Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 237: Is It Still OK to Be Happy? | Sylvia Boorstein

Episode Date: April 8, 2020

Even in the middle of a pandemic, it's still OK to experience delight. That's per legendary meditation teacher, Sylvia Boostein. In fact, she says, moments of happiness can fortify you to deal with the difficulties we are all facing. In other words, joy is a necessity, not a luxury right now. That is just one of many wisdom bombs Boorstein drops in this conversation. We also discuss how to cultivate "inner cordiality" and the quality of mind that has become her "savior" in these dark days. Boorstein is a genuine contemplative O.G., part of the vanguard of teachers who introduced mindfulness into the American mainstream. She is still going strong in her mid-eighties, after having lived a colorful life. Not only is she one of America's most respected teachers, but she is also a psychotherapist, peace activist, and grandmother. As you'll hear, when she is not meditating, she is a gifted storyteller. She self-deprecatingly refers to it as "boundless talk-aremia," but I suspect that, for you, listening to Sylvia will, in itself, be a source of delight. Where to find Sylvia Boorstein online: Website: http://www.sylviaboorstein.com/ Social Media: Twitter: @SylviaBoorstein https://twitter.com/sylviaboorstein Facebook: Sylvia Boorstein - https://www.facebook.com/sylviaboorstein/ Book Mentioned: Pay Attention, for Goodness' Sake by Sylvia Boorstein - http://www.sylviaboorstein.com/books Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sylvia-boorstein-237 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 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. For ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey guys, some of you may have heard me say this in our last episode, but just in case you missed it, our new cadence during this pandemic is on Mondays. We're going to drop themed episodes really keying in on topical issues in this pandemic, including romantic relationships, how to work from home, ethics, and on Wednesdays we're going to talk to old school heavy-hitter meditation teachers to help you mainline wisdom during these dark times.

So let's get to this week's episode. Even in the middle of a pandemic, it is still OK to experience the light. That is per legendary meditation teacher Sylvia Borstein, our guest today. In fact, she says moments of happiness can fortify you to deal with the difficulties we're all facing. In other words, joy is a necessity right now, not a luxury. That's just one of the many wisdom bombs you will hear Borstein drop in this conversation. We also discuss how to cultivate what she calls inner core geology. And we talk about the quality of mind that has become her, quote unquote,

savior in this pandemic. Borstein is a genuine contemplative OG. She was part of the vanguard of teachers who introduced mindfulness since the American mainstream back in the 60s and 70s. She is still going strong. She's in her mid 80s after having lived a very colorful life. Not only is she one of America's most respected meditation teachers, but she's also a psychotherapist, a peace activist,

and a grandmother. As you'll hear, when she's not meditating, she's a very gifted storyteller. She self-deprecatingly refers to this quality as boundless takaremia, but I suspect for you, listening to Silvia will in itself be a source of delight. So here we go, Silvia Borsany. I noticed from chatting with you before we got started that your giggle is still intact. No, I noticed that also. I thought to myself, I actually did think that.

I thought to myself, all right, so we do not start this with the giggle because I'm down a little bit with the giggle because these are very somber times. But I realized after we talked, after I saw you right there on the screen, that I felt really good about seeing you, I felt really good about doing this. And my concerns about don't do this, so we don't do that, which are all worry concerns went away.

And what remains is me and how it comes out is me. And the giggle is part of me. Two of my children have it and one of my grandchildren. It's a redditary factor, I'm sure. Do you think I feel like it's okay to giggle in a pandemic once in a while? I think well from my own experience, when I laugh, as I did with you, it was out of delight, out of seeing you again and having this chance to talk. And every time there's a moment of delight, it just is what's true in that moment. It doesn't mean that the pandemic is not happening and that there are people that I'm seriously concerned about. There's everybody that's a world

that I'm seriously concerned about. But in that moment of delight is a moment of delight. I've been thinking about asking people to make lists and share them with people about what are you doing to keep the mind somewhat afloat during these times where they're really seriously afflicted by the gravity of what's happening. And I've been so happy that the Metropolitan Opera has been live streaming a new opera every single day. And did

you know that? It's because it's been a fantastic thing. Opera lovers are beside themselves. Normally you have to sign up and they normally don't do this every It's been a fantastic thing. Opera lovers are beside themselves, normally you have to sign up, and they normally don't do this every single day, sign up or not. And we're seeing some of the greatest performances of the last decades. They run for 24 hours.

You don't even have to log on at a particular time. And then they change to the next one. And then they change to the next one. And today is the first day of the National Theater of London doing a continuous loop of one of their theatricals and I heard that one of the Broadway plays is somehow going to do I forgotten what it was, but a Broadway musical of great renown. What was it? It's gonna start today anyway. And people are giving away sources of delight. And it seems to me such a lovely act of kindness

to one another. I mean, there are also certain teaching online, some parents can, the homeschool their children, but really felt that for pervaders of delight, like the Berlin Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, you can also listen to online. And the idea that this is what keeps the mind and the heart afloat in these very difficult times. What are we going to look for for picking the hard up so that it doesn't

it doesn't lose its energy or its hopefulness or its feeling of helplessness. You know, as I say that to you, I'm going to give you a try. I should give you a chance to say something but as I as I said that to you, I realized that in a paradoxical way, when if I watch some news coverage on television, which I try very hard to limit, because reading it in the newspaper or reading it online is less overwhelming than seeing it in real time. But when I look at it, I looked a couple of days ago and they showed some pictures look, I looked a couple of days ago and they showed some pictures of health workers, nurses and first responders, just coming to a hospital and bringing in person after person and picking them up and putting them on gurneys and all in very close proximity to each other. And I realized everybody has such courage and such devotion.

And I was picked up in my heart by the courage and the devotion that people are showing that are part of what the range of human response can be. And I looked at it and I got, it was an enormously terrible and terrifying scene. And I felt buoyed up by looking at such a demonstration of human kindness and generosity and taking care of other people as superseding personal concerns and personal fears.

So, both that, an awareness of the limit, the apparently tremendous limits of human kindness and to have periods of delight in human creativity, like listening to all four of the rings here is one after another after another after another and hearing beautiful voices singing them. So both ways delightful things and amazing acts of kindness. Plus one to both of those things. I hear in New York City at seven o'clock in the evening, every day, people come to their windows or their balconies and cheer for the health workers.

And my five year old son has been banging pots and pans. It's really, it does lift you up to think about the sacrifices. It's horrifying that these sacrifices have to be made, but the fact that courage is in the human repertoire in that way is uplifting. And then just back to delight, what I took from what you said was that delight actually

may not be a luxury right now, it might be a necessity. I can remember, I'm nodding now, I have to remember an example, but I can remember saying so frequently, if we only saw the pain of human existence, if we only saw the inherent suffering in it, I don't know how we could manage unless we had counteractively the delight of seeing that the bulbs that bloom in the spring that have already bloomed in California don't know that there's an epidemic or pandemic happening. They're coming up just the same and it's actually the same time and they're as beautiful and as varied and as marvelous as they were last year. There's something I was thinking about when I was at yesterday on my walk and the flowering

cherries are all covered with white blossoms. You think, wow, look at that. All of this stuff is going to be here next year and the year after and the year after. It's going to go on. It's one of those things. And way past us maybe or any one of us certainly. But there's something about that. It's it's like the moon waxing and waning independent of the pandemic and the things that you can look at and say that's amazing. I may have told you that because I often do when I'm telling people about that

feature of the human mind being able to relish what's extraordinary and take personal delight. Murita, it's not mine, I didn't do it, but I am delighted that other people have that skill. I listen to fantastic singers, and I can't carry a tune, but I'm delighted that some people can, and that they studied so hard. So I talk a lot about we need that delight in order to counteract the seeing clearly how inherent in the human condition is the possibility of suffering, that the first noble truth of the Buddha is really true. And I think that what I've been thinking more and more now during this time is that the fact that the whole of the planet at the same time is faced with an awareness of this and is frightened.

I think maybe one of those times when maybe the whole of the planet could wake up. I just, I'm thinking as I say that to you that I hope that doesn't sound so, you know, one of these the best thing I learned from my first heart attack. I might always... I learned from my first heart attack. I'd be, oh, I remember. Oh, my, I had a friend who died, oh, 30 years ago, of, she died of breast cancer and she was a young woman in her 40s. She had a family. She had a family, she had adolescent children, she had a thriving law practice, and

she had some time as she was dying to put her affairs all in order and to reconcile with her ex-husband and to reconcile with her ex-husband's now current wife and to cause her children to feel reconciled with the ex-husband and the wife. And she said to me as she was nearing her end, she said, you know, the thing is, this has been so emotionally a learning curve for me. I've learned so much from my cancer. And if you want another truth, I would have not rather not had the cancer and not learned. So, but that's it. You know, this, this, this, and I don't, because it sounds polyanna to say, maybe the

whole world is look around and think, oh dear, look what we're doing to each other and we're so vulnerable. And all of us would feel terrible missing each other. Let's stop doing it now. Let's, Let's now decide now is the time to really preserve the earth so our grandchildren can live on it. But I don't want to sound like Paulianna, you know, my first heart attack saved my life and woke me up. But maybe it will, maybe it will. I hope it will. I hope so too. I mean if you look at history though Cataclysm's tend to bring out both our best and our worst and to have lots of consequences that are very hard to foresee so

I'm After the 2016 election I took myself out of the prediction game permanently, and I feel very comfortable still being out of the game. No, I also think, let's be on what I can think about and get upset in advance about. You know, I'm also finding though, This is a thought that occurred to me yesterday that in a certain way, it occurred to me while I was on a walk by myself, of course, and I see people and I pass people at a distance as everybody does. And I realize I'm spending a lot of time quietly by myself going for a walk, coming back home.

I live with my husband, so we are both sheltered in place, so I'm not alone. But it's a lot of time, and in a certain way, it occurred to me, it's just like a retreat, because I can go out of my house, but I can't go out of my two people and my area. I can't because of my age comfortably go into a supermarket. So I I can't because of my age comfortably go into a supermarket.

So I really can't leave. And what I really can't leave is like when you're on a retreat, you can't leave. And you think, I'm stuck here. Now I'm in a world that I can't leave. So even if I could go the supermarket, I could drive my car to the next county. I can't drive out of the world where there's no coronavirus. It's everywhere. And then, certainly, when you get up in the morning, you think, oh, I drive out of the world where there's no coronavirus. It's everywhere. And then certainly when you get up in the morning you think, oh, I want to have the world is. And when you go to bed at night you think, oh, I wonder what I wake up. How the news is going to be.

We have, I have anyway, a really like an overarching focus of my attention, which doesn't mean that during the day I'm not doing laundry or cooking or doing whatever I'm doing, but the pandemic is always there. And the way I came to think about it is I was, variations of this. I was walking along and thinking this and that and the other as one does when you're walking along and appreciating how I walk by a bird lagoon, appreciating that and thinking this and thinking that. And I thought of somebody that I don't know what the train of consciousness is, but it was somebody that I thought, oh, I remember bad sounds. And then I realized that I had thought about somebody in an affectionate way, in a pleasant way, in my mind, thinking of them,

was not accompanied by any gloss of negativity at all. And then I realized that, that I had just thought about X, in a way that had no negativity in it. I realized I haven't thought about X with no negativity all the time, and not great hostility, I realized I haven't thought about X with no negativity all the time. And not great hostility, but X was not one of my favorite people. And I thought about X. And my mind was completely unruffled by X.

And then I thought, ah, and then a little time went by and I had some opinion of something. Oh, maybe it was, I walked by a very small Chinese restaurant that's two or three blocks from where I live. And I had the thought, it was closed, of course, except for takeout. I walked by and I had a thought, the food there's not so good. A kind of a negative thought, not horrible, negative thought. Then I had the immediate thought, you haven't eaten there in 30 years. Oh no, it's been there for 30 years, maybe it's

said changed owners 10 times. That's an all-the-pin in that you had there that came out to color that moment. Maybe it's right now, and look at them. They're open in this virus time, and they're doing business, and they're trying to make it go of it. Now I thought to myself, what if my mind is so focused on this really big object of meditation, that other stuff, like pesky navigativities that I don't need to have to begin with,

can't get a hold, it's like it's almost not worth it. It's like I've decided. My mind thinks, that's not worth remembering what that person said that I had X said, that I had that bad feeling about. It's ridiculous to make an opinion about the restaurant. I've been there in 30 years. And what I was finding as the day went on, and extraneous opinions of a negative type were dropping away. I thought about the phrase, there's a phrase from the third Zen patriarch that I actually liked so well, I had it, I had it made onto pencils, you know those pencils that you can send away

and get 20 pencils for the phrase. This says, to know the truth only cease to cherish opinions. What do I need that opinion about the restaurant or that opinion about X? It's messing up part of the real estate of my mind and my heart, I don't need it. But then I thought, I'm not even doing anything about X. It's messing up part of the real estate of my mind and my heart. I don't need it. But then I thought, I'm not even doing anything about it. I am being done by this virus. Maybe the virus is a retreat that I've wandered into. Maybe I can understand it is a retreat that I mean

that's focusing my attention during which time I have the opportunity to see, oh, that's an opinion I don't need. That's an opinion I don't need. That's another opinion I don't need. Do a little housekeeping of all opinions and unburden my mind about it. I'm convinced that it's the main thing that I teach these days anyway, that what I am trying to do

is make my mind sweeter in general. And he has an opportunity to do it without even intentionally doing it. All I'm doing is living through this. And it is doing it. What do you think of that? Well, I mean, I would like to borrow your mind. That's my first thought. So, my thought, when it makes complete sense to me that the enormity of the current situation

would throw our habitual story lines into question in a way that when the negative opinions surface we might see how silly they are. However, for me at least, the pandemic itself, the outbreak is so disturbing that yes, it might have the knock-on effect of making me see how silly some of my ancient storylines are, but I do find nonetheless that there is sort of an overarching despair, you know, I wake up in the morning like, oh, right, I'm back in this thing. No, we are every morning back in this thing. And I do wake up and I have the apps on my phone that tell me

what the New York Times summary of yesterday is, and my CNN summary of what yesterday is. And it's a sobering way to start the day. And sometimes I think to myself, okay, I'm going to get up. I'm going to sit a little bit now. I'm an early rise or anyway, I think, all right, I'm going to sit. I'm going to think about all my friends and hold them in my heart. it. I'm going to think about all my friends and hold them in my heart. And I certainly don't want to look at this telephone right now and mess up my mind more before sitting. And then I don't do that. I look at the telephone because I really do want to know what's going on. And I do that. I don't do it mindlessly. I do it purposely. Knowing I'm doing it, knowing

it's probably not great for the meditation, but it's actually very sobering for my heart. You know what I think? Oh, I'm so glad we're talking about this because I hadn't thought to say it in this exact way. It's not an unusual thing in a dormice scene to end the meditation or to end the class or to end some period of devotional, say, loving kindness practice by saying, may all beings be peaceful and happy and come to the end of suffering. It's a sweet phrase to say.

And I don't know how many times I've said it at the end of a class or a teaching or whatever, my all beings be peaceful and happy any come to the end of suffering. Thing all of a sudden, this is the first time that I've had glimpses of what does it mean all beings? Because here we are on this world, and we can see in maps and charts and videos that really at this point all beings are imperiled. And before it's been kind of an amorphous thing, I've kind of thought about it, but I haven't thought about it, I haven't felt about it. But maybe

the word is grok, I did not grok that as much as I do now. The other thing that I'm thinking about, let's see if I can do this, this is a new thing. So let's see if I can think it's more or less succinctly. For the first 10 or 20 or maybe even 30 years of my practice, I was thinking that the goal of freedom of suffering, freedom from suffering in this mind was going to be wisdom that I would so thoroughly rock through intense meditative insights that arose in cloistered situations and hours and hours of retreat that I would so thoroughly understand that everything is impermanent and that everything depends on everything else.

Nothing is not connected to anything else. And that suffering is a manifestation of the habits of the mind that complicate what's coming up moment to moment. That I would be so resolute in that wisdom that my mind would be at ease no matter what happened and then I'd feel better and that would be the goal of my practice. I have thought but I don't think I've ever articulated just the way I'm doing now that the the corollary or the cognate or the attached thing over all these years has been to think as wisdom accrues, then we are more compassionate because we more and more realize that the

same causes of our suffering are the causes of suffering for other people. And we become more attuned to other people's suffering and maybe this is it more oriented to other people's suffering. And what I'm thinking is, I'm not sure about that, more attuned to, but we are now so oriented to other people's suffering because we cannot be. The news around us all the time is showing us people all over the world suffering, all kinds of people near and far

and then we hear about from our friends and our relatives. And I'm thinking that it was more hypothetical to me before that kindness would happen. Well, the emphasis should be, is on developing wisdom, so that we've had kindness. We would have kindness as more and more of response. And before I said to you that,

my goal in my practice is to have a sweeter and sweeter mind, not because I want an award for the most sweet, what a sweet mind, but because I would be a happier and happier person. But I actually wrote a book about that. But now with some chagrin, I think now I actually get it. Expose factor, even exos facto to writing the book.

I'm not at all sure that we need wisdom. I think that people who are naturally kind, who live their whole life, attuned to the needs of others and responding to them, are happier people. Does that make sense to you? It does. I think I would love to have you just for people who are new to this discussion about the interwoven nature, the double helix nature of wisdom and compassion. Could you just define the terms for people so they could get a sense of why this is becoming particularly salient and important to you now? Well, I think that as I was introduced to the Dharma, which I loved from the moment that I heard it, it seemed to me that I was learning how to, particularly how to feel that the habits of my,

that my own actions, my own mental actions, had something to do with modulating the habits of my mind so that I was not as pushed around by any kind of thought or feeling or idea or emotion by any kind of thought or feeling or idea or emotion that came up that I might learn to have some that I could habituate my mind to thoughtfulness, to steadiness, to waiting for a moment. For a long time I was talking, teaching about think it over in between having a feeling and an impulse to do something, think it over, is this going to be for people's good, not for people's

good, for my own good, not for my good. It was more about cerebral changes that I would be wiser. I'd have a more thoughtful life, which I certainly am not saying not to have a thoughtful life. And I think the Buddha didn't say, pay all attention to that. I think just the way that I learned it, and the retreats that I learned, the emphasis was on seeing the habits of one's own mind that led to confusion and led to thoughtlessness and doing things that caused more and more problems for myself and other people. I think that I am changing, that I still think that's very, very important and I certainly teach it.

I am thinking of primary importance is the idea of teaching that paying attention to other people and their needs is an immediate solution to being pulled under by your own preoccupations and your own needs. That the person next to me is my surest salvation. If I turn to somebody and say, how are you and how are you doing these days? And they say, I'm so glad you asked. I'm terrified, and I have my children at home and my husband's job is in peril. They feel better because you ask, but you feel better because you ask. And for a moment, you are not preoccupied with your stuff and your own mortality or your own vulnerability. And I think

that is the biggest secret of all. That kindness is actually the salvation, the source of happiness, that we are so preoccupied with our own self and maybe not for all time, but certainly recently, how do I feel and what's my emotion? And I really think, I just said it, I don't need to say it again, but my salvation is being interested in other people, being interested in other living things, reaching out to them. Here's like, this is such a leap, but the image that comes to mind is in experience, in experiences, in experiments with nursing homes and elderly people, those that were given a potted plant with the instructions to feed it every day water,

got very involved in the plant. They felt better, they did better. They thrived more because they were taking care of another living thing, not just themselves. And kindness is looking out for another living thing, not yourself. You can even be kind to yourself in kind of a semantic way, and then we call it from Bajan or something. But thinking about ethics, for instance, are always of behaving ethically, telling the truth, are always of being kind to people, because you level the level of playing field, you tell them the truth about things, if there's material to put out, you're not keeping it a secret. Maybe this will lead to a renewal of what's the right word?

Integrity, maybe integrity and kindness, integrity is a kind, a form of expression of kindness. moderation, honesty, I'm actually naming off all the qualities of heart that are part of Teravada practice. Do you know about them? You must know there's a list of ten qualities of heart that the Buddha is said to have needed to establish in himself before he was worthy of his enlightenment. Do you know that story? No, I don't know this. Oh, this is a great thing to say.

This is a piece of Buddhist folklore. And it shows up in Buddhist children's stories, Jodhika tales, where they don't say the Buddha did this and this and this, they're like fables, there, there was a great ox in the forest and he behaved in a certain way, or there was a very wise monkey who behaved in a certain way. And you can look up Jotica tales, you can also read them in my book. It's not that it's the same saying that, but it's true. This is a safe place to plug books.

Okay, so here, this is also true. My favorite of the books I've written is called Pay Attention for Goodness's Safe. And when people at the time said what's the name of your book? Is it pay attention for goodness sake? It seemed like I was mocking them back. But the name of the book, pay attention for goodness sake. And the thesis of that book is that if you really paid attention, it would so convert your heart to goodness. If we really paid attention, this is

fundamental dharma of the Buddha, we would see that everybody who's born is subject to the same vulnerability to loss. We get born into different circumstances, we get born with different talents and different abilities, but everybody who gets born and thrives and lives and gets brought up by people and is in a life with people, is then vulnerable to losing that person and vulnerable to aging, losing their own viability and vitality and youth. And that's really the disease that we all already have. We have been thinking about that we are all liable to the coronavirus virus.

And once we have it, we might die. And I was thinking not to make it sound like, well, that doesn't matter because. But really, we are all already suffering from being alive. And we will surely die, we'll either get old and be sick and die or we'll die before we're old. And we'll truly, we have already everyone that is listening or everyone that you talk to, everybody has lost everybody, many people who are dear to them, people's homes, are filled, I have pictures of my wall, of my grandmother, and my grandfather, and their parents that I didn't ever meet.

But we all feel connected to people who aren't here anymore, and we're not most of the time in grief about it, but just after we lose somebody, everybody who is losing people in this coronavirus has got to be in the middle of enormous grief. Not only grief, but fear, do I have it? Who else has it? How am I going to manage after this? This is a really, This is a really Buddha's first noble truth in an amazing, phenomenally worldwide graphic way. So, should we, I'm just curious, should we connect that to the list of qualities the Buddha was supposed to have? Indeed.

I was so glad. I forgot where I was going with that. That's what I'm here for. You're very good. Okay. Yes, we was going with that. That's what I'm here for. You're very good. Okay. Yes, we were going. Here's what we're going. So we learned that that that's that this is true for everybody. But you know, I don't think Dan that everybody gets it when they for when I heard it.

And you also heard the first time you heard a Dharma talk about old age sickness and death. I thought well that's interesting like a nice that's fable you know because I was very much younger than I am now and old age and sickness and death although my mother had died already. I was 40 years old but my mother had died two decades earlier, and that had been a grievous loss, but that already happened. And my old age sickness and death was going to be long away, I thought. And it did not seem so universally a critical thing. But what is universally critical is that the whole of life is getting used to the loss

of something. We don't even notice it that all of a sudden we could swim X-meny laps and then we can't, or we could run up the steps and then we can't, or we can walk down the steps without holding onto the handrail. I'm sometimes going down the steps of some building, holding a handrail and looking carefully. And down past me will come bounding some likey teenager who takes four steps at a time

is not holding onto anything, it'll loap down the steps so that we keep on losing capacities from when we're probably late 20s on. We are apparently, according to the science, start losing mental capacities slowly, slowly. We start losing our parents. We start losing our friends, sometimes in accidents, all of a sudden.

But they happen and they agree with us and we are shocked. And then by and by, we do a regular life again the mind heals and the mind is not preoccupied with uh-oh who knows how long this one's going to live they're really dear to me and probably if we were preoccupied with that we would never leave the people that we love if we thought this is maybe a little bit all sad to say maybe it make people a little anyway There was a period of time in my life when I became so aware of this that when I said to my children in the morning They were leaving for school. I said I'll see you later I went all of a sudden when I said I'll see you later and it gave me an uneasy feeling

Because I was just starting to realize, you know, that I probably would see them later and I always did. But anytime we say to somebody, I'll see you later. We don't know. And every time I see somebody, maybe the delight I have and I saw you again and all is not only I was delighted with you the last time, but you're still there and I'm still happy about it. So I think that we all are suffering with our case of radical uncertainty

or radical vulnerability and we don't know it. We pretend it's not there. I'll see you at the end of camp. I'll see you at the end of the day. I'll see you whatever. There are, you know, when I was growing up, I grew up in a really traditionally Jewish household. And we said certain prayers on certain holidays as this week is going to be the week of Passover. So on the first night when you arrive, every opening part of the

service in addition to every other prayer and blessing that you say is I'm really grateful that I've been kept in life and supported in my living so that I made it to this day or so I made it to that day. And it was my father's favorite blessing. He used to say it when we went swimming together. Every year in the Atlantic Ocean, when it got warm enough, we lived down the street from there. And we'd go swimming again in June or July. And he would make that prayer about, I'm really grateful,

that I made it another year to step into the ocean. And there was something about even when I was a child, I liked that very well of saying it's magic that we made it till now, and I have gratitude about it. And then when I got older, I got a little bit more bit about it, the really never know. And then now I'm old, and now I think the very least I can do is try to celebrate and

be grateful for and appreciate every day that I do have and call as many friends as I can and be on this many podcasts and Zoom calls as I can be. And keep saying to people it does, you know, it does matter what happens, but it also matters what we do today. And that, now let me tell you what guys still have made that connection between the Buddha said, this is what I've, when he had his enlightenment, This is what I've, when he had his enlightenment, what he said was, this is how I understand. Everything is impermanent. Everything depends on everything else. Suffering is the result of habits of mind that complicate situations that don't need to be so complicated. That's his wisdom. The wisdom about how he needed to prepare himself in his heart.

For that point where he was able to really rock that, was that he had to perfect ten particular perfections of character. And the perfections of character are called paramitas, P-A-R-A-M-I-T-A. And in the Tibetan school, there are 10. No, Tibetan school has 6. The Teravadas have 10. The 10 are, who'll be embarrassing if I remember them, generosity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, energy, fruessfulness, patience, determination, loving kindness and equanimity. Good. Few.

Stay tuned. More of our conversation is on the way after this. Like the 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. And Sylvia, how is your energy level? How do you, we can come to a close whenever you would like. I mean, what's, how are you feeling? Well, I feel great.

And as you know, I have boundless talker, Remia is a quiet... I'm according to my parents, I had it as a child. So if you are interested, so people will never imagine that be able to be a teacher who taught silent retreats. And the truth is, I love to be on silent retreats, but when I talk, I love to talk. So what else would you like to know then? So I'm impressed that you were able to pull off the list of the parameters. Just refresh my memory. Why? What's the significance of these as it pertains to sort of what we're

living through now? The significance of all of the paramedics and what we're living in now is that all of them, they seem like ten different things, but if you think about them, they are all characteristics of integrity. And the thesis that I had when I wrote that book is that there are all permutations of generosity. In anybody's list of parameters that Tibetan list or the teravata list, the generosity is always the first one, generosity than other ones. All of the parameters are permutations of generosity. If you think about truthfulness, if you have information that somebody else doesn't have, like who's going to win the ball game and you're going to

play a bet on it. And you tell them what, if you share your information, if useful information with somebody, in contrast to say, I'm going to keep this huge information for myself. That's a gift of generosity. I saw yesterday a news clipping of a company somewhere in the Midwest Ohio or Indiana that has developed a way of resanitizing huge quantities of face masks in an hour or two so that thousands of masks

are really renovated to be sterile. And they interviewed him, he's got a factory, a small factory in the Midwest and you see him working away with his folks there. And he said, anybody who wants to call me, I'll give you the instructions for how to do it. Not, you know, I'll sell them to you. I'll tell you the instructions. Anybody who wants to have the formula for doing it, I'll send you the instructions and I'll give you some help.

That's about giving people a gift of something more of the information. Someone doesn't send you a certain document and you call them and they say, oh, sorry, I just slipped my mind and that document was, you felt vital to your work and you have a split second in which you can decide whether or not to have a little fit about it on a phone or whether you can say, you know, perhaps I didn't make it clear to you that I really need the document. Could you please send it to me just now as we hang up or something? It's a demonstration of patience.

It's also a demonstration of kindness. It's also a demonstration of wisdom because if you have a fit, it doesn't get the document there any faster. The document will get there when it gets there. More likely it'll get there if you're pleasant to them. All of the parameters are like darmettes, their little teachings of how kindness and integrity

and what's gonna make it better for the other person is the definitive operative force. And I think it's lovely. I think the story about the Buddha in previous lifetimes is a fable. I'm glad to think of it as a fable. But I think it's a really terrific demonstration or a metaphor or something for the fact

that we feel better when we manifest our response to situations always in a way that's based on calm. I've seen the Dalai Lama talk about that in various films that he's talking about where he was ahead of state and got things done. He said sometimes people get on your nerves, sometimes anger arises in you, but then you say listen this needs to be done. You say, well, he's the dollar line. He can do that. But we can do that. That's not that old heart.

So now, why do I tell you this whole thing now? What does it have to do with us now? I had a theory a long time ago that this is a theory that caused me to write that book, actually, that when I had come up in the Dharma when I started in 1970s, I learned a certain formulation, it was like an equation in a chemistry class where you put sodium plus chlorine and you get hydrogen chloride And chemical equations show an arrow. This plus this leads with an arrow to this.

And I had learned Dharma that way that paying careful attention would lead to insights which would build up as deeper insights, which would build up as wisdom into the suffering condition of all living beings, which would then manifest as kindness, because we would be so touched when we realized that everyone suffers. And then I thought to myself, it was at least in my mind, very much weighted on deep personal insights about impermanence and about how the mind habits create suffering. And I thought, what if people can't meditate? What if people aren't good at this?

What if they don't have the capacity to get these deep insights? Couldn't we just, as in chemistry, start the equation on the other side, instead of paying attention, over time leads to insight, leads to wisdom, leads to kindness. Why don't we start over here with a kindness and with compassion and with really taking integrity seriously, and we'll behave as if we had those insights. And we did everything scrupulously, carefully. Wouldn't that then so balance your own mind with the happiness of being so scrupulous about it, and the happiness of spreading that kind of balm

onto the world of suffering, that you might have some insights. And why do you have to have insights anyway if you're already behaving in a way that soothes other people's minds and bodies and your own? Maybe you don't need to be able to articulate insights. So that's in fact what caused me to, well, also I had lots of stories I wanted to tell, but it was one of the reasons that I wanted to write that book, that it's not only this way that the equation goes two ways. You can start here and it will lead you to compassion, wisdom and then compassion.

And then, or you could start with compassion and have wisdom. Or you could do both at the same time, or you could do both at the same time. I mean, that's why I like the way I've been taught at least in meditation. You do mindfulness practice, pay attention to your breath, pay attention to the feelings in your body, pay attention to this sort of flavor of your emotions. You do that mindfulness practice, which is what gets most of the airtime in the meditation world. But you also do levin kindness practice, which can... that has lots of salutary effects on the mind

for when you go back to basic mindfulness because you're loving kindness practice, boosts your ability to focus because it is a concentration exercise. You're repeating these phrases in your mind as you envision people, but it also, it can have behavioral impacts in that you can be, it may lead you to be a kinder person and the lowering the volume of remorse can also boost your ability to focus.

And so these two practices, the latter of which, loving kindness, I think doesn't get enough air time, can be mutually reinforcing. I think so. You're right about, you'd have less remorse because you will have done less things to stir up distress in the mind. more because you will have done less things to stir up distress in the mind. I think also that I'm hopeful that over time people will begin to meld an understanding of both practices. Here's a thought that I have is that it's actually a heuristic device to separate this is loving kindness and this is mindfulness practice. I actually think there are

forms of mindfulness practice. I don't think you can moment to moment be rocking the experience and knowing what it is and not complicating it which is moment to moment mindfulness. Be steady enough as moments arise and pass through to know what they feel like, to know what's happening, what's coming up in you, what your impulse to do,

to how to respond is, what your choice of response is, I think in order to do that successfully, there needs to be a certain ease of heart and core reality of spirit that accompanies that. So it's not a methodical, this, this, this, this, and now I'm gonna bring corgiality of spirit. I have been teaching among other things, but my most favorite instruction for people

to, on any kind of a retreat is to say as you're with your breathing, breathing the breath comes in, you don't, well, you do breathe. But I like to say it as the breath comes in, the breath goes out, the breath comes in, the breath as a kind of metronome to remind you to do this practice, but to say to yourself rather than the loving kindness phrases that we've all been taught and which I sometimes certainly use, I like to say to myself, may I meet this moment fully? May I meet it as a friend? May I meet this moment fully? May I meet it as a friend? May I meet this moment fully? May I meet it as a friend? And I think that in a certain way, those are the melded together intentions of both mindfulness

practice and loving kindness practice. My friend Jack has been calling mindfulness My friend Jack has been calling mindfulness loving attention and I think more and more been calling it loving attention in in the place of I bring Mindfulness to the moment I bring loving attention to the moment. So I think he's Over time, maybe going to change the way that is by the way, I didn't discuss that with him, so I don't know whether that's his intention. But I think that my guess is that his discovery as mine is, is that you really cannot say now I'm not doing loving kindness. I'm just doing mindfulness that in every moment, unless there's a moment of hospital, unless there's a taste of hospitality, hospitality, there you go.

There are three words that could come at a hospital, a hospital. Hospitality has to be part of it. When we say to people, sit in a relaxed way, let the breath come to your body. That means don't grab it. Just let there, and let there, the breath come to your body. Even that instruction means it's a miracle, as long as we're alive, and there's enough

green in the biosphere, that we are kept alive. Let the breath come to your body, one breath after another breath, after breath, after breath. And then here we are in this moment. And so to meet the moment, don't pull it before it comes, but may I meet this moment fully? I really want to know what's going on. I want to be a alert to it. And may I meet it as a friend? That's my, man, not flinch. If I'm, friend. That's my, man, not flinch. If I'm, sometimes if I'm giving a whole dormitok, I might read the poem by Rumi of the guest house, but it's been read so many times on retreats. And all I have to say is think about the poem by Rumi called the guest house and

Not read it for those people who are listening who don't know the first one you can Google it online But say think of this life as a guest house every morning you open the door and there's a grief There's a worry. There's a Problem to be solved as a this welcome them all in and you'll learn from all of them. It's a lovely poem. That's why they read it all the time it retreats. I have one thing to say and then a final question for you. The thing to say is just to amplify and validate the point you're making about the important partnership and perhaps at the end, oneness of mindfulness and love and kindness, that I learned this lesson belatedly in my own practice over the last year or two

that I realized through doing a lot of love and kindness practice that my mindfulness practice had a big streak of a version running through it that was unseen, that things would arrive in my mind, rushing or doubt or judgment or self-grandizement and I would beat myself up for it in ways that I wasn't really seeing. And until I did this practice of loving kindness, which as I've said a thousand times on the show, I had a bad attitude about because it is, you know, at least superficially quite schlocky. It created a bombier weather pattern in my mind so that I was able to see, I have been

better able to see whatever comes up with more friendliness and that really is important. Which leads me to the question I wanted to ask you, and I meant to ask you this earlier, but we just got rolling on some of the other interesting things. But I know in the past you've described yourself as a warrior or a catastrophizer. And here we are at a time where worrying, catastrophizing seems eminently reasonable.

So how are you with yourself when or if you see fear arising given what's going on in the world? That's a good question. I was thinking about the quick answer is I'm better and I'm happy to see that. I'm not so. You might imagine, as a question implies, you might imagine that a friend or has plenty of friend about these days.

And I'm not fretting so much about it. As if my mind has recognized, like if I think something, a negative thought about X. And the mind just says, you don't have time for that. You get, that's a big, there's a big thing happening. So forget about X and why you feel negatively about her. It's the same thing if I have some catastrophic thought. It is already catastrophic.

So there's nothing to think about. It's catastrophic in New York. There's nothing to think about. It's catastrophic in New York. But I really feel like my mind just doesn't want to, the kind of fretting is, what about this? This might happen, this might happen, this might happen, this might happen. It's not happening with me.

And I think because my mind is steady, because it is aware of what is happening. And that is a very captivating, I don't know, the best sense of the word or not a good sense of the word. But you know, sometimes on your retreat, they say, use this as an object. And people say, well, the breath is not so interesting as an object, I can't stay with it. Or use physical sensations up and down your body, use that as an object. Say, my body feels fine.

It's not that interesting. We have, whether we certainly didn't want it, there's one big thing that's looming over the entire Earth that we're part of, and you can't not pay attention to it. It has become, I think, the background of the mind. And like, fret Friday is ridiculous. Why, Fred? It's either, see that would be X or Y.

I think, at least for me, I'm hopeful that it has installed wisdom into people in terms of being able to differentiate between what's important and what's not important. Is the grudge that I had on so and so, in the sphere of what's happening? So should I be here, said grudge that I had on so and so, in the sphere of what's happening. Should I be here, said grudge again, or should I remember why I don't like my ex-husband or why? You know, he is this big thing holding your attention, I'm presumably. This is a very Buddhist thing

to say, I didn't think I was going to say, wow, but okay, to end that a very good Buddhist thing, it's so captivating that I, one, I don't think this is a big thing to hope, it's so captivating this great thing that all of a sudden we see everybody is suffering, everybody is vulnerable, the first noble truth is really true. I don't need to add anything to that, It's already true. It's astounding. It's immobilizing. And the own or it's immobilizing in terms of my mind getting caught up in it. I have no room in my mind for that. This is here. And compassion for the world is the only possible response, I think. Does that make sense to you?

It does. I go back to what I said before about wanting to borrow your mind, because I still get caught in fretting about self selfish issue. Am I going to get sick? Is my parents going to get sick? What's going to happen to this company that I work for two companies? What's going to happen either of them? Does that not happen? I mean, I also have compassion for the world right now, but I can't say it's blotting out the sun. No, no, no, I have thoughts, I have thoughts like that for any of my family. Where are they and how are they? No, I have thoughts like that. I actually, the thoughts like that, that are thoughts of personal survival, my family, my children, my grandchildren,

I don't think those go away. I think those are wired into us. And they're not absurd thoughts. They're not the bus is late. It's truly in a ravine. They're not the bus is late. It's truly in a ravine. They're not fabricated thoughts of things that might happen, of illogical things that might happen. I think what happens, I think those,

but I think they don't trouble my mind in terms of, oh, I'm so concerned with myself. I think I'm supposed to be concerned with my family's well-being. That's how I'm strong. That's why I think when we start with meta-practice, we start with those who are nearest and dearest to us. Because we're really connected to them, we really, really want things to be well with them. And I think what the way that meta-practice works and people are really practicing it is that they discover that not only are they able

to wish well easily for those people that adhere to them, but that it's the conduit to wish well for the people who are not so near to us, even the people that we don't know who are on the other side of the globe or somewhere, because both because we suddenly get a deeply grok feeling of everybody suffers the same. And also because I have a feeling that to listen, to take time, to say, well, not everybody, just mine or just mine. Sometimes I do think, I'll tell you, but I know we're supposed to finish.

But I'll tell you this, Vignette, because it's a little bit has to do with that. On the first day of the World Series in 1989, I was sitting in the basement of my 100 and 7 year old wooden frame house here in California and with two clients of my psychotherapy clients of mine. And suddenly the room began to shake because it was a very big earthquake in San Francisco at the opening game of the World Series. And we looked at each other and somebody said, this is an earthquake, let's step outside the building, we only stepped outside the building.

And I thought about it till now afterwards. The first thing I did is I looked at my watch. Because looking at my watch, I knew instantly where my four adult children were at that time. And I knew also what the likelihood that they were on a bridge was. And it could not have been more than five seconds to look, estimate, and know that they were probably all right to be able to say to the people, let's go upstairs, let's turn on the TV, let's see what's happening

to other people. But the first thing that happens is where are my people and how are they? And I think that that's wired into us. And I'm happy that it's wired into us. It's the conduit to learn how to love other people, I think that that's wired into us. And I'm happy that it's wired into us. It's the conduit to learn how to love other people, I think. Yeah, and compassion and care. This is omnidirectional force.

So of course, it's going to include yourself and the people closest to you. But it can also include everybody. And I really like the way,, I think this is a good place to end at the describing compassion as your savior in this difficult and dark time. And I, you know, I've been thinking about writing an article, you know, what's going to save us right now is a cliche love. And, and I don't think we should overdo it because I know I love the Beatles, but I think they were wrong when they said love is all you need.

You also need toilet paper and chlorox wipes, but it is a savior. It can, it doesn't mean you're not focused on your, your own wellbeing because of course, compassion goes in all directions. And doesn't mean you know, look at your watch to make sure that your kids aren't on a bridge when the earthquake hits or whatever hits, but it also means that when you're getting bogged down in your self-centered concerns,

turning to the person next to you, even if you've never met them and inquiring about their well-being, can be enormously uplifting. And by the way, it's good for society. Yeah, yeah, it is. It is. It is. Such a pleasure to talk to you.

Is there something I should have asked or a direction we should have gone in that I failed to take us or did we get it all out? I think we said it all. When you said this last thing and you said there should be the end, there should be the end. And just to underscore that thing about love is the answer. The other reason that loving in the sense of turning to the person next, it doesn't mean loving. It means putting the attention on somebody is the answer is that when you, when the energy of affection or positive is going out from you, it dispels any negativity in you.

You can't be driving a car forward and in reverse at the same time. So it is the absolute dispeller of ill will in the mind, which is again the savior. That's how come the person next to me is always my savior. Hence the term enlightened self-interest or as the the Dalai Lama said, why is selfishness? Yes, it's mildly annoying because it's a cliche but also profoundly true. Yeah, I keep thinking of something in one of our get one of my guests once said to me that she heard from a meditation teacher. If you can't be comfortable with the cheesiness, you can't be free. And I think that that pretty much a meditation teacher. If you can't be comfortable with the cheesiness, you can't be free. And I think that pretty much says it all.

Sylvia, it's such a pleasure to see you. I'm glad you're doing well. And thanks for coming on and sharing your experience, your vignettes, your giggle, your wisdom, all of that with us. It's been a pleasure. Big thanks to Sylvia. A couple of reminders before we go.

If you haven't checked it out, please check out 10% happier live every weekday, three o'clock, Eastern, noon, Pacific. We're doing a quick sanity break, five minutes of guided meditation from some of the best teachers in the world followed by Q&A, your questions. If you miss it live, you can watch it.

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