Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 235: Joseph Goldstein | Meditating In A Pandemic

Episode Date: April 1, 2020

A statement of the blazingly obvious: we are living in stressful times. A statement of the slightly less obvious: meditation, while not a panacea, can help. In this episode, we're bringing you one of the western world's greatest living meditation masters: Joseph Goldstein. I'm biased, of course, because he is my meditation teacher. I have known him for many years, and he has had an incalculably positive impact on my life. In fact, he has already come to my rescue once during this pandemic, at a moment when I was personally struggling. And now, I'm excited to unleash him on all of you. In this chat, he lays out a meditative toolkit for navigating the current crisis. His advice is actionable for absolute beginners as well as longtime meditators. Towards the end of the conversation, he proposes one approach that some of you may find deeply challenging, but I find to be extremely compelling. Plug Zone: Insight Meditation Society: https://www.dharma.org/teacher/joseph-goldstein/ Joseph Goldstein Courses & Meditations on the Ten Percent Happier App: https://10percenthappier.app.link/x9Q0TCy36Z Joseph Goldstein Books: https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Goldstein/e/B00DPSACUW Additional Resources: Ten Percent Happier Live: https://tenpercent.com/live Coronavirus Sanity Guide: https://www.tenpercent.com/coronavirussanityguide Free App access for Health Care Workers: https://tenpercent.com/care Full Show Notes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/joseph-goldstein-235 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher Alexis

Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm. All one word spelled out. Okay on with the show. For ABC, to baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey guys, hope everybody's managing okay in these insane times. I'm recording this intro once again in my wife's closet. Since I can't get into the studio, admiring her shoe collection. One item of business before we dive into the episode this week. If you're a healthcare worker like my wife,

first of all, I salute you. Second, we at 10% happier wanna offer you a gift. If you are so inclined, you can access the app for free now. Just go to 10% .com slash care 10% .com slash care and we'll give you the app for free. I hope it makes just a little bit of a difference in this pretty terrible time. Okay, the episode this week. It's a pretty terrible time. Okay, the episode this week. Here is a statement of the blazingly obvious. We are living in stressful times.

A statement of the slightly less obvious is that meditation, well, definitely not a panacea, can help. In this episode, we're bringing you one of the Western world's greatest living meditation masters, Joseph Goldstein. I'll admit I'm biased. Of course, because Joseph is my meditation teacher. I've known him for many years, and he's had an incalculably positive impact on my life. In fact, he's already come to my rescue once during this pandemic at a moment when I was personally struggling.

And now I am very excited to unleash him on all of you. In this conversation, he lays out a meditative toolkit for navigating the current crisis. His advice is actionable for absolute beginners as well as long time meditators. Towards the end of the conversation, you'll hear he proposes one approach that some of you may find a little bit challenging, but I find extremely compelling. I spoke to him from his home in Barry Massachusetts, that central Massachusetts. He and Sharon Salzburg, another great meditation teacher who was on the show last week. They live in a separate but connected houses on the grounds of the Insight Meditation Society, which they co-founded along with Jack Cornfield back in the 1970s.

When the video connection popped up, we use a program that allows me to see my guests when we record this podcast remotely, which we're doing for every episode these days. When the video connection popped up, I noticed that Joseph was beaming. I would like to believe that this was because he was happy to see me,

but the truth is, he's pretty much always like that. I want to stress, it's not that he is not taking this current outbreak seriously. He is taking it seriously. He's 75 years old. He knows how vulnerable he is. But I believe he beams on the regular because he has genuinely achieved a level of peace at equanimity in the face of whatever happens. But as you'll hear us discuss, peace ain't easy.

It takes practice. And you are about to learn from one of the best. So here we go, Joseph Goldstein. Before we dive in, any questions or concerns for me? Be nice to me. I'm always nice to you. Well, most of the time. No, I'm just teasing you.

I know. All right. So let's dive in. I want to start with a broad question. Here we are at this incredibly intense moment in human history. And I guess I'm just wondering, what's on your mind these days? Well, there are basically two big themes that I think probably are referring to most people, which is, you know, how do we take care of ourselves

in the face of all this, and also to just explore what ways we might be able to be of some help. Those are the two things really that are on my mind, you know, and keeping up to date with the various guidelines and information that's coming to us, you know, about the health aspect of it and taking care. And then really wondering in the midst of this as we are practicing social distancing, at least in person, but with the availability of all, you know, everything that's online. So the question is, you know, are there ways that we can be of help to others in this situation? Those are the two, two streams of questioning or interest.

I'm curious to hear more about how you're handling this personally, because you've been pretty open in the past about how one of the emotions that you've personally wrestled with, both in your life and in your practice, is fear. So is fear coming up for you right now? Not so much in this situation at this point because living in Barry, Massachusetts is a very quiet secluded place. As with many other places, we closed the center for at least a couple of months. So I'm living in a pretty quiet, isolated country environment and,

you know, practicing self-distancing and social distancing. We should practice self-distancing as well. That's a very Buddhist take on the situation, distancing from the self. Yeah, so I'm not so immediately concerned for myself in this, but I'm taking care with following the guidelines. So for me personally, fear is not predominant, but then when I just read about or hear about, you know, what's happening in so many places around the world and realize the enormity of what's going on in the incredible challenges for people and situations of real suffering, so that it arouses just a lot of, not really care and compassionate, and wondering, okay, is there something I could do

Even from this place of physical isolation Is there is there something that might be of help? Well, that's an interesting question for many of us I mean in your case I can see pretty clearly how you can help even though you're stuck at home I for example can drag goon you into hopping on the phone with me to help me deal with my own personal problems as I did a few days ago, or I can get you to come onto this show, which is way more helpful to the wider world. So you can do that. You can also guide meditations from home. You have a lot of options, but what about the rest of us?

How can we be helpful when we're at home watching Netflix? Well, talking going back again to these two streams of response, both the response just to the physical reality and taking care of one's health and protecting one's health and others, I think there's the same responsibility really and challenge of taking care of our minds. And that's true whether we're in physical contact with other people or not, because our minds will be responding to the situation in a whole variety of ways, some of which may be helpful. But as we know, and it's really quite natural, there'll be a lot that's coming up in the mind that may not be that helpful.

If we're getting overwhelmed by anxiety or fear or worry, which is natural, especially in people facing really challenging circumstances, but then the question is, can we take care of our own minds in the same way that we're trying to take care of the health concerns? This is something we can actually do. Anybody can do, if they have that interest in exploring what's going on in their minds, various emotions that are rising, and perhaps learning more skillful ways of being with difficult emotions. So that, and that's going to have an effect on everybody around us, whether they're around us in physical proximity or around us virtually, if we have found some way to a place of

somewhat greater calm or peace or ease of understanding, then that's what we'll be sharing with others. And if we're lost in the difficulty motions, then that's what we're sharing with others. The work that we do on ourselves will inevitably have an impact. You know, on everybody that we come into contact with one way or another. It reminds me of something I've been saying a lot. I probably stole this from somebody smarter. I can't remember who.

Anyway, for now, I'm going to take credit. What I've been saying is that while panic is contagious, calm is contagious too. Exactly. Exactly. Very often in situations, you know, in a difficult situation where a lot of people are agitated or sad or fearful or whatever, sometimes if there's one wise, calm person in the group, it can often have a transformative effect. And so I think the way the challenges, can we each become that person, bringing a little

more understanding to these circumstances. And in this case, you know, for people on the front lines of the health pandemic, they're bringing one kind of expertise. Another kind of, you could say expertise or exploration is the exploration of our own minds, our own hearts, and how they're relating to what's happening. And that's where some form of meditative understanding or practice in terms of watching our minds can be be such a... So in terms of watching our minds, in terms of meditation specifically, how do you recommend that we practice in this time?

Yeah, well, there's a lot and perhaps the simplest and most basic thing we can do is is learning to see when we're grounded in the present moment and when our mind is lost in future scenarios. Because a lot of the difficult emotions I think are coming when of what's going to happen in the future for the rest of us. So it's not to minimize the current difficulty. But even in that case, being grounded in the present allows us to respond more effectively, either to a very difficult situation now, or to let go of the anticipated difficulty. That's just the play of our thoughts. So then the question is, well, how can I stay grounded in the present? It's a nice, it's a nice trope, but how do we actually do it?

And I think the easiest way, and the goal to talk about this a lot, is really practicing mindfulness of the body, because the body is always with us. It's obvious, it's tangible. It's something that we can easily come back to, when we are lost in the kind of machinations of our minds. And I found that one part of the practice of coming back to the body and coming back to the present

is really being mindful of a movement, just of walking, ordinary, we're not even meditative walking, although that could be a really good thing to do because I would suggest to people who would like to really dive into this whole little deeper that in addition to whatever formal sitting craft this people may be doing, to maybe take some period of time, you know, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 5 minutes of walking meditation, even in one's apartment, you know, just five steps, one direction, five steps, another direction, or not in meditative organ, but just in any kind of movement that we do through

the day. Because we're moving a lot, can we practice remembering to feel the body moving? And it's not hard to do. It's hard to remember to do, but it's not hard to feel a body moving. You know, we take a step and we feel the movement, we feel the touch, the foot on the floor. So that's very obvious and very simple, but we forget, we forget to do it. That then becomes a practice.

You know, the more we practice it, then it can become and will become the default setting of our minds as we move about through the day. Just doing the ordinary things, you know, getting up in the morning, dressing, brushing one's teeth, washing the dishes, cooking, whatever. The body is always with us, it's obvious, we move a lot in the course of a day. Can we practice being mindful of the movement? And so there's a mantra, there's a little mantra that I've used on retreat, but it's very applicable here, very simple. This little mantra or phrase, each step. That's all each step. We're not saying okay for the next hour, I'm going to be mindful of every step I take.

Because that intention is too big. We're going to lose it after the third step. We're going to forget, we're going to get lost. But if we bring it back down to just each step, can I be mindful of this step and then this step. So one step at a time is not difficult at all. So the mantra of the phrase just reminds us that we actually can settle into the feeling of the body moving. Just each step, one step at a time, that's doable. And it's not to say we will still figure that. You know, maybe we'll last five steps or six steps.

But then we come back again. And then, okay, each step. And I just like to reiterate that this is not about necessarily slow, meditative, mindful walking. This can be done at any speed. Sometimes in a more formal way and it might be slow walking, but it can be in very ordinary movements as we go through the day. So this is, I think, a huge first step

as just helping people find a refuge or grounding in the present moment experience, taking us out of, you know, discrediting, just mental projections and worries and fears about the future. That reminds me, I was recently interviewing an expert in anxiety at Harvard. She was on the show, on this show right at the beginning of the crisis, Dr. Luana Marquez. She described these little meditative moments as pressing control, all-delete for the mind, and kind of knocking us out of our anxiety loops. That's great.

Where is that switch in the mind? Just the little mantra, each step that really can help us do it. Yeah, and so that I think is really an important first step. Then of course, it's learning and this can probably be done most effectively, at least at first, in formal sitting meditation, is to really practice becoming mindful of the different thoughts and emotions as they arise. So that instead of them coming and they will, these are very challenging times. So there can be lots of thoughts and feelings and emotions. It's inevitable. You know that all this stuff is going to be coming out.

But can we practice being mindful of them when they do arise in the mind? So they're not simply carried away on the train, you know, of whatever it is. But we actually, we should practice some social distancing from authors and emotions. It's like the self-distancing you referenced earlier. Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. And we can learn a helpful question that might help us just begin to explore and investigate what's happening in our experience, particularly in the realm of different thoughts and emotions, is just to ask the question, you know, is this so helpful? Is it helping in some way? Is this emotion helping in some way?

You know, and if it's not, it doesn't mean that simply by asking the question is going to disappear, that simply by asking the question is going to disappear, but it may cut our seduction by them, and it may give us a little more energy to see, oh, we can be mindful of this, I don't have to be caught up in it. It's not helpful. It's not helping anything if I'm simply lost in these patterns. So recognizing what's helpful and what's not can give us some energy for an appropriate response to them. Somebody sent me a picture on Twitter recently.

She had read my first book in which I described hearing from you a version of the, is this helpful mantra. In the book, I quote you as telling me that when I find myself caught in worry, maybe I should ask myself, is this useful? And so this person on Twitter had printed those words out and taped them to the bottom of her computer monitor.

Right. I mean, it's not a bad idea. Yeah, yeah. Because a lot of what goes on in a mind is not useful. But if we're not in that habit of paying attention to what's arising in the mind, then these thoughts and feelings are going to come. So there's no question about that. But it is a question of, are we making creating some energy to be mindful of them, or we're simply carried away by them. But for some people, I guess my question for some,

in this kind of extreme circumstance, for some people is meditation going to be enough, because we can, even if you've done a certain amount of training in meditation, you know how to tune into the body, or to be mindful of the body, for the aforementioned control all delete, you know how to tune into the body or to be mindful of the body, for the aforementioned control, all to lead, you know how to catch your emotions, some percentage of the time, and ask yourself, is this useful?

But the anxiety is going to be for many of us more intrusive than ever. So are you of the view that meditations are enough, or should we be availing ourselves of other modalities? Two responses. One is exploring the full range of what meditation means in terms of these experiences, and we could go into that a little bit more. But also exploring all the other ways that we might find support. Definitely, we don't need to limit ourselves to just one modality of support.

I think meditation is key because it helps us to really understand our minds, you know, in our hearts. That understanding can then be the basis for seeing what other things can help as well. And people have a lot of different interests. And I think the question would be why is for people to explore and ask themselves the question, what will be supportive for me? What will be of help for me?

Maybe it's reaching out virtually. The friends, the family, maybe it's music, maybe it's poetry, maybe it's art, maybe it's running in place in your apartment. So I think it's why in place in your apartment. So I think it's wide open in terms of the exploration of what might be of help. But underneath all of that, I think meditation in a way is the ground for understanding and for then monitoring what actually is helpful, what's not helpful. So you said before, well, let me just add to your list there because I would add, and I'm sure you would co-sign on this,

but sleep, you mentioned exercise, social connection, you know, eating well, but not being maniacal about it. Therapy, you know, you can call your therapist, medication, if your therapist recommends it. There are a bunch of things we can do because we're in an extraordinary time and we can do these in normal times as well. But you said something about exploring the full range of what meditation means. What did you mean by that?

Okay. This could be an hour long dimer clock, but it's not. I'm going to abbreviate it. And that is, it's not enough or really a fully, a fuller understanding of what mindfulness means. And this is really the key point. It's understanding the difference between recognition and mindfulness. And that's often people often confused or conflate those two, thinking that if we recognize what's there, it means we're being mindful. Oh, I'm worried. I'm afraid. I'm anxious. Right. And the recognition that that recognition of what's there, sometimes people feel that that is mindfulness. But it's not. That's just the first piece of it,

the first aspect. So we do need to recognize what's arising, but then we also need to look at how we're relating to what's arising, because if we recognize the fear or the anxiety, for example, and we recognize it and we're feeling it, but we hate it. We want to get rid of it. We have a lot of aversion to it. So that's all about how we're relating to the emotion. And some ways of relating to emotion actually feed them. And other ways of relating to emotion

opens the space for them to flow through. So this is the key point of what I meant of further exploration of the application of mindfulness in its fullness. And I think we've talked before and may have mentioned on previous podcast, you know, I worked a lot in my meditation practice with fear, not unrelated to this current situation, but

I learned a lot. And this was over many years, so I feel like I'm a bit of an expert, at least with certain levels of fear. They became pretty intense at times. And for a long time, I was thinking that because I recognized that I was being mindful, but not seeing that I just had a lot of aversion to it. And it was only when I could be accepting of the feeling. Okay, this is fear or anxiety.

It's unpleasant, so we recognize the unpleasantness. It doesn't make it pleasant. It's sort of like a pain, you know, meditating on a pain in the body. It doesn't make it pleasant, but we let go of the suffering of the aversion. And so then we just with the basic experience, whether it's a physical sensation or an emotion, oh this is anxiety, this is fear, this is worry, without aversion to it, and without becoming caught up or identified with it. So the meditative techniques, for example, like mental noted, out fear, fears like this, anxieties like this,

or even asking the question, if we're feeling some strongly emotion, and we feel ourselves maybe being caught up in it, or feeling a lot of aversion towards it, maybe we ask the question, well what is it that I'm actually feeling right now? What does it feel like in the body? You know, what kind of thoughts are being generated? So we bring a kind of interest and investigation to it. And those two qualities, interest and investigation, are very different than kind of being caught up and swept away by them. So that's really a powerful application of the practice in the midst of these powerful

emotions. fully notions. It was in this way it is the two recommendations we've covered thus far one is using the body, the other being mindful of the body and stressful times and the other is being mindful of our emotions and stressful times. Number one is an ally in number two. Oh absolutely. Because the reason that I started with the mindfulness of the body and of movement, because it's very tangible, it's easy to come back to it. We don't have to struggle to find, we just have to remember that that's the biggest challenge. With thoughts and emotions, even though they can be very powerful, mental phenomena is more subtle than physical phenomena.

be very powerful, mental phenomena is more subtle than physical phenomena. You know, and it's very easy. So I think I've mentioned to you personally, you know, that just in the last five or six months, I've been dabbling again and writing some poetry, which I would recommend that to anybody interested. It's a wonderful mind space I find of actually finding clarity in confusing situations. So I may be having some experience and confusing in one way or another. And then if I try to write a poem about it, the very form is kind of demanding of clarity. And so I see that it actually clarifies in my own mind. So, the reason I mentioned that, there was a line from one of these poems about thought flying into our lives on Gassamo wins. They're so transparent in a way or so light

that we're not even aware they're there. And that's the great seduction of thought. You know, it doesn't make an impact like a sound or like a sensation. So the thoughts just kind of enter in, they fly in, and we don't even know. That's why using the body which is so tangible and so obvious becomes the vehicle for getting present which then

meant it more possible to turn our attention to these more subtle aspects. Can we go back to mental noting because I suspect there are some people listening who don't know what mental noting is and it's actually in my experience an incredibly powerful tool for exactly what many of us are trying to navigate right now which is really strong emotions and difficult circumstances. I'll take a stab at explaining how it could work and then you'll correct me. The beginning instructions for meditation, mindfulness meditation, often are, you know, sit with your eyes closed or keep them open and gaze softly at a neutral spot on the ground.

Bring your full attention to the feeling of your breath coming in and going out. And then when you get distracted, this is the key move. When you get distracted, which you will, millions and millions of times, it's all good, just start again and again. And again, there is the sort of next step up as I understand it, is you can start to get curious about what has distracted you, what has taken you away from your breath. And that is where you can use these little mental notes, which you've described as kind of a whisper in the mind, to objectively, journalistically label what here to form might have been a monolithic, powerful

force that was completely owning you. You had no distance on like pain or planning or plotting revenge against your noisy neighbor or fear or whatever you can notice. Oh, yeah, I was on my breath for a half an nanosecond and then I spent five minutes worrying and then you can wake up and apply very softly, silently in your mind the note of worry. And that, in my experience, really provides you with some useful distance from, it's like the self-distancing you referenced at the beginning of this conversation. So have I just totally misled listeners or are we on the right path here? No, I'm retiring then.

That was perfect. Yeah, so I would just add one little thing and you implied it, but I want to just call it out a little bit. So in the use of this, and then note could also be used even as a support for just being with a breath, for example, or in walking. So it doesn't have to be limited to the thoughts and emotions that take us away. It could also be a support for keeping us grounded in the moment with very simple things. So the note, for example, with the breath might be in and out, or rise and fall

with, with feeling the breath and the chest of the abdomen, or taking a step, stepping, as well as, you know, everything you mentioned in terms of really naming these powerful forces in the mind that can easily carry us off. A very interesting exercise is to simply notice the tone of voice of the note. So not only is it the whisper in terms of volume, you know, the noting should be very soft, as you said, it's just like a whisper. But also what's the tone? Because the tone of the note will often reveal an unnoticed attitude about what's happening. As an example, we wake up from a long train of thought, and then we note even softly thinking. There's a tone of judgment or a version in the note. So that's not so helpful.

Except if we notice it, so then it's revealed to us that we're actually adding to the basic mind-founce of this is what happened, we're adding our state of reactivity, which we may not have noticed, but the tone of the note will reveal it to us. So it's just something to keep in the background if people are using the note, softly, and just watch the tone is a kind of a loving tone. I don't want to overplay this stick, but not, I'm not generally a fan of, you know, conjuring a loving tone for

anything, but my friend Jeff Warren, with whom I wrote a book about meditation, has a little mantra that he uses when you notice, when you're tempted to be angry at yourself for whatever it is you've noticed. So you might notice thinking or planning or fear and you might notice that you're angry at yourself for that thing, for that emotion, having been there in the first place, you can use the little phrase, welcome to the party.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think one of the interesting things about practice for me, you know, over these many years is really exploring and investigating our own particular tools. Each one of us, you know, will have different creative ideas of how to accomplish kind of the right balance in the mind. Yeah, I love that. Welcome to the party. Here we are. It's okay. That was one of my favorite phrases with whatever was going, it's okay. It's okay to feel it.

So just a reminder that can be open to it, can feel it, and that that openness actually is creating the space for it to wash through, flow through more easily than if we were an adversary towards whatever it is. So that's an important, that's an important, a profound lesson to learn, you know, that what we have, when we have a version to something, we're actually feeding it. Even though we think that the aversion is going to help us get rid of it, it's the relaxation of the mind, the open and welcome to the party. It's okay. That space allows for the natural flow of impermanence to happen.

So this is really a key point. And I wanna be super practical about this. This is not just some nice way to spend some time. This has real world implications because our thoughts and emotions are so often unseen and therefore incredibly powerful, to be able to interrupt in a gentle way the patterns can really change how you,

you're in or whether and as a consequence, how you're showing up in the world, Sam Harris, our mutual friend, once was interviewing you on his podcast, which used to be called waking up and is now called making sense. It's excellent under whatever name. He interviewed you years ago.

I recommend everybody to go back and listen to those conversations he's had with you because they're amazing. And he used a beautiful phrase I thought where he talked about the half-life of anger. In this case, he was talking about anger. It might be more relevant now to talk about fear, but he was saying that any emotion left to its own devices will arise and pass reasonably quickly, but we re-up and re-up the emotion through neurotic obsession. And so the amount of damage you can do in two minutes of anger, which is probably its natural half-life. The amount of damage you would do in four minutes of anger compared to the amount of damage you would do in an hour or

two hours or a day or a lifetime It's incalculable and that's where that's one of the ways in which the rubber hits the road here Yeah, absolutely. I think that that expresses it really clearly It is just very interesting. This is where the strengthening and cultivation and practice of mindfulness, it's like it sharpens, it sharpens our observational capabilities. It's like focusing the lens of our mind. And so we all have some view of what's going on, but often it's not totally clear. If we haven't really practiced, close attention and careful attention, and as we do that, it makes it a lot easier for us to become aware that these emotions, to become mindful

that they've been recent in the first place. So that gives us more opportunity to settle back and let them be and follow their own kind of half-life of disintegration. If we're not mindful that they've come and we're just caught up in the story of them. So that's when, as you said, we can get caught up in them for long periods of time. And the story keeps repeating and expanding and it makes us feel more worried and more fearful.

So it's really important that we learn how to step out or step off of that train. Again, that's self-distancing. We began by talking about what you recommend in terms of meditative tools for dealing with this current moment. We talked about mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of emotions. Was there something else? Oh, yeah.

So I mean, I think that's what we talked about. It was really a good place to start. There's a lot there. We can spend years practicing what we just talked about. So there's a lot, it's very rich. There's another whole domain that's of interest to me, and that is seeing how situations of suffering and distress can actually be the fertile ground for compassion to arise. I see it really coming up strongly in myself, especially, you know, when I hear about a reading about what's happening in so many places in the world,

that's not happening right here now for me in my little small circle, you're in barrier, but is very much out there and some of the stories are really heartbreaking. The level of suffering and difficulty and challenge, you know, people losing their job, some people losing their homes. It's huge to be willing, and this, this itself is a, there's a certain art to this in that I find it really helpful to be willing to let that in. In the book, I talked about how compassion arises when we're willing to come close to

suffering. That's the basis for compassion. When we see or feel the suffering others. And so are we willing just to take some of this information in, which is, there's a lot of it now, on the one hand, and on the other hand, really being mindful about when it gets to the point of overwhelm, because there's so much information,

it would be easy to just start taking all of this in and feel overwhelmed and then which is not a very helpful statement that doesn't help us, it doesn't help anybody else. So there's a fine line there of being willing to really be open to and feel what's happening outside of our own small circle, but to do it in a wise way. And that compassion then, first it's a, I think it's a very inobeling quality, you know, for us, for the mind and heart, when we're feeling compassion in those moments when not feeling fear and when not feeling other unskillful or unhelpful states

we're cultivating we're cultivating a mind or heart with with a quality that's really beautiful and uplifting and It can become the basis then for just simply asking each one of us, asking the question, okay, given my own particular circumstances and life and skills and interests, what's possible in what way might I be able to help, as we talked about in the beginning. So the stronger the compassion, the stronger that the energy will be behind that question. And it's hard to know, you know, we're all in very different circumstances. And there could be just a whole range of ways of helping.

Maybe it's just helping one person, you know, that we're closely connected to. Maybe it's helping neighbors, maybe the friend, maybe making donations to organizations doing front line work. There are a lot of different possibilities if we hold the question and then staying open to just opportunities for how we might be of help. So that I think is that this development of the willingness to take in the magnitude of what's going on for a lot of people, taking care not to be getting overwhelmed, you know, so we have to do it in a measured way. But then letting that really be the field for compassion to grow.

In terms of this issue of overwhelming, it might be useful to discriminate between empathy and compassion. Generally empathy is talked about as feeling other people's feelings. Compassion is empathy plus the desire to help. Even if you don't act on it, it's just the desire to be of use. And it's that addition that makes it inobeling, empowering, as opposed to stuck and powerless. Perfectly said, then. Thank you. That's all I want you to hear. Gold stars all around. But so it gets, I wanted to make that clear, but then get to a question, which is in terms of overwhelm, what do you recommend, for example, how are you titrating your news consumption?

Well, first, in the simplest possible way, the amount of time we spend watching the news, the giving of news, news or going online. And it's just to see how much is serving us, and at one point is it not serving us. And are we just doing it almost out of an addictive quality? We're getting on back to what we were discussing earlier. We're holding the question in a lot of these different situations. Is this helpful? And just having that question come to mind. So as we're taking things in, just off all that, in the back, is this helping in some way to hear this? Is it opening my heart in some way? So then we wonder, we want to hold that space. And it's for me, it's just an interesting combination of, I don't know how to express it, that it's connecting to the suffering and feeling that in some way, but also connecting

to the uplifting aspect of compassionate response. So it's just an interesting, it's an interesting union of, you know, if we are coming close to suffering and opening to it in a wise way, there's something beautiful that's arising in our hearts as we do that, that doesn't change the suffering that's going on, but it does change the quality of how we're relating.

In a way, it's more uplifting when we're holding that question, oh, well, how can I help? Is this something I can do? Because that's taking us out of our own fear or own anxiety when we hold that question. Stay tuned more of our conversation is on the way after this. Hey, I'm Arisha, and I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wunderys Podcast, even the rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about drag icon RuPaul Charles.

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You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app. So, we talked about it overwhelmed, but there's the other side of it, or there are other sides of it. One that's coming to mind is, you know, I've experienced the overwhelm at times during this past few weeks where I just, everything looked great, this is never going to end. I'm grieving normal life. I want to go to the movies of my wife. Millie, I wanna go to lunch with friends. I don't want all of my doctor friends to get sick.

I don't want my parents to get sick. There's so many times where I feel, or I worry about my elderly neighbor getting lonely. There are so many times where I feel you overwhelmed, but you and I have talked personally about the fact that I've also experienced, and I suspect I'm not alone here, that kind of getting caught up in selfish concerns, which feels I've given myself a lot of crap about that.

And you, I called you last week to talk about how I felt kind of stuck in a loop of self-obsession and worrying about my business or my health or my family's health, etc., etc., and not yet, not fully or not abidingly connected to all of the macro issues. And what you recommended a practice that I think would be useful, either for those in overwhelm or for those on the other side of it, which is their, you know, this compassion practice sometimes called to, is it called Karuna practice? Yeah, so could you use the polyterms. Can you describe it? Well, the formal meditation practice is very simple. You know, when we're doing compassion meditation in a formal way,

you know, and so we're sitting and we actually Imagine or visualize the situation of person in a lot of suffering and so we're holding that image and Connecting, you connecting internally with the suffering that they're in. And the phrase, it's a single phrase that one repeats, may you be free of this suffering. May you be free of this suffering. So, and it's quite amazing, if one does that over a period of time. It's quite remarkable how that quality and that intention and that wish really becomes much stronger because we're practicing it. It's not to say that there won't be ups and downs, but sometimes we'll really be connecting

with that feeling of compassion other times. It might get quite mechanical or, you know, road. But as with anything, you know, we just notice that and come back to the practice. But in a more general way, not, not limiting it to the formal meditation of it, I think the important lesson here is that when we are arousing compassion or loving kindness or any of these states, it's for all beings, including ourselves. So it's not that, oh, we're going to have all this compassion for the world and everybody else and not me. And not me. That's a misguided view. So we can include ourselves in this field.

How can I help everyone, myself included. And we might add to that when we're considering, okay, how can I be of help to myself? One way of adding just a little spark to the compassion side of that is we might think, how can I be of help to myself now in order to be able to help others? And so we're including ourselves, but also in the inclusion, it's with the motivation so that we might be of greater help. Yeah, it's the old story. It's two people are sinking in the mud, very hard to either one of them

to help to help the other. If one person manages to get on solid ground, then it's easy for them to help the other one also come out. So by helping ourselves, we have the opportunity to help others. And by helping others, we are helping ourselves. So it's the mutually interdependent. This, including yourself in this practice, is that the mechanism by which we avoid overwhelmed? Well, I think it's one of the place, you know, and it might be foundational because if the basis or the fundamental question

that gives rise to compassion is how can I help? And we're applying that to ourselves and our own lives, then we can see, okay, what are we doing? What are these circumstances that are creating overwhelm? And if we're asking the question, is this helpful? Then we'll be able to discern what things we're doing that are helpful and what are not helpful. And so, for example, one might be just the amount of information that we're taking in.

What's the proper amount that keeps us connected genuinely connected to what's really going on out there, but also not to the point of it just overwhelming us. So we hold that question for ourselves, but it's also in terms of watching our own minds, the same thing. It's like when we see certain emotions, certain thought patterns, and we ask this question, is this helpful or not? And when we see it's not, that might motivate us that might motivate us to just look more carefully and investigate a little more precisely in the meditative way. Okay, how am I related to these thoughts, to these emotions? Am I being mindful of them? Am I seeing the difference between simple recognition and acceptance. So there's a lot we can do internally with our own minds as a way of coming out of the overwhelm. We talked before about the fact that in circumstances like this people tend to come together and it

can bring out our best. It can also bring out our worst denial, xenophobia. How do we, and I get this question a lot these days, how do we retain some sense of compassion for these people at whom we might be furious because we think they're misbehaving when the stakes couldn't be higher? You know, this question came up a lot after 9-11. And so I've been teaching and teaching you know unretreets in part the loving kindness meditation and I was actually teaching a retreat near New York and a lot of New Yorkers were on the retreat and you know the idea of the loving kindness matter or, is it a universal? We should develop this wish for everyone.

But when we started talking about this right after 9-11, people were thinking, there is no way that I can send loving wishes to these people who created so much devastation. So that was a real question. It was very interesting to me to see, okay, what does loving kindness or compassion mean in that kind of circumstance and for these people? And I realized that a lot has to do with how we language it. I realize that a lot has to do with how we language it. For example, it might be really difficult to say, may you be happy, but I think it would not be difficult at all

to wish, may you be free of hatred, may you be free of fear, may you be free of anger, all those mind states that create the harm. So bringing it up to the current situation, if we have negative feelings about certain people for whatever reason and whether in reality they're justified or not, but the reality is that for whatever reason they were rising in the mind, but can we just turn our minds and offer some wish for them

to be free of whatever harmful action we think they're doing. And so I think that wish could come easily for anybody. I agree. And I just feel the need for if there are new meditators, I suspect there may be new meditators, just to clarify some terms and techniques here. We started by talking about basic mindfulness meditation where you summon the capacity to have a non-judgmental, hopefully friendly awareness of whatever is arising.

Then we switched into, I called it, Karuna practice or compassion practice, Karuna being the ancient Indian subcontinental term for it. So there are, there's a whole suite of practices that I think don't get enough air time known as, there are lots of names for them, you can call them Brahma, Vihara practices is kind of a grandiose name of the heavenly abodes, but they include things like compassion and also where you just went with it, loving kindness, which is more, you know, another translation for that might be sort of basic friendliness toward others

and towards yourself. And these practices involve you sitting and systematically envisioning different people or animals and then sending silently repeating these phrases with the person or animal in mind. And so one flavor is wishing for people suffering to be alleviated. Another is that just may you be happy, may you be safe, may you. And I, as you know, and I don't want to overplay my stick on this, but I had some negative

reactions to this practice when it was first introduced to me. I still have moments where I think it's irredeemably sappy. But, you know, I think about it as just exercise for a particular muscle in the mind. And as it turns out, and this is quite a radical notion, compassion, friendliness, basic goodwill, these are not factory settings that can't be tinker with. They are skills that can be developed. And the development of the skills can be a little awkward, a little cheesy, but if I were to land from another planet in a gym,

well, the gyms are all closed right now, but six weeks ago, I landed from another planet and went to a gym and saw people running in place for extended periods of time or picking up heavy things and putting them down in a systematized fashion that looked deeply unpleasant. I would think, well, this is crazy. But in fact, these are somewhat awkward skills we now take for granted for developing physical

muscles. And what we're talking about here are skills that may sound a little trickly that actually work and their science to back them up. A lot of science around these sort of compassion or loving kindness practices that show that they have all sorts of very interesting and salutary physiological, psychological, and behavioral impacts. I just felt the need to get that out there. One other phrase that I found really helpful in terms of understanding how it all works,

you know, with any of these practices, you know, the mindfulness or compassion, the loving kindness, that it's, it's just strengthening those neural pathways, you know, and I'd like in the brain, you know, and I just, for me, that's a very vivid image of, yeah, the more we practice it, that gets strengthened, the more it becomes the default of how we're living. And so, as you say, it definitely is a practice and can transform our inner environment. Yeah, just the way if you pick up the violin, the areas of the brain associated with manual dexterity will change. And if you start practicing just by picking it up, we just want to have that straight play it.

Well, for me, just picking it up, most mortals, to actually play it. Well, for me, just picking up most mortals, you have to play it. So here's the sort of final area I wanted to explore with you. I just wonder, just looking at this moment of history in history, as you view it, and I imagine you view most things through a Buddhist lens, what comes to mind for you? I'm a great lover of history. I've read a lot of history of all kinds. And so my mind very naturally goes to kind of a very long term perspective on things. And just when I think back, you know, over historical time, they just have been so many. Huge changes in societies, the rise in fall of civilizations and plagues and pandemics before.

And just all kinds of things have happened in this broad sweep of history and somehow putting this in that context, for me it creates a certain sense of spaciousness which allows for the immediacy of connection with what's actually happening now with a certain kind of interbalance. You know, knowing that, yeah, this is a huge thing now. You know, in 100 years, people will be looking back at it as a particular event in history that had all of these consequences, but that has come and gone, and we will, if we still are, we're all still around, our own culture and the cultures on the earth will have transformed in whatever way they do, but it's part of a much longer sweep, historical sweep. And I know for me that the enlarging of the perspective allows for a certain spaciousness

which actually supports connecting more immediately with what's needed now. So it's not, this perspective is not to step back from what's happening, but it provides a bigger context for relating from what's happening, but it provides a bigger context for relating to what's happening. So that is a big piece for me. Can you just say more about that because I've heard you talk about putting things in historical perspective or even... Geological perspective.

Geological or astronomical. You've talked a lot about this amazing picture, which I Googled and then made the backdrop of my wallpaper on my computer. I recommend anybody do this, there's a picture called the Pale Blue Dot, and it shows Earth seen from outer space, but way, way, way out there in outer space, and all it is, Earth is a pale blue dot, barely distinguishable. And it really gives you a sense of, you know, Carl Sagan has a great quote that you've used in, and at least one of your Dharma talks about how all of the great dramas and human history

have played out on this speck of dust. So I find that on a normal day, that kind of historical or cosmological, if that's the right term, perspective to really useful to pull me out of my moment to moment suffering, but right now when the threat is so close and so grave, I don't know, I'm struggling a little bit with how that can be useful. Well, this will touch on something that may be very challenging for people, but included in everything that's happening, you know, on this pale blue dot is life and death.

What I took from what you said is that what seems to make this current experience, this perspective not that helpful for you in this current situation. I just wonder whether you're putting some of the consequences of what might happen outside of the full picture of what's happening on this pale blue dot. And I think this current situation, and this has come up for me in and talking to a lot

of people, it really raises the question of how do we understand and how are we lading to the fact of death? What is our relationship to that? Do we see that in whatever way it comes? And this we might say, well, this is kind of an extraordinary, maybe even unnatural circumstance, which is resulting in a lot of deaths. But it's really not. It's also part of nature. This is a natural occurrence that's hugely challenging. And it really calls to mind, am I prepared to die?

What's my relationship to that? And that has come up in my own mind, am I prepared to die? What's my relationship to that? And that has come up in my own mind when I think, especially in reading reports and of the illness and deaths that are happening. And so then I asked this question, well, how would I be if what's happening to me right now as it could be? We don't know. We don't know how this thing is going to end up. So that's a powerful question for each one of us.

Because in one way or another, we are all going to die. You know, and it might not be from this, but it's going to be from something. So this is a huge question, you know, in life. How do we relate to our mortality? And have we accepted it? Are we afraid of it? Are we, whatever? It's the exploration of how we're holding this basic,

basic fact of existence. So this is a big thing that's not being talked about a lot because, and understandably, I think people may be like to emphasize the potential for getting through this, you know, without that consequence. But for a lot of people, it's not, you know, this is what's had people are dying from this. And so it raises this, to me, it raises this very fundamental question for each one of us, whatever the current situation is, because as I said, death is inevitable. You know, it's part, somebody wants to ask, forget who they are, I don't know whether this was their

way of asking the Buddha or some other great teacher, they said, what's the cause of death? And they said, birth, that is the cause of death. And they said birth, that is the cause of death. You know, and I find that, I find that for myself, I find that liberating. You know, so instead of thinking, oh, death is an aberration or something unnatural, this is just, this is what it means to be born. And we can control how it will happen. You know, we all, myself included, have these fantasies about how I'd like to die, you know, comfortably in bed on a nice, comfortable pillow and just closing my eyes gently and easing off into what comes next. But that's just my, that's just my particular fantasy. We have no idea how it will happen. What can you one of us? So this is a hard, this, this, this is bringing the practice really to the depth of understanding, of understanding our

lives. What does it mean to have been born to be living, knowing that we're going to die? How do we understand it? How are we with that? So this is huge, this is huge topic, but I find it for those willing to engage in that exploration and some are and some for whatever reason. Maybe you're not at the place where they feel like and really look at this. But at some point, we all have to because it will happen for each of us. And so I think while we still have some energy for the investigation, I think this is the time to look at that question. Okay, am I ready? You know, that question has come to mind, you know, and I think, yeah, this is a hugely contagious virus,

especially with all the warnings for people over a certain age, and I'm now in that category. age and I'm now in that category. I could go shopping during the senior hours and I'm way over the lower limit of senior. So it's a very powerful question. Am I ready to die? What would it be like? That was the news. And the Buddha, he recommended this reflection, he said this reflection should be done daily, understanding whatever has the nature to grow old, to get sick and to die, will grow old and sick and not, because it's just part of nature.

And so reflecting on that, I think is extremely powerful. And this is really calling for us. This situation is calling us to look at this. And you're saying to do this in our formal practice? Any time. You know, so I can be just going for a walk and you thought this thought will come in a

really sometimes it's really imagining That I am dying, you know, so it's almost like a little meditative visualization in a way and then trying to get a sense of okay Well, how would that be? How would I how am I with that? But each one of us might find different ways of exploring this and And there are lots of books and teachings about death, death and dying. This just feels like it's an underlying cause of anxiety and a fear and a worry, really is rooted in it's.

Yeah, if you want to get to the root of anxiety, as we'll go to the... Right, it's like a fear of death, which is common. You know, it's not a mistake that we feel bad or... Yeah, this is a common experience, but we can explore it and we can investigate and maybe come to a more peaceful place with it. Has that worked for you? Well, it has to some extent, but I always have a little caveat. We'll let's wait to see in the moment. I mean, it feels now, you know, from this moment,

but yeah, I feel ready. I feel like it would be okay. But I also know that you never quite know to do it in the experience. So I'm practicing now and hoping that that's actually how my mind will be in the event. Is there anything we should say to close it on a more upbeat note? Yes, I think with all these teachings, it's all about coming to a place of peace, a deep peace in understanding. And sometimes it means looking at difficult things and challenging things. The trajectory of that investigation is towards greater ease and freedom and peace for ourselves and hopefully to be able to help others. So I see it basically as being an uplifting process if we know how

to navigate it skillfully and that's what we're learning, you know, that's what we've been discussing. And we each have to explore for ourselves. Okay, what really is skillful in this difficulty and what's just furthering the suffering? Yeah, but it's all in the direction in my mind of greater understanding. I like that. But deep peace, as you say, ain't easy. Ease ain't easy. No, no. I don't know if you remember back in the 60s or 70s, there was this book written by a therapist about her working with a schizophrenic patient and all the ups and downs and, you know,

it was a long therapeutic relationship. And at one point, the patient was basically complaining about just how difficult it was. The therapist, which was the title of the book, said, I never promised you a Rose Garden. You know, it's not a Rose Garden. And nobody promised us a Rose Garden. So just remembering that, it's not that as we're on this path towards greater peace that is going to always be easy It's not lots of difficulties and challenges

But through the ups and downs the slope of the curve is going in a particular direction Always always great to talk to Joseph. I really appreciate your time. Yeah, a lot of course Big thanks to Joseph, I really appreciate your time. A lot of course. Big thanks to Joseph, really appreciate him coming on. And actually, speaking of Joseph, he is going to be a guest on 10% happier live, which is our daily sanity break that we're doing on YouTube. You can actually access it through this website, 10percent.com slash live, go to 10percent dot com slash live go to 10% dot com slash live we do it live every week day at 3pm noon pacific if you forget the URL or if you don't go feel like going to the show notes you can just go to youtube and search for 10% happier live it's a 20 minute sanity break

we do a little bit of chitchat at the top then a five minute meditation then more Q&A with our teacher and as I said Joseph's going to be on this week a little bit of chitchat at the top than a five minute meditation then then more Q&A with our teacher and as I said Joseph's going to be on this week. Big thanks to the team who put this together. Samuel Johns is our producer Jackson Beerfelt, our editor Maria Wartell is our production coordinator. Also big thanks to my friends Ryan Kessler and Josh Cohan from ABC. Thank you all.

We'll be back with a new episode on Friday. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad free with 1-3-plus in Apple podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey

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