Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 4: Dr. Jay Michaelson

Episode Date: March 23, 2016

Dr. Jay Michaelson is a lawyer, a rabbi, a legal/religion columnist for The Daily Beast, an LGBT activist, a professor, and an author of six books. Yet despite his staggering number of day jobs, Michaelson has also found time to intensively practice meditation. In fact, add another job to the resume: He’s also a meditation teacher. And not only does he practice and teach meditation, he says he’s had experiences of enlightenment, or "awakening." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

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

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. Hey, this is Dan Harris. I am a fidgety skeptical newsman who had a panic attack live on Good Morning America. That led me to something I always thought was ridiculous. Meditation. Basically, here's what I'm obsessed with. Can you be an ambitious person and still strive for enlightenment? Whatever that means.

Okay, my guess this time is one of the most interesting dudes I've ever met. Check out his resume. He is a lawyer, a rabbi, a meditation teacher, a gay rights activist, an author, and a columnist for the Daily Beast. He's Jay Michaelson, did I miss anything? That's more than enough. Really, but you also just skip the professor at the theological seminary, but that's fine.

It's an impressive list. Now, primarily my interest in you is that you've done a lot of meditation, serious meditation, months of silent retreat, and yet are still, as one can obviously tell from that list of occupations, very engaged in the actual world. So I want to talk a lot about how you can be as serious as meditation as you are, and yet so fully engaged.

Also you're willing to talk about things that are considered pretty taboo in the meditation world. So I want to talk about that as well. But let me start at the beginning, which is how did you start meditating? Why? Yeah, you know, I think I really, in Buddhist psychology, there are three types of people, greed, fear, and delusion. And, you know, I'm really a greed type. I just want every possible experience. I want to have the most wild wild sensuous experiences, spiritual experiences, and that's actually what got me into it, which is a little unusual. Most people get into meditation, you know, are experiencing suffering, right? And they want to like have less stress. For me, I just wanted to have awesome experiences, which is a really bad reason to get into

meditation, sort of a terrible idea. There's a great quote from your phenomenal book called Evolving Dharma, which I recommend to everybody who's serious about what what has been called deep end of the pool meditation. You say, when I started out in contemplative practice, I was searching for the mountain on the edge of the world enlightenment, the big joy, mystical union, the whole spiritual enchilada of love, wisdom, happiness, perfection. And what's interesting to me about that is, and you were starting to talk about this, I was interested because I wanted to be 10% happier.

I wanted to be less of a schmuck. To myself and others, I wanted to have my monkey mind toned down just a little bit. I didn't even, enlightenment was not on the, on the, in the picture at all. So why did you want this stuff, and why did you even believe enlightenment was real? Well, I came at it from, I was an academic before I was a practitioner, right? to picture at all. So why did you want this stuff and why did you even believe enlightenment was real?

I came at it from, I was an academic before I was a practitioner. So I have this PhD in religion and I was studying mysticism for a lot of my 20s when I wasn't busy going to law school. So that was really the impetus. I was reading about some of these experiences. I was just amazed at the way that so many people expressed these kinds of transcendent experiences in different ways, but with a lot of commonalities. But why didn't you think they were full of crap? Why didn't you think they're just making it? A lot of people.

Also, these are the people who are experts looking at their own mind over 3,000 years, and they all seem to have these wild experiences without eating mushrooms, or with eating mushrooms for that matter. But there were all these people who had these sort of transcendent experiences. It just seemed, I don't know, I, so I did study it for a while with a really skeptical eye, never intending that this would be something that I did. But when the opportunity came along, so it seemed like something worth trying. It did work.

Did you experience the whole spiritual enchilada? It actually did work. I wouldn't call it the whole enchilada, maybe a taco. And the way it worked, Cloudta. Exactly. It's definitely a chalupa. The spiritual chalupa.

My first retreat, I did think, OK, great. Here I am, seven days of silence. It was in a kind of a Jewish context. There was Kabbalah around, which is what I'd focused on my 20s. And I thought, all right, great. I'm going to have these experiences, what I didn't know. And maybe what you didn't know is, we're just all liars.

I mean, actually, it's really difficult meditation. And when you go into the deep end, and you start looking at, you know, difficult things, and you see what a jerk you really are. And then, you know, duh, duh, duh, duh. I didn't, you know, there's a Buddhist book called Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung, which I think is a great title for meditation book. You could, maybe that'll be your next book. You can just call it that. I just feel that. Just call that. Just do that.

He's a monk. He can't own anything anyway. The guy who wrote it. So that's how I felt that first week. But then as the Mayan quiets down, some of those experiences did actually arise. Again, I wouldn't call it necessarily the whole enchilada, but it was a taste of something deeply profound. What are we talking about?

So I think now when I look back on it, it's, you know, I've deepened those experiences quite a lot since the first retreat, tried to get a little more systematic about what's going on, and how much is delusion, and how much is what's really happening. It does seem as though it's possible with concentration, sort of, you know, focusing the mind and cutting down on how much noise is there. You can really have a vivid experience of something very mundane. So I have a piece in one book where I talk about a string bean.

It was the most profound string bean that I ever ate in my life, and it was just an ordinary string bean. So it's not that you see Lucy in the sky with diamonds, you just kind of experience the wonder of every moment. And it turns out to be just like Aldousuxly said, quoting William, if the, you know, quoting William Blake, right, the doors of perception are cleansed and the world appears very different. And I think that just comes from having a concentrated mind. I don't think it's a supernatural phenomenon. I don't think there's angels and, you know, God and things like that getting involved. But the mind can relate to things in a different way. And we know that

because we experience it all the time, if you're in the flow state, for example, or if you're having a peak experience, you know, birth of a child, for example, or some momentous experience, you know, everything can be really crisp and really clear. And it's possible to have that similar experience, if not the same, just sitting and watching your breath. Right. So you're not leaving it to chance. You're actually developing the capacity to have these experiences. And in evolving Dharma, you talk about how with a concentrated mind, with a mind where discursive thought has come slowed down, watching paint dry can be exciting, even if the paint is already dry.

Yeah, it was great. I was doing walking meditation at Insight Meditation Society, and you know, the way you do it is to walk. I just went to interrupt you. That is a retreat center in central Massachusetts, run Joseph Goldstein Sharon in Salzburg. Right. And one of the practices you walk back and forth in a room over and over again, which does sound very exciting. It can actually be profound. When you get to the end, you know, you're meant to just turn around. I got to the end and I was staring at this paint, and there were all these bubbles and it was beautiful and it was beige, and it was the most

amazing thing I'd ever seen. And again, no drugs involved, just meditation. But I think the key part to take away from this part of the conversation is, as practice deepens, you realize that these experiences are not the point. It's a little bit kind of a side show. And the real point is transformation that's lasting in the mind, not just states of mind, but stages of mind, that it's possible to become 10% happier

or 10% more just or 10% more compassionate. But is it possible to become not just 10% happier, but 100% happy is enlightenment real? Yeah, I mean, what does it even mean? Yeah, so I think the last question is the most important, what does it mean? It depends who's asking. So if I take off my Buddhist hat and put on my Jewish hat, you know, I would say, you know, who's asking?

What does enlightenment mean? It means different things in different traditions. It's very clear that in some traditions, enlightenment means a theistic experience, so an experience of God, whatever that is. And it is an experience. And it's an experience that's so profound that it resonates for the rest of one's life.

And I think in the Dharma traditions, Hinduism, Buddhism, et cetera, it's less about having that particular experience and more about just suffering less, holding on less, grabbing less. And that's just training the mind. And we can see that in our own practice. You know, I think, you know, it's been a couple of years since you're about 10% happier. Probably now you're 12% happier. You know what I realized I'm going to be stuck with math jokes the rest of my life. Well, you know, that was you you and your publicist fault. So I think you just see it in practice that it actually does happen.

And then you meet people who seem more advanced, just like in anything else, you can become, you know, 10% more fit, you know, and then you meet some athlete or, you know, some marathon runner, something like that who's really, really fit. And those are the examples that inspire us. And so I've come across some of those people, again, they're not necessarily mystical woo-woo people you would immediately spot.

They're not wearing necessarily brightly colored robes, but people who really grasp less. But the Buddha wasn't advertising incremental improvement. He was talking about, when he talked about enlightenment, although as you point out in your book, he didn't use the word enlightenment. When he talked about awakening and liberation, he talked about the, although as you point out in your book, he didn't use the word enlightenment when he talked about awakening and liberation. He talked about the remainderless uprooting of greed, hatred and delusion. That is, that's the angelot right there. And so, I mean, do you think that is possible?

Sure. You know, I've seen anybody. I've seen people who seem to be very unstuck and who are in difficult situations and they react just like human beings do, but they are not as stuck as I get when I'm in a traffic jam. And there are more serious situations than that. So I don't think it's necessarily a all or nothing enchilada or no enchilada approach. And I think just even in any map,

like in the Buddhist map, the Taravadan Buddhist map, there's four stages of enlightenment. In the Tibetan Buddhist map, there are 12 stages of enlightenment. There are all these stages, the Zen-ox hurting pictures, which is the stages of enlightenment, have stages along the path. So, you know, in a way, yeah, it's the deep end of the pool, but it's a slope from the shallow end to the deep end.

It's not that you just jump right in, and you're now at full depth. So it's like you get a flota, then you get a plate full of flotas. And then the metafore is getting pretty annoying. But if you want to keep going, yeah, that's right. Yeah, exactly what you just said. All right, I'll leave it alone. I'll stop flogging this ox.

So describe to me. So you talked right there about the different maps of enlightenment among the different Buddhist traditions. And there are maps, you can correct me from wrong, in the various mystical strains of the Abrahamic faith as well. But you and I mostly practice Buddhist meditation, and you talked about the Teravadan map, which is where you've spent most of your time.

This is Teravada is one of the schools of Buddhism. It's probably the oldest school. So it's called in this school, the progress or the schools of Buddhism, it's probably the oldest school. So it's called in this school, the progress or the path of insight. Break it down for us, how does that work? So without going in the sort of nitty-gritty and getting lost in the weeds, the idea is that in intensive practice, the deep end of the pool,

the mind naturally kind of goes through certain cycles. You see this and then you see that and you see the other thing. And again, that shouldn't necessarily be surprising or mystically strange. If you're studying math, first you do with arithmetic and then eventually you'll get to algebra and then eventually you'll get to calculus. So it's kind of similar and it's just, it's how the mind sees through certain patterns all the time. So for example, it looks to me and you like, you, like there's a table here and it's very solid and it's never going away.

Obviously we know intellectually that's not true. You know, hopefully sooner rather than later, an interior designer will come in and realize that this table should be replaced. And then the table won't be here. So but it's possible to really kind of intuitively get that. And that I think is the part that I want to emphasize is that you can just read the path of insight in a book,

but it's really more like a cookbook, and you don't taste the dish just by reading the recipes. You actually have to do it. So you do it, the mind eventually develops what our understood is intuitive knowledge is, like it gets it, you know, you really get it. You know, just like a small child, at a certain point they get it, you know, don't run into traffic, Or hopefully they get it. Or they, you know, they get certain things in a basic intuitive level that doesn't require like a lot of thinking about it. And so the notion is that the mind goes through these various stages of insight, when guided with a teacher or just in retreat. And then eventually the mind really begins to let go. And it learns to let go. And then sometimes it really lets go entirely and kind of unplugs. And that's seen as an experience that

leaves some kind of transformation that doesn't go away. But that letting go entirely and unplugging has a name and it's Nirvana. Yeah, it's a moment of seeing Nirvana clearly. What does that mean? It's hard to, yeah, I hate to sound mystical and say it's hard to really put it into words. It does also mean different things in different traditions. I think it's just the mind intuitively learning that it's possible to let go of all the technical terms, all formations,

which means everything we perceive, everything we think, that it's just possible to kind of unplug in a certain way. And it's not so radically different from other mind states that we enter every day like sleep, for example, you know, if you're constantly thinking about trying to go to sleep, you can't fall asleep, but the mind learns how to let go. This is just letting go in a more profound way in a way that enables the mind to really exhale all the time in a certain way, but it's so okay if I'm letting go Of everything How you if you if you or you are letting go of everything?

How are you a lawyer rabbi meditation teacher gay rights activist author calmness for the database? How are you so so active and successful in the world if you've taught yourself to let go? Well, because I'm still a baby at letting go. I'm just not that advanced You know at most I'm 25% of the weight of the enchilada. So I almost went back into that metaphor with which pieces of the enchilada I have. But I think there's also a, I think it's a helpful thing to think about the concept of karma,

not in some mystical sense, but just in the way that we live. So what are the causes and conditions? You know, my karma being born in some mystical sense, but just in the way that we live. So, you know, what are the causes and conditions? You know, my karma being born in the West to, you know, my socioeconomic group and so on. And, yeah, so there's some desire to kind of keep doing that kind of work. You know, maybe after I get my triple crown and get the, the ME and the Oscar and the Tony or something

that I won't care as much anymore. Right, but right now, I, right now I still, I still have that desire to change the world to somehow bring about more compassion and less injustice. So those kinds of things are still there. So if I was fully enlightened, would I not try to achieve any?

So that's a question which luckily we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. And I don't worry about it too much. It also, so for example, go to a different tradition in the Chacidic tradition of Judaism. There was a concern that if you're just in the presence of the divine all the time, you won't do anything. So the scholar is called a quietism. Right. So quietists, you just, there's no reason to

do anything. You're just in the purely bathing in the divine radiance all the time. And that does actually come up. There are, there are concerns that the Chacidium have in the divine radiance all the time. And that does actually come up. There are concerns that the Chacidim have in the 19th century that the mystics might get too enlightened, and then they wouldn't do the work of taking care of their community, for example, which they had responsibilities to their community and to their families for that matter.

So you do see that, but I think it's kind of a, yeah, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. So I know you didn't want to get too nitty-gritty about the path of insight, but can you get a little nitty-gritty in terms of how many stages are... As I understand it, there are four sort of big paths, right? Four stages, and within each four stages there's like 16 many stages. Yeah, 16, 18 depending on how you count it. And these are just what I was saying before, how the mind sort of intuitively learns different things,

kind of in a sequence. That's just the sequence. The first couple are very basic. So for example, one, I think the first one or the second one is just cause an effect. It's just, okay, I get it. There's cause and effect. Things happen as cause and effect. But there's something really profound actually just in that in the cause and effect piece. So for example, most of the time, like right now, you might be thinking of your next question and you think that you're thinking about that question or I'm thinking about my answer. I'm thinking about the answer.

Actually, that's not happening, right? There's just cause and effect. So you've had your training, you have your curiosity, you have your genetic background, da da da da da da, your agenda, whatever. Those are the things that's actually determining the next question. So just seeing cause and effect helps sort of loosen

this delusion, a very helpful delusion that there's a there's a self driving the car. The car is a self driving car. The self emerges as a phenomenon in consciousness. And most I think neuroscientists would sort of agree, you won't find a homunculus in the brain somewhere like where the self actually is. It's more of an emergent property of the brain. But it didn't have any of those concepts of course. But you just see in cause and effect. So this is cause and effect not self. This is cause and effect not self.

When I get hungry, I get angry. Now I'm angry. Is it that I'm angry? Well, the cause is for anger or present. I got hungry. Now I'm angry. It's just that very simple thing, but you see it over and over and over again. So that's an example of one of the insight knowledge is one of the very early ones, the

insight into cause and effect. But you, so you raised there a big issue, and I know I'm trying to get you to talk about the progress of insight, and I'm going to derail us just for a second because you brought up one of the hardest things to understand about Buddhism or meditation practice. And I think it's also there in other traditions as well, which is that the self is an illusion.

I get it intellectually, I think, but it's hard to get viscerally. So just talk a little bit more about, because I think most of us believe that we're very real. We look in the mirror and there we are. Yeah, sure. Our body is there, right? So there's one of the other insight knowledge is the difference between mind and body. But just, you know, I want to grab that phrase that you just said, like you get it intellectually

but not viscerally. That's the whole, that's the point, right? Is that it's one thing to sort of have somebody say something and you read it and you agree or disagree. It's another thing, you know, my word for viscerally is you get it in your kishkas, right, in your guts. Like it's really there and you're like, oh yeah, that, yeah, okay. And you just sort of see it. That's the point of practice, right, to move from one kind of knowledge to another. But it doesn't have to be, again, mystical or profound.

In a previous book about non-duality, in sense that there's no difference between subject object, I had sort of the instruction of just, you know, imagine raising your hand. So you could decide if somebody listening or watching this podcast right now, you know, if I say, go ahead and raise your hand and they'll either do it or they won't.

So let's say you do it. And then you could review what were all the factors that led to you raising the hand. All right, so I said something, but obviously wouldn't do anything, I said. So maybe some curiosity or an assessment of the risk seems like a low risk activity. I'll give it a shot.

Obviously all the physical processes that were there, you can make a list of 100, 200, 300 factors that caused that action to happen, and none of them will be Dan. Like, there's no one that's right there that is actually, well, that was me, I decided it. Although, all these different factors and different things about you, your personality,

you know, maybe you had an overbearing father who told you what to do all the time, and so when some shmoe on a podcast says to raise your hand, you're like, no way, I'm not doing that. Okay. So there's that cause, right? Cause and effect, not self, cause and effect, not self. It's not, there's not the, there's no there there.

And if you look for, you know, there's a part of the brain, the PCC, which Judger, Brue, I'm sure, will be a guest of yours at some point, studies, which kind of does the act of selfing, right? Having that perception of the self, which is very helpful because it helps you not get run over when you cross the street. All my examples are about crossing the street because I live in New York. It's either that or meditating on the subway or Mexican food. That's right.

Exactly. I see we're seeing a pattern here. And so, you know, but that's so that selfing process is really happen is really helpful, but it's a it's a process It's not a reality. It's just how we see things soon will all be gone But but my I have had this debate with my mom Who that always works you but I it hasn't worked I have live never won this debate any debate you know

It's a round us said if you think you're enlightenment go spend some time with your parents My mom does not drive me crazy which he does is make me realize how foolish some of my conclusions are sometimes, or how hasty I've been. My mom is a scientist, very rigorous mind, and she's got an interest in Buddhism as a consequence of my interest. And she's on me about this idea of no self or selflessness or emptiness. One of the things she says is, just because you can't find it, doesn't mean it isn't there. Yeah, well people have been looking for 25 hundred years, so that does suggest a certain difficulty in finding it.

It's not like I just spent Sunday afternoon and was like, yeah, can't really find the self, so I guess there is none. So that's one data point, I suppose. But it's also, you can just go over the concept if it's not helpful point, I suppose. But it's also, you can just like go of the concept if it's not helpful. But I think for me, it is helpful because where there's no self, there's also that part that's that suffering isn't really running the show. You know, the part of it, the part of the ego that wants to run the show is the least competent part of our minds to run the show. And yet it's convinced that it, you know, is going to take care of things. It's convinced that you're doing well or doing not well. And it has all the answers. And it's there.

It's a nice function of the mind trying to keep you safe, trying to make you happy in a certain way. It just doesn't work. There is another Hasidic rabbi in the 1960s named Mick Jagger who pointed out that you can't always get what you want. And so that little voice that says, I will only be happy if I get what I want is not, it's evolutionarily adaptive, right? If we didn't have that, you know, our great ancestors who didn't do that, they probably didn't reproduce enough, right?

They got eaten by a tiger or something. But now that voice just causes suffering. Not, well, I mean, it doesn't. Just cause, I mean, sometimes it gives you good ideas, right? Sure, no, that's right. Yeah, I'll take out the word just. Thank you to cause you a lot of suffering. I think you can cause a whole lot of suffering. And we need to be. It does for me, you know, of course. You know, for's right. Yeah, I'll take out the word just. Thank you. It caused you a lot of suffering. It caused a whole lot of suffering.

And the least it does for me, you know, of course. Sure. You know, for me, for yourself, but for me, that it does. And so it would be nice to not take it quite as seriously. Yes. So back to the path of insight. One of the stages is called dark night. Well, actually, it's called fear, I think,

in the traditional language. But now it's often referred to as the dark night. Basically, you freak out. Describe why you freak out and how big a deal dark night is, and you've gone through it, so how bad is it? Yeah, so I would say two things. First of all, there's regular freaking out, and then there's this kind of freaking out. People freak out all the time.

You can freak out when you get the wrong appetizer at the diner. It doesn't mean that you are going through the dark night of the soul, or they're really called the duke on the ananas, the stages of insight that are suffering, it doesn't mean that you are going through the dark night of the soul, or they're really called are the duke and the onas, the stages of insight that are suffering, which doesn't sound very appealing. I didn't actually see that on the, on the mindfulness-based stress reduction website, the 10% app, 10% happier app will take you through the stages that bring suffering. Great! So there's also just ordinary freakouts, and I'm one, I tend to be a little skeptical of the over reliance on maps. So I think maps are really helpful.

But I don't know, who knows what any particular person, what experience they're having in a particular time. So that's the first thing you just want to say. Sometimes you just freak out. So this kind of freakout tends to happen after a big peak experience, which is known as the knowledge of the arising and passing away. Another stage in this. That's one of the arising and passing away. Another stage.

That's one of the stage three or four on the 18. So you're going along, you're going along, and then you somehow just kind of get it. And I think a lot of people have had that. I certainly have that experience many, many times, where it's hard to really put into words because again, we understand that things are arising and passing away, but you somehow get it intuitively in this profound sense. And it can be really awesome. People think they're super enlightened at that point.

They've had this big, big, big experience. You know, there was another best-selling book about spirituality that had three words in the title that I won't name, where somebody has this huge experience. And it's awesome. And they're really happy for having that experience. And that's great. Like, that's a wonderful experience experience. You can name it. And that's great. Like, that's a wonderful experience.

But, you know, that's like, okay, that's like an arising and passing away experience. Like, that's part of the path. It comes along. It's a thing. And then, like Jack Cornfield said, you know, after the ecstasy, the laundry. So, like, you've had this, like, awesome experience. You thought, like, maybe you're some sort of super enlightened, awakened being and then actually, you know, the stuff hits the fan.

You're not actually that awake. And so naturally, after the light, the shadow, you kind of fall into these realizations, arising and passing away sounds kind of cool, maybe in some Yoda mystical sense, but you really start, it's hard to hold on to things. Perceptions are just rising and passing, and you get a little dissociative,

and you get a little, it's's a tough time and that's why I think the people who take this path seriously are concerned that people should have a good teacher all you really need to get through it is a good teacher and some resilience on your own somebody who's guiding you and like oh don't worry you're not having a nervous breakdown you're not dissociating you're not having like a borderline personality disorder here's's this text from 2000 years ago which describes exactly what's happening to you, you know, I wouldn't say don't worry because you're worrying, that's part of what's happening, but don't worry, you know, you're gonna be all right, just keep doing the thing, keep going along.

You know, sometimes when people don't have that kind of guidance, they can get into real trouble. And so I think there's not, it's not something to be afraid of. It's just something that any competent teacher and any tradition will know is this is the kind of thing that comes up. Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like.

It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduka Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Koto Paxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time. Like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together, they discuss

their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty. So, if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery app. So you talk about this a lot in evolving Dharma, but the practice of meditation has currently advertised, part by people like me, is this whole idea, you can be 10% happier, or as John Kabat-Zinn says, you can be less stressed through mindfulness-based stress reduction.

What you're talking about here is that this practice has originally intended that less stress and marginal improvements in happiness are actually side effects. The real thing is going to take you through some pretty tough territory. So do we need to think about how do I need to be thinking about as an evangelist for meditation and a guy who has a meditation app? Do I need to be thinking about how there can be some really tough stages of the practice? Or does that only really happen when people do what you've done, which is go away and do months of silent meditation?

In my experience, it really only comes in intensive practice. Others might disagree, but my personal experience, experience of my students, you know, I'm a meditation teacher now, among other things, I lead weak long silent retreats. You don't usually get into this really deep stuff, even in a week of silence. Let alone if you're meditating 20 minutes a day to feel a little bit less stressed. So I'm not actually worried about it. I think mindfulness, secular mindfulness is a great gateway drug for those who are interested in taking a deeper trip, but that's only some percentage of people.

I think your work and the work of other people who do the kinds of stuff you do, that's alleviating suffering for millions and millions of people, right? Who are trying to, they're not trying to get big enlightenment or awakening or liberation. They're trying to be happier and they're trying to be, to be less angry with their spouse or you're more effective with their workmates and stuff. That's not, that's true. That's not what the original teachings of the Buddha in India, you know, 2500 years ago were about, but it's an adaptation of them to contemporary times. And I don't think in that adaptation, you know, you lose a lot, but one of the things

you lose is some of this hard stuff. So it's a good thing to lose. And, you know, I think you can get to an incrementally better adjusted, less stressed out place as, you know, insert scientific studies here without inviting in some of these deep profound states. I don't think you also won't get to like some powerful and permanent transformation of the mind. But again, I don't think that's the goal. So back to the progress of insight, first of all, you made me feel better there, so thank you.

Back to the progress of insight. It's just maybe a skillful teacher. I was actually totally lying. I don't know. You're like giving the keys to a drunk driver and they're all going to crash. I, uh, that's not true. Just for anybody who takes J2 series. I'm a lawyer so I can expressly disclaimer, liability on behalf of. Uh, I should say, by the way, that not only, um, I'm interested in you because I read your book, but we've been friends for a couple years and,

and so that that is part of why this. I assume everyone gets you have jokes about enchiladas. No, no, you're special in that regard. I saw that talk with the dielama. He was talking about enchiladas. Mexican food did not come up in that conversation. He did make fun of me like you do. Anyway, you will not get me off my path here. Back to the path of insight.

So after these 18 stages, there is an experience, an assessment experience that you would talk about before an experience of Nirvana. This is, people are, for some reason, which I hope you will explain, this is considered taboo to discuss, you can discuss it in theory, but you're not supposed to discuss your own experiences of it. You, however, in your book, you talk not supposed to discuss your own experiences of it. You, however, in your book, you talk about it. Why did you do that? And what was it like to have this experience of Nirvana, which is such a loaded term, and some band from 1991, and also just like a kind of a word we use

mostly flippantly. So anyway, I'll stop talking and let you talk. Yeah, I mean, I think sometimes when I use the word Nirvana, we're like, oh, that must be like the best orgasm ever, like the most incredible. And that's not, you know, just it's just the state of letting go. I mean, that's a lot less interesting than the greatest orgasm ever. It's just, it's what the world looks like when the mind isn't clinging to it, when it's not holding on.

So, you know, it's just, it literally kind of means like going out, extinguishing, like extinguishing that pattern where everything I want, I really want. It's fine to want things, but that's not, you know, we really want them, like I got to have it. It's that gap between perception and craving. So you like you can have the desire, but then not stick on to it, right? And that little gap, according again, this is in the Buddhist scriptures, that's where,

that's where liberation can happen. And I think liberation is more helpful than enlightenment. Enlightenment suggests that you get something. Liberation just means you kind of get off of something. You get off the hamster wheel. Non addiction. Like when they, right, yeah, that's it. Yeah, I'm sure that's, is that a mark? Joseph, Joseph. I don't have any region. If you imagine, if you're pointing that out, Councillor, if you imagine that you're, you know're a hamster on the wheel, like, what's the state of the hamster not on the wheel?

I mean, it's still just a hamster, right? It's just not on the wheel, right? It might even go on the wheel once in a while for fun, but not because it thinks that that's the way to get ahead. So I like to sort of de-mystify it. That's one reason I talk about it. It's also the first of these four stages is pretty accessible. Anybody can do it with enough practice.

All of the leading teachers in this particular tradition, the Tarabad and tradition, have gone through that. The leading teachers in Zen and Tibet traditions have, they have equivalents that they've all, so anytime you meet sort of a Zen teacher who's set up in a lineage and is teaching, they've reached at least this level of liberation. They call it Kancho.

Whatever the experience is, whatever the United States, they're different maps, not everything aligns, but whatever. They've had these kinds of experiences. So it's not as though the Buddha didn't say this is only accessible to the rarefied few. Actually, the Buddha said it's accessible to everybody. So that seems like an interesting pragmatic approach

to this kind of meditation practice on the deep in the deep end of the pool, as you've to use that metaphor. So that's why I talk about it. And again, it's not, I don't think that I'm claiming anything that every other teacher has an experience that they have. There are two reasons why it is taboo. The first is an old one, the second is a new one. There's an idea that certainly a fully enlightened being doesn't go around saying, I'm a fully enlightened being.

Is that for the Buddha? He did, he was calling himself the Tatauga. So the one who's gone beyond. There's always an exception. Right. No, there are many people in the Pali Canon in those original texts who were described as Arhants. They're fully enlightened.

Later eventually, the idea came along to true Arhant should say so. Arhant just fully enlightened. No, it's a fully enlightened. Later eventually the idea came along that you know to true our haunched and say so. Our haunched completely no it's fully enlightened being it. So and that got extended even to these lower more mundane levels that I've gotten to and many other people have gotten to. And then second in the contemporary sphere you could just imagine how well this whole stage of enlightenment thing went over with a bunch of competitive Americans going over in the 1960s and 70s, right? So, you know, we have a presidential candidate who want to compare their anatomy. So, like, that's just sort of a thing that Americans like to do. Well, I've gotten to stage 17.3 and you've only gotten to stage 17.1.

And, you know, who's got what attainment and who got to this and who did that? And, you know, so early on in the year in the founding of the Western traditions that drew on these older ones, there was sort of a sense of, let's tone down all the competitive stuff. And let's not talk about all this stuff. And I think that was wise. Maybe went too far to the other side about making it mystifying and weird and who knows what this is.

But I think that's why it happened. How do you know that you didn't dilute yourself into thinking you had this experience? Because you knew about the maps, and so you were kind of primed to want to go in this direction. So how do you know it really happened? Well, so the funny thing is, is that for three weeks after having what this experience seems to have been...

By the way, it's called stream entry. That's the technical term. That's right. And it just means you've entered the stream of the darmat It's not like a big deal like okay, so now you're in you're in the gang. You've had your initiation experience Right, you say it's just a few steps beyond being an obvious. Yeah, I mean, that's like two or three months I'm out from being an obvious, you know, you could you could unplug and you'll get it in a month or maybe two months if you're a slow learner and So give me three that's yeah, you could you could unplug and you'll get it in a month or maybe two months if you're a slow learner and So give me three. That's yeah, you take take 90 days, you know, so within six months. I think you would be able to

so that's You know, that's that's the the basic ideas that you're just kind of getting into the getting into the stream so to speak But why you convinced it was real. All right, so Right, so after I had the sort of experience, I was sure that wasn't it because I'd read some book which said it was supposed to be something else. So actually, but I was walking around feeling sublimely happy for some unknown reason. I was like, well, I know that wasn't stream entry, but it sure did change my life. That was really awesome.

That was incredible. But because I had some preconceived notion, even after having the experience, you know, I just assumed, well, I don't know, I read this book that this should happen and that should happen and those things didn't happen, therefore that wasn't it. You know, I was working with the teachers in Nepal in the middle of a five month silent meditation Jag and he was very skilled in these maps and these particular, in this particular tradition, which again, I'll just say is one of many, many, it's not like this is the map. But he was on this set of maps and you know, he had me really review the experience carefully and was there a kind of a gap in your series of perceptions and how to do at work and could you re, could you make it happen again if you sort of like a scientific method. So it was pretty rigorous kind of going through all that stuff. But then, you know, the real purpose in the pudding. I mean, it was one of those kind of before and after experiences. And again, I've had like awesome spiritual experiences now for 20

odd years. So it's not like I'm not familiar with the idea of, you know, having an awesome experience. This was this did seem really qualitatively different. And it's just very accessible, you know, one of my favorite practices in daily life is just to kind of touch back to that place of non-seeking, non-desiring mind. It's always accessible. It's right there. Just got into it now.

Isn't that great? It's worth it. You just did it right now. Yeah, sure. And yet, you are, I mean, I know you. You are a really ambitious guy. And so how do these two things work together? I mean, there's two answers.

The truth and then the sort of mystical BS that I'll give you. Okay. So the truth is, yeah, the truth is that again, I'm just early on on the path and I'm still fully captive by the same forces of Greed Hatred and Delusion as everyone else. Even if I'm 25% of the way there, that means I'm 75% not there. So that's the truth. The mystical BS line that I could give you is, you know, you can be in the world, but not be totally of the world, right? You can sort of want something, but not feel as though your life is a mess if you don't get it. And so it's possible to kind of see through

these phenomena, which and still love everything about them. Love great experiences, be really upset about injustice and want to work to, you know, and violence and all those kinds of things. And so I'm calling it mystical BS, because that's actually the truth, but I want to sort of hide it in the language of mystical BS so you don't think that I'm really arrogant. I know you also well enough to know that you're not really arrogant. And here I'm going to ask a question that proves that, which is you wrote another book, which I was able to read parts of, but not the whole thing, it called the Gate of Tears. It's beautifully written, and one of the things, it's actually, it's all about the fact that even, even though you've had these amazing experiences, life is hard. And

you lost your mother. I met your mother. She was wonderful, wonderful human being, and it was very painful for you justifiably. And just because you're a streamenter, didn't make it not suck uncontrollably. So talk a little bit about that. It seems like you can get pretty far in meditation but it doesn't end pain and suffer. And I don't think we would want it to though, right? That's part of what's in the gative tears. I don't think we'd want to have this existence in which we don't feel pain at the loss of

our parent. I mean, right? I wouldn't want to live that way. That's what I meant before when I was talking about karma. Like, maybe it would be better to just not be affected by anything, but it's not an aspiration of mine. And I don't really know people who are like that. We're just totally colorless and bland. Those aren't my role models.

My role models are people who really are engaged in the world and in relationships with others, with their family members. So yeah, I mean, the gate of tears really actually is about embracing that full range of human experience as part of what it is to be alive. And it's possible to, and this is a little hard to communicate for non-meditators, but even in just in the beginning of mindfulness, we can see that it's possible to coexist with difficult feelings without being taken over by them. So people would ask me, you know, shortly after my mom died, you know, how are you doing?

I'd say, I'm doing really badly, that's fine. Right? That's fine. Yeah, it was fine. First of all, it felt good to feel bad because it was coming from love. But what am I supposed to be feeling? Right, yeah, it feels terrible.

Like it was really rough. And that's fine. That's what it should be. And it's possible, again, to have just a slightly different relationship as if we're settling settled back a little bit, or as if there's one metaphor as like, you can be the sky instead of the storm. And just sort of be present with all these things that happen,

the joys, the sorrows, everything else, in a way that actually makes them quite profound. It just makes it like another season of the year really beautiful in its own way and a way that we can relate to one another if we're able to be authentic with one another and emotionally authentic. And that to me is the other enchilada. That's really the part about being an authentic relationship, both with people I know and with people I don't know. A lot of my politics comes from an attempt to be empathetic toward the other and not say the others are, you know going to ask you before, what is the difference in your life pre and post-stream entry?

Did you just answer it or are there other things to say? I would say the main thing is to ask my friends, and since you can't do that, I'll just, I mean, people who knew me before and after, it's just a whole different thing, you know, and just the level of, so, you know, I think all of us who are involved in fields where we're trying to compete and get ahead, you know, there's that voice that says you suck and you're inadequate and you know, whatever. So that voice comes along, it's like, oh, there's that voice. That's a stupid voice, right? Just, you know, and it's not even stupid as too much like pushing it away. It's like,

okay, there's that voice. That was installed early by my well-meaning Jewish parents who gave me, you know, gave me love when I got 100 and asked me what I got wrong when I got a 98. Right? Okay. So that's like installed, like, probably not getting out for, you know, for the rest of my life. But it doesn't mean I like really believe it. So that's just one example. I really did believe it a lot beforehand. It's, it's really was before and after transformation. It's coincidentally too. I came back. I was on that retreat during the financial crisis in 2008, 2009, and I sort of came back as and the world had lost its mind. And it was really interesting because I thought I was pretty weird. I grew a long beard and I was hanging out with monks and like who's you know

I pretty much a weirdo. Right. And then I came back and the whole world was like the weirdo world. And it actually really reinforced the idea that they're really different, there are different lines and axes of truth. And I'm just, I'm still a gree type, I just want all of them. I'm keeping an eye on the clock because I know you've got to run soon. When you describe stream entry, and I sit here with,

even though I have no idea whether it's real, but I sit here with somebody I like and trust and respect and you're describing this experience And so I'm inclined to believe you're not lying to me or deluded. So I want it But how do I get it with I got a kid I got a full-time job I write books I host a game show I Give speeches I host a game show. I give speeches. Well, let go of the game show. That's the step one. It will, that will take like a week.

So, the long way of saying, I have a lot of things to do. How could I possibly attain what you have? Yeah, I mean, look, the truth is, I mean, this is not, this is not the popular answer, but the truth is, these were monastic practices. They were from monks and nuns. And you can't actually have it all. And it may just be that you're karma

with your, again, your causes of conditions, with your family, your job, your profession, maybe not. I do, there are teachers who say that you can get to these levels in daily life with a certain kind of intensive practice. I didn't do that. For me, it was easier to unplug and go away for a while, but there are people who say you can do it. But, you know, I think, but look, I mean, you're

point about, you know, you're saying this thing and you seem reasonable, you know, you can replicate that a hundred times. I mean, Joseph Goldstein's gotten way more than first of these four paths. Again, he's my meditation. He may not, he may not say how many he's gotten, but it's definitely more than one. He says between one and three. Yeah, right. So, you know, that's, there are a lot of people who seem pretty reasonable and yet who have these kinds, who have had these transformations. And again, I want to get away with it. Yeah, I can't tell if it's like the real deal

or like some elaborate affinity scam that I'm like falling into. Well, it depends how much of a check you wrote to him. I don't know, you know, how much you donated to that Ponzi scheme up there in Massachusetts, just kidding. So I think that's key, right? That's why if you look actually again,

let's flash back to some of the scriptures between 2500 years ago. What are the factors that lead to awakening? One of the ones that appears over and over and over again is called noble friends in acquaintances. So noble friends, sorry, noble friends in conversations. So having, and what they mean by Noble, isn't like knights and dukes, but people who have done practice who you can relate to and having conversations with them and finding out what it's like for them in lived experience.

But no, I think it is possible, look, it's not always possible to unplug for a month, but sometimes it is. I was very fortunate in 2008. It's 2007. I ended a relationship. I was at a nice job transition point. I was very fortunate at that point that I could really decide this is really something I want to try to do. And I was fortunate that the right books and stuff came along and I'd heard about these paths in practice.

And so I went for it. And at some point, the circumstances align. Or maybe it's true. Maybe it can be attained in daily life, but with very intensive practice. Again, for me, that's not my path. I'm too entranced by all the stuff that keeps us busy all the time to really devote to practice

while I'm in the world. Well, I've tried to do, and I don't know if this will be enough. And obviously, everybody's kind of mental situation is different. The Buddhist term would be everybody's paramies are different. But so I have committed to doing two hours a day of practice. And to 10.

That's a lot more than I do, by the way, just so you should know. Just great. Yeah, it's just so hard. That's what I'm trying to say. It's a huge commitment. I don't know. I have no idea how you do it. It's been hard.

Also, this whole thing about having good friends and good in a very specific way. I've worked very hard to cultivate that. I've committed with my wife's permission and collusion to go on at least one long retreat a year. And so I'm trying to do the best I can to create the conditions that would allow these experiences to arise.

I don't know if it'll happen, but that's what I'm doing. It's also setting intention to and having that right intention is, again, part of the, that's part of the path, having just set the intention. Even that is, again, it's one eighth of the work right there. And so having that intention to cultivate those things. And again, you know, I think the challenge for people like you and me who tend to be a little ambitious and in the world is ultimately at the end of the day, you really have to, it's almost cruel. You just totally have to get let go of it. And you can't fake it either. You can't sit there and be like,

I have let go of the desire for liberation. I don't really care. I don't really care because you're full of it, right? It's not true if you still do. So I literally, at some point on that retreat in Nepal, just got to the point where I truly didn't care. You know, and I was just like, well, okay, whatever, whatever. And it's so boring, you know, sitting there for hours, I was doing three hour sits, right? Because when you're on retreat

and you get really concentrated, you can sit for a long time, it's not painful. And saying, you know, that's just, that's a lot of time, you know, like four, three hours sits a day. It's that's a lot of time. You know, like, four, three hours, it's a day. It's just like a lot of time. That's intensive practice, right? That's really devoting, you know, you think about what it takes to become like a really good musician or really good athlete

or something like that. I can't imagine, you know, I read about these athletes who are, you know, they're training 10 hours a day or whatever, it's just mind-boggling. So this is pretty similar. And to get to that level, that's what it does seem to require. Maybe, maybe not, but it is, but in my experience it does. Until you actually really are no longer needing it and then it shows up, it's really quite perverse.

It is perverse. So, one of the things you talk about, you really document very well and evolving Dharma, is you talked about how there is this justified taboo I guess among the sort of current hierarchy of meditation teachers in this country against talking about the map, against taboo against saying where you are and where your students are and all that stuff on the path of insight. But in reaction to that, there has grown up this school

and you're actually kind of part of it of pragmatic or hardcore meditators, or Dharma practitioners. Just tell me a little bit about who are these people and what do you think about them? Well, it's like five guys in a room. I mean, it's not a lot of people, right? So first of all, most people do not care.

And like I think it's always good to keep your reality check, right? So like, most people don't care. But the overwhelming people, majority of people don't care about meditation. And the overwhelming people who care about meditation are doing stress reduction and other things which help them lead more productive and more happy lives.

So we're already, the people who are the entire universe we're talking to is like a very small group. And then now you've just identified the even smaller micro-reacted to the micro-small group. So we're talking like a few folks on a bulletin board. Right. So now I think there are really interesting things happening in that community and a re-embrace of some of these maps.

And so you know that there are people who have really practiced in this way in a very sort of strict way. The person who I went to study with was actually not part of that movement as a traditional monk. He was German-born, but had lived in Burma for 30 odd years. And I just felt for me, I had that, I liked the sense of rootedness that came from really going to a traditional source. It just felt really good to me. It felt really grounded and not kind of wavy in in the air. But wavy in the air can be fun too. And they're now online communities that are doing really interesting work and kind of

charting where people are going. Of course, in any small, small, small group, then with this person versus that person, and it gets even though everybody's enlightened, they're still biting each other's heads off. So, you know, that comes with the territory it seems, but it is interesting that there is kind of this group of meditation hobbyists who are geeking out about meditation the same way you might geek out about Game of Thrones and getting really into it and making progress. I mean, I think Game of Thrones also makes you a wiser person, but this really does. And that's what's really powerful about it.

Final question. And seriously, I really could talk to you for a long, long time. But final question, do you raise the possibility in your book? And again, I just want to emphasize here that you, especially for people who are listening, that you are not some wild-eyed guru You are a guy and a blazer who is a lawyer Also a columnist and so you make this claim I want to say that before I talk about the claim that you've made Which is that you think it's possible that maybe the Dharma Buddhism could save the world How could you say that and what do you mean by it? Why do you believe that?

Yeah, so you know, again, we're in a political moment in our country where you don't have to be at some sort of Buddhist sage to see the forces of greed, hatred, and delusion really active among lots and lots and lots of people. And so I don't think it's like a radical, weird thing to say, what would it look like if we actually, people actually worked on those parts of ourselves? Like this is just part of who we are as human beings. It's not like some weird phenomenon in this part of the 21st century.

Greed hatred and delusion is part of what it is not even to just be a human, even a lot of animals, right? So this is just part of who we are and it does seem to me that One of the things that could lead to a kind of safer and less destructive world would be working on my working on our internal stuff and then replicating that on a macro level and That's one reason I'm a big fan of popular mindfulness, right? I mean just to like go to a single store and have a desire to buy something and then feel like, oh, I don't need to listen to that desire. Okay, there's that desire. Oh, yeah, that. Okay.

I know it onto the next thing. Just that multiplied by however many people do it is, it could have a profound impact, let alone. Wow, you know, I read about this story and there's crime and I feel really afraid and I have a, you know, what am I, what do I do with that fear? Oh, I'm not afraid, I'm going to be really strong and I'm going to, you know, I want to really strong leader who's going to take care of the bad guys for me. Or I could say, well, I might be really afraid. Well, that's interesting, maybe I won't listen to that either. It's just that difference, I think actually, again, multiplied by the 5 billion people in the world, I think makes a real impact. And I don't think it's the Dharma and the Narrow Sun, so I don't think everybody's

going to become Buddhist, and I don't think it, you know, not at all. But I do think that as we see, as more and more people can just personally feel the benefits of some kind of contemplative practice. It could be a prayer practice in their church, or if they're spiritual but not religious, it could be a yoga practice, whatever it is. As more and more people, I think it just feel that, wow, this kind of works for me. And here's why, and I can articulate why. And I'm not signing up for something stupid or something that requires me to sacrifice my intellectual credibility Just if that actually keeps happening that could have a real impact and I think it is kind of the ultimate think globally act locally Approach and it doesn't mean you know, I'm out there every day working on top-down

You know law stuff religion stuff for my writing and my other work. So it's not like that. It's not like it's either or. But ultimately, there's something about human nature that can be evolved and made more wise and compassionate. It's very gratifying after three years of having occasional lunches with you and reading your books to see my friends sit here and deal with my pain in the butt questions and give such clear, cogent and compelling answers. Excuse me, a lot of naches, as you would say, in the Jewish tradition. So bravo. Thank you very much.

Well, I'm experiencing a lot of mudita sympathetic joy as we would say in the Buddhist tradition for you. Thank you, my friend. Appreciate it. And somevy also. So that was Jay Michelson. I think I hope he was as fascinating as advertised. He said at one point that nobody cares about this hardcore

pragmatic dharma scene. But I actually think, well, while these folks aren't getting a lot of attention right now, they probably will be. And maybe I'll be the reason for that, because they are fascinating what they're doing to their minds and their brains and to their lives is totally fascinating. There's a lot to be learned.

And in coming episodes, we're going to have these people on. And you'll get to hear from them. And again, these are people who believe they have gone way down the path or progress of insight. You'll get to hear and make judgments for yourself. Again, I'm going to do my little thing of asking you kindly. If you like the podcast, please subscribe, rate it, give us a review, and we'll be back with a freshy next week.

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