Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 404: What Is Nirvana? | Robert Thurman

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

If you want to make change in a world filled with all sorts of horrors and obstacles, does it help or hurt to stay cheerful while you go about your business? Robert Thurman argues passionately in favor of cheerfulness, although he will admit to still being miserable in his own way. This is an expansive conversation that covers everything from: what is nirvana to the Buddhist Four Noble Truths to why the Buddha was a scientist. Robert Thurman is a legend. As a young Harvard student, he got into an accident and lost the use of one of his eyes. He dropped out and went on a spiritual quest that brought him to India, where he became the first Westerner to be ordained as a monk by the Dalai Lama, with whom he remains close friends. Thurman later disrobed, got married, and had a bunch of kids, including the movie star Uma Thurman. He also became an academic. He was a Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University until December 2020 and is the President of the Tibet House U.S., a non-profit in New York City dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Tibetan civilization. He and his wife, Nena, also run an affiliated center, called the Menla Retreat, which is north of New York City. Bob just turned 80, but he is very busy. He has a new book called Wisdom is Bliss: Four Friendly Fun Facts That Can Change Your Life. He also writes a regular newsletter for Substack and hosts The Bob Thurman Podcast.This is a wide-ranging interview with a fast-moving mind that talks about: bliss-void-indivisible, why we feel unsafe when we’re happy, and why Robert was happy to lose his eye. Robert also offers his frank reflections on the promise and limits of the dharma from someone who has been practicing and studying for sixty years. If you don’t understand every reference, try to let it wash over you because the net effect is pleasantly head-spinning. Check out the Dalai Lama’s talk – “The Ultimate Source of Happiness,” which is free for everyone in the Ten Percent Happier app.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey everybody, if you want to make change in a world filled with all sorts of horrors and obstacles, does it help or hurt to stay cheerful while you're going about your business? My guest today argues passionately in favor of cheerfulness, although you will hear him admit to still being miserable on occasion in his own way. So what to make of that seeming contradiction. Brace yourself, this is a romp. This is a ranger conversation that covers everything from

Nirvana to the Buddhist four noble truths to why the Buddha was a scientist. Robert Thurman is a legend, quickly his backstory, which we'll get into, but just so you know it here, as a young Harvard student, he got into an accident and lost the use of one of his eyes. He dropped out of Harvard and went on a spiritual quest in the 1960s that brought him to India where he became the first Westerner to be ordained as a monk by the Dalai Lama with whom he remains very close Thurman later disrobed got married and had a bunch of kids including the movie star Uma Thurman

He also became an academic. He was professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies at Columbia University He's also the president of the Tibet House U.S. That's a nonprofit in New York City dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Tibetan civilization. He and his wife, Nena, also run an affiliated center called the Menla Retreat, which is north of the city, and they have a lot of fascinating programming there. In fact, this interview was conducted while Bob was at Menla. Bob just turned 80 and he's a very busy dude. He has a new book called Wisdom is Bliss for Friendly Fun Facts that can change your life. He also writes a regular newsletter for Substack and he hosts the Bob Thurman podcast. As I said, this is a wide-raging interview with a fast-moving mind. We talk about what he calls Bliss Vo void indivisible.

We also talk about why some of us feel unsafe when we're happy, why he was happy to lose his eye. And we hear his rather frank reflections on the promise and limits of the Dharma from somebody who's been practicing and studying for 60 years. I do want to warn you that you may not understand every reference he makes, but try to let it all wash over you because the net effect is in my opinion and my experience very pleasantly headspinning. One item of business here, as I mentioned, Bob Thurman has for decades been one of the close confidants and friends of the Dalai Lama,

who, as you all know, is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, bestselling author and spiritual leader, two millions of people. I was fortunate enough to interview the Dalai Lama last year at the height of the pandemic, and now the team over on the 10% happier app has put together excerpts of that interview for our teacher talks podcast in an episode which bears the very modest title, the ultimate source of happiness. In that talk, the Dalai Lama does, in fact, reveal what he believes to be the ultimate source of happiness.

Rather than spoil the surprise for you here, you can find the talk over on the 10% happier app where it is free for everyone, whether you're a subscriber or not. If you're listening to the show on the app, just scroll down on your screen, past the show notes to the related section, and you can find the episode there. If you're not a subscriber, just open up the app and click podcasts, and you'll see it right there. Okay, we'll get started with Robert Thurman right after this. 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.

Hey y'all is your girl Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast. Baby, this is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts, the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad. Where did memes come from? And where's Tom from my space? Listen to baby. This is Kiki Palmer on Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcast. Bob Thurmond, welcome back to the show. Thank you, Dan. It's a real pleasure to be with you. Congratulations on your new book. Actually, before I congratulate you on the new book, Happy Belated Birthday. You recently turned 80 years old, happy birthday. Thank you. I'm really pleased. My wife, Subsequent, that she also just turned 80. Subsequent

to that. We had some dinners with people who were 82, 83, and she turns to me one day for driving back and says, you know, 80's not at all. So I was really pleased with that. And as I mentioned, congratulations not only on your birthday, but also on this new book and the title of the book is, wisdom is bliss for friendly fun facts that can change your life. And so I just wanted to start on what are these four allegedly friendly and fun facts that you're advertising here? Well, the first one is the friendly fact of suffering.

The second one is the friendly fact of the cause of suffering, the diagnosis of why it's going on. And the third one is the prognosis that the reality underlying that is freedom from suffering nearvana. So the real discovery and the most friendly fun fact is that all this is nearvana right now, here or now. And the fourth friendly fun fact is the educational curriculum, the path of how to stop suffering and recognize the Nirvana quality of everything and be not only 10% but 100% happier. It's not 100. It's not 100% happier. It's 100% happy. That's right. That's right. Because there's no more error about it for you. Although

this is the thing, there is still an error. In other words, a comparative element because the way that Buddha discovered Nirvana, it is the world now, as it really is. In that are people who are suffering, who didn't wake up to that, and you're automatically engaged with them. And then the fun you have is seeing them discover their own Nirvana, which they also have within them. It's sort of their deeper nature. And my translation or my expression, friendly fact, is a transposition for today of noble truths. Buddha took the word for noble like a normal social aristocrat,

and the good part of it, that the noble is supposed to have no bless of bleeds, altruistic concern for others, and he made a new meaning of it, of someone who has genuine empathy for others. The early translators of Buddhism wanted to think of it only as a religion. And a religion has to have something you believe. So like a credo. But this is not a credo.

They tell you, the first friendly fact of suffering you should acknowledge. So you don't put false expectations on regular, normal, self-centered interaction. And the second one, you're supposed to understand how it happens and the reason for it, the cause of it. The third one, you're supposed to realize, not believe but know and experience. And the fourth one, you're supposed to practice. So, I prefer fact, truth is not wrong. It can be either the reality of things

or it can be a proposition about them. You know, truths can have both meaning. And Buddha was if anything non-dogmatic. So he didn't want people's blind faith or blind belief, just because he said something and then you're supposed to just accept it. He didn't like that. So that's the story of the subtitle. So now that we're on it, these are the four noble truths laid out by the Buddha after his enlightenment. I think what makes sense to spin through them

in a little bit more detail, but before we do that, can you just step back and give us some historical context on the four noble truths and why it's such a foundational list for the Buddhists? Absolutely, because, well, I did have a colleague, who had their capazons, and a conference once, it was so cute. He said, well, Christians love God and Buddhists love lists. Anyway, yeah, sure. Well, the thing is, this was Buddha's teaching to the five ascetics who had been with him when he was torturing himself for five, six years

after he left the throne, his crown prince situation. So they were ascetic secret, and he is like a doctor. So they have a suffering problem. They are suffering. So he was acknowledging their symptom. And what he said was, he looked at them and they hadn't had a bath in five years. They hadn't cut their fingernails or toenails, their hair, and they were all shriveled up from fasting. And they looked at them and they said, this is suffering.

But they didn't really take a genius to notice. And then he extended it, meaning that it was long as you think you're a soul-separate being. And the universe is not you. And in a way, it is confronting you. And you're up against it. Then you're going to lose the struggle. Temporarily, some people will like you. The circumstance will be okay. It will be in paradise, et cetera, et cetera. Later it will burn.

Later the people who like you will be mad at you, et cetera. So he just said, acknowledge that our normal, delusional awareness that makes us think that we are the center of everything, and it all rotates around us. And when it doesn't suit us, that makes us upset. That is unworkable, and it will be frustrating. He didn't even say like Socrates did. The unexamined life is not worth living.

He never said it, be not worth living. He just said, it'll be frustrating. It'll never work out quite. And then the cause is the wrong idea that we have, and that is that we're the center, and we are the one. We just think we are, and nobody else does. And so there's a fundamental discord about life waged in that way. So that's the second noble truth, and that's his analysis of the problem.

But then what he had to say to them was, the real thing is freedom from that suffering, near Vana, being blown away from your struggle about, I'm more important than the universe, which you're not. And you don't destroy the universe universe and you don't destroy yourself. You just get into a better relationship with it. You are part of it. Others are as important as you and there's many more of them. And so if you take account, identify with more of them altruistically,

it will be more happy if you can help them be happy. It's kind of thing. So anyway, that third one is the reality that he discovered. The others are his analysis of how to deal and escape from the unreality, right? So then the fourth one is the path to the realization of the Nirvana, of freedom of bliss. He doesn't use a bliss, because people will be suspicious about bliss. They'll think it's something, whatever, because they both are used to being miserable, and they feel they're being realistic when

they're miserable. I also do. The fourth one is three educations. There's eight branches, Path, but it has three educations, ethical education, mental education, and scientific or wisdom education. Those are the three kinds. Before you have had a big realization, you get into a more harmonious way of relating to others. Because the ethical is what's kind,

and loving, and altruistic. You have to get to where you're more balanced, to be able to do the other ones. Then the science one, the wisdom one, is not religion, it's not believing anything. It's actually disbelieving that what you habitually perceive is the real reality. Sort of like a modern scientist. I'm looking at a beautiful building at the Menloss Bar here in the cascades.

And I think the wall is real. The Tibetan painting is real. The lamps are real, the windows, floor ceilings, etc., etc. Nuclear physicists will tell me it's just atoms. They're mostly empty, electrons, and nuclei. The reality of this is freedom. And that's hard to realize so, the third education is the mind. And that's where the meditation comes in. Although it has to be built on the ethics and the analysis and the critical deconstruction of the delusion of reality in order to be able to reach toward the real reality, the bliss reality. So, if meditation by itself, by the normal self-centered person, 10 years later, instead of 10% happier, they'll jump up and they'll say,

wow, I'm the greatest. I'm so great. Everyone should do what I want. And then when they don't, they freak out. So that's the thing. I say realistic because the highest realism is when you look through the situation and you find it the true reality. And so that's where I picked the title with them is Bliss, to counteract ignorance is Bliss, which we have as a saying, because we're conditioned to think

that reality is scary, dangerous, harmful, and therefore better not to know, and live in denial. So that's completely incorrect from Buddha's point of view. So it's a wisdom that's a bliss knowing what it is and experiencing it really to the fall. That's freedom. That's the key thing. Anyway, what do you think, Dan? I was saying, I want your listeners to know that when I was walking over here to have this talk with you, I was thinking 10% he is so lucky. Because I only said, I decided I'd wait in and around 3%. But wait a minute, you just gave us this whole talk about the bliss of

wisdom and Nirvana and all this stuff. How are you only at 3%? Because I'm still too stuck in my conditioning. So in other words, I want the world to be the way it should be. And we have crazy people in the government. And we have crazy people all over the place. And we have nearly wrecking the entire planet. California is burning. And women are not really recognized as the jewels that they are. So that all gets me upset. And I'm determined to fix it. And I can't, on the other hand, I have no power. So that makes me unhappy. Now, if I knew it was near Rana anyway, then I would actually be better able to try to do something to fix it. And that's what I'm working on, A, and B, I've studied enough, and I've had experiential epiphanies enough about the bliss, freedom, indivisible that's out there, that I'm confident

that it is, and I'm confident I'll get there. So that's my consolation for my 3%. So my 3% is my happiness and the 97% is the dark matter and dark energy of my safe misery. My American misery, we gotta fix the world. Much more of my conversation with the irrepressible Robert Thurman right after this. 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 of our freshly 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-expert. 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. When you say it's all nirvana anyway, what does that mean? Well, it's a way of referring to something that's inexpressible, actually. The Buddha, this is what makes him so so great and not a religious prophet or founder. He was a bit of a prophet in a sense of predicting the future.

He could do that. Supposedly, when you become fully enlightened, you are fully present in the future and the past. And you remember all your previous lives, which are infinite, and you see this infinite future very immediately. So you can kind of move around in time, like we move around in space, apparently. Well, the Nirvana is what's called the uncreated. The Eightfold Path is not the cause of Nirvana. It doesn't need a cause.

It's just reality. And it's like dark matter and dark energy actually. There's two things that are invisible, two kinds of things, things that are dark, like dark matter and dark energy, which are modern scientists, physicists need to hold together their theories about the 3% that they can see. But they don't know what it is. But there's another thing they don't see. Something that's transparent. When you look out the window, you don't see the glass, unless it's dirty. You just look out, but the glass is there. So what I mean by Nirvana anyway, is Nirvana refers to the absolute nature of everything, but absolute in a sense cannot relate to the relative.

So therefore, no one could achieve it. So it's criticizes any theory or ideology that absolutises and it makes anything into an absolute, be it God or nothingness or energy or power or whatever it is. So what that means is that the relative is the absolute. So the Nirvana is like the world of suffering, like a projection on a white screen that has no problems. It's just pure white. But the movie projected on it, it's just light play

on the surface of this thing, which is only an analogy for an inexpressible thing. So actually, none of it is really happening. In fact, therefore when you discover that, and that's even a problem to explain how I could even happen, because this is not 97%, is 100%, transparency. It's what the clear light of emptiness, This is not 97%, it's 100%, transparency. It's well, the clear light of emptiness or the clear light of freedom.

And so instead of nothingness being the base of all the phenomena, a darkness in other words, this transparency is the substance of all the interconnected things, which are all empty of any non-relational element. But they are happening because they can relate, and they are able to relate because they're empty of the non-relative. Therefore their relation is the opposite. It's totally absolute. And so, and what that means then, when you know that, and again I said, how you know it is complicated, but when you know that, you realize that love is all you can do about your relations with things. In other words, there's no reason not to be 100% positive about everything.

And you for effortlessly do that because you feel that it's all Nirvana. So you're holding in your mind two opposite things. You know, F. Scott Fitzgerald, he said, the sign of a great mind is the ability to hold two opposite things in the mind at once, without damaging either one and without exploding without damaging either one and without exploding. So mine. So it's sort of in a lightweight, and not necessarily fusing them in some way, in some simplistic way, but really keep them alive there.

And that's so marvelous, because I always say, enlightenment is the supreme tolerance of cognitive dissonance. What do you think? That everything is perfect and there's an enormous amount of suffering both at the same time.

It makes it a little less enormous and it gives us the ability to help either ourselves or others overcome it, which we will definitely do. We'll all will do it. There's a happy ending to the universe, and the great part about it is it's not the end of the earth. I can imagine some people listening to you, you know, semi-facitiously, semi-facitiously,

describing yourself as miserable and only 3% happier and saying, well, this guy's been at it for a long time, meditating. He was a monk, he's been studying Buddhism and such a deep way for so long. Why should I even try meditating a couple minutes a day? Exactly, exactly. This book is the first time I wrote it in a book. I would share it, giving lectures to people. Even academic lectures. Oh, no, I never forget, I was giving a lecture,

a distinguished lecture, and the person introduced me, mentioned it was not long before my retirement. So I was in my mid-70s, and he mentioned that this section was so distinguished, it's a Dartmouth College, actually. It was so distinguished that, often in the history of the lecture, the giver of the lecture died afterwards. It was their last lecture. So first I had to ensure that when I told that I was not going to croak on the spot. And then I was sort of thinking the subject of the lecture was Buddha, scientist, and educator. And then I was telling them, why am I taking such a subject which

you guys don't believe? You don't think he was a scientist, you think he's a religious Buddhist, although there was no Buddhism when Buddha was teaching, and it didn't exist yet. The educator, when he's all known as the founder of the world religion. So why am I doing this? I said, well, one, I don't want to convert you to Buddhism, because that would not be what Buddha wants you to do. And there are a lot of nasty Buddhists and miserable Buddhists,

as well as miserable, whatever other things. And also my teacher, the Dalai Lama, the nowadays teacher, he's against converting anybody from anything to anything else except converting them to their own better self from within themselves. That's it. And he says everyone should keep their grandmothers' religion. He says, and I agree. So I don't want to do that. Then second, I don't want to compete with Mary Baker Eddie to make a Buddhist science institute and Buddhist science

newsletter, not because I wouldn't like to, but I don't think there's the time. So that's not the point. So why am I doing it? I said, oh, I said, no, I know. And it sort of came to me that I looked at the audience for a minute with the pause and I said,

I guess my mission on in this country is to overthrow your idea, that your science and your appreciation of reality is the superior one of all time and that scientific materialism is the final answer to all philosophy, all striving and it's like precursor to paradise, heaven on earth. You know, I want to overthrow that because it's a very dangerous idea and it's wrong. It's scientifically incorrect. So I said, our way of knowing here, we Western people cannot be the best way of knowing,

because we are destroying the entire planet, all the other animals, and ultimately ourselves very quickly, if we keep it up. So we must be making a mistake. And that doesn't mean we should go back to some blind faith, bunch of beliefs. That's good, that we're free of that. But we stuck in the blind faith belief that nothing is going to solve all the problems, that is to say there will be no consequence to our destruction of all things, sweet and beautiful and good on this planet, out of our greed and our inability to control our addictive impulses, and that's

not superior. So we have to learn something more. And that's my idea, that's my thought, really. And that's not a religious matter. That's a matter of having a good life. And also being good to others and sharing a good life with them. The alignment, the Western alignment, which is very similar to the Buddhist one,

but not complete, that's all. But anyway, the gun rid of religious domination of thought, you know, indoctrination, and your secular idea is good in that you don't proselytize and demand that people adopt a certain ideology, or you shouldn't in education, in liberal education. But they're learning how to control your mind and learning the deeper nature of the altered states of awareness that we can achieve, the human being can achieve, and deeper ways of understanding things.

That's part of the skill of life, the art of life. And that should be educated. And maybe my next life, I can belong to a university like that. Like the ancient Nalanda University in India. They taught medicine, architecture, arts and sciences, engineering, agriculture, all sorts of things, but the core curriculum had to do with how kind are you going to be? How do you cultivate love, kindness, happiness? How do you find your bliss? How do you connect your profession to following your bliss so that you do it really well and to benefit yourself

and others? And that's the main thing that we miss. much more of my conversation with the irrepressible Robert Thurman right after this. I want to go back to this notion of you describing yourself as miserable and I would imagine people hearing that and say, well, if this guy is miserable, why should I do any meditation? I imagine your answer would be something the effect of, you may not achieve all Nirvana everywhere. I Robert Thurman have not yet done that. But I'm still 3%, whatever percent happier than I would be if I had gone on and followed my career in stage capitalism.

Yes, absolutely. In my own story, I was so lucky to lose my left eye at 20. And that was really lucky. At the time, and that's really, I didn't think so. I was upset about it. But it enabled me to have a mid-life crisis at 20. And it's much better to have a mid of a crisis at 20 than at 45. So because of that, the minute I woke up after the operation,

cleaning up the mess of the accident, and the optic nerve gone, so no transplant. Immediately, I said, I'm going to India. I had already read and studied enough that I knew that India had the answers about how to understand how your mind works. They've been doing it for thousands of years. They really have a mastery of that. And that's why yoga, even though it's often only thought of as physical postures and things, is so popular in the West.

It's because it's based on the science of how the mind interacts with the body and working from the body side. It helps people with their health. So that helped me. My previous book called Why the Dalai Lama Matters, well, when I published it, I had a meeting with the head of Simon Schuster and she said to me, okay, you're talking about the Dalai Lama, you're talking about the bed, you're talking about how we're going to fix the planet and we're going to stop the genocide etc. So I need you to make an epilogue called ten points of happiness. So I wrote it and then I came up with a great thing at the end, which I really like. And I said, therefore, in dealing not only with the Tibet Holocaust

and all the other disasters on the planet, to do something we should be very activists, but we should only be activists while we're really happy and in a very cheerful way. So we don't hate the evil doers and we're not just making another violent turn around a revolution and a new bunch of violent people take over. We can't do that in this time in history. We have to be happy, happiness revolution, I say. And therefore, it is our duty, worldly duty, as well as a spiritual duty, to develop such a strong degree of happiness, to be so happy that even if they kill us, we'll die happy.

We know that human mind is so malleable and so flexible that by developing a certain passion or energy in it, it can override survival instinct and so on. And then we have histories of thousands of millions of saints and mystics and yogis and Taoists, I don't know who, how many who have sacrificed themselves, and we have billions of women who have insisted on love and peace while being brutalized. And so it's possible to cultivate love to the degree where one would be willing to let go of one's life rather than harm someone else totally. It doesn't mean you would do it in a particular situation and then there are complicated ones where you might take a life to protect it

other lives and other things like that. But the point is it's possible to be that brave and that strong cheerfully rather than angrily. How would we develop the capacity to be cheerful even as parts of the world are literally on fire and there are so many big problems that we need to take care of? I know. Well, I think the person we can train ourselves to be cheerful, we have a cup of tea instead of a fist fight. You know, we're able to do that in modest circumstances.

And in the bigger circumstances, we have to use our intelligence. And what we realize is, is that all these terrible problems will never be solved unless we stay cheerful. You know, Jesus said so, Buddha said so, Lao Tzu said so, Confucius said so, every great Muhammad, people don't know that, but Muhammad basically said so also. He went into Mecca, who had been trying to kill him, sending armies against

him in Medina. But he finally went in on arm to go and pray at the Kaaba, which was a temple. But the point is, other methods don't solve the problem. We take a broader view of history and anyone can do it. And we realize that we have to do something new and we have to cheer people up. Because if you're happy, you'll be patient, and you think systematically, the one thing you don't need to do is to be angry, because when you're angry, you accomplish nothing. So therefore, don't expose yourself to people

who are profiting on poking you that you should be angry. So make a plan and be happy. Don't be angry. But in the book, I, in dealing with realistic ethics and realistic livelihood, I do address these kind of activist issues because one of my motives in the book

is in addition to being cheery, we need to be cheery and activists about the horrible mess. Because we're not gonna fix the horrible mess by getting angry and having a horrible life. You know, in your original question, how can I talk about bliss when I'm admittedly miserable? It's still to great extent. And the reason is that what makes me capable of doing it,

perhaps, is my consolation prize, which I awarded myself for being a loser of not becoming a Buddha in 60 years of study in this life. This is my understanding from the description that Buddha left of his experience. Before he attained Nirvana under the tree there, he remembered his own infinite previous lives. And second, he became aware of everybody else's infinite previous lives, as his mind expanded with the empathy, by identifying with everyone. He remembered that he'd been all of them because beginningless, no first beginning, universe as zones go along, different big bangs and big crunches.

It's beginning. So then he became aware of, it was all Nirvana anyway. But the event horizon of that realization, of the uncreated, that made him see he had already been in Nirvana. All that past time. He was already, it Nirvana all that past time.

He was already, it was just all play of light on the screen of Nirvana. He realized, that's why he couldn't remember. We don't remember because we don't wanna remember more suffering. So by realizing that, I realize when I do get Nirvana, and because the future is also infinite, and I'll eventually find out what real bliss is,

and I'll want it, and I'll get it. And at that time, I will experience that talking to Dan Harris on a 10% happier was Nirvana already. So retroactively, I'll enjoy this moment as Nirvana. And I'll note with sympathy how I fail to completely do it now. You know, and I'll keep working on it. So it's my consolation. Bob, I have to say that talking to you has cheered me up and I really appreciate you taking the time.

Thank you very much. 12%? I don't even want to put a ceiling on it. I know, I know. Thank you. I'm very happy. Thank you. Thanks again to Bob and thanks as well to the people who work so hard to make this show two and a half times a week. They include Samuel Johns, Gabrielle Zuckerman, DJ Cashmere, Justin

Davie, Kim Baikama, Maria Wartelle, and Jen Poient. We get audio engineering from our friends over at Ultraviolet Audio. We'll see you on Wednesday for a brand new episode. Hey, hey, Prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.