Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 279: How To Stay Politically Engaged Without Losing Your Mind | Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: September 2, 2020

In the heat of an election that is both incredibly nasty and hugely consequential, it might be tempting to try to shut out all the feelings of anger, frustration, and powerlessness. But my guest today makes a compelling argument for engagement -- and for the notion that nothing should be excluded from your meditation practice, not even politics. Sharon Salzberg has a new book, called Real Change, which is about how to stay socially, civically, and politically engaged without losing your mind. We talk about how to develop patience when it seems there’s no light at the end of the tunnel; why it’s wise to cultivate compassion, even for people you find deeply objectionable; and ways to limit our Twitter doomscrolling, something Sharon struggles with herself. Loyal listeners will know Sharon well. She’s a towering figure on the American meditation scene, the cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society, the author of several books, including Real Love, Real Happiness and Real Happiness at Work, and a founding teacher on the Ten Percent Happier app. Where to find Sharon Salzberg online:  Website: https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/  Podcast: https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/metta-hour-podcast/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/sharonsalzberg Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SharonSalzberg/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sharonsalzberg/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SharonSalzbergVideo Book Mentioned: Real Change by Sharon Salzberg: https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/realchange/ To find meditations and courses guided by Sharon Salzberg in the Ten Percent Happier app, visit https://10percenthappier.app.link/SharonSalzberg  Other Resources Mentioned: Jay Michaelson / https://www.jaymichaelson.net/ Real Change: Sharon Salzberg in conversation with Anu Gupta / https://asiasociety.org/new-york/events/real-change-sharon-salzberg-conversation-anu-gupta Oren Jay Sofer / https://www.orenjaysofer.com/ Mudita Nisker and Dan Clurman / http://www.comoptions.com/  Bell Hooks / http://www.bellhooksinstitute.com/ Maillka Dutt / https://mallikadutt.com/about/ Additional Resources: Ten Percent Happier Live: https://tenpercent.com/live Coronavirus Sanity Guide: https://www.tenpercent.com/coronavirussanityguide Free App access for Frontline Workers: https://tenpercent.com/care Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sharon-salzberg-279 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. to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello there. In the heat of an election, that is both incredibly nasty and hugely consequential. In the heat of all of this, it might be tempting to try to shut down and shut out all of the feelings of anger, frustration, perilousness, whatever it is you're feeling. But my guest today makes a compelling argument for engagement and for the notion that nothing should be excluded from your meditation practice, not even politics.

Sharon Salzburg has a new book called Real Change, which is all about how to stay socially, civically, and politically engaged without losing your mind. We talk about how to develop patience when it seems like there's no light at the end of the tunnel, why it is wise to cultivate compassion, even for people you find deeply objectionable,

and ways to limit our Twitter doom scrolling, something Sharon admits to struggling with herself. Loyal listeners to this show will know Sharon very, very well. She's a towering figure in the American meditation scene, the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society, the author of several books, including Real Love, Real Happiness, and Real Happiness at work, a founding teacher of the 10% happier app and a dear friend and valued teacher of mine. So here we go, Sharon Salzburg.

Hello stranger, nice to meet you. It's nice to see you one more time, hey. I'm joking when I say nice to meet you because you and I were on a zoom call about an hour ago and you've been on this podcast more than anybody else, which I count as a badge of honor. That's right. So congratulations on the new book. Thank you so much. It's incredibly relevant. We're entering into election season. So many people have so many strong feelings right now that go right to the heart of what you're trying to talk about. So let me lead with a question that was provided to me by our mutual friend and colleague Jay

Michelson who has been on the show before. You're a great meditation teacher and you also writes the 10% weekly newsletter and It's the talks section of the 10% happier app. And here's this question. A lot of people come to meditation to relax and politics is not relaxing. We get feedback. We get the 10% happier company. Get feedback. Every time we run current events focused content in the app. Can you answer the question these folks have of, and this is a quote within a quote, what does this political activism stuff have to do with my meditation practice? Well, the question about politics is very interesting.

I was once teaching weekend somewhere and somebody in the room said to me, well, you know, the Buddha said politics is dirty. And I thought, wow, like I'm not really a great scholar but I don't remember that quote from anywhere and I think of course we use the word politics in so many different ways I tend to talk about well first of all I talk obsessively about voting because I think voting is actually that kind of participation is very, very close in my mind to the booties teaching of the innate dignity of everybody.

Like everybody has worth whether they realize or not, whether they act from that realization or not, everybody has worth and that translates in my mind to everyone should have a voice. That's rightful. And so voting is really reflective in my mind of the innate dignity of everybody and no one left out. And so that's different than kind of partisanship, which maybe that woman was referring to, which can be hate-filled and very sort of creating an other, you know, that's irredeemable or reified in our eyes. And that's different. And I think that people often get confused. And we would also be interesting to know what people hear, like those maybe disgruntled subscribers and people who object, I could imagine objecting to being told what to think or needing respite, needing some relief and not in that moment being able to bear one more witnessing, you know, something difficult or it would just be very interesting to know what they were hearing what they were feeling.

Or it would just be very interesting to know what they were hearing, what they were feeling. I don't know the answer to that specifically, but just to go back to the idea of the Buddha allegedly saying that politics are dirty, I am no scholar either way less of a scholar than you are, but you know I've read a little bit about the life of the Buddha, and my memory is that he hung out with kings and people who were, I don't think they had politicians in the same way back then 26 century years ago, but he was mixing it up and it was involved. And he was radical in many ways in terms of social hierarchies and was, you know, bringing women into the fold, although as the story has it, his aunt pressured him to do it.

But he certainly wasn't shying away from the great issues of his time. Now I agree with that. Some of what he did was really so essential to the teaching and was really a kind of social revolution, which we don't think of it as like that incredible emphasis in the teachings of the Buddha about intention or the motivation behind an action, being a very significant part of the kind of energy of that action. And these days, that's, I think, rightfully critiqued as a singular

view as people talk about, say, in diversity training the difference between intention and impact. But nonetheless, I think intention is vitally important to understand and see where we're coming from and what's guiding us. And we also need some skills in terms of how we express that intention. For sure, but we tend to think of it as, oh, yeah, right.

It's a little bit maybe more holistic or something like that. And when I get self-conscious, all these other objections, but a frisal no, the answer is no. When the Buddha taught it, it was revolutionary because he was confronting really a caste system, which said that the worth, the merit, the ethics, the moral valence of anyone's action depends on their gender, on their cast, so that what might be rightful and appropriate for a Brahmin male was forbidden to a Brahmin female, like doing ritual and mediating with the divine, or what was appropriate

and correct for a warrior cast was totally inappropriate for someone of a lower cast. And, you know, and so everything was divided according to those lines. And the Buddha came along and said, well, that's meaningless, you know, the only thing that really counts is your intention, whether you're a Brahmin female or a male or outcast or whatever it is. It's the intention behind the action that is going to give it its energy. You could say it's karma. And that was amazing. You know, that really disrupted quite a lot. And one of my favorite stories from the Buddha is something like he was instructing a king because you're right. Of course, he hung out a lot with kings as well as barbers and other people,

but he was instructing this king on how to have like peace in the land, how to be a good king, and he said, you should be generous and you should be just. And his time went on, the king remembered to be just, but he forgot to be generous. And so people started stealing. So then he began putting out laws that were stricter and stricter to try to stop the thievery. And the Buddha said, well, that's not the point. It's not punishing people. It's looking at causes and conditions.

If you'd remembered to be generous, then people would be fed. And if people were fed, they wouldn't resort to stealing. And if they didn't resort to stealing, you wouldn't need to say, build more jails or whatever the king was doing. And so that's a very important point. Like if we look at causes and conditions for anything as deeply as we can, we will see many things that will lead to maybe

a more appropriate action than if we didn't. And that was pretty revolutionary. So if we both agree, and apparently the Buddha is on our side here that... Yeah, or on his. On my side. Fair enough. It's duly noted that nothing is excluded from our meditation practice, including politics. Let me approach the question from another angle, which is, I believe this is really the

thesis of your book, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, that meditation can make us more effective and more engaged. It's not, you know, sit on a mountain top and a loincloth forever, although, hey, you know, do your thing, do you? But you can actually use this self-awareness, the skill of self-awareness, the skill of compassion to do great things in the world and to do a better job of doing great things in the world. I think that's a wonderful summation of the book.

Now that's perfect. I mean, I've seen it. I've been teaching like for 7,000 years now, and I've used Kopai. And it's only startling these days when I'm introduced formally ago. Oh, you know, I've seen it over and over again. And it seems clear that we forge a different sense of connection

in this universe. It's sort of telling in a time of a pandemic where we're physically isolated. Some of us, some of us completely, we can still be working with this sense of very profound connection to one another. And once you've established a greater sense of connection, you're moved to try to both look for causes and conditions, look more deeply, see if you can ease pain in this world, whether that's your family system or community or the planet, we can also use that kind of steady and almost like dispassionate looking to

try to discern the truth of things, you know, to see more what is actually going on. And one of the things we see is the world of interconnection. It's so clear that we are not as separate as we seem to think. And our lives really do have something to do with one another. And you know, what's sometimes missing is a lack of a sense of agency, feeling I could never do enough, I could never be enough. And so being able to bring some of the wisdom of the meditative process, I think needs to be more conscious in addressing

those kinds of thoughts. What are the benefits of a meditative practice in terms of being active in the world is your relationships with your fellow travelers. The activist circles or whether you're an activist or not, you're just talking current events with anybody these days is a fraught and different. So there are many benefits you explore in the book, but can you talk about that one? Well, I think we draw a lot of strength from one another and also people and people who are very annoying, you know, and frustrating, but I think that's the place where we bring

forth some compassion. And we also bring forth some equanimity, which is really the ability not to try to control what you can't control. And to land your sense of integrity more upon having the best intention you could come from and acting as skillfully as you can. And I think it's always interesting to look at one's intentions like if you're in a meeting or say you're

supervising someone in some endeavor, you realize pretty quickly it's not that useful to say you're hopeless, you know, or something like that, that you need to make the effort to be more specific in speech and at least give them the information they might need, should they want to make a change or talk about the consequences. You know, when you turned in that memo six weeks late then five people couldn't, you know, whatever. And that's based on your motive.

It's like before you begin that encounter, that relationship, really just take a look. Like, what do I really want to see come out of this more than anything? Do I want to prove how fantastic I am? Do I want a resolution? Do I want to be seen as right? Do I want them to be seen as wrong? And to be able to use the process of being mindful to actually see where we're coming from. To then decide what's really our North Star? What do we really care about? What are our values?

our North Star, what do we really care about, what are our values and how do we strengthen them, how do we strengthen them with one another in those interactions? Interpersonal communication is a, this is my opinion here, just an incredibly rich area for practice. We have all course on this up on the app taught by Orrin J. Sofer. And I've been personally working with two people who I know you know, Moody Todd Nisker and Dan Clermann, yes. Oh, that's fabulous. I'm so glad you are. I've been working with them for a couple of years, almost two years now. And you know, we just get on the phone every month or so.

And at one of their many, many precepts, and by the way, if you're curious about their work, they're in the final stages of writing a book. And when it's done, they'll come on the show. But one of their many ideas is the notion of while you're having a conversation, you can think of at least two tracks that are going. There are your content goals. In other words, what you want to say. And then there's your relationship goal. And I've found that to be really helpful. Probably not the language I would use as an inveterate wise ask, but it is a really useful way to look at it.

Uh-huh. Yeah, and they've taught me so much. They used to come to IMS and do these workshops when people were going about. You talked a moment ago about agency, and that just brings me to a question that we got from Samuel John, who you know, who's the producer of this show. How do we engage when we see no light at the end of the tunnel? What is the balance between patience and taking action to see real change? I think that's a really reflection of being able to combine, say, compassion with equanimity. It's realizing that nothing happens without that first step, you know, that there is something

that has this move forward and take a shot. I used to call that faith, you know, when I was writing that book, which doesn't mean, it was a little difficult because it doesn't mean faith in the dogmatic sense or belief system, but it's exactly that. Like I was having a conversation, which is in that book, Faith, with a psychiatrist in New York about what we would consider to be the single most healing element in the psychotherapeutic relationship. It's a little funny looking back because of course it not just one but That was the conversation at one point he said Well, if you put any good therapist up against the wall they'd be forced to say that it's love that it's the love in the room

that's the single most healing element And I said because I was just thinking about faith all the time I said well for all we know the single most healing element is the fact that someone shared up for their appointment And that's what I was calling faith. Moving off the sidelines right into the center of possibility, taking a chance. And there's something that gets us to get out of bed and see what that next step might be and to show up. And whatever you want to call it, that's what I'm calling agency in this book.

And it's getting off the sidelines, even if the action seems very small. You know, we have to do the good that's in front of us, even if it seems kind of meager, because that's the only way things happen. To have expectation, I mean, it's natural, it's just a human trait, but if we're held in a kind of rigid way to those expectations,

we're sunk, you know, because it's a constantly shifting dynamic of all these different elements. And there's so many times where we just don't see immediate results, and that doesn't mean nothing happened. You could go back to your intention, what if your North Star is really to bring love in the room, whatever you are doing, you know, and not in a cushy way. But in a very sincere and powerful way, and that might be what you're measuring rather than the fact that, oh yeah, that structure crumbled you know, in an hour and a half, it's just what I wanted, or whatever it is. You know,

to have a different kind of sense of where our integrity is, I think it's the way people do these long-term campaigns to seek change. This may not land with everybody, but the Dalai Lama talks about this. The view one can bring to that endeavor is the view of many lifetimes. Well, it's interesting. that endeavor is the view of many lifetimes. Well, it's interesting, one of the characteristics of the book I wrote is that I was defining social action to the best of my ability, pretty broadly, which was based first on the conversation I was having

with Bell Hooks. I'm used to, well, not a Buddhist scholar myself, I'm used to them, and they're credible parsing of language in the very exact way they use words. And I always tell Bals she's worse. She's like extremely precise in her use of language. And that's, of course, where she's such a great writer. But she said to me, I don't like the term social action.

I said, why not? And she said, because it seems to me to be too limited, it conveys for many people only, marching and protesting and things like that. And what about art? And so we started this conversation about what helps us move further and brings us together in a different way

or helps dissolve conventional and really limiting understanding. And so it's a lot of creativity. So I have a story there about the Dalai Lama where I was in the audience. He was at Emory University one year and he was on a panel with Richard Geer and Alice Walker. And the panel was sponsored by the art department

of the university, so there were a lot of questions kind of around that. And the first question was something like, I've been taught that great works of creativity need to come from torment, from inner suffering. So what do you think about that? You know, so Alice Walker spoke about, she kind of used to believe that, but she's finding that the happier she gets, the better her poetry is. And Richard Gierd talked about once being an angry young man and growing out of it. And Tom Lillow was really funny. He had the look he usually gets when he can't quite understand where someone's asking

that question, like a mix of a sense to them. And he said, you know, in Tibet, people are always dragging me all over the place, like, look at this, it's not beautiful, look at that. And he said, but in Tibet, we believe that a work of art is great, according to the transformation of the artist in the act of creating it. And that was like a whole other thing. And then I began thinking, oh, well, what if we thought of activists that way? What if we think of our lives that way?

That's really good. That's really good. I'm thinking about that in terms of my own work. I'm thinking about that in terms of my own work. Let me ask about another impediment that I think is common for people when it comes to sort of engaging, however you want to define or describe that, which is in a culture where individualism has been counted in our neurons and sold to us through advertising and Horatio Alger and whatever. How do we decondition that? You know, because I can even see it in my own mind of even see it in my own mind of, you know, I don't have time to do extra why I've got my own things to do. My impulse, and I think this may be common among human beings is my impulse is, you know, feather my own nest in some ways. You know, I, I thankfully, I think I can overcome that sometimes, but what do you recommend to people who are, you know,

okay, admitting that to themselves, about themselves? I think it's a good realization to have because just because we see something in a strongly conditioned, doesn't mean we have to stay there, you know, and there are lots of things that are expanding our vision that this particular time of of for some people, a lot less activity, less travel has also opened up a kind of space to take a look at some things. And I think there are different realizations people have. I was talking to a doctor the head of a hospital somewhere. And he said, you know, who I have really increased appreciation for, it's the cleaning staff.

You think about that, you know, like where, I mean, we think the surgeon, you know, but you really, you know, want that operating theater clean, and you want the hospital clean, and you don't want to get the virus, because you have to, you know, go in there. And I thought, oh, well, it's a time for that. We can recognize one another maybe in a different way. And understand that, yes, we have a lot of conditioning. It's a doggy dog world. It's every person for themselves.

And don't help anybody else. But the reality sometimes sadly is that our lives are connected and that You know you walk around without a mask that could well affect an ambience driver in 10 days, you know and The real people, you know who are suffering those consequences You know, it's really interesting how people can feel seems so Cut off that they don't imagine that their actions really have any effect, but they do. That's actually the reality. And I think if we get a little

quieter and we pay more attention, we can see that and then act accordingly. If we have noticed a selfishness and the selfishness, you go can be enlarged. To just mean, if I'm not just worried about myself, I'm maybe just worried about the people I like. So, if we see this selfishness, what are some meditative techniques to work with it? You know, I think it would be several different approaches and I think working with it needs to be not framed as eradicating it, you know, so that it's all gone. Because as always, the most important thing is our relationship to it. You know, is this something that we can hold in effect with some interest and some compassion toward

ourselves? Or is this something that we are so ashamed of and freaked out about that we actually reinforce it in some strange way? What do we just dive into it? And have no space to really consider it. So mindfulness is what gives us the opportunity. It would tell us, okay, you see this certain thought pattern, you see this certain attitude, the certain thing, whatever it is, can you switch your meditation object to actually just be with that and not condemn it to the best of your ability and not prolong it, but really it's like you're asking yourself, what is this? to the best of your ability and not prolong it, but really it's like you're asking yourself, what is this?

What is this? On the other day, I was supposed to do a Zoom session with this friend of mine and his daughter-in-law, because we sit together sometimes on Zoom. And the daughter-in-law always sends out the Zoom, in fact. And she always sends it as the last minute. But this time she was actually late. It wasn't just last minute. She was late. And we waited and waited and waited and waited. He got quite anxious, you know, like something went wrong, what's wrong. And I got really embarrassed.

I said, I bet I got the wrong day, you know, I must have screwed up. It must be my fault. And then she sent out the invite. We got on. And it was interesting, like the father and law and I had two very different reactions, but we're doing the same thing in our meditation, which was, what is this? What is this feeling? Instead of like, oh my god, I'm still here. It's been like 50 years of med- you know, it's like, oh, what is this feeling? And that even implies a kind of tenderness like, it's okay. This is what I'm feeling. What is it? So that mindfulness approach, I think, is a tremendous way of not buying into some of these habits because we can see them for what they are. And I think loving kindness for

oneself always helps. They really do. Because that's sort of the, that's the sea in which we are swimming. You know, that is going to affect our basic ability to forgive ourselves or for not being perfect or to begin again when we need to or just realize causes and conditions, you know, you didn't decide. I want to be a jerk at three o'clock, right? Causes and conditions come together for something to arise. Let's talk about another issue that comes up for people in this area of, you know, just civic engagement or whatever you want to call it, which is anger. And you have this great quote about how the Buddha called anger murderously sweet. You know, it just, it can feel great, but it does not burn clean.

And so it's, you know, it can get you moving, but it burns. So hold forth for as long as you would like on anger, because I think this is a huge issue. Well, you know, I got the chance to have several friends or strangers who are doing great work in the world interviewed for the book. And so I was really counting a lot on their insights from the Buddhist point of view and the Buddhist, anger, it's a mixed bag, you know, and I mean talking about feeling anger, getting lost in anger and having it motivate your actions is a whole other thing. But it's like we feel what we feel, and the more we fight it or resent it or resist it,

the more we're caught. And so we need to head shame, and that kind of distress to more we're caught. And so we need to add shame and that kind of distress to what we're feeling. We feel what we feel. And there needs to be a kind of dignity in that and a kind of integrity in that. How we relate to those feelings is another thing. And getting lost and anger, getting overwhelmed, getting overtaken by it, having it determine all your actions, it's brutal, you know, where we ourselves are burning and lost in anger it tends to give us tunnel vision. There's a forcefulness to it that's very positive, there's an energy to it that's very positive, it's what you describe. It gets us moving and it's also sometimes a

kind of cutting through an honesty in it. It's like many ordinary meeting in life, you know, sometimes it's the angriest person in the room that's insisting that we look at that unpleasant thing in the corner. And we don't want to. And in fact, we've studiously avoided looking in that corner for a long time, but they're saying, look at that. It's really essential, I think, collectively, you know, to honor that voice. And yet, you know, to be lost in it, to have it,

be chronic is devastating to oneself. And I learned that I heard that first from friend Malik Adot, who's in the book, who we were on a panel together, somewhere that we just put together. And she said she became a tremendous advocate working against violence against women, both in India and in the States, because of having witnessed something happening. Her friend was in the hospital in India and just happened to be put in the burn unit.

And as friends and family were actually just, of actually just taking care of her in the hospital. Malikas saw a lot of what happened in the burn unit, which was some real horrible abuse toward women, which had led them to be in there. And she just devoted her life to that work. And she said it was so angry, so outraged, that it got me to change my whole life and have that dedication. But now I don't know how to turn it off. And I'm not even how to turn it down. And she said, it's everywhere you can see in the organization, the way people speak to one another. She said it's just everywhere. And so in the years since, because some years ago,

she's become like a meditator and shaman, and she taught me about the relationship of intersectionality and interconnection, which is also in the book. And she's found the tools that she has needed to do just that, which is not indolent, you know, you're not laying around saying, yeah, you're going to get to women, yeah, that was last decade. It's not like that, you're not laying around saying, yeah, you're not against women, yeah, that was last decade. It's not like that. You know, she's passionate, she's engaged. And I have many people like that who've done that journey in the book. You know, they have used outrage

in a really important way to find a sense of agency and a voice and to go forward. And they have come to a recognition that they're actually stronger forces than anger, like compassion, which of course we don't tend to believe. We think it's like the weakest thing in the world, but each of these people, you know, is giving testimony to what helps them really work in a sustained way with strength and with intensity, but coming from a different place. You talk in the book about, I believe, you use the term soft and strong.

I like soft power. And I think what you're getting at there is that just because your motivation may over time transmute from anger to compassion does not mean you are, as you just, the word you just used, indolent or apathetic. Mm-hmm. I have a quote that went out on Instagram from the book, which says something like compassion doesn't mean we don't fight. It means we don't hate. Yeah.

How are you doing with that? Because you're on Twitter a lot. That's a passing familiar. You noticed that. I mean, I'm on there occasionally too. I see a little bit of hate on there, maybe more than a little bit. So do you find yourself getting angry when looking at current events or looking at Twitter? Do you ever see upwelling

in you some powerful aversion? Oh yeah, I mean, yes, that's the truth of things. I mean, there's also a kind of a version, I guess you would say, that I think is rightful. You know, I'm not a great moral relativist, and I don't think the Buddha was either. I think you can see actions that are just harmful, they're just damaging, and it's cruel, you know, and I feel sick and more than anything, but I've seen cruelty, but it's cruelty and it's very important to me to not turn away, but then the question comes up, how do I not turn away? You know, how do I not just ignore it? Which doesn't mean I don't need to temper my Twitter years sometimes, you know, like really

being much more moderate, But anyway, you know, when I did this thing a couple of years ago, this meta-MeTTA, meaning loving kindness, meta-minute for the kids and the cages at the border at someone's request. And I was in an airport when I read her request on Twitter and then I said yes, and then I went home and I made a recording and then I got back to go to the airport. I actually did a minute at another airport. And a lot of people started writing to me. Maybe this is like the subscribers, you know, who don't like what they're reading or hearing the People started writing to me saying you know, you're as bad as the people who just send thoughts and prayers and Why are you just leading loving kindness? Why aren't you donating which I already had or why aren't you taking action? You should get off your cushion and go sit and someone's you know drive where or something like that and And I just kept responding on Twitter saying you know

this is hard for me to look at. And in order for me to not look the other way and stay engaged, I need to connect to something bigger. I just do. You know, and this is it. And I would never confuse meditation and taking action know the difference, you know, but really, what kind of action are you talking about and you know, and coming from where?

And it's just an interesting experience. So I think, yes, I mean, I see it. I try to be more moderate in my own taking in influences. And I just remember what I really care about. taking influences and I just remember what I really care about. What would you recommend in terms of techniques for other people now that we're in the heat of campaign season? What are some techniques for moderating our own news consumption, social media consumption, so that we are not overwhelmed

by a version anger or just overwhelmed. I was interviewed as a suggestion of one of my colleagues for the New York Times to this article on the greatest word in the world, which is a doom scrolling. I don't even know it existed. And then when the article came out, I saw that I was in it. My colleague was not. Then I began thinking, when do it? Maybe she doesn't do it. And she knows I do, you know? Like, why did she recommend me after all? Because I do. And I realize, you know, that I'm doing it. And I know I have to stop. And I just stop. You know, that it's enough. I'm just rid five, 50 tweets on the same issue. Let it go.

And fortunately, 50 years of trying to cultivate that letting go muscle has really helped. And structure always really helps me, you know, to know that, okay, I'm committing, you know, instead of turning on the TV news, except for some very critical shows that are so informative and enlightening that you just have to watch, I say, okay, this is a time when I'm actually going to do loving kindness or something like that instead of taking in one more hit of what I already know to be true. So I actually created a structure, you know, that I'm replacing that time, those hours. And I do a tremendous amount of loving kindness practice because for a long time in my own personal practice, it was, of course, my only practice for a number of years. But then it sort of became more what I would do,

like walking down the street in New York or sitting on an airplane and not so much in my formal daily practice. And now I'm really doing a lot of it because it is the force that helps me not look the other way, but also not be so overwrought that I'm just flailing. And the odd thing about being overcome by one of those painful emotions is that your own emotion is then taking center stage. That's the most dramatic

intense thing in the room. It's the situation of these other people. It's like, that's gone. You know, we're just fixate on how bad we feel. And it's sort of not the point to engage and to participate. It's crucial, you know, it's not a game. And I remember talking to these friends, I guess it was 2016. And then a son who was, I said to him, one morning, a breakfast, how old are you? And he said, I'm turning 18. He was turning 18 before the election. And I lit up because of my obsession, I said, oh, you can vote. And it was just

like total silence. And then later when I was talking to the dad, he said, we don't vote. I said, what do you mean you don't vote? And he said, well, you know, it's just like, this is not true in every year. Of course, they said just marginal differences between the candidates. And, you know, it doesn't really make any sense. And I said, look, you may see marginal differences between the candidates, but there are plenty of people who live in those margins. And it is going to make a significant difference to them. You've got a vote.

And then they all voted. And now the daughter just turned 18 this year and she sent me a text. I registered to vote. You'd be so happy to hear that. I thought, yeah, I'm happy to hear that. You know, we have to look at what's real. Like what's going to help us engage in a world that is so confusing and misleading and traumatizing in so many ways. Like, what helps us? And we have to find that way of being and pursue it so that we can keep engaging. You mentioned before the overlap between intersectionality and interconnection.

Identity politics is a huge issue. When we were already hearing about it, the campaign trail, and we'll hear a lot more about it. To talk about that. I think it's both Anne. The first time Malik and I, a few of the people used to teach together every year at this women's leadership initiative,

and the first time I heard Malik could talk about intersectionality, I thought, oh, that's just like interconnection, but then she went on to talk about what it actually is, which is a term that had grown up in the legal world around identity in the ways people might be actually at a loss in the eyes of society and its rules because they are a woman and disabled and a person of color. and disabled and a person of color. And, you know, so it's not just one thing.

And that kind of expanded as Malik would describe it, maybe the next year, she would say, well, you know, I'm really an interesting case because I'm Hindu woman of a high caste. And so in India, educated, you know, and she said, I have a really high status that I come here and I'm like an immigrant, you know, and she said, I have a really high status. Then I come here and I'm like an immigrant, you know, and, uh, dark skin. And, and it's like a different status.

And so we are all a bundle of actually lots of different identities that can be reacted to by others. And then the year after that, she said, you know, when I think of intersectionality, I think of interconnection. And I thought, yes, it was right. And I actually put that in the book, and the editor made me take it out. It was like to triumph into something.

But that's actually what it is. I think we live in a time, it's like both and. Like I, my goddaughter who's now a young woman, when she was very young, really a little girl, she was in a movie and she was born in China, adopted by her Caucasian parents. And one of her mom's conditions for her appearance in the movie was a movie with lots of kids in it and she was the only Asian looking child. And one of her mom's conditions was that the script not say pointedly like, hey, she's adopted. She just wanted it to be a vision. This is what a family might look like.

You know, this is what a family sometimes looks like. And so, let's get used to it. You know, it doesn what a family sometimes looks like. And so let's get used to it. You know, it doesn't need special mention. Like, this is a different kind of family than maybe your family. So they did it that way. And then I remember reading the bulletin board things about the movie because I'm a good godmother. And so many of them said, who's that Asian kid?

How come nobody explained her? But there's something about what her mother said that I thought, well, who's that Asian kid? How come nobody explained her? But there's something about what her mother said that I thought, well, that's the beloved community, right? That's the world as it should be. You don't have to say this is a special kind of family. It's just a family. Or I remember watching Gray's Anatomy for the first time and the head of the hospital was a, you know, black neurosurgeon or something like that. And nobody ever mentioned that. It's just like, this is what a hospital staff can look like. This is how the world can be. And I admired it so. And recently, I was actually talking to Anorak who I've read

on the 10% happier podcast. So I've known him for an hour. Yeah. Yes. He's been on the show. Yes. There's a lot of work around unconscious bias. You know, so I was talking to him and I said,

maybe we need a different conversation. Maybe that black neurosurgeon needs to, there's needs to be a show saying, you know, how hard it was to get here. This is what my reality was like. And at the same time, I still hold that vision as part of the equation. You know, this is what a family can look like. You know, we're not going to make a distinction about it. So I think it's probably both.

Both meaning it is true that our various identities are part of who we are and how we show up in the world on one level and on another level. We are not separate and we are more than our identities, both matter. Yes, that's great great both. And also when you're using language, you know, it's often tricky because it can easily imply a certain centrality view. That's what I mean by this is what a family can look like. It's not like there's a normative family type and everything else needs to be mentioned. You know, this is what a family can look like. This is what a hospital staff can look like. This is just how the world can look. This is how the world should look.

And so it is loosening the grip of a certain kind of assumed centrality, but at the same time, you know, clearly there's, it seems to be such a need for kind of... identity assertion. Much more of my conversation with Sharon Salzberg right after this. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on Page Six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wonder Woman's New Podcast, Diss and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud.

From the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feud say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans form the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other.

And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Disenthal wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on Amazon Music or The Wondery App. You have a chapter title in the book called Exquisite Balance. What does that mean? I think by the time we get to that chapter, we've gone through moving from anger to courage, from grief to resilience, and remembering to take enjoy. So we've covered a lot of ground, and not any of it perhaps is easy,

and even taking enjoy is not always easy by any means. So having open more to the pain in a way with compassion, having open more to the joy with acceptance, we come to a different kind of balance. So it's the ability to bring forth tremendous compassion and wisdom in the sense of I will put everything I can into trying to help and It's not in my hands to control sad to say things may take time This is an unfolding how am I you know? Where am I coming from? What's the transformation in me? One of the people I talked to for the book is a friend who Mark Solomon who was very involved in the marriage equality movement and

We met at IMS when he came to do a three-month retreat and it was the year 2000 and What we do in US presidential election years what we did was the next morning we put a a folded up note on the board. And it says on the outside, if you wanna know who won the US presidential election, lift this up. So the year 2000, you lifted it up and it said,

we don't know yet. And these meditators, you've been there like a month or more. We come to interviews and say, don't we usually know the next day? And but Mark had come to us from the Senate. He'd been in the Senate and then he left and he had this year before he went to graduate school. So he came and said a three-month retreat. So he knew this was like, wacko. So that's really where we bonded, Mark and I. Mark worked in the Marriage Equality Campaign.

He talked about what a 15-year campaign is like. And the kind of patience and fortitude and vision that you really need. And he said, you know, my goal was every day to put some wind on the board. That might mean an editorial. It might mean talking to a group of people who hadn't been open to the idea before. It might mean someone writing a letter and it was just day after day, after day, after day. And so it's what a campaign is like. So balancing things like passion and perseverance and patience. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently I skipped over this. It's supposed to come before the balance,

but let's do it out of order, which is remembering joy. Why are you bringing up joy in this context? I see no room for joy on Twitter. On Twitter. On Twitter. In political discussions, engagement, whatever. I think it's our casting. I know.

Well, many of us have the conditioning, um, uh, feeling, you know, either were too distracted to take in the joy or we feel it's wrong, you know, there's so much suffering, it's too self-indulgent. Or we, you know, have these like, uh, really tight images of perfectionism and if it doesn't match that, it's no good. Or we have kind of this clinging habit. If I can hold on to this really tight, it won't ever change and won't leave me. And none of that is realistic.

None of that actually works. It's just a distortion. And what happens in the process of looking at suffering more directly, whether it's your own or a community's or something in the world, the planet, is that we really need to have some inner wherewithal in order to sustain that looking and not crumble and not feel overwhelmed and not feel shattered and not feel totally ineffectual. And so what makes up that wherewithal is a very interesting question.

So I'm going to share energy. It's like we have to remember to rest sometimes. And some of it has to do with perspective. It's like something so restorative about taking in the joy and being able to admit it, being able to feel it, that actually it replenishes us so that we can look at painful things without just being lost in them more and more.

And it's hard, it's embarrassing. And there's so. It's embarrassing. You know, and this so much difficulty in the world and one can feel like, why is this all happening for me, you know, and it's good and it's not fair. But again, there's something that helps us get out of bed in the morning and go see that psychiatrist or whomever. There's something that has us willing to try and willing to change ourselves and so on. So we have to look at what the ingredients of that are. And I think quite a lot of it has to do with being able to see what we're grateful for and what is the good and what can give us joy and enjoy it.

I'm thinking about this isn't civic or social or political engagement, it's family engagement, but I'm in the sandwich generation now having a little kid and having aging parents and my brother who's got six kids and the same aging parents. And so he and I have been dealing with a lot, we're trying to help our parents and a lot of his really hard. And we were driving up to see them. It's like a three hour drive from the New York area to Boston and we were having fun on the ride talking and laughing. And so can you hold both of those things at the same time?

Well, I think we have to, you know, because life can be a real grind, you know. And the other time we did something together, it was just a few days ago, right? And you started out with the term life sucks, you know. And there's a lot of truth to that, you know, a lot of the time, but it's not the only truth of how things are. And how do we face with resilience and compassion and some strength? The real difficulties we as individuals or family members or parts of a community may go through because the point isn't to hate what we're going through and despair

and just feel overcome by it because that serves no more. I think you're referring to a benefit that you and I participated in. We had a conversation as part of a benefit for a meditation organization and the conversation was about joy. And I think led off with how, what's the role of joy when everything sucks?

And I think the answer in a nutshell, or maybe this is just one of the nut shells, is you know, it can really sustain you through tough times. Yeah, it can really sustain you through tough times. What I see is a really powerful point that I don't think I've given you a chance to make is that, at least from what I'm taking from this new book, is that, you know, which is all about convincing us that there isn't a separation between our meditation practice and getting engaged in the world no matter how painful or dirty or it might be, that actually there's something about seeing your own stuff clearly and even if it's really painful, that can help you engage more effectively, give you an

impetus to engage. And I was struck in a, and I'm going to read a paragraph here that this was something I didn't know about you. As the Austrian writer, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, So you must not be frightened. If a sadness rises up before you, larger than any you have ever seen. If a restiveness like light and cloud shadows passes over your hands and overall you do, you must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten

you, that it holds you in its hand. It will not let you fall. And this is you here, you right. When I'm in some kind of pain, I found that this can be one of the worst components of what I experience, feeling that I'm all alone. My nose pressed up against the window, looking into the space where everyone else has gathered to enjoy a moment or comfort one another, be part of life. I'm somehow excluded on account of for it. No one even notices I'm outside. It's the worst and most habitual add-on I use. I did not know that about you and I was moved to read it. Well, when I wrote the book Faith, which came out 18 years ago, it was really about my faith journey and my journey in a way to agency, using word faith in that sense.

And in writing it, I look back over my life and I realized that by the time I left for college at the age of 16, I had lived in five different family configurations. You know, the only time I lived with my mother and father was until I was four when they got divorced. And then with my mother and she died when I was nine. And then I went to live with my father. You know, I just sort of went on and on. Every shift was precipitated by someone dying or some horribly traumatic event.

And so that sense of being fractured, of being fragmented, of not being the same, of being really different, and isolated, was an immensely strong conditioning in my life. And it was only when I went to college and I took an Asian philosophy course as a sophomore and heard the Buddhist teaching, which is basically that life is suffering

or life has suffering in it. It doesn't mean everything is grim, but this is a natural part of life that I actually felt I belonged. I felt I was included, you know, for the first time, like, oh, I'm not so weird. And that's so different. This is a part of life. This is, this is okay to feel in some way. And so, and that obviously was the beginning of the entire rest of my life. And it was hugely important. But I see that habit, you know, and actually

that the actual quote from realke was something when I was writing faith because I was using the word in a certain way. And I was talking to the editor I was working with. And I said, you know, from the point of view of the Buddhist tradition, doubt is not the enemy of faith, because the right kind of doubt, insisting on the right to question and putting forth those questions and wondering and investigating and putting something into practice for yourself to see if it's true.

That's the holy central spirit of the teachings. And so, doubt is not the enemy of faith. So she saw what's the opposite of faith in. And I said, despair. You know, where we don't have a sense of agency, everything feels broken, disconnected. All connections were like severed. So then she said to me, well, you know, you're going to have to tell a despair story then. And I said, I don't really want to, like, can we skip that chapter? But it's time went on, you know, it became clear,

like I really did. And so I did. And the story was about sitting a retreat with Saita Upandita. I can't remember the exact year, but it was obviously many years after I started. I met him in 1984. So let's say it was early 90s, maybe, or late 80s in Australia. And I started practicing January of 1971. So this is a good long time afterwards. And I was just doing this retreat.

And the memory, the body memory of being nine years old and my mother dying came up. And it was just like this immense grief and sense of disconnection and isolation and so on. And it really was really despair. And so I wrote about the process of reforging connection. It was my relationship with him as a teacher. It was my practice being able to to sit. It was being out in nature. And it was, who knows what, you know, some mysterious force which actually manifested when I was walking up a staircase in this retreat, and that quotation came to me.

Do not be frightened, and I just thought, oh, life has not forgotten me, actually. And so the worst part of that whole experience, that sense of isolation and separation, it was gone. And then I could just work through whatever was happening. And so it's been since then just the most important sort of marker for me of what we are really seeking and what's really healing. It's just to clarify a little bit. I mean, I, having read faith, I was familiar with the trauma of your childhood. What I wasn't familiar with was how alive

that part was for you now. This add-on of the, I'm excluded, I don't matter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it's, you know, any add on. It really does depend on the relationship. It's like, I can see that. And it would be so rare that I buy into it for more than like 30 seconds. I did see, however, and I write about this in the book as well, like in 2016, after the election, when I felt that a lot of deceit was happening when I watched the news, or there were things

that were shaded, or because my childhood also had been filled with secrets, and even though I think people were really caring about me, they thought in my best interests, it was better say not to ever talk about my mother after she died, you know, and I was nine years old, or things like that. And so that picture of like not really knowing what's true and being told one thing, and maybe it's not true, and it probably isn't true, and then, you know,

that went a lot deeper than the thoughts of, hey, and I'm belong, you know, and seeing that, because I could feel it in my body, I could feel right away that there was a dis-ease that was, it's like being retraumatized or re-activated. And that was also good to recognize, to see that there's certain kinds of experiences where I need to remind myself, step back. Maybe it's not that healthy to watch the news so much

or get off Twitter or see this feeling, this is a certain kind of feeling, and you need to see it for what it is. You know, it's a very different world, obviously, when you feel you have a different relationship to these feelings, but that was my clue, you know, that I really need to modulate much more. Just to bring it full circle, what is the process by which getting in touch with our own, with the tough stuff internally can help us then lean in externally? Well, actually, oddly enough, the ability to be in touch with kindness toward the difficult things in ourselves that we're feeling is also said to be the root of empathy, because if you're talking about empathy as not just an intellectual appreciation, oh, that looks

kind of tough, but that real sort of resonance with somebody's situation. That only can happen if we have an ability to be with our own pain, because that's what's vibrating, you know, is that recollection? Like, I don't know exactly what you're going through, but I remember a time when I was lied to, or when I felt no one was listening or seemed likely that you're kind of you know and so we have this actual sort of resonance as a response and that's born out of being able to be with our

pain plus the ability to be with what's difficult also gives us information. And it allows us to, like if I think if almost anybody sits with anger long enough, just being with the feeling, you will likely see not only sadness and fear in there, you'll see some nugget of a sense of helplessness. And that feeling is so hard for us. And that when I get there, I am then reminded to do one thing, just do one thing. Sit and talk to your elderly neighbor in the corridor or, you know, help somebody, just help somebody in some way. And that channels the anger in some way into action, which is very important and also action. And it gives us the ability to also see quite deeply.

And I look at this state, I thought it was so permanent. I thought it was essentially who I was and look at that. It's actually moving. It's actually changing. Things come and they go, and I don't need to just react, but I can act. You know, when I have an appreciation of something as being like a value or something that I'm choosing is quite important. And I think in all those ways, the inner work and the ability to be with uncomfortable

feeling actually propels us into more skill action. So in some here, as we sit here in the heat, both outside and politically, the bottom line from Sharon Salzburg is don't shrink back, no matter how scared you may be of it, at the very least vote. at the very least vote. At the very least vote, thank you. Thank you. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.

Thank you. It's great to talk to you. It's great to see you. Big thanks to Sharon. I just want to point out that Sharon's teachings are a huge part of the 10% happier app. She teaches course on loving kindness and two courses on focus. And she's recently recorded a new talk and meditation for the app about the concepts we just discussed

having to do with her new book Real Change. So if you want to check out any of that, I highly recommend you get yourself over to the app, and we'll include some links in the show notes. Before we go, I do have a little announcement, given that we've been working incredibly hard since the beginning of the pandemic to create more content than we used to, and given our desire to continue making a ton of useful and meaningful content for all of you, we are expanding our team. And so we've got some open positions on the podcast team at 10% happier. The first is a producer role on this show,

the one you're listening to, the job would be to work with me and the rest of the team that produces this show. So if you have three or more years of podcasting experience and an interest in meditation, you should apply. And if you know somebody who fits the bill, they should apply. We're also working on some new podcasts under the 10% happier banner.

We'll have some more announcements in that vein soon. But in the meanwhile, we're hiring a show development producer to support to the, as the job title implies, the development of these new shows. So if either of these positions aligned with your interests and aspirations and qualifications, go to 10% dot com slash jobs to learn more. And if you know somebody who would be good for either of these positions, send them the link 10% dot com slash jobs, that's 10% dot com slash jobs. And having said all of that, big thanks to everybody who listens.

And as always, a big thanks to the team. These people work incredibly hard on this show. Samuel Johns is our senior producer, Marissa Schneidermann is our producer. Our sound designers are Matt Boynton and Ania Sheshek from ultraviolet audio. Maria Wartell is our production coordinator. We drive a lot of wisdom from our TPH colleagues,

such as Jen Poient, Nick Toby, Ben Rubin, Liz Levin and of course a big thank you and salute to my ABC News colleagues Ryan Kessler and Josh Koham. We'll see you all on Friday for a bonus meditation from Sharon Salzburg. 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 Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.

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