, something in me sensed that whatever I learned in these classrooms isn't going to be as important as what I learned in the jungles of Colombia or among the favelas of Rio or whatever. And so I was glad at that early age to be reminded of everything that lies outside the classroom. And I think a lot of my life has

involved trying to unlearn the many things I learned in college and in graduate school, partly because those are places based on knowledge. And I want to be based more on openness. A question opens many more doors than an answer does. And at the very beginning, when you were talking about my walking along a road and inviting the reader to come along, I think that's partly because all my books are basically inquiries that aren't in search of a resolution. I'm posing some kind of question. And all I want is to deepen that question rather than to come to some fixed answer. And so I'm not in a position, as I said, to be laying down the law to anybody. I want to find out what the law is. It's almost like the way you're describing it is it sounds like as much trying to make sense of the question itself as you are exploring whether there's even an answer to the question. I'm

curious about what the role of writing is in that for you. Clearly, writing has been the central part of your profession. It's the way that you support yourself, countless books and articles, but writing for you, is it also a central sense-making tool? Absolutely. I don't know how I would survive without writing. And in fact, most of my writing, I would say, is not for the public domain. It's just for my peace of mind and my clarity. I don't meditate or practice yoga or Tai Chi or anything like that. But every morning I walk to my desk 10 feet away and it feels like walking into a cabin in the woods.

And I just have the luxury of sitting there, usually for five hours, clearing my head, escaping the beehive of my head by whatever is bothering me or surprising me or whatever. I get it out of my head. And once it's on paper, I can clear it up and allows me to take a deep breath before going back into the world. And to animate that dialogue that you described, it's the inner part of my life that prepares me for going out into the street. And I think I wouldn't understand my wife and my friends without the chance to step away from the world, I certainly wouldn't be able to process everything that I've seen without that. And I suppose it's the way I try to take experience

and turn it into meaning of some kind. So yeah, it's really my confessional, my therapist's couch and my meditation cushion all at once. It's so interesting that you describe so much more of your writing as actually writing for yourself that's never actually shared publicly, which brings up another curiosity. Do you always write about the places you go and the things you do and the things that happen? Or are there things that you simply let exist as pure experience without trying to express or unpack them? I'm not good at leaving things as pure experience, even though I know that the deepest experiences by definition transcend words. Whether you're on your knees in a chapel or falling in love or in a state of terror,

I don't think words can ever fully do justice to that. But those are the experiences I think we're often most moved to share with others. So it's an imperfect way of trying to suggest everything that lies beyond all words. But for example, I never go on a holiday because if I do, I'm inclined as soon as I arrive in Tibet to turn on CNN or ESPN and stretch out in the hotel and be the same person I was at home. So I always give myself an assignment if only to ask a question of the culture I'm in and to engage it in conversation, to look around the corner, to get out of the room onto the street. And I'm glad of that. I don't regret that. So I think even the richest experiences of my life, I'm always trying to wrestle, wrestle

into words, partly maybe the way people want to take pictures of the Taj Mahal or the Patala Palace. So they have some tangible memento of something that's really moved them. And I think words are my equivalent. And I'm glad of that because, as you said, I've spent 36 years pretty much living full time at my desk. And it's amazing how much I would never remember were it not for my writing. I wrote a book about the year in which I met my wife 35 years ago. And when I look back at that now, I mean, it's better than any scrapbook because I would have forgotten almost everything

about it, even though I would imagine I remembered every moment of that important. Yeah, but in truth, I didn't. So I'm glad to have a record of everything that's been important to me. Yeah, I'm not a journaler, but I have many friends and colleagues who are and have been for, you know, since they were kids, really. I've had this almost a sense of grief of wishing that I had been writing down my experiences so that I could one day randomly reflect back on this moment when I was 22 years old and traveling the world or whatever it may have been and know that my memories would be so much sharper being able to revisit them. But of course, you have to let that go and look forward. You mentioned that you have spent quite a bit of time in this Benedictine hermitage also, moving back and forth in part between your travels, Japan and there around Big Sur in California. In your newest book, Half Known Life, you actually write, I thought of the Benedictine hermitage in

California that had been my secret home for almost 17 years. The monastery far above the ocean had given me a rich sense of community because everyone I met there had come in search of the same silence and clarity. We were bound together by what was deepest in us, which made me curious. What did you mean by what was deepest in us? I think everybody who goes on retreat is hoping to find that place within her that gets lost in the supermarket and the freeway and the rush of everyday life. And all of us have that place inside us. You could call it a sanctuary or a still place. Meister Eckhart again said it's a place where one hasn't been wounded. I think it could almost be the paradise within.

There's some sense that we have an Eden or a paradise inside us that we lose sight of, although we don't lose it, but we forget that it's there. And I think there's this craving to be reminded of who we are and who we can be. And again, that's what we find when we're in love or in certain peak moments, if we meet some really remarkable teacher of some kind. And so the interesting thing about this Benedictine hermitage is that I'm not Christian.

And I think many of the people who are there are not necessarily Christian, let alone Catholic, but they're all there really for the same reason, which is not just to get away from the rush and the distraction of the world, but to recover what's truest inside them. And what's striking to me is that most of us are there to honor silence. And silence is really my great teacher in life, whether I'm in a Buddhist monastery or an Islamic mosque or the Western Wall in Jerusalem or this Benedictine hermitage. So there isn't much chatter.

And of course, there's no Internet connection and you can't get on your phone there. But as I walk along the road above the sea, under the mountains, I'll often pass somebody and sometimes they'll say hello. We'll exchange a few words. And somehow, those words in the silence stay with me and resound inside me much more than probably anything I'll hear for the next three months. And beyond that, I know nothing about the external circumstances of the people I'm meeting. But I feel this is a friend. And I think every single person I've met along that road, and it's been 31 years now I've been walking that road, is somebody very close to me, even though I couldn't tell you where she lives or what she does for a living. Because we're meeting at our deepest point, which is I think what all of us aspire to. But all of us find ever more elusive, especially

because there are so many intrusions from the world now in the form of social media updates and soundbites and the world is pressing in on us at every moment. So we can't hear ourselves. We can't hear other people. And when we do talk to other people, I find I'm much more tempted just to say three words and then run away. And of course, this is why people hunger for podcasts, like conversations like yours, the rare luxury of having a chance to speak face-to-face almost for an hour, and then for a listener to be part of that, that's really what we're longing for. So the monastery has been a blessing, partly by showing me things I didn't realize I was missing. I didn't realize how much I needed silence, because I'm lucky enough to be

a solitary person, as you said, but the absence of noise is different from a positive silence. When I step into a convent or a monastery in any order, it's as if there are these polished walls of silence that have been created by years of prayer or meditation or devotion, and they're tangible things. It's not just like being in a quiet place in the woods. And also, I didn't realize how deep a connection could be made without any words or without the illusion of knowledge too. I'm so happy you picked out those sentences from my book. And as it happens, I think I've almost completed my next book, which is about the 31 years I've spent in the monastery and is a companion piece to the one that you just read, The Half-None Life. It's hard to write a book about the love of one's life,

because how do you get it down onto the page? But it's been a wonderful challenge and struggle. Yeah, it really struck me in part, and what you're describing sort of reinforces the notion that you might become a part of a community where there is a fabric of collective longing that becomes a source of belonging. I mean, that's what I felt when I was reading it. And that's what I'm sensing you're expressing as well. Wonderful. I mean, I really wish I could have put it as poetically and succinctly as that. Exactly. I mean, the connection between longing and belonging. And of course, one reason we're all going to that place, which sits, as I said, 1,300

feet above the ocean in this very unspoiled stretch of coastline in Big Sur, is that it feels like it's out of time. Calendars fall away. Resumes make no sense. All the things that I've been worrying about when i make the three and a half hour drive up there instantly disappear i'm in that cloudless unanxious part of myself that's very hard to access and you're right and therefore it becomes a community joined by our shared longing and our longing is probably for light and silence and space, all of which we find there.

There's probably too much I could say about it, but you put it so perfectly. And for some reason, as you were talking, I was remembering how while I was there once, I read a series of interviews with Pope Francis, who seems like a great kindred spirit to the Dalai Lama. And he was asked what he does when he goes and visits somebody who's on his deathbed. And he said, I just hold his hand. And the interviewer, I think, wasn't satisfied. What do you say? What do you do?

And he said, you know, theories, texts, scriptures, none of that's any good to somebody in a position of great vulnerability and maybe near the end. All they need is a hand. So that makes me think that community, as you were saying, may be not about conversation or chatter or water cooler discussion, but about sharing silence and about sharing something we can't give words to, but that we all know is at the heart of us. And that's why I do feel so linked to these people with whom I share very few words, as I don't to many of the people I talk to every day, which is an interesting instruction, I think. Yeah, I mean, such an interesting phenomenon. And it also brings up a curiosity around the notion of home. You mentioned, as you mentioned earlier in the conversation that your childhood home,

when the family moved to California, I believe it was in the early 90s or so, the home was consumed by wildfire and including things that were like deeply meaningful to you. But from everything that I've written from just the nuggets that you've shared in this conversation, while I can certainly understand the loss must have hurt and there's a grief process that goes on, it feels like from the outside looking in that your sense of home

was broader than a domain, a dwelling, like a in a map with coordinates, that there's something that is more internal when you explore the notion of home. Yes. I mean, I'd always grown up with that sense because from the age of seven, I was a little boy with an Indian face, Indian parents, an English voice, an English birthplace, an American residence. And so I didn't fully belong to any of those cultures, though I was a part of each of them. And so if somebody had said, where's your home, like more and more people nowadays, I'd have had to give a very long, complicated answer

involving myriad locations. So I'd always had that intimation that home was what I carried inside me. But as you say, the morning after our house burnt down, I was really reminded that home isn't where you live. It's what lives inside you. Because I lost every possession in the world, but I still had my mother. I still had the woman who would be my wife. I still had this Van Morrison song that was going through my head. I still had my favorite books. I still had my values and some of my hopes too. So the fire only took away things that weren't all important. And I still had so much.

And it's interesting because in those days, my job was to write essays for Time magazine. And so I was stuck in the middle of the fire for three hours. But when finally a fire truck got to me and said I could escape, I went down and I bought a toothbrush. And then I went to sleep on the floor of a friend's house. But before I went to sleep, I thought I will file an article to Time magazine. I've just had this eyewitness view, front seat view on the worst fire in Californian history. And so three hours after losing everything in the world, I wrote this article. And I ended it with a poem I'd picked up in Japan from the 17th century, in which the poet writes, my house burnt down, I can now see better the rising moon. In other words, I now know what I really value, what do I care about. And so the very evening that I lost everything, something in me, wiser than I am probably,

intuited, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. This can sharpen your priorities. And in the following months, I found that in so many ways that fire opened doors as well as closing doors. Because I didn't have any notes anymore, but I still wanted to write, I had to write from memory and imagination, from my heart, which is much deeper than writing from notes. When it came to replacing all my possessions, I realized I didn't need 90% of my clothes and books and keepsakes. And it also reminded me, well, deep down, my home feels invisibly like Japan. So maybe I should spend more time there.

And now I spend nearly all my time here in Japan. So I thought a lot about that fire during the pandemic, because I think all of us knew that it was making so much that we care about impossible. But I think it was making a few other things possible. And I think so many people, as the pandemic begins to ease, found that it moved them to think differently and therefore to live differently. And most of all, to remember what they care about, which when we were racing around, many of us, in 2019, if you said, what are the three most important things in your life,

I might not have been able to answer. So that's one reason I go to my desk every day, and it's one reason I go on retreat every three months. But the pandemic forced all of us into retreat, and suddenly we thought, this is what I really cherish, my loved ones or this particular pursuit or practice I have. And the fire had the same effect, I would say. And so it cured me of that. You know, I think when I was a boy, I had a sense that, you know, suddenly some money comes through the mail. That's a great thing. Your house bounce down.

That's a terrible thing. But life is really as simple as that, I think. It's so powerful, you know, as you're describing the pandemic and relating it to the experience of losing a house in a wildfire, my mind is immediately going to the fact that two years ago, I was living in Manhattan when New York City was literally on fire from a health and well-being standpoint. We exited the city, came to Boulder, Colorado. And when we touched down within a matter of weeks, some of the largest wildfires in the history of this state came. And I was introduced to a word

that I had never heard before, I guess, two words, which is go back. And the notion that when you're living in a place like this, as much beauty and grace and just expansiveness is all around you, it is also surrounded by perpetual danger. There is a Damocles sword constantly hanging over the entire state. And it was suggested when the evacuation zone was coming closer and closer with one of these that we pack a go bag. And what it did was it made me sit down with my wife and say, what goes into that? What do we care enough about so that if, God forbid, we get the alert on our phones saying, grab your bag, get in the car and drive east, what goes into that bag? And it was a powerful exercise just thinking and also realizing, especially after we had kind of started to think about that in our decision to step away from New York City after so long, then revisiting again in this context of saying, distill it, I don't even think I would fill it, to be honest with you.

Which was a really, I mean, it was a very liberating realization. As scary as the circumstance that led me to think about it, the thinking and then realizing that it's not all the things that I really care about. It's the beings and the experiences. And it wasn't just a thought experiment going through that actual lived experience. Yeah. It makes me think of what the Sufis, the Islamic mystics, I think they say, only what you can't lose in a shipwreck is truly yours. It's a variation of the same thing.

And you're right. I mean, the pandemic only reminded us of what is always true, which is we always live in a world of uncertainty. You and I can't tell each other what's going to happen tomorrow or even tonight. And therefore, we're always at the mercy of these forces much greater than we are, whether it's a virus or a forest fire or a typhoon or a tsunami. So after our house was burnt down, we rebuilt that house. We had to rebuild in the same property because of the insurance policy. And we've had to evacuate that new house 12 times.

And that's because humans are living where humans shouldn't be living, up in the hills. And it's not that nature is intruding on us, but the other way around. And nature is reminding us that there are laws much larger than the ones that we fashion in our heads. And, of course, fire is nature's Easter. I mean, fire is what's needed to clear space, to open sunlight for animals, to help seeds grow. It's part of the cycle of renewal. So again, fire is never the problem.

It's what humans do with fire or the way that we intensify it or live in the places that it's almost certain to destroy. That's off the topic of what you were saying, but it's such a useful exercise. And I think so many of us, one way or another, are confronted with a variation of the question you and your wife faced because of all the natural disasters in the world, but also just because life is going to make a house call again and again, and suddenly ask us what is important. And that's why I always think of the sort of inner savings account. That's really the only thing that can keep me going. As it happens, 20 hours after

lockdown was declared in California, March 2020, my mother who was 88 was rushed into the hospital. She was losing blood very quickly. And as soon as she came out of the hospital, I had to take these three flights across ghost town airports from Japan to be with her. And when I was with my mother, who was wavering between life and death in her late 80s, my bank account's not really going to help her, though I'm glad if it'll pay for good health care. My resume is no use. The books I've written or the books I've read are not really going to help her.

The only thing I have to bring to this situation is whatever I've gathered within, which is probably gathered in solitude or in silence, in reflection. And I think when I wrote this book, The Half-Known Life, the title partly comes to my sense that, like most of us, I think when I was a kid, I was on top of everything. I knew it all. And I've been glad to be humbled by life and to feel now I don't know a thing and that I can't plan my destiny because pandemics and fires and everything else are going to rewrite my future at least as much as I do. And I think that's a useful reminder that we're not in the driver's seat. In this new book, The Half-Known Life, as you know, I'm going across Iran and North Korea and

Kashmir and many other places, but nearly always I'm in the passenger seat, literally. But it's a metaphor for the fact that that's where I am in the world now. Something I can't begin to fathom is really determining my life, I feel, Which isn't to be a fatalist. I think it's just to have a useful humility. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. The exploration in this book, which weaves through many different years

and many different locations, is really around the notion of paradise and its relationship to paradox. You know, the notion that we so often aspire to either a state of paradise or a place of paradise or achieving paradise, and we associate it with different locations very often. But the reality of this is that every single association that we have is based at least in part on illusion or what we want it to be, what we imagine it is rather than the reality on the ground. What drew you so much to this exploration between the notion of paradise and paradox? I liked the way you put the two of those together

because they are almost interchangeable. I think it was the lockdown, actually. This was a book that arose out of the pandemic. All of us living in great difficulty, but none of us wanting to give up on hope or the notion of a better world or a better self. And also the fact of sitting still for six months because of lockdown allowed me to think back on my life of travel and 48 years of crisscrossing the globe.

And what had it really come to? And where had I found the deepest, truest life other than, say, in that monastery? And I think all of us know at some level the paradises within, but I think the lockdown or the pandemic made me think, well, the only paradise I can really find and trust has to be right here in the middle of the real world and in the face of death, that reality. There's a temple not far away from where I'm sitting here in Western Japan. And when you step into it, on the ground is written in Japanese, look beneath your feet. In other words, paradise is not up there. It's not in the past. It's not in the future. This is the only place where you're going to find paradise, by which I mean contentment

or calm or clear sightedness. Because we're all mortal, we're all imperfect. So I don't think we can ever fit into a perfect world. But how do we live most happily with imperfection? And to go back to what you were saying earlier, I'm not looking for answers, but I'm thinking about how to live with answerlessness, given that I don't expect to find any answers to the essential questions of life. How do I find contentment in the midst of that? And I think any of us probably could. I'm fascinated by the way that you chose to just sort of lay out the book also. You tee it up with a question of like, let's explore this notion of paradise. And then you're journeying through these different locations over many different years in not a time sequential way. And they range from Sri Lanka to

Belfast to North Korea to Iran to Kashmir to Jerusalem. And depending on who you are and where you come from, some of these places, you may have an immediate association with some notion of paradise, but some of them you think, wait, what? How does this fit into the exploration of paradise? Places like, I think the ones that jump out most immediately, like North Korea or Iran. It was so fascinating to see how you weave these in and say, well, let's look at these differently and see how they actually do fit into this conversation. Yes. And well, Jonathan, every one of the places you just mentioned is really a war zone. And it's a place of conflict sometimes because it's a seeming paradise and your paradise is unlikely to be my paradise. And Jerusalem, of course, is the center of conflicting notions of holiness and paradise. So again, I thought that paradise has to be inseparable from reality, the only

paradise that I would trust. So I've been lucky to go to lots of places that are superficial visions of paradise, whether it's Bali or Tahiti or the Seychelles, Antarctica, wherever. And one soon finds that when you arrive in Tibet, which is a kind of paradise, all the Tibetans say, oh, yeah, of course, paradise is that place known as New York City or Boulder, Colorado, and understandably. So I wanted a more rigorous sense of what might be paradise. Of course, North Korea, according to its leaders, is paradise, but to us, nothing could be further from it. But I was thinking actually just this morning about how when I was in my 20s, still living in New York City, I flew to Bali for the first time.

And I woke up in the morning and the beautiful boy with this radiant smile came and served me fresh mango and tea on the terrace of my cottage. And I was paying $2 a night for that cottage. And it was 45 seconds from a beach down a palm shaded lane. And all the little children around had these angel faces. I really thought this is Eden. And the night fell. And I heard the dissonance of the gamelan for the Christians, is the place where knowledge is death. The tree of knowledge is what led to the fall from Eden. And if this is Eden, I'm the serpent in the garden. If this is a calm, self-contained culture, what do I have to bring to it other than corruption of a kind and change of not the best form? So even in those places where you think you've ended up in some idyll, it raises some

difficult questions about what are you doing there? As you said, illusion and projection, what am I projecting onto those people, not knowing very much about their circumstances? And if I asked one of the Balinese, this is Eden, each one would probably be very proud of her culture, but would say, I wish we had better medical care and our economy is not so good. And we really want more tourists because without them, we can't survive. So having traveled so long, I've tried to work through some of the illusions that cluster around paradise. And therefore, in this book, just as you say, I'm going to the most fraught places to see what knowledge they can yield. It is interesting. And even in your reference to Bali, you know, so many people have a picture of what that is. We were actually very recently back from the West Coast of Mexico. We were in a small town

and we had somebody who was local to the town just kind of showing us around. And as we're walking around, we see street art and the name of a woman and a stencil of picture of her face. And it's in a couple of different places in town. We asked what's about, and he's describing to us that, you know, this is a beautiful little town on the coast in Western Mexico, where a lot of people come to just, you know, they think it is paradise. And what he's telling us is the story that this

is actually somebody who recently vanished from the town. And then he starts telling us about the tens of thousands of people from the region who have vanished over the last few decades. And again, it's like there is this, what you want it to be. There's what you see into existence and don't want to see. And then there are moments like that where you're confronted with the fact that there's more to this. And then you have to ask yourself, how much of this do I want to let in? And what is my sense of responsibility? Like being here in all the different contexts that I'm here. And it gets complicated really fast, not in a bad way, but in a real way. And as you say, so much, you put it perfectly, so much more going on than we can see. And I think that was the lesson I took away from Bali. It is a magical place. And precisely because it's magical, it means it's a very charged, complex culture with devils and angels and witches, all kinds of things going on, which I,

as a foreigner, can't begin to read. So I can't read the science literally or metaphorically in that place. And the fact that it's so charged is exactly the reason why I'm at a loss there. And it's interesting because I think places have charisma as much as people do. And what I find about a place like Bali is it does rightly draw a lot of people very powerfully, but charisma and power is double-edged. And so for the same thing that draws certain people will unsettle others. And that's true, I think, of every powerful place in the world. I just by chance yesterday saw the new movie Bardo. I don't know if you've seen it, but it depicts exactly what you're describing. I think he says 120,000 people missing in Mexico City. And so there's a very powerful scene where you're in the middle of Mexico City,

it's nothing but bodies prostrate on the ground. And it's his way of trying to remind us all, as you say, of the presences that aren't there, which for a Mexican person might be the most visible, even though you and I are only seeing the idyllic features that are still there. One of the other questions that you posed that I thought was really interesting is this notion of, does paradise exist in our everyday lived experience? Is it something that we only gain access to after we pass through this existence. There are so many spiritual traditions that offer the notion that this moment that you're in, this body, this season that you're in, this is defined largely by suffering. And part of what you're here to do is do the work to

effectively opt out of it. And then in that next place, whether you believe it's reincarnation, whether you believe it's in heaven, whatever it is, whatever your belief system may offer, that's when you get to step into some experience that remotely resembles a notion of what we would describe as paradise. And you tee this up in a really interesting way, at least in my experience, connecting it to this town, which is actually, of all the places that you described, probably would imagine the closest to where you actually live, not too far away in Japan, where you're going up into this town that is high, high up in the mountains, where it's almost like if there was a heaven, if there was a place you ascend to, this would be the closest that you would come to touching it,

to where those two worlds end up reaching out and hugging each other. And the description of that experience of being there seems so ethereal, yet also so tangible. And it really, that question of, when does this feeling that I so yearn for become available to me felt really present in your description of your experience there. Thank you so much. Yes, I mean, that mountain called Koyasan, right at the center of Japan, when you get off the cable car at the top, as you read, nothing but 135 temples, and every visitor stays in a temple, sleeps on the floor, eats the monk's vegetarian food. 135 temples, but 200,000 graves. So in some ways, it is the afterworld you were describing. And it feels so removed from the

clamor and congestion of what's down below that it's eerie. It almost is like being in some posthumous existence, very clear and undistracted, but you're mostly surrounded by graves, which in this huge forest, which is almost pitch dark. And I really loved what you said about how many of the great religious traditions do see paradise in the afterworld. And I really bow before Christianity and Islam and the other traditions that hold that. And I think in some ways, the word paradise is a distraction. And maybe I should just say that what I'm looking for, which is, I think, what all of us are looking for is a better self, a better world and a better life. And as I was saying, probably couldn't be absolutely perfect. But that's what we need right now. And certainly that's in the pandemic,

what we're experiencing. And so much of this ties in, as I was listening to you, I was thinking just before the pandemic, the town called Paradise went up in flames in California. 85 people killed and 19,000 structures destroyed. And if you're interested in a metaphor or an allegory, you wouldn't have to look very far. I remember the Eagles have that

song, The Last Resort, in which Don Henley says, call something paradise and you kiss it goodbye, which I think is true, that in some way, it's a notion of paradise that keeps us from maybe appreciating where we are right now. And it's that feeling that we need more or that we're ultimately going to find some absolute perfection that prevents us from seeing actually, you know, where I'm sitting as I'm talking to you now, Jonathan, in this rented two room apartment in a boring suburb in Western Japan has everything I need. I mean, the sun is flooding through the window. I'm lucky enough to have a shelter and the food and my wife nearby. What more do I have to hanker for?

I suppose more than paradise, one could almost call it contentment. And it goes back to your question of yourself as you were thinking about evacuation. What do I really need to lead a rich and fulfilled life with my wife, whether we're in New York City or Boulder, Colorado? And probably very little of that will be material stuff. And a lot of it will be just the essential stuff. As you said, you wouldn't even pack your full bag. But that question you were asking yourself is almost like a variation of the question, what do I need for my particular personal fallen paradise? In this very chapter, actually, you write all the light or beauty we

could find, we had to find right now. The fact that nothing lasts is the reason why everything matters. That encapsulates so much of what we're talking about here. Yes. And I think maybe it's only a sentence that could have been written in the depths of the pandemic. So I remember writing that sentence in late 2020, probably just as you were moving to Colorado. No vaccines in sight. We didn't know how long this was going to last. Everybody trembling, hanging by a thread. And precisely because we're in such a state of vulnerability, I felt I want to rejoice in every moment I have, be glad that this morning I've woken up and we're all still healthy. It was the

season for not taking anything for granted, I think. And every morning during the pandemic, when I woke up, I thought, I have a choice. I can either think about everything I don't have, which is considerable, or everything I do have. And that was pretty considerable too, because my mother was still alive. My wife's by my side. We took walks in the golden light of early morning. Everything was very calm. I didn't have to travel the way I might usually. And so I think almost in any circumstance, our lives are what we choose to attend to. And that is up to us, really. Right now, we could be resenting the many things we don't have or saying thank you for the many things we do, which is sort of cliched,

but I'm happy to remind myself of it. Yeah. And a lot of cliches exist for a reason also. I was going to say that exactly. They basically, they represent the truth of human condition as goofy and whatever it is we want to say. You sort of bring the conversation in the book home with a visit to Varanasi in India,

which is, if anyone's known or read about it or seen about it, it is a place where often people pilgrimage to bring bodies so that they are moved out in funeral priors. And given the best possible launch into that next beyond, you described a moment walking with, I guess, the person, as you mentioned, sort of everywhere you go, you have a guide who is like the person who is the knowing hand, saying everything is a constant succession of becomings. Nothing remains the same. And isn't that the ultimate truth at the end of the day, right? Yes. And I didn't, in fact, include it in the book, but I've been thinking of one moment in Varanasi. So an interesting, you know, I'm entirely Hindu by origin and Varanasi is a great Hindu city. But as a foreigner to India, I was perplexed and freaked out by it as

many a foreigner would. It's so intense. You look to the north and there were flames, night and day burning bodies. You look to the south, more flames burning bodies. You're in those little lanes and people are carrying dead bodies, as you said, to be committed to the water or to the holy Ganges or to the flames. There are naked ascetics walking around who are living in graveyards and drinking from skulls. It's a very, very intense and shocking place. So I was standing in the middle of this mayhem one day and I ran into two Tibetan Buddhist monks whom I know from New York City, one Tibetan and one American. And the American monk surveyed this Hieronymus Bosch scene. Isn't this wonderful? This is everything. It's the whole of life. This is birth and death and sorrow and joy. And it's all here.

This is great reality. And he was really rejoicing in it. And I thought that was an important lesson I needed to take away. This place of actual filth and chaos and mayhem, look at it in the right way. And it's a place of wonder and beauty and cause for rejoicing for this clear-sighted monk. And one of the things that really hits me about India as a whole, but especially about Varanasi. It's the city of death. It's a city of joy that the Hindus were flocking through the alleyways, carrying the bodies to the river, flooded with gratitude. They're smiling. They're so grateful to be here. The water's there, according to the WHO, at 3,000 times beyond the maximal level safe for drinking. And people are gratefully drinking it down because it's holy water to them. And so it was a tonic reminder,

as I said, paradise may not be the golden beach where you have not a care in the world. It may be the place of intense confusion and congestion, which you can nonetheless see as the place where we all have to live and therefore have to embrace and take as a rightful home as long as we can. Yeah. I mean, I think what the whole conversation really brings home to me is this notion that paradise lies in the acceptance of duality and complexity in all things. And that the truth that, you know, we can never and will never fully know anything, anywhere, or anyone, including ourselves, but we can coexist with, we can even embrace and savor, like the gift that lies in living inevitably and enduringly in the question of it all, you know, like that, to hold space for that, to find

peace in the realm of paradox is as close as we will ever get to any notion of paradox. Peace in the midst of paradox. I want to steal that. That should be the title of the book. I mean, again, you summarize it just so, so perfectly. You're such a good listener, but you're also such a good reader. And exactly so. We don't even know ourselves and we don't need to know ourselves. And we have to make the most of life in the midst of that unknowing. Yeah. Thank you for expressing it perfectly. Feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So in this container of a good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? Again, if I were to go to the next town down the

road, Kyoto, there's a famous rock garden with 15 rocks and from no place can you see all 15. And so people have been wondering what it represents for 300 years. But just around the corner from that famous garden is a stone water basin. And there's one Japanese character on each of its four sides and a hole in the middle. And if you look at all the characters and the hole, it says, what I have is all I need. So I think that's my definition of a good life. Contentment, not hungering for something you don't have or something maybe you'll never get, such as paradise, but realizing that maybe what you have is enough, as in your case, fleeing the fire with an almost empty duffel bag, but that's essentially what you need. And I think in my case, I find it's often

hard to appreciate reality because there are always going to be so many challenges and imperfections. And so every now and then I remind myself that when I was 27 years old in New York City, I was at lunch with a friend and she said, what kind of life do you want to lead? And I said, well, I'd really like to be a full-time writer. And I feel very drawn to Japan and I wish I could just lead a quiet life writing in Japan. So I said that 35 years ago. Now that's the life I've been living. And I forget that it was my dream because it's a reality now.

And now I've probably got some new tweak on the dream. But in truth, I couldn't ask for more. And I've been lucky enough to get exactly what I wanted as a kid. And I think many of us are in that state one way or another, but we just forget it. Or again, we're concentrating on the one piece of the puzzle we haven't completed rather than the many that life has been gracious enough to give us. So I think when you say what's the definition of a good life, the first word that comes to my mind is contentment. And I think contentment to some extent is up to us. It doesn't have to do with our circumstances, but with what we make of them, whether it's a pandemic or a forest fire or all the difficulties that life is going to throw

at our way. Look at the Dalai Lama began our conversation. I honestly think that nobody I know has suffered more than he has. And 63 years in exile, unable to see the 6 million people that he has to rule, demonized by the government of the largest nation on earth, real difficulty. And if he's famous for anything, it's three things, his infectious laugh, his constant smile, and his robust confidence. And so you asked me 50 minutes ago what I've learned from the Dalai Lama. And maybe that's one of the most useful things I've learned, which is that difficulty is non-negotiable, but even in the midst of it, one can have confidence, kindness, and optimism,

just as he does. Thank you. favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person, just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those, you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.

The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew and actual results will vary.