Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 105: Leslie Booker, Activism and the Dharma

Episode Date: October 25, 2017

Leslie Booker was working as a wardrobe stylist, dressing models for a living, and was looking for a way to transition out of the industry and her winding path -- she lives a nomadic lifestyle -- eventually brought her to becoming a meditation teacher. A Navy brat who grew up in Virginia and Japan, Booker is also an activist who was involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement and has worked with incarcerated youth, and she shared her thoughts on how the Dharma has changed the way she approaches activism. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out..com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, baby, this is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts,

the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad, where the memes come from. And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. For ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

Before we get to the episode this week, latent, unabashed self-promotion. I got a new book coming out. It's called Meditation Prophigia de Skeptics. It's a how to meditate book, but it's also got a story. It's the story of me and one of my favorite meditation teachers, Jeff Warren, going across country in a stupid orange bus, meeting people who want to meditate but aren't and really helping you know create a taxonomy of reasons why people aren't meditating and then throw in a bunch of practical advice to people about how they can get over these various obstacles like not finding the time or feeling like you can't clear your mind etc. Anyway I'm really happy about the book really proud of it comes out the day after Christmas and time for a new year, a new you and you can get it on pre-order now. So it's shameless self-promotion

out of the way. Let's get to the episode this week. Leslie Booker. I met Leslie Booker in an elevator a few months ago on the way up to a book party for Sharon Salzburg, who's a famous meditation teacher. And Leslie was standing next to me. By the way, I call her Leslie, but she goes by Booker, even though that's her last name. So Booker was standing next to me and dropped an F-bomb, I think, in conversation with somebody else, and I was like, who is this person?

So we got to talking, and turns out she's a really interesting yoga and meditation teacher, she's done a lot of work with incarcerated youth, and on lots of other fascinating issues, all of which you're about to hear about. So here she is, Booker. Why do you go by Booker instead of Leslie? That is a great place to start. So people have always called me Booker as a nickname throughout my life in high school, and it was never something that I really attached to when we were the other.

It's kind of simultaneously informal and formal? Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. So I thought it was something cute. And then when I was in the fashion industry for about eight, nine years here in New York City. And I was a wardrobe stylist. Nice. So I dressed models for a living.

It's a really weird job. In retrospect, it's a really strange job to dress giant Barbie dolls. Were they nice? They were amazing. Oh really? Yeah, and really my transformation into the work that I do now. So I was wanting to transition out of that industry, went to nutrition school. And I really is very soon on that I couldn't keep when this fashion thing full-time.

And so I found a part-time job at the New York Open Center. What is that? The New York Open Center is an urban, holistic, spiritual center, sort of like Omega or S-Lon or any of those institutions, but in New York City. So all of those things. Lots of weirdos.

All of them. And so when I got there, I think. But why would you go there? Why did you want to get a job there? I mean, there's a second job. Yeah. So you were already into this stuff? I was years before I got in my certification

of blood reflexology. Because when I first started working in the actual... Blood reflexology. Oh yeah. You were like, okay, like the end with other strangers. And you were really into feet. It's fine. Yeah, it's totally fine.

Okay. Yeah. All right. So, we're gonna focus right now. No, no, no, wait out. I know this is a meditation podcast, but I reserved the right to take you down. Whatever tributary I want.

All right, so I knew you were gonna be... You have no guarantees here. This is what I've been told. All right, carry on. So your deal with models, foot reflexology is in your past. And now you're like, I'm gonna add the open center into my mix. Yeah, I needed to do something that allowed me

to have some flexibility in my schedule and also allowed me to kind of move into this world a little bit more. And so when I got there, I said, hey, my name's Leslie and they said, we already have one. And I was like, I don't know what you mean. And they said, we already have a Leslie. What other name do you want to go by?

And so I was like, well, I guess you can call me Booker. And during that time, it's when I met Sharon Salzburg, and I met like a lot of like my friends and colleagues and teachers, and so Booker sort of stuck. And I tried to break out of it, and people were like, well, that's who you are. And a dear friend of mine said that a booker said, woman who's good

in the world and Leslie is the one he can like, bakey cookies. And I'm happy to do both. I will bake you some cookies, some gluten free cookies, and then we will go out and get done in the world. So both names feel very appropriate for me.

Yeah, I mean, like, when I met you in an elevator, going up to some fancy apartment to go to a book party for Sharon Salisberg, and you introduced, first of all, you used it, you dropped an F-bomb, which I was like, who's this person dropping an F-bomb? In the elevator, yeah, which I like.

In a good way, I was like, all right, I like this person, but we had never met, I didn't know you. And then, we started talking, and you introduced yourself as a booker, I was like, but we had never met. I didn't know you. And then we started talking and you introduced yourself as a booker. I was like, that's a cool name. Gotta get around myself. Exactly. In fact, I was one of the first things I sent you.

I kind of squeezed your resume out of you. And I was like, oh, this person is a teacher. Get it on the show. I've been bugging you ever since. Because that book party was a while ago. It was like July, June July. Well, let me just start though, could you give us a little bit of your backstory, but can you just tell me a little bit how you got into meditation to start with?

And then in terms of busy summer, you were specifically referencing stuff that we've seen in Charlottesville and in Washington and you're intimately involved in kind of bringing meditative principles to all that. So we definitely want to get into all that. But first, for context, can you just describe how you got into meditation in the first place? Yeah, so I was working at the New York Open Center. Right. As Booker.

Yup, as Booker. And I met my first mentor there, an amazing human named Stan Greer. And he just really took me under his wing, you know, right away. And he was working for the lineage project, and he really wanted me to work with lineage projects, so teaching yoga and meditation to encourage the Red and System Involve youth. At the time, I wasn't a yoga teacher.

I didn't know anything about meditation, but he kept kind of nagging at me. And he... You were not a yoga teacher. I was not a yoga teacher at the time. So what did you have to offer in this situation? It was a random person who had been working in the fashion industry for a long time and was trying to find a different way of living my life. He clearly saw something in you. Yeah, yeah. And he's complete

bodhisattva. This is a really amazing human. To find that for people who may not know it. Yeah, so bodhisattva is one who chooses to live their life over and over and over again for the liberation of all beings. And so he was just like this angel on this earth, just like kind of guiding my life. And so we would talk a lot about nutrition, and yoga, and meditation, so I was kind of dipping into that world a little

bit. I didn't have a lot of information around it and he invited me to the New York Open Center. I'm sorry to the New York Insight. Which is another center in downtown Manhattan where they changed meditation. Yeah, amazing, beautiful center and it was a people of color and allies potluck. And he took me to who is now my teacher, Gina Sharp. And he was like, Gina, booker, booker, Gina. And just like walked away. And that was close to 15 years ago. And so Gina Sharp then became your main meditation teacher. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And she's still my teacher. She's, I'm doing my four year retreat teacher training right now. And so she's, you know, our guiding teacher and that as well. So it's a four year process during which you become trained to be somebody who can teach retreats? Yes. And I just completely the two and a half year training to be a community Dharma leader. What does that mean? So community Dharma leader is somebody who is teaching meditation in centers like New York and sight. I'm around the country. You can start your own groups, your own

songas, work in a center. It take the practice, you know, anywhere within your community. And after it was a stan, so after that you also got into yoga too? It happened very simultaneously. It was happening kind of at the same time. And so I came to both practices. So they kind of mingled and integrated and intersected with each other. And so I always taught yoga through the lens of the Dharma and taught Dharma through the body. And it's so funny because we're so caught up in mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness, and we kind of forget about the rest of the body. It becomes this neck up practice. So I'm really, I told Jack Hornefield that my intention for the next four years is to bring

the drama back to the body. I, you know, I think there's something, really think there's something to that. I've got a bunch of levels. In fact, I have always hated yoga. And I wrote about this in my book that, that, when I was a little kid, my parents were hippies and they, they're not hippies anymore, but they have a little bit of that spirit. They sent me to yoga class and the teacher made me take off my tough skin pants and do

yoga in like my tidy wikies. That's why I have had a bad attitude about yoga ever since then. Yoga trauma is a thing. Yoga trauma? Oh yeah, it's a thing. Absolutely. I definitely have it. And I, but I have this bad ass trainer. Her name is J. Alexis Google, or is a thing. Absolutely. I definitely have it. And I, but I have this badass trainer.

Her name is Jadelexas Google or she's amazing. And I met her because she did, she was teaching, this is gonna make me sound incredibly bougie, but whatever. I was going to a spin class and at my gym and there was this incredible woman at the front who was just, she would come around and get in your face and they'd turn up your resistance on your bike

and I hated her, but I loved her. And but I thought I was scared of her. And so one day I actually got the courage up to talk to her because my wife at the time just had had had our child and she wanted a trainer. And so I said, would you be willing to work with my wife? And turns out actually when she wasn't screaming at you about the bike, she was like a really beautiful, nice person.

And so she ended up working with my wife as a trader. But then I got in on, so now I see her once in a while. She beats the crap out of me. She's also a former Golden Gloves boxer. And so she has been teaching us out of boxing. She's this woman is amazing. Anyway, she is a yoga teacher, like a serious, serious yoga teacher.

And only because of somebody like her who's tough and serious and who scares me, I was I willing to do yoga, and I've found that it makes a big difference. If you're uncomfortable while you're, first of all, on a couple of levels, if you're uncomfortable, you're meditating unnecessarily, why be uncomfortable unnecessarily?

Absolutely. It can create some kind of calm and relaxation in order to meditate. And also, yeah, we are, we lug around our bodies as if we're not connected to them. And I can see after a lifelong resistance how the two can intermingle. So I've said a lot, even though you're the person who's supposed to be being interviewed today. The long way of saying, I think you're on to something. Yeah, oh, the Buddha, you know, he had the first foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of body, and we keep forgetting that it is the first thing that he taught.

And we kind of like skip over that and go to the third and fourth thunders, and we're really talking about the mind. And so we really have to get that body sort of first and the breath, really knowing where we are before we can move into the investigation into the mindfulness practice. So can you describe what the four foundations of mindfulness are because I don't know that most people will know what that is? Yeah, so the four foundations of mindfulness are sort of the basics of Buddhism.

So the first foundation is mindfulness of breath and body. So knowing where the body is, knowing how the breath is, it is breathing deeply, if you're breathing shallowly, and just really gives you a lot of information, a lot of intuition. So you really know what's happening, but internally and externally with your body. And your breath. The second foundation is working with a matena, which is the feeling tones. So knowing if there is pleasant unpleasant or neutral happening in the body, the third foundation. You know, baitna is like, it's easy to write off that because it's a foreign sounding word and then feeling tone sounds kind of fluffy, maybe out of a self-help book.

But actually, it speaks to our habitual ways of interacting with the world. We either, it's either pleasant, meaning we want it, unpleasant, we don't want it or neutral, we don't care. Yeah. And actually, mindfulness is a fourth way of just of actually just being present with whatever is there non-judgmentally. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And also, just noticing if something's pleasant, we reach where we want more grasping, reclinging, we're reattaching ourselves to it, right? And if something is something that we don't like, like your spin teacher, see how I'm bringing it back down, see that? Okay. So there's like that aversion, that pushing way, I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like it. And then when we're in neutral, we don't even notice what's happening. And neutrality is such a beautiful place to be in.

But we're so using this very, these extremes. I love it, I want it. I hated it. I want it to go away. So being in this place of neutrality is a really yummy juicy place to be in. And the second we notice that we're neutral. It's like, I love this. And it turns into pleasant. It's kind of a tricky little, tricky little bugger there. Yeah. Yeah. So third foundation of mindfulness. So third foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of a thoughts of really understanding like the attitude of what's going on. That was always something that's kind of tricky for me.

I didn't quite understand what that meant. And recently my friend Vinny Ferraro said, were you okay? Are you okay? Will you be okay? And so just kind of checking in with the attitude, Like, this is unpleasant, but I can stay here. You know, I'm not dying, I can be here, it's okay for right now. Then the fourth foundation of my implement is when we really get into all the list.

You know, the three poisons, the four hindrances, the five hindrances and all of these things where we really begin to like, to do a lot of the investigation. So the Buddha, I mean, you know this better than I do bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss.

The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss.

The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss.

The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. The Buddha's bliss. say them allowed in casual conversation, but these lists are meticulously crafted, kind of like the periodic table of the mind in some way. That's a cool way of putting it, and I wanna admit that I did not make that up. I saw that from Dr. Mark Epstein in front of my mouth. They were really categorized the way we think and feel about things, the way we react to stimuli. And so the fourth foundation is to use those lists

to investigate our own experience. Yeah, and it's awesome because you are like, it helps you to investigate your own crazy. Like, wait, what's going on? I was like, oh, I'm just doing that thing again where I push away. Or I'm doing that thing again where I'm in delusion. Or I'm doing that thing again where I, so it's really useful to help us to keep us from spinning out. It gets us placed a land, and to understand where we are,

where that's coming from, and to see our habitual habits. But your habitual habits, right? I do that all the time. Um, the, the, but your point was that, that we, we tend to skip over,

especially like those of us who are like into Buddhism, and we want to go as deep as possible, we skip over the body and the breath, which is the most obvious stuff. That's where all the information is, is all in the body and the breath. You think this is kind of just endemic to our culture? Oh yeah.

We're disconnected from our bodies. Absolutely, absolutely. I moved away from New York recently after 18 years, and I'm just fast-knit when I open the book. I live nomatically. What? Yeah. All right.

Put a pin in there. Put a pin in the back of that. But carry on. But I'm always amazed when I'm walking down the sidewalk and 9 out of 10 people are walking on the sidewalk looking down and texting. If you're on the subway everybody will have headphones on, 90% of the people at least on the subway are having headphones on completely shutting themselves out from humanity, from life around them. And I think it's such a shame.

And I moved to New York in the late 90s and before all this was going on and it was just so alive and vibrant and I feel people are just so shut down. We're not paying attention to what's happening. People need support or help. We're asking you a question. We don't. It's just not on our radar to to take care of them to look out. To listen. How do you the idea of you know getting out of your head and into your body sounds good to people, but how do you actually do that? Mm-hmm. And it's complex, too.

I mean, there's a lot of different kinds of trauma, you know, that folks are living with, whether it be historical trauma or developmental trauma. And so being inside one's body isn't always the safest feeling place for folks. Say more about why why not? Because when folks have experienced trauma to the body, it's because they're asking Oh, you mean if they've been physically abused? Yeah, for example. Yeah, and so there's been like a dissociation, a non-trusting of the body.

And so sometimes putting that wall up and putting the body over here and me over here creates a really safe environment for me to live in. And so, you know, that's something when we're teaching to really be mindful of, of, you know, what might be happening in somebody's body. Yeah. And to keep it really basic, you know, being mindful of the body is just knowing where the feet are. Like when you're sitting down,

do you know that your feet are resting on the earth below you? Do you know that your sit-stones are connecting to the earth? Can you feel that? So just really knowing where your body is in space, do you know where your hands are? Now, is your body leaning forward? Is it leaning back? So just really simple things like that can begin to bring mindfulness to our body,

especially when we are jumping out of the body, we're jumping into a reaction, coming back to the body and being in the head, but where are my feet right now? And that could help when you're in a difficult situation. Absolutely. If you're being interviewed by somebody. Yeah. Especially if you won't let you finish it. That's the horrible.

I'm just grounding down. Yeah. But, you know, for real, I mean, you know, it is, it is, you know, even if you're, as you're saying that, our lesson in my posture was hair talk terrible at that moment And but there's a way in which actually if you sit with some composure and you're connected to it you're much you are literally less likely to be to float off like a Headless balloon. Yes, they say that the the psyche follows the body So if the body is at ease, then the mind is at ease. If the body is agitated and disconnected, then so is the mind. And so I often, you know, especially doing all the

million things that I do, I'm always like saying, but where is my body right now? Like, can I stay present right now? And back to your biography, when you, so you went from a, I guess a reasonably conventional career or fashion, right, people know what that is. To like off the deep end, full on yoga, meditation, teacher, trainee, what did your friends and family where they, were they surprised, alarmed? What was the reaction? My parents have never quite understood what I do for a living, even working in fashion industry. I'm like, I'm a stylist, they're like, you do hair? I'm like,

no, I dress models and that was still confusing. Where did you grow up? In Northern Virginia and Japan. What? Okay. Yeah, you have a great story. All right, why Northern Virginia, where you, where your family in the military? Yeah, my doctor's in the Navy. Okay. And so they're still kind of mystified and befuddled by what you're doing now. My parents are happy that I'm living a spiritual life. Oh, there are. Yeah, I grew up Baptist and being a black American,

the Baptist Church is a foundation of my life and my family, my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, etc. My parents live in a small town called Ivey, Virginia and the church they go to is the church that my grandparents, great-grandparents, everyone was baptized in, married in, funeralized in, so we have deep roots in the Baptist church. And so when I left the church when I was 12 years old, there was a lot of inks around me not having a spiritual life, something to land, to land me. And so when I came around to boost,

some they were pretty happy. They don't get it. My mom actually came to my very first Dharma talk at New York in sight, which was very sweet. She happened to be visiting and I was like, hey, I'm teaching, do you wanna come? And it was sweet. She was like, I believe everything you say,

as if I was gonna go down, like, spelled a bunch of lies or something. I'm like, well, yeah, like Dharma means it's the truth. And she was like, oh, okay. Why did you leave the church from year 12? Cause of homophobia. You know, I was hearing a lot of, from the pulpit, I was hearing a lot of homophobia. You know, I was hearing a lot of, from the pulpit, I was hearing a lot of homophobia,

a lot of racism, a lot of hatred. And at home, my parents were saying, don't listen to that, listen to that. So my parents would always say, does it matter? Like, who you love, you know, someone like respects you and takes care of you. And so I was getting two different messages.

And I was like, adults need to get it together. Until you do, I'm going to leave the church because it's not resonating with me. And it was a predominantly black church and you were hearing racism? Yeah. Against. Against anyone who wasn't black. Really? Yeah, it can happen.

No, I know it can happen. I mean, maybe racism is something right where I'm going to pull up it. You know, and the thing thing is I've met amazing ministers and clergy archbishop's I have done my activism has always been connected with spiritual leaders and so I love ministers preachers. I surround myself with them, but there's a few bad eggs out there, and unfortunately, that's what I was

predominantly exposed to and so I'm really grateful that the kind of parents who could listen to me and respect Maybe using the way that I want it to live life. So yeah, so I love the church at 12 Sevy um, I'm glad your parents were cool, but it sounds like they're even if they don't fully understand what you're up to now, at least they support it. So I want to talk about your activism, but I can't leave alone the fact that you live a nomadic lifestyle. Oh yeah.

Exactly. Are you like a Tibetan sheep herder or what would it be? Yes, I am. It happened very organically. I have a few friends who are also on this path and lived nomatically, have been for many years and I never got it. I was like, I could never do that. I'm a tourist.

I love a beautiful home. I was a person with the big apartment. It would have dinner parties and host friends and let people stay with me for a month at a time. And yeah, it just, it happened very slowly where I was assisting in offering movement more and more on retreats. Assisting and offering movement. Yeah. So assisting the lead Dharma teachers and then offering mindful movement on meditation

retreats. Gotcha. So teaching yoga to the retreat. Mindful movement Dan. Gotcha, so teaching yoga to the retreat. Mindful movement, Dan. Oh, what's the difference? I mean, the yoga, I thought to stigma about it. And people think of yoga, like having a yoga butt and blue, blue, lemon.

Yeah, yeah. And mindful movement, it's a realist integration of Dharma into, so Dharma meeting, like the Buddha's teachings into movement practice. Anybody can do it, in other words. Sure. Well, it's not like yoga. Well, it's accessible. Yeah, absolutely. It's accessible for everybody. Not anybody can teach it, but anybody can do it. In other words, sure. Well, it's not like you know it's accessible. Yeah, absolutely. So it's accessible. Not anybody can teach it,

but anybody can do it. Like it's less intimidating. Absolutely. So it's accessible to all body types, it's trauma informed. And it's something that hopefully everyone can can explore and experience. And it's a really great support to have movement while you're on retreat, again, to allow the body to like ground to stretch to have some space before you unretreat, again, to allow the body to like ground, to stretch, to have some space before you get back on the cushion. 100% up to the tree. Yeah, and it's great. Yeah, absolutely.

So being a nomad, so you were thrown dinner parties and you were living conventional, like home owner or home resident rental person lifestyle and then you gave it all up. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I was just looking at my, my life had been just a lot of leaving town, being on a retreat, traveling, speaking at conferences across the country. And in 2017, I just started a new relationship in December. And she lives in Connecticut.

And so we were looking at our calendars trying to figure out when we can see each other. And I realized that I was going to be gone about seven months this year. And so between being gone and also spending my home time with her, I was like, why am I living in New York anymore? So I gave it my home in February. So how does that work? How do you, you know, like, where are you staying tonight? I'm leaving here.

I'm going back up to Hartford, Connecticut to teach at tomorrow. I am teaching at Copper Beach Institute. And so I'll stay on their properties tonight, teach there tomorrow, and then I'll go back to Bridge Brook and I get to stay with my honey, then we're back in New York for the weekend. And is it a lot of, is it stressful to just kind of constantly be planning where you're going to stay? No, I mean, mostly I'm staying at retreat centers.

And so these places are places that I've been teaching at, sitting at, for years, and so it feels like going home. The thing about being nomadic is every place is your home now. Life is short, and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What does happiness really mean? How do I get the most out of my time here on Earth? And what really is the best cereal? These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast, Life Is Short, with Justin Long. If you're looking for the answer to deep philosophical questions,

like, what is the meaning of life? I can't really help you, but I do believe that we really enrich our experience here by learning from others, and that's why in each episode, I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists, scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life. We explore how they felt during the highs and sometimes more importantly, the lows of

their careers. We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times, but if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats between friends about the important stuff. Like, if you had a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Follow Life is short wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to Add Free on the Amazon Music or Wondering App.

Where do you keep your stuff? I have. Most of myself is in storage. Some is out my girlfriends. Some is out my friend Anne's and Washington Heights. And what I need is in this backpack right here. Are you, is this at all connected to we've had on the show, the guys from minimalism? Oh yeah.

Is it all connected to that in some way? Not at all. I am not a minimalist. I mean, when you travel, you take just what you need. And so there's a few books that I need. If I'm staying on retreat, I have a little tiny Buddhist tattoo that one of the Ayogi made on retreats. I have a couple of little things, my little touch points.

But yeah, I'm a minimalist when I travel, but my home is always very full and very abundant. And a lot of art and a lot of yumminess. And so I definitely will be getting back to that at some point. So you're not gonna forever be in no bad? No, no, I am not. You know, it's not in my nature. It's not in my nature.

I'm such like a home person. I love having a home. I was actually sitting as it turns out, just as a coincidence. I had with the guys from Minimalism were on the podcast many months ago. And then I was actually sitting as it turns out, just as a coincidence. I had with the guys from Minimalism were on the podcast many months ago. And then I was actually in the documentary, which weirdly, they sent a crew to my office

to interview me. I had no idea what I was gonna do. And I was convinced nobody was ever gonna see it. And then that documentary just went crazy on Netflix. And actually they're not minimalism. Their version of minimalism isn't like anti having any stuff. It's just like the stuff you have should mean something to you and give you pleasure. Absolutely.

So it's been really interesting because I had the whole floor of a brownstone, which is, you know, it's a lot of space in New York City. Yeah. And I had a deck and a backyard and the whole ship being. And, you know, what I actually used in my apartment were the same five books, the same two pans, the same, you know, I wasn't utilizing all the stuff that I had.

I loved it, reminded me of where I had traveling where I had been. But it's not necessary. Try doing that with a two-year-old. My son is a maximalist. All of the stuff. All the stuff. All the stuff.

All the time. So, activism, when did that become a part of your practice? And is that a fair way to say it? That it's part of your practice? Yeah, let's say that. And one of the critiques, and I don't know if we haven't, we're actually getting to know each other now, but one of the critiques I've heard

of modern mindfulness is that it is, in some ways something kind of private, and can be even like solipsistic and self-indulgence, something that people do on their own, and disconnect it from larger social problems. That's a critique, I'm not sure if I know enough to fully agree with it or agree with it. But is that your view and are you kind of trying to introduce something different into the mix?

Or how do you approach all of this? I mean, I'm not introducing anything. These are the Buddhist teachings. He spoke about engaging in life. A lot of the polycanon, which are his teachings, are all about being in relationship, and being relational with others around you. And so, you know, the Buddhist, for some people, they think that the Buddha was an activist himself. You know, speaking to all people, all different cast, it took a while, but, you know, allowing a monastic order that was, that was, no women, bikinis, my nuns, which is something that no one else was doing at that time. And so a lot of folks do consider him to be an activist.

And was your, was activism for you something that you were doing when you were in fashion or did you have a more of a political awakening when you got into the practice? I was not a fashion activist. Really? Gotcha. So what happened that made you kind of engage in this way? Yeah, well, I was a pre-activist before the fashion industry.

So my late teens, early 20s, I was involved with activism. I was, you know, a group in a living in the DC area. And so, you know, really interested in women's rights and women's marches and like screaming and yelling and shouting and not listening to anyone, shouting folks out if they didn't agree with what I was saying. So I kind of walked around with my eyes closed, my ears closed, my mouth wide open,

which turns out didn't serve anyone. No one was listening to me and I wasn't listening to myself and I completely burnt myself out very, very quickly. And so I kind of joked around by, I literally ran away to the fashion industry because I was like, I don't worry about it. Like no one cares, people just want to be pretty. And so it was this way of kind of like healing myself

from just kind of, yeah. And but being in the fashion industry and spending a lot of time, there's a lot of one on one time with folks, especially the models or, you know, our team. And so, just listening to a lot of people's suffering, you know, and hearing a lot of people not being very happy and not really knowing what the way out was. And so, being in the fashion industry made me want to investigate, well, who is happy? How do we alleviate the suffering which led me to Buddhism? And when I got there and I began to go deep into my practice, my movement practice, my Dharma practice, I found that this fire, you know, of like hearing

voices that were typically not listened to, like acknowledging scene people who were typically not seen, this fire of walking next to hearing their story started to really come back up in my body again. And soon after I started working in jails with you, then working with folks who are experiencing homelessness, living who are living with addiction. And then that kind of just deepened my passion towards this work again, to getting back into activism. And it's weird for me to say activism,

because it doesn't feel like the classic way we think of an activist. Sometimes it looks like that. Sometimes I'm holding a sign and I'm marching and I'm pumping my fist. And a lot of times I'm preparing folks to go out into action. Or I am supporting folks in doing the hard work. How many times did you say before about how you were doing a lot of shouting and not a lot of listening.

Has that changed? Sometimes. No, absolutely, absolutely. Because I realize that if we listen to each other, a lot of us are having the same needs. We're having the same needs, but we're just coming from two different angles. So when we actually come together and engage in dialogue and in relationship, then we can actually come to some sort of agreement

as opposed to you're screaming, I'm screaming, I'm screaming and screaming and no one can hear each other. And so for me, it's really about shutting my mouth, opening my ears and listening very deeply. So you're able to like listen to folks at this point with whom you disagree deeply. I don't know who those people might be.

I can take some guess. And you find in those situations, like either whether you're at the barricades or whether you're reading the media, you're able to sit and hear what folks have to say who disagree with you. I'm a human. So I definitely have strong feelings that arise,

but it does give me more space to listen. And I grew up with a father who loved Ronald Reagan. And so I had a lot of practice as a child of listening to abuse. I didn't always agree with, but again, with my family, they allowed me to like voice my views very strongly. And so a lot of that was listening.

And then be like, yeah, I hear you. And also here's my side. And so I think that there's a lot of practice. Do you think there's enough of that in the circles in which you move of like being willing to listen? In the circles in which I move? I'm a, I'm gonna guess. I'm gonna guess left leaning circles

I would say that yeah, yeah, okay Do you because some of the some of the criticism at the left of late has been you know this? Really dogmatic political correctness that can they can that can It's really dogmatic political correctness that can shut out other viewpoints. In fact, next week I'm following this kid whose name I'm forgetting the guy who just provoked riots at Berkeley. Why I'm forgetting this person's name, but he's a popular podcaster, conservative, whereas Iamika has taken a lot of heat from the alt, right? Even though he is a conservative and he is anti-Trump, but he went to Berkeley recently

to give a speech to a small group of conservatives and they basically got to shut the town down because this kid was coming to these industries in the early thirties. Anyway, the criticism and the wake of the incident at Berkeley was, first of all, you give him much more attention when you threaten so much violence that the police have to basically shut the place down in order to make it secure. But second, why not just hear what the person has to say?

I don't know, I'm not taking a view on any of this, but I'm just curious. Yeah, there's something called predatory listening. Huh, what does that mean? Predatory listening is people who will listen to what you say, and then if there is one thing out of 10, they don't agree with, they will attack that thing in disregard all the other night, you know,

the 90% of things that were actually in alignment with them. And I, and it's something that's happening with a lot of, you know, of these left-wing, you know, younger folks. I didn't want to say younger folks. I mean, it's happening with a lot of folks who are like, I am right. There's nothing you can say. And they're always waiting for someone to harm them. Right. Well, you know how that feels, right? I mean, you were, you were that person for a while. It's not. Yeah. Yeah. But you're kind of uniquely situated to be an interesting voice in this mix.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's something that I am, you know, I'm working with so many different populations and having so many different colleagues that I do work with. It's interesting to see how we hear things through our lens, depending on our age, our gender expression, our identity, our race. It is just so many of it is filtered through these lenses.

And so it's really interesting to sit next to a friend, hear the exact same conversation, and hear it two different ways. So it's been, you know been a really big part of my teaching, my listening, my training. My mentoring is to reflect back and to really listen deeply to folks. What's interesting that you bring to the table, aside from the passion, is the Dharma, which does teach in the end that we are all equal. And then, and that we all have, we are all sentient beings. We are all sentient beings. We're all sentient beings.

We're all sentient beings. We're all sentient beings. We're all sentient beings. We're all sentient beings. We're all sentient beings. We're all sentient beings. We're all sentient beings. We're all sentient beings.

We're all sentient beings. We're all sentient beings. We're all sentient beings. We're all sentient beings. We're all sentient beings. We're all sentient beings. We're all sentient beings. We're all, our age. That's what makes the difference. So this whole like, who am I, we are all one? I'm like, yes, and also, if I were a white man, I'd have a very different life than I do as a black woman. Unquestionably. Yeah.

Unquestionably. But just talk a little bit about how the Dharma has changed how you show up in these activist situations for lack of a better term? Yeah, I had completely stepped away from activism for years and it wasn't until Occupy Wall Street that I was able to step back into it. I was doing another training through Spirit Rock, the Mindful Gilgain Meditation training. So it's deeply in my practice and I came back to New York and Occupy had just started. And I was going to the park every day.

I felt so drawn to this movement, and I didn't want to jump in and start screaming and yelling. I really wanted to figure out what was going on, what were the views, who were the players, what the review points were. And so I spent, you know, I went to the park every single day for hours and met people into different trainings. A lot of teachers were happening,

sat in with different working groups and find out, you know, to find out how they were doing their work. And I was hearing a lot that people were exhausted, and tired, and there's so much energy in their bodies, but they weren't resting well, they weren't eating well, they were just going, going, going, going, going. And so I started asking people, you know, about what they were doing, like how were they taking care of themselves, and knowing was taking care of themselves. And actually, Sharon Salisburg comes into this.

I was, so I reached out to a lot of the different slongest in New York City and I said, hey, like let's gather all of our resources together and have a big sit in the Coddy Park. And this was still very early on, so the park wasn't completely full yet. So we were able to collectively grab about 75 people from all the different slongest in New York City and to have a sit in the park wasn't completely full yet. So we were able to collectively grab about 75 people from all the different slongest in your city

and to have a sit in the park. And I didn't want to be weird. I was just sitting there being silent and ignoring what was going on around. That's because that to me was just not what we wanted to do. It wasn't about shutting down. It was about actually being really awake to what was happening.

And so we had a group of folks who were meditating, group of folks who had posters, and then a group of folks who were meditating, group of folks who had posters, and then a group of folks that were talking to people while while we were doing. And after we finished that day, people said that was amazing. Can you come back and do it every day? And I was like, yeah, of course.

Like having no clue how it's gonna do that. And simultaneously, I was at a community center called Charlottees Place, which was owned by Trinity Wall Street. Sharon Sawspark, I got me a part-time job there during the same time. And Sharon was doing a talk there and somebody was telling Sharon what they were going through. And I see Sharon point to me and the person came over to me and she said, Sharon said, you could help me. And so we sat down and we talked for two hours about her exhaustion and this fear of saying that she was burnt out, this fear of saying that she needed to sleep, fear of saying she'd just

step out of the park for a little bit. The was, the information she was given, the story she had been told was that to be down with this movement, you had to be a murder. You had to harm yourself in order to show how committed you were to the cause. And so we spoke for two hours. I took notes and, and then, soon after I started the meditation working group of Occupy Wall Street with some other friends. So there was a group of us who started this on Uid, sitting at the Kadi Park every day and offer a meta.

And then people started, so meta. Yes. So meta is one of the four Brahma Bahaaris, which means best homes to live in. So meta means loving kindness. There is corona, which is compassion. There's mutita, sympathetic joy. It means taking the counter intuitive act of taking pleasure in other people's success. Yeah, it's like you get promotion. Oh my god, I'm so happy for you. And actually truly meaning it. Not being like that, mother, not, you know. And then the last one is

Upeca, which is equanimity, which is kind of this equalizer that doesn't make any of them too sentimental and too sappy. And so we were offering meta-loving kindness in the park. So just wishing well for ourselves and wishing well for even the people that we were, you know, the one for centers. So wishing well, and that really gave people some energy. It really blew it them and gave them a moment to rest. And then we also really began to engage in conversation after we would practice together. And then people wanted to continue to talk and they wanted to move and do more stuff with their bodies because we're sleeping on concrete, you know, the weather was getting colder and

so I started urban sangha project to support the sustainability of frontline change makers. So these were two hour workshops of mindful yoga and meditation and compassionate dialogue and I started these initially just for occupiers and it lasts for four years. Wow. And so people started hearing about as an educator started coming in and social workers and people who were in law school, who were in medical school, anyone who's on the front lines, who needed to step back and be a human for a minute, and to say, I'm tired, I need a rest,

and to be in a community of people who also needed to step back and rest. So it became this really beautiful community of people that run these frontline changemakers who were changing the world and also needed to break every now and then. So we're able to create that for them. What issues are you engaged in now?

What's on your radar? What are you thinking about? For over a decade, I worked with incarcerated youth, and so I'm always so concerned about our young Brown and Black men. I have enough youth. I have two enough youths here in the 20s, and I live in a constant state of fear for them

and for their safety. You know, it's like this, this extra level of stress that folks of color move through the role with. I am going down to the March for Erasal Justice. I'm going to be on the rolling retreat with Biky Bodhi. What is that? The rolling retreat. I'm like, what is a Biky Boti? What is a Biky Boti? Biky Boti is amazing. He's a scholar and monk. Yes. Yeah, he's a Buddhist scholar and monk. One of my dear teachers, major activist, really amazing phenomenal human. And so he does

these rolling retreats where he gets a bunch of Dharma teachers and some folks and we get on a bus and we get on the bus and we go to DC and we march. How do you view the events in Charlottesville and subsequently through your specific lens, especially as the meditative part of it. Yeah, the Charlottesville thing hit home in a really specific way. So the church I was talking about in Virginia, it's literally 10 minutes from UVA's campus. So that area, I grew up in my grandparents, you know, live there. And so that's where I spent a lot of time growing up in my parents when they retired, moved back to the land that my mother grew up on. And Charlottesville has always been this southern

city where blacks and whites, I wouldn't say Lidgen like tremendous harmony, but there is this, there is this living together, there's this living alongside each other that had kind of been historically the culture there. And so for something to happen on Yves campus was really shocking for folks who are familiar with that area. It was also shocking, I'm like, wait, Nazis? Like Nazis. Like, it's so surreal that we're talking about Nazis in 2017, who have websites, you know, like they're out there openly. And KKK, and they're not wearing masks.

Yeah, they're not in their hoods. It's terrifying. And also, yes, of course, they've always been there. I'm not as surprised because, you know, again, as a person of color, like we see bigotry and hatred all the time in these what folks call microaggressions, which I don't think they're macroaggressions. They're only microaggressions to those who are saying them to those who are on the receiving and they are macroaggressions My eight-year-old niece accused her father and my brother of a microaggression recently. That's right But I knew this would get not a hand And so, you know, I'm not surprised and you know we are living under an administration

That is the embodiment of the three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion. And so there is this allowance for this behavior to not be in the shadows, but to come into the light. So I'm not surprised. And it's scary. And it's sad. You know, the president took a lot of heat justifiably when he tried to equate the both sides and then made things worse by saying there were good people among those out supporting

the Confederate statue because I think if you're either a Nazi, remember the KKK or somebody's willing to carry a torch and march alongside them, the questions can be raised by your character. Having said all of that, you do see some violence on the left. What is your view on that and how much of a positive role do you think the Dharma can play in terms of of being a positive force among the activists with whom you align yourself?

Yeah, I think that there is this misconception that those on the left are peaceful and you know, it's like left versus right, we're all human beings. And we were all, there's a lot of fear on both sides. And so there is this way that, in this culture, we have been taught to respond or react when we are in fear, and that is to lash out to harm others. And that's happening to the left and on the right. This quote by Audrey Lore, like heaps coming back to me over and over again, which is, the master's tools cannot dismantle the master's house. And so these tools of hatred, and greed, and harm, and oppression.

We can't do that on our side and expect it, expect to win to overpower. Like those are the master's tools. Like we have to find new tools. We have to find a new way of approaching the same situation. And so, you know, is there a right answer? Is there a right way of being? Is there the magic key?

The magic words and magic teaching is going to make all of this go away? Probably not, because there are people who are always going to have their ear shut, their eyes shut, and their mouths wide open. And I know that I can take care of myself and I can offer tools and practices that can help others take care of themselves. So we can do what, you know, we can work with these tools to support us in the way that

we can find a better way to work with this. That's on very roundabout. But now I was with you. Yeah. And so when these tools yoga meditation can help people do what they want to do more effectively. And it's not about sitting your cushion or getting onto your yoga mat in practice. It's about really understanding the wisdom practices. Because I think the folks think of mindfulness or meditation as just this, like you're saying earlier,

this solitary thing that you do, you don't speak, you don't talk to, you know, you don't look at anyone, you're sitting on your cushion, you're having this whole internal experience. But when you have that internal experience, it really affects how you relate to the outside world. And then again, if we are investigating the actual teachings of the Dharma, if we're really understanding

when we break apart this big lump of anger in our bodies, when we investigate and get curious about it, and we know that, oh, there's actually not just anger, but there's fear and there's sadness and there's not enoughness. So we start to break these down. And we can see them in ourselves. We can then again, to see them in others. So hopefully we can connect to the human as opposed to seeing them as our enemy. Right, well, you are getting dangerously close to oneness there though.

Notwithstanding what you said earlier about how, you know, that can be a little combi-ah, but the fact in matter is there is a universality to the human experience. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't think it's combi-ah at all. It can appear that way depending on how one hears that again, like through the lens that they're hearing it from.

Right, right, right. Right. But my understanding is that I cannot go into, I cannot live my life with anger and my heart, because it does nothing but destroy me. There's this amazing interview when Dave Chappelle came back from Africa. I don't know where he was, like the continent of Africa. And he came back to speak with an elder to get some advice about what to do. And he spoke with Maya Angelou. Have you seen this interview?

No. I mean, I mean, Rabbit, Dave Chappelle fan, Rabbit. And I'm very disappointed myself having missed this. You should be ashamed of yourself. Yes. I mean, he's the best. So there's this beautiful part in the interview where it's on iconic class on the Sundance channel. And so Dave

Chappelle is talking to Maya Angelou about anger. And he was like, how do you deal with anger? Like even since the civil rights movement, you saw all your brothers fall like Malcolm Bell and Bobby fell. And you know, like the Kennedys, like, how did you deal with Martin Dye? Like, how did you deal with all of your friends getting murdered? You know, how did you overcome your anger and she says, if you're not angry, then you're either stone cold or you're too sick to be angry. So she's like, be angry. You know, get out there, you march, you ride it, you sing it, you vote it, you do everything

about it. But when we allow our anger to kind of take over, then it becomes this cancer that fees upon the host. And so she's saying, yes, feel your anger, allow it to be the catalyst towards movement, towards action. Don't just live with anger, because it's going to rot you out on the inside. And so I take that, I take that with me all the time. I love my anger. It is so important. It is a relevant

catalyst and knowing in my body that it's time for me to move into action. But what that action is is completely inspired by my understanding of the Dharma, my understanding that I'm not trying to harm myself or harm others. Well said, probably a pretty good place to leave it. If people want to learn more about you, how can I do that? Yeah, they can get you to Leslie Booker.com and they can find out what I'm up to, they can join my newsletter, find out where I'll be. Thank you for coming on here. Thank you so much for having me, Dan. can find out what I'm up to, they can join my newsletter, find out where I'll be. Thank you for coming on here. Thank you so much for having me, Dan. You did a great job.

Thank you. So did you. Yeah. Okay, so that does it for another edition of the 10% Happier Podcast. Please take a minute to leave us a rating and a review. And if you want to suggest topics or guests for the show, just hit me up on Twitter at Dan B. Harris. Special thanks to Lauren Efron, Josh Cohan and the rest of the team here at ABC

who helped make this thing possible. And remember, we're now on Tune-in. You can hear our new episodes there five days early on Fridays through the end of this year. Thank you for listening. I'll talk to you next week. Hey, hey, prime members. You'll talk to you next week. Apple podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.