Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 339: Why Buddhism Is Inherently Hopeful (Despite All the Talk of Suffering) | Oren Jay Sofer

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

Buddhism can get a bad rap as being hopelessly pessimistic -- in no small measure because one of the Buddha’s first principal pronouncements was, “Life is suffering.” But if you listen to the rest of his spiel, you will hear that the Buddha acknowledges that life can be hard, but then goes on to say that we can make it better. He then spells out a bunch of practical techniques for doing so, which makes Buddhism essentially hopeful. We’re now in week two of our two-week series on hope, where we’ve been positing that hope isn’t just some vague, rosy state of mind -- it is, in fact, a skill.  Today’s guest is Oren Jay Sofer, a Buddhist teacher who has been meditating for nearly a quarter century. He holds a degree in Comparative Religion from Columbia University and is the author of Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication. Oren’s view of hope starts with the Buddhist notion of impermanence. Everything is changing all the time. That doesn’t necessarily mean things are always guaranteed to get better. That brand of hope, Oren says, can lead to a sort of grasping that pulls us out of the present and ultimately feeds our suffering. Instead, Oren makes the counter-intuitive argument that in order to hope effectively, we have to detach from results and outcomes. Oren is also lending his expertise to our Hope is a Skill series in the Ten Percent Happier app. If you’re already a subscriber, make sure to check out our new meditations to hone your hope skills — including some from Oren. You can find them in the “Hope is a Skill” topic in the Singles tab, or by clicking here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/HopeIsASkill.  And if you’re not yet a subscriber and want to check out Oren’s new meditations in our app, now is a great time to give it a go. You can download the Ten Percent Happier app here: https://www.tenpercent.com/ (or wherever you get your apps). Once you subscribe, you’ll have access to all the great resources in the Hope is a Skill series, as well as tons of content – meditations, talks, full-on courses – all designed to help you wherever you are on your meditation journey. Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/oren-jay-sofer-339 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 podcast. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey gang, Buddhism can get a bit of a bad rap as being hopelessly pessimistic in no small measure because one of the Buddha's first pronouncements was that life is suffering. But if you listen to the rest of his spiel, you will hear that while the Buddha acknowledges that life can be hard He also goes on to say that we can make it much better and then he spells out a bunch of

practical techniques for doing so which in my view makes Buddhism essentially hopeful. We are now in week two of our two week series on the subject of hope. All along we've been positing that hope is not some vague, rosy state of mind. It is in fact a skill. Today's guest is the mighty Oranjai Sofer. He's a Buddhist teacher who's been meditating for nearly a quarter century. He holds a degree in comparative religion from Columbia University,, he's a Buddhist teacher who's been meditating for nearly a quarter century. He holds a degree in comparative religion from Columbia University. And he's the author of, say what you mean, a mindful approach to nonviolent communication. Warren's view of hope starts with the Buddhist notion of impermanence.

Everything, as we all know, is changing all the time. That does not necessarily mean that Orrin believes that things are guaranteed to get better. That brand of hope, he says, can lead to a sort of grasping that pulls us out of the moment and ultimately makes us suffer even more. Instead, Orrin makes the counter intuitive argument that in order to hope effectively, we really have to detach from the result or the outcome. It took me a long time to even get my head around this

and Orrin does a great job of explaining it here. By the way, I should say that Orrin is also lending his expertise to our Hope Is a Skill series over in the 10% happier app. If you're already a subscriber, make sure to check out the new meditations that we've put up there to hone your Hope chops, including one from

Orrin. You can find it all in the Hope is a skill topic in the Singles tab or follow the link in the show notes. Quick side note, we did have some technical difficulties with my microphone for this episode. So the audio quality on my side of the conversation might sound a bit different than what you're used to hear. All right, here we go now with Orrin J. Sofer. Hi, Orrin. Thanks for doing this. Hey, Dan. Sure thing.

Good to see you. Good to see you. So you've been writing recently about practical hope. What do you mean by that? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, it's been a heavy year. And along with everyone else, there have been times that I've felt down or a little bit hopeless, just given everything we're facing in the world today.

And I think the tendency is to think about hope as looking forward to a future where things are better. And what I've seen in my own life, just very personally, is that that doesn't always work out. And when we place our sense of well-being or fulfillment or even just like a basic sense of being okay on things being better or different in the future, we set ourselves up for a fall, right? Because we can't control what's going to happen. So like, I went through that a lot when I was dealing with some chronic health issues about 10 years ago. And like, with every new doctor I saw and every new treatment and every new supplement that was going to help me, I would get really hopeful

and excited. And I'm finally going to feel better, you know, and then a month later, when things hadn't changed, I would feel really crushed and hopeless and despairing again. So as we've gone through this year of so much upheaval and transformation and pain and grief and loss, I've really turned back to my own meditation practice and the teachings that support it, that say, actually change and transformation are possible. Like things can get better, but it doesn't come from wishing. It comes from what we do here and now. And that's what I mean by practical hope is that our actions have effects down to the very thoughts that we think and the ways that we navigate our inner life

to the choices we make, the people we interact with, the way we use our resources, and all of that affects our own life and one another's life. And so for me, practical hope is pointing to the fact that we're not in a hopeless situation because everything we do matters, and the more conscious we are, the more we're able to understand this kind of network of interdependence and mutuality that we're all existing in, the more we can navigate towards the kind of world we want to live in. But it sounds like the trick here is yes, you can take affirmative action toward making things better, but if you get hung up on achieving a specific outcome, you're likely to be

disappointed. So it's a bit of a tightrope. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's that sense of like navigating towards something. Like we need to have a sense of vision or possibility, you know, like the first world social forum came up with the very short phrase, another world is possible. That kind of captures the essence of it, whether we're talking about individual transformation or social transformation, that another world is possible, that we can actually make changes in our own lives and in our communities that have material benefits, that have spiritual benefits. But as you're pointing to, like, the exact nature of those

and the specific outcome isn't up to us because it's too complicated. The web of conditions is beyond our control. So it's, yeah, as you said, it's a tightrope. It's a sense of having a vision, having a goal or a purpose that we're navigating towards. And then we take steps to move in that direction, focusing on what we can do here and now,

using as much intelligence, wisdom and skill as we can in the present moment, trying to act with integrity, and then letting go of the outcome, which isn't up to us. And I think it was Thomas Merton who said something along the lines of, you will have to give up the possibility of depending on the hope of results and that ultimately you end up doing what you do simply for the value and the rightness of the actions in and of themselves. Easier said than done. Yeah. And you know, if we talk about meditation practice, there's so much it's, you know, I've been practicing for a couple of decades now, and it still kind of blows my mind, how rich and elegant the practice is,

like in any one moment, it's working on so many different levels. And one of those levels is that very sense of practice for the sake of practice. that very sense of practice for the sake of practice. When we come to the cushion or the mat and we sit down to meditate, of course we have a goal in mind. Like, of course we're doing this for a reason. And yet we learn over and over and over again that the more we get fixated on that goal or reason, the more we tireself up and knots, and the more we get fixated on that goal or reason, the more we tie ourselves up in knots, and the more we're able to use it as a kind of inter compass to navigate towards, and then let go, and just be present, just show up for whatever's happening in the moment fully. That in some kind of paradoxical way begins to open up the space for transformation.

And so it's like on the micro level in meditation, we're practicing that very skill of letting go of outcome and focusing a kind of wholehearted attention on how we're showing up in the present and what we're doing. And for me, I think you and I share some kind of socially and culturally, the background of sort of like East Coast Jew. So like I get a white guy. So I grew up with a lot of that conditioning around achievement, education, and so forth. So I got like really strong doses of perfectionism and get ahead and accomplish, right? And that was my coping mechanism. Like I grew up with a lot of just sort of emotional volatility

and my family of origin at various points. Things were scary and hard. And so, you know, as a teenager, my coping mechanism was just to kind of disappear into work, into academics, into, I think we've talked about I was a childhood actor. So, you know, like going to auditions and that was my coping mechanism was just like work harder and do more and avoid what you're feeling. So like I carried that conditioning of focus on the goal and that's where you're going to feel happier into my meditation practice. And the first meditation retreats I sat were goingka meditation retreats where we do this intensive body scanning from head to toe and

that'll drive you nuts if you have a goal-oriented mind because it's this very detailed moment by moment tracking and the sense of trying to get to a goal was just, you know, I would end up so constricted and tight, I would just feel flooded and overwhelmed. So for me, the meditation practice really taught me a lot about how to let go of trying to get somewhere and relax and settle into what's happening right now. And when I look around our world, when I talk to people today, it's so easy to feel overwhelmed. It's so easy to move into despair.

I particularly young folks that I talk to who are looking ahead, you know, at the rest of their life and what the generations before have handed to them. And I think that this skill of being able to stay connected to the possibility of transformation, having a sense of vision of what's possible, and then staying really grounded and connected and where we are in the moment is indispensable. Yeah, but just staying on the easier said than done tip here for a second. You know, he's talking about young people, particularly young people word, but the climate crisis. And you can already see, you can already see it happening, and it doesn't take too much imagination to extrapolate into pretty nightmarish stuff going forward.

That seems like it's going to be a reality of our lives. And particularly for people who are going to be here longer than I mean, it's increasing reality and increasingly ugly reality of our lives, especially again, you know, for people who are younger than the mean you as oldsters now. And I just, you know, a practical hope, I imagine, doesn't, you know, whitewash that, but also like, how do you abandon terror in the face of that? Yeah. I don't think you do abandon terror. I think you try to metabolize it. You know, I think we need to, for me, I've been thinking a lot about how the teachings of meditation can provide more resources and guidance for the times that we're living in.

And in addition to this sense of what we're kind of calling practical hope, I think another main benefit or guidance that they offer is a sense of balance between finding ways to handle the difficulties that we are experiencing. And nourishing and uplifting the heart. And there's a balance between those, right? If we only focus on joy and pleasure and uplifting the heart, you know, whether that's through community or art or music or dance or appreciating the small things in life, you know, spring here in California and trees are blooming. The air smells lovely. It's like really nourishing to stop and notice that and take it in. If we only do that, then we end up deluding ourselves and actually missing the whole part of reality. In many respects, contributing to the problem, because this train is headed in a certain direction, and if we're not actively working to change course, then we're part of it.

Yet at the same time, if the only thing we do is focus on the fear, the terror, the despair, the pain, the grief, and so forth, we just sink, you know, we just get overwhelmed. So I think we need to learn to do both. So, you know, what do you do with the terror? Don't be alone with it first and foremost. I think that's one of the pitfalls of our society today is that particularly with the pandemic, because we're all so isolated and separated, and then you add on top of that a stigma around mental health issues or just not matching the picture perfect Instagram photo of how one's supposed to be. And we feel even more cut off in the emotional responses we're having to the times we're living through. Whether we're talking about the climate crisis or income inequality or racial injustice. So really key for me is don't be alone with it. Like reach out, connect with others, be honest

and real about how we're feeling. And then we need to mourn. I think we need to grieve. Grief is something that I don't think, sort of the modern Western society doesn't have a whole lot of resources or rituals or even language for processing grief collectively. And that's, you know, huge need for human beings. And an ancient one that we have for millennia always had rituals and means of grieving together. So I think we need to do that. We need to develop more of a language and more of a space in our communities and our relationships to acknowledge the grief and the mourning that we feel.

Because again, with this sense of the, for me, like practical hopes rooted in realism, it's rooted in a really honest assessment of where we are and the resources that we have, and there have been and there will continue to be like huge losses that can't be recovered from. You know, we're talking about species extinction or the loss of human life for

ecosystems. And so we need a way to acknowledge that. And for me, like if we're not doing that, then we can't do the work of practical hope. It includes that. Joanna Macy has done a lot of work around this in her, um, her work around the great turning and eco-chappalency and the sort of creating rituals of mourning specifically around ecological devastation so that we can reconnect with a sense of vision and possibility and purpose and actually work together. To salvage what we can, to redirect, to continue to imagine and create

the kind of future that we want for our children and future generations. So there are two parts that you're talking about here in terms of practical hope. One is honoring difficulties, the other is uplifting the heart. So it's like, you don't want to, as I said before, whitewash the terror. Yeah. In the other hand, you don't want to wallow in it. And so we need to practice both these tracks. Right. Yeah. And I would say that these two are kind of like supports for practical hope. The practical hope itself is really a sense of connecting with a vision, connecting with a sense of purpose or possibility, right? Really rooting ourselves in the reality that we live in a world of change. Like, that's the nature of this realm

that we're in, and that our actions have effects. So that's one part of it. Vision, grounding, in like, however you want to look at, you want to look at it like as the laws of thermodynamics and physics, if you want to look at it as karma, you know, different ways, but the future is not predetermined. And then the other part is to having a really honest grounded assessment of the resources and capacities that we have in the present. We need to be clear about our internal capacities, our external resources, so that we can respond effectively. And then all of that is supported by processing, like handling difficulties and uplifting the heart for me. It kind of like maintains the inner ecosystem know, we feel a sense of okeness in the presence, so that we have access to our intelligence and empathy and energy.

Otherwise, you're just sinking. It's not possible to navigate towards some vision of a better world if we're just drowning. So the first thing to do is to address that and many individuals and communities today are drowning in the systems that dominate our economy. And so in many respects, it's like some of the first things to do is how do we continue to address the harm? That's happening. That's very real. And then within that, then we continue to make space for metabolizing the pain, uplifting the heart, connecting with community and joy and hope and celebration, as we move towards what's possible. So when it comes to looking forthrightly at, you know,

the crappy or aspects of what's happening right now, you talked about don't do it alone. So I think we covered that. But what can we do alone in our practice? What does that look like for you? You know, obviously I can only speak from my experience and from the people that I have relationships with, both people close to me in my life and the students that I work with, the meditators and communication students that I spend time with and hear about their challenges and their path.

I think one of the best things that we can do is to develop a better relationship with ourselves and to develop a relationship with our inner life. And this is how does something I've been kind of talking about and thinking about a lot more recently is sort of thinking about meditation and contemplative practice as a process of developing a relationship with our inner life. And for many, just even acknowledging that we have an inner life in and of itself is a huge step. Like, oh, wow, I have feelings. You know, like there are things I'm carrying from the past. I didn't even recognize that or I have needs and that's okay. There's a process even there of

sort of taking stock of our inner life and then what is our relationship with it? One of my first meditation teachers, Sri Lankan, man by the name of Godwin Samarratne, one of the things he said to us when I first met him that has stayed with me all these years as he said, learn to be your own best friend. stayed with me all these years, as he said, learn to be your own best friend. And I just love that. Joseph quotes, I think it's a Korean song master who says, make your mind your friend, right? A similar angle.

So what can we do alone is we can learn to be our own friend, to have our own back, right? So that when we are facing fear and loss or uncertainty, confusion, numbness, like the whole range of what we experience as human beings, there's a sense even when we are in solitude that we're not alone with it. There's a difference between solitude and loneliness. The solitude is that sense of deep connection with ourselves, whereas loneliness is a sense of isolation and disconnection. And two of the things we're doing in meditation practice,

one is we're strengthening wholesome mind states so that they're present and available more readily, things like empathy and kindness and generosity and compassion and forgiveness, we're strengthening all those neural networks. And we're also increasing awareness. And what I've seen in myself over the years is that the more clear and the stronger that awareness becomes, it's like the awareness itself becomes a companion, like Tiktok Han, the Zen master, and collated activist. He always used to talk about not being alone with one's anger or one's

pain, but like mindfulness keeping it company. And there's that sense when we've really cultivated awareness and can begin to recognize both its independence from circumstances, as well as its intimate connection to and relationship with what's happening that we're no longer alone with what we're experiencing because awareness is present as a companion. So, and that's a huge resource. And that's something that we can cultivate and develop on our own. I wonder if that's gonna be hard for people to understand,

especially folks who are not like kind of deep in the practice, the idea that awareness, what is it, you know, awareness is a funny word, because I think we grow with drug awareness. And you know, know like let's be aware of an issue but you're talking about sort of raw consciousness. Just the sheer brute fact that we know that we can feel our butt on our seat or we can see what's in front of us. The word awareness gets thrown around a lot in the meditation world and I don't know if it's fully jibes with how most people see that word.

So I can offer two examples, two analogies to help. So one analogy that I like to use a lot is like going to a movie, remember when we used to actually do that, and sitting in the movie theater, and if the movie is good, you get lost in the movie. And the characters, you know, we get connected to them. And then if something happens in the movie theater, like somebody next to us starts talking or our cell phone vibrates or something, all of a sudden, we kind of snap back to reality. And we remember that we're in a movie theater watching a movie. The movie's still happening. We're still following everything that's there.

But we have a broader frame of reference. There's another perspective present like, well, I'm sitting in a movie theater. It's Thursday evening, you know, that's an analogy of the way that awareness functions in our life. Instead of being lost in the movie of what's happening, we have a broader perspective. We recognize that we are awake and conscious within the movie of our life, within everything that's happening. And that gives us some inner ground and balance and perspective on whatever may be happening.

So that's one analogy. Another analogy is similar, but just like even in real life, not watching a movie, we can kind of be going along through our day and really focused on what we're doing, but a little bit lost in the events, a lost in what's happening. And then we have these moments,

I think we all have these moments where we are deeply and intimately connected to what's happening and we're aware of it. We're aware of its preciousness, of its impermanence. And for me, the times in my life prior to meditation that I recognize that happening most readily were moments of beauty or awe in nature, like watching a really beautiful sunset or walking outside and all of a sudden happening upon a hawk or a fox,

and all of a sudden you have this encounter with a wild creature and everything stops. And it lasts long enough that we wake up or like, whoa, oh my gosh, this is actually happening. You know, and we're in the experience, but there's also an awareness of its preciousness and its impermanence. Like this is going to be gone in a moment in a flash. That's awareness. There's a broader perspective that connects us with a sense of recognition of what's happening, not just the content of the experience, but the process of it, that it's changing and it's flowing. So that's

what I'm talking about. Is that clear? Yeah, it's great. It's really helpful. Can you go back now and talk about how the awareness that you've helped us all understand what you were referring to, how that can be your friend and a support in facing difficult emotions, which again, just to bring us back to the top line of this whole interview, which of course is a really important skill in cultivating practical hope. How can awareness be our friend? Yeah. So I'll just like give an example.

And I'm going to be general just because nothing specific is coming to mind. But say I get angry about something. And yes, I do feel angry at times. So I get angry about something. I can be lost in the anger. I could just kind of, you know, let it consume me. That doesn't happen as often as it used to. But I can also be aware of the anger. So if something happens and brings up anger in me, the anger is still present. Like, I'm still feeling angry. My body is tight and hot.

There are thoughts running through my head. Why? What the? It's just that level of frustration and aggravation mentally. If awareness is present, all of that, the bodily sensations, the thoughts, the kind of energy of contraction and heat and pressure, all that's happening within a much wider space. It's like there's a sense of quiet and a lot of space around it. And that space, that quiet, open space, it's not just blank, it's not sterile, it's actually awake, and it's imbued with a quality of warmth or care. Imagine the difference between feeling angry or sad or alone or hurt, like on 52nd Street in New York City, you know, like at rush hour,

or being at your best friend's house with a cup of tea. The setting is very different, and your ability to kind of handle that emotion is affected by the setting around you. In one setting, it's chaotic. You're surrounded by strangers. There's no space to actually feel what's happening because you're attending to all these other inputs

and stimuli and you gotta take care of yourself in the other setting. It's like, oh gosh, I'm safe. There's someone I know I can take my time with this. So that's what I mean by awareness being a friend, what's happening inside is surrounded by an accompanied by an inner atmosphere that feels familiar, comfortable, quiet, understanding, supportive, intelligent. There's a wisdom and a knowing there that's not personal. It's not like orange.

So, okay, orange, you're going to be okay. Don't worry about it. There's a kind of like, it's like being with one of your grandparents is just like, that's okay, sweetie. You know, there's just like this wiser, older presence there that's like, oh, okay, yeah, we've been here before. And that's like Michelle McDonald, the, yeah, we've been here before. And that's, like Michelle McDonald, a senior of a pasta teacher.

She talks about the path of awakening. Is it's like bringing together our inner child and our wise elder. Now, we each have those parts. We have the freaked out little boys, you know, showed up at school without his pants on. It's like, oh my god. And then there's this other part of us that actually is maturing and developing wisdom and groundedness

and compassion. And when those two are both present, that's when we are able to handle the difficulties that we are beset by and not suppress them, not avoid them or pretend they're not there or run away from them and not drown in them either. Orren, thank you. We're gonna come back in a minute. I want to take a quick break here before we take the break though just a one bit of business. If you're not a subscriber and you want to check out Orren's new meditations in our app now is a great time to give it go. You can download the 10% happier app today wherever you get your apps. Once you subscribe you'll have access to all of the great resources in our new hope series as well as all sorts of other content, meditations, talks, full-on courses that have a lot of video and guided meditations combined.

And then of course our amazing coaches, all of it designed to help you wherever you are in your meditation practice. All right we're gonna be taking that break I promise to you and then we'll be back on the other side of that with some more of my conversation with Orrin J. Sofer. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's Life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident not-so-expert experts.

Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking, oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world,

listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts, you can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. I understand awareness as, you know, just knowing what's there, the way you wake up and see, oh yeah, what's playing out on the screen in front of me and movie theater is a movie and I'm not stuck in the story. The warmth that you describe as being, I knew you were gonna go there.

I knew it, I was waiting for it. I was like, what's he gonna ask? He's gonna ask about the love piece. He's gonna push me on that. I'm pro love. I'm not skeptical of what you're saying. I am confused because they feel like two different things. I've done a lot of, not a lot of, but I've done a non-zero amount

of loving kindness, practice, et cetera, et cetera. And that feels like a skill that I've gotten better at making my inner-weather, bombier. But that feels to me, again, just I'm just talking about from my sense of a human being doing these practices, it feels like a different skill that you can combine with awareness and then you're in the room with a tee and you're not on 52nd Street anymore, et cetera, et cetera. So that's where I get hung up. People say love and awareness are the same thing and they feel different to me, but combinedable.

Yeah. Yeah. I can relate. I can relate. I can certainly look back and recognize like that. That was also my experience for many years. And I can't point to like a or a specific experience where I had some awakening, awareness is the same as love. Not for me, at least, that has not been the case. It's been more of a gradual shift where now it's just like, oh, yeah, they're not separate. It's not even like a thought. It's just like, oh yeah, they're not separate. And it's not even like a thought, it's just an experience. And the only thing that I can say is I think it's for each of us to find out. And I think it's a really deep question, you know, and I feel like it's a question that I'm still asking myself and that I long for a more intimate and unshakable knowing of the nature of awareness and the nature of love.

And I feel like that's one of the invitations of the contemplative path, is to see and know for ourselves what's true and what is the nature of consciousness, what's the nature of this existence. The meditation master Deepama, she was a housewife from, I think Bengal, who lost her husband and more than one of her children. And she was from one of the families in that part of northeast India that traces its ancestry back to the time of the Buddha. So she grew up in a Buddhist family and she was literally dying of grief. She was bedridden and could not function anymore.

Her heart was so crushed and she went to the Mahasi Center in Burma, who's one of the great grandparents of the modern insight meditation world here in the West. And it said that she literally crawled up the steps of the monastery. She was so weak. And Joseph's teacher, Manindraji, who was also one of my first teachers was her teacher. And she was a remarkable practitioner. She made advances in meditation very quickly and attained very, very deep states of realization to the degree that she surpassed her teacher, Minindraji. Very fascinating stories and a wonderful book by her that I think now is called Deepama

by a friend of mine named Amit Shmit. Anyway, one of the things that she said that we're talking about practical hope here that seems like a really practical piece of advice and pointing out around this question of awareness and love and that their non-separation, she said, take a look and see when you're loving. Aren't you also aware? And when you're aware, aren't you also loving? And I think that's something that each of us, you know, can look and see in our own experience. They don't have to, you know, be on a long meditation retreat, but just take a look and see. How does it occur for you? I definitely see the first part of that. Like when I'm loving, so the easiest one for that is,

you know, just roughing up my son or something like that. I'm awake for that. When I'm awake, just say in meditation, knee pain, and my loving is their love there. I don't think I'm getting confused. I understand that if you're stuck in the suffering, then you're not aware. You're not mindful. I remember being on a meditation retreat once and realizing that if I was suffering at all, it just meant that there was something I was not being mindful of. But I don't know that I can get all the way to every time I'm aware of

mindful of something. There's love there. And it may be just that I'm hung up on the word love. Love, right? Yeah. I like the word kindness. For me, it's much more down to earth and accessible. I mean, I, I definitely, I think there's value and reclaiming that word

love because it's been so overused and worn out. But for me, I like talking about kindness or friendliness. And I appreciate what you're pointing to there because things change so quickly in the mind for a moment to moment that I think it can be hard to discern. It's like we're aware, it's like it flickers, we're aware for a moment, and then we're reacting and fighting and judging, and then we're aware for another moment, and then, you know, lost in it again, and then aware for another moment. And the flickers, if they are frequent enough,

it can feel as if we are continuously aware, but actually it's coming in and out, and we're getting sort of consumed by the reactivity or the fear or the hatred or the judgment, or whatever it is, you know, judging ourselves, like self-critical, and we can be aware of all that because the awareness is flickering in and out enough that we're tracking the process. So I think it's important to try to differentiate and discern what is the nature of those moments of awareness.

And for me, like as a practitioner, what's more interesting is the investigation and the sincerity of the inquiry than trying to confirm some thesis that the nature of awareness is love. It's like, well, who knows? Okay, I'm just gonna hold it as an open question. But the more curious and interested I get in my experience,

that's gonna actually further the practice and to bring it back again to this sort of overarching theme of our conversation. If we are taking an interest, if we are taking a sincere interest in our inner life, if we are examining what it is to be aware and the nature of that awareness we're developing a relationship with ourselves, we're familiarizing ourselves with an aspect

of our own consciousness that's available and present all the time. And in doing that, we're developing that relationship with ourselves of being a good friend, so that we can be present for the challenges and the difficulties we face, so that we can be present for the beauty and the joy in life when it comes our way and really receive the nourishment of that. Not let it just slip through our fingers, but actually take it in, let it really support us so that we are clear, grounded, balanced enough, and available enough from day to day and from year to year to use our life to benefit others to actually make a difference.

One last question on this love and awareness thing that, yeah, this is an interesting question. It's worth the investigation in your own practice, but on some level, what I'm about to say is not designed to dismiss the importance of the question, but perhaps on some important moment to moment level, it's a bit esoteric, the question, and really what our job is, is to develop the mindfulness, wakefulness, awareness, and also warmth, gooey center, kindness, love, whatever you want to call it. And yeah, if they merge, if you see that they're not separate at some point, great, but as long as you're developing the skills and combining them to the best of your ability,

like, all right, good for you. Go outside. Okay. Well, before we go, I do want to talk about uplifting the heart. I'm laughing a little bit because that's definitely not my language, but because that's the other support you were talking about, combining, being able to be with difficult emotions, combining that with sort of stuff that's definitely not my language, but because that's the other support you were talking about combining being able to be with difficult emotions, combining that with sort of stuff that's more fun so that we're able to have this kind of realistic practical hope. Can you say more about what you envision or recommend when it comes to the happier side of this? Sure. I think there are two parts. I think one part of it. So maybe to put it in less less gooey terms. One one part of it is called enjoying life. You know, just like seriously, like I was talking about before, you know, I just came back from the dentist and as I was walking

back into our our condo here, just the trees outside are in bloom and the air smells fresh and clean. It's just like, ah, Rick Hansen talks about taking in the good for at least 20 seconds as a way of really giving the neurology a chance to receive the benefits of healthy pleasure. So that's one aspect of it. And those experiences are available all the time if we know how to look for them. So even like something as simple as drinking a glass of water can be deeply nourishing,

just to appreciate that we have, you know, that we can drink clean water. So noticing, noticing those moments in our day, having food to eat, having water, having a place to sleep at night, having someone that smiles at you and acknowledges your presence. Like, cute, you know, like, don't miss it. So that's one part of it. The other part is, again, the sense of developing a relationship with our inner life, the recognition that the inner atmosphere of our days is not random, that we can play an active role in cultivating, shaping, or decorating, if you will, that inner atmosphere. What that looks like is cultivating healthy mind states. I think one of the most well researched is gratitude, the effect that daily gratitude

practice has on overall well-being has been shown and proven over and over and over again. So that's one of the most accessible and reliable ways to start to quote, uplift the heart or bring more joy and well-being into our life. It's not about ignoring the hard stuff. It's about recognizing that our own mental health and emotional well-being, that we bear some responsibility for that based on how we think and where we place our attention and the kinds of habits of thought and mood that we actively pursue. So things like gratitude practice, loving kindness practice, generosity, service,

these are all things that we can do. Some of them internally through meditation exercises, reflection, journaling, some of them externally through our relationships, things like service and generosity, expressing gratitude or appreciation to others in our life. So that's what I'm referring to is not missing the small moments, really appreciating those things in life and taking an active role in strengthening the things

that the qualities that bring us joy and well-being inside. Right, I think service is one of those words that actually is kind of, I wish we had a less high-falutin term because I've done, I'm sure everybody listening has done some sort of service work. And it can sometimes feel like a big thing. I'm a volunteer and that's whatever I signed up

and blah, blah, blah. But it can also just be, you know, you know what, I thought I'd enter my mind today. I haven't talked to this person who's been struggling in a minute, I'm gonna get on the phone with them tonight for 10 minutes. We're sending a text message and say, yeah, how you doing?

Right, just think about it as like being cool. Right, because it does, I mean, I really like, I've heard it described as, and now I'm going to go back into high-falutin language for a second, but it does kind of connect you with your own goodness. You know, it just, it is, it can sound like eating your vegetables, but it's actually, if you're paying attention with the experiences, like, it's not that way. Yeah, I call it being a bench, being a good human being, being kind, being available,

being available to help, right? And sometimes that looks like volunteering. Sometimes, as you said, it looks like just reaching out to a friend who's been struggling. Thanks for grounding it. You've done a great job talking, but this has been really helpful in a fun conversation. I just want to check in before I close things out just to make sure I didn't miss anything. I think that we touched on it, but may not have emphasized enough two or three pieces that I think need to be in place for everything else that we've talked about.

One is that sense of, you know, in the Buddhist language, we call it refuge in sort of like modern terms, we would call it feeling safe enough, you know, like from a trauma healing perspective, you talk about feeling safe enough, like if you're under threat, if you're actively under threat emotionally, physically, materially, that takes over because that's how we're wired. And so that's why I was talking earlier about like needing safe enough? How do I create the circumstances in my life? personally socially collectively to have Spaces is not going to be there all the time but to have spaces where I feel safe enough where I can let down some of that hypervigilance That's that's one piece.

And then I think the other piece is the piece of wisdom, equanimity of that recognition that on the one hand, change is possible, actions have effects. That is undeniable. And it's undeniable that we also don't control the outcome. And that sense of not controlling the outcome can be hopeful. It says that the future don't control the outcome. And that sense of not controlling the outcome can be hopeful. It says that the future isn't written,

that we don't know what's going to happen. So therefore, let's take care to make sure that how we are living, that every choice we are making is actually aligned with our values and our sense of what we want to bring into the world. I mean, this is a point you've made and I think it's really a good one, is that the Buddhist view is essentially hopeful, notwithstanding the fact that it reputationally, the Buddhist suffer from some mistranslation around the Buddhist,

you know, the first pronouncement of life is suffering. Right. But the view, the rest of what he said there is like, there's a way out of this. And you could do an enormous amount toward, you know, making your life unquantifiably better and also improving the lives of the people around you. Absolutely. The more accurate translation that I prefer is there is suffering. It's just it's a statement of fact. It's like there is hardship, difficulty in life. That's undeniable. It's like, okay, let's be real about that. Now, what are we going to do about it? Yeah, absolutely. It's a hopeful message. It says that we can change how we relate to that. And in that shift of how we relate, there's a certain aspect about suffering that ceases. I want to say a lot of what we've talked about today is drawn from things

if you've written online and you have a lot of materials available. So if people want to get more or and how do they do that? Sure, maybe before the punch line for answering that, I'll just add to what you were saying, which is where I thought you were going to go and I know that you care about this too And that's so much of what we're talking about and that I write about and share has come from my teachers and from a long lineage of dedicated practitioners from South Asia and Southeast Asia and India, Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and that we are the beneficiaries

of generations of practitioners. So with it's with the great humility and gratitude that you know, I'm even able to have this conversation with you. I'm just really passing on what I've heard and learned from others. the best place with my website, orinjsofer.com, that's J-A-Y-O-R-E-N-J-A-Y, sofer.com and same on social media. And you're all over the 10% happier app. And not for nothing. Great to listen. All the time, saying to me, I meditated with Orin today, or one time a medical woman who said today was stressful. It was a two-orin day. I am blushing. Thank you so much for doing this. Great job.

Really. Absolutely. Thanks for reaching out. It's always fun to talk. Thanks again to Orrin. If you enjoyed this conversation with Orrin and you want to learn how to practice what we talked about today, make sure to check out Orrin's brand new meditation. It just dropped in the 10% happier app.

You can download the app for free, wherever you get your apps. This show is made by Samuel Johns, DJ Cash Mirroquin, Baikimum, Maria Wartel, and Jen Point with Audio Engineering by Ultraviolet Audio. And as always, a big shout out to Ryan Kessler and Josh Kohan from ABC News.

We'll see you all on Wednesday for the final conversation in our Hope series, a brand new interview with Jacqueline Matis. She's going to add an entirely different level of expertise here. Our three previous guests have all been Dharma teachers. She is a psychologist, so we're going to talk about what the science and the research says about how to develop hope.

She's got lots of really interesting strategies. She's also very, very funny and has an amazing laugh. So we'll see you all on Wednesday for that. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and add free with 1-3-plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash Survey.