Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 481: How to Break Bad Mental Habits | Carol Wilson

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

There are so many benefits to mindfulness with one of the biggest being the cultivation of more self-awareness. This cultivation can lead to identifying the unhelpful mental habits that can develop over the years.Today we’re going to talk to Carol Wilson who offers very clear and practical ways that Buddhist meditation can help us turn down the volume on our unproductive mental habits and be less reactive.Wilson is a guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Society, where for many years she has taught their annual three-month retreat. She began her insight meditation practice in 1971 in India and in the 1980s she spent a year in Thailand as a Buddhist nun. In this episode we talk about:How to be mindful throughout the dayThe concept of 360 degree awarenessNoticing when one experiences wanting or aversion Why Wilson believes that the root of suffering comes from making it all about usHow seeing torment can help us experience freedom from the selfThe benefits of reflecting on your past acts of generosity Bringing awareness to your motivationsAnd doing a gratitude practice regularly to change the weather pattern in your mindFull Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/carol-wilson-481See 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. Hello, my fellow suffering beings. There are so many benefits to mindfulness. And one of the biggies in my opinion is that having more self-awareness, being able to see the contents of your mind, your thoughts, your urges, your emotions with more clarity. That allows you to identify the often very unhelpful mental habits you've developed over the years. And once you can see these habits of mind, you don't have to be so owned by them. You can be less emotionally reactive.

Today, we're going to do a meet and potato dharma episode. We're going to talk in very clear and practical ways about how Buddhist meditation can help all of us, no matter what level we're at, turn down the volume on our unproductive mental habits and be less reactive. That's actually just some of what we're going to talk about today with my guest, Carol Wilson, who is a titan of the American meditation scene and is making her first appearance here on this show today. Carol is a guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barry, Massachusetts, where for many years she has taught their annual three-month retreat, which has always been simultaneously

horrifying and oddly attractive to me. Carol began her Insight Meditation practice in 1971 over in India. In the 1980s, she spent a year in Thailand as a Buddhist nun. And in this conversation, we talked about how to be mindful in very simple ways throughout your day, what she calls 360-degree awareness, why counterintuitively she loves to notice when she's experiencing wanting or aversion. Why should believe the root of suffering comes from making everything all about us and how seeing your own torment can help you experience freedom from the self. We also talk about the benefits of reflecting on your past acts of generosity, which is actually not making it all about you, she'll explain. We talk about bringing awareness to your motivations

and doing gratitude practice regularly as a way to change your inner weather. Before we jump into today's show, many of us wanna 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 wanna 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 it's your girl Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress singer and entrepreneur on my 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 the memes come from. And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby This is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. Carol Wilson, thanks for coming on the show.

Sure, happy to be here. I'm happy you're here. We were chatting before we started rolling here about some of the ways in which you teach. And you said some incredibly interesting stuff that I'm going to, if you're okay, get you to repeat to the best of your ability. You talked about how there's kind of two aspects of practice that are really interesting to you and show up a lot in your teaching, I'm gonna summarize it probably poorly,

but one, you were describing it as kind of like everyday techniques for changing the habits of our mind and the other is dropping into a simple awareness or not clinging to whatever's coming up in the mind. So, I don't know if I've restated that with any degree of accuracy, but if you're comfortable, please hold forth. Okay, first I would say those are just two different angles of the same thing, right? So, go to the second one, we say dropping into a kind of receptive quality of natural awareness. That's something that when we're talking

not in a way of deep concentration, but this receptive awareness that's simply as a natural quality and function of all of our minds. Some people call it consciousness, but consciousness is free from self-concept or wanting or aversion, just kind of pure knowing. That's available to all of us

on a formal meditation retreat and off a formal meditation retreat. So when I said to Aspect, this more whether you're tuning into awareness or noticing the different techniques or ways that the Buddha taught, that could help us to transform the habits of our mind. Both of these go together and both of these can be done on a more silent intensive retreat

and really in daily life. I really mean this, something that I've learned more to trust in the last 10 years or so in terms of early Buddhism, that this receptive, simple awareness, you're just noticing, just interested. And whatever happens to be arising in our experience, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching with the body, and the mental realm, you know, these six sense objects as the Buddha described. In a way that Buddha described that is the world. That's all experience, these six sense experiences, just coming and going. Whether you're in deep meditation or running around in the supermarket. So what makes it meditation either way is the quality of recognizing awareness. Rather than I would say dropping into it,

it's not a thing over here we drop into. It's an aspect of experience that's available in any moment that we kind of remember to recognize and include. So for example, hearing. First of all, we don't often even notice hearing will say, oh, that's a bell. Well, what's that loud sound out there? Is that a siren? I wonder what's happening? So recognizing hearing as a process is a first step, you could call that mindfulness meditation, just being with what's happening. But the recognizing that hearing is happening

that there's just a knowing of hearing, an awareness of hearing. That's what I'm talking about, the simple receptive awareness, right? Oh, hearing, that's all. Mostly we get absorbed in what's happening, the hearing or seeing, you know, we know we're seeing,

but we don't recognize the habit that the function that or seeing, you know, we know we're seeing, but we don't recognize the habit, the function that's seeing as a process. It's more, oh, I'm looking at Dan, or I see three squares on the screen or whatever, you know, and that solidifies the world. Right away, there's the world, and there's me, and there's my desk and all of that, like that perception. When I recognize, oh yeah, there's awareness knowing that seeing is happening, all those so-called objects of sight, they're still known. It's not like I don't know what's happening. But all the attention isn't zooming into it.

The sense of awareness of seeing is hard to explain is a completely different feeling. It doesn't detach from the experience. But when the mind that's not clinging to experience, it's just recognizing seeing. There's an ease. There's a coolness. What I'm seeing may be very unpleasant.

Oh, yeah, I don't like that. It is a version right away. Oh, seeing is happening. Aversion is happening in the Oh, seeing is happening. A version is happening in the mind, a mental state. It's still happening, but that velcro to it goes away when the attention is resting at that moment, is recognizing awareness that can flip back and forth all the time. Does this make sense? Dan, you're nodding, but I don't know if it's making sense. It makes sense to me. Let me see if I can recapitulate a little bit and you'll tell me if

I'm actually making sense of it. I think the analogy that sometimes used is like being in a movie theater. You may be so absorbed in the images projected onto the screen that you don't even realize for much of the time, this is part of the magic of the movies. You're in the story, you're just totally in the story, but you can do a little bit of refocusing and realize that, yeah, there are some lights coming out of the back of the room, projecting images onto this screen, and I can enjoy the movie and follow the action, while also every once in a while realizing it is just a movie.

And you can do that with life too. It's not to dissociate. It's actually more inclusive. It includes everything. It includes like you're in the movie looking at the movie and you're still looking at the movie and there becomes that awareness of the light coming behind of the mood that you're feeling, the thoughts that you're having and and that you're in a mood. All of that's included. And if anything, you're more fully present with it because if not pushing away or liking

or disliking. You're right, though. The sense of it being real defining life is gone and realize, oh, this is just, it's what it is in this moment. It's totally what it is. And then it's gone. It's totally what it is in this moment. It's totally what it is and then it's gone. It's totally what it is in this moment. And then the next moment is different.

What's the benefit to doing this? Why kick ourselves out of the movie of the seemingly solid reality of life? Well, you know, the whole teachings of the Buddha are to free our heart and mind from suffering, right? The first noble truth. We can't control external circumstances, you know, and the Buddha's teaching isn't that, the suffering that we can fix the world. The suffering he's talking about is a quality in our own mind and heart that leads to suffering, which is the quality of fear, of anger,

the difficult emotions. Again, I was listening to Tignadehan and he says, you know, if we want to try and meet the world with peace, we have to learn how to have peace in our own heart and mind. And when we're struggling, when we're filled with fear or anger towards it or self-hatred or judgment of someone else, all of these difficult emotions,

that's really suffering. And back to perception, then we perceive through the lens of that fear, of that attachment to some idea, the lens of greed. So we are caught in the movie, and we react, you know, we react with fear, with love, with happiness, with excitement,

but it keeps us from actually living at ease and at peace. So learning to shift from this habit of reactivity to whatever's occurring. And the reactivity basically comes down to what does it mean to me? How do I feel? It's good, it's bad, how does that affect me? That's how we go through life. That's all we know. And learning to perceive, like Tiktok Han says, Dali Lama says it too, all of our difficulties come from mistaken perception. And these reactivities of heart and mind come from mistake and perception feed our continuum to mistake what's really going on. So actually it's really quite profound,

because the potential for real happiness, for real ease and peace, and the natural effect of that is to respond to difficult situations with compassion rather than fear or anger, with loving kindness, with friendliness, with inclusion, to be able to appreciate somebody's goodness rather than seeing it as something you're lacking,

or to be with difficult situations with equanimity. And equanimity's not the same as blocking it off. To be so present in this moment, really present in this moment with whatever's occurring, including an unpleasant experience, I mean, just read the news every day, unpleasant experience. Can I still hear that news? Feel the fear, the anger. Recognize how anger is like this, and including that in awareness, the mind, the

heart, the awareness doesn't get taken over by that in a moment. That though we need training because the habits is to dive back into the reactivity. And making sense, so that's why all the Buddha taught all these different ways to recognize the beautiful qualities that arise from clear sea, that arise from a peaceful heart, from a non-agitated but fully pressing heart in mind. You'll naturally get the beautiful qualities of relating. You know, inertia, both sides of inertia, the physical principle of a body and motion tends to stay in motion. The body at rest stays at rest. So when anger is the quality and the mind that's in motion,

it's a lot easier for it to be the next moment that arises in the next moment, right? That's the habit. It's just to have it. We don't have to be victims of that habit. When generosity is arising, it's a happy feeling. It's easier for that to arise in the next moment. Awareness helps us just see how these things work. It's science, it's just nature. Then the Buddha gives us all these techniques of how not to keep falling into the habits of reactivity. Let's pick up on techniques there because some listeners might have heard you talk about

shifting into this ever-president awareness and that could sound to some vague or maddeningly attractive but attainable. Absolutely, I know. It's turning into jargon. I totally relate to that. Yes, it takes practice. It's turning into jargon. I totally relate to that. Yes, it takes practice. It's really simple.

A retreat is really helpful. I said we can do it at home, but retreat is really helpful because it's practicing, or habit isn't to recognize just this simple knowing, or habit is to get involved in the story. I just did a self-retreet for five weeks recently. All I'm doing is giving myself time, whatever I'm doing in the day, living very simply, to keep recognizing the awareness side.

So the way I say it, I need to describe it, and I like it because it's simple. Take any moment, a moment now of hearing, as I said before. The experience is hearing, that's happening. And when we say mindfulness or you could say awareness, it's just knowing that hearing is happening, right? Can you see those are kind of two sides of the same experience? There's the hearing the doorbell and knowing it's a doorbell and then having all the stories about it was ringing my doorbell. And then there's the just raw awareness of hearing being known. Right. And it could also be raw awareness of knowing, I think, is a doorbell or a awareness of the mind perceiving, which is a fascinating process to observe,

because when I notice, oh, sometimes they're sitting in meditation and a fire engine goes by and I see my mind identify it as fire engine, but I didn't do it. You know, like that just happened on its own. That's exactly. That's a perfect example. And so the awareness piece, you see, that's available. And it is kind of like watching a movie, except we're in it. We're not like trying to push it away.

And it's seeing that the hearing happened by itself. You didn't plan the fire engine going by. You didn't say in a moment, I have to be ready to hear what's gonna happen. It just happens naturally if your hearing works. But we can start to recognize is that the awareness is also happening naturally when we're conscious.

And so the beginning of practice is just beginning to include recognizing that side of the moment. And it's so nothing. There's nothing to get to prove you're doing it. We want results. So it's so nothing that we ignore it. We overlook it as a habit, and we keep going into the,

like, what talks louder, whatever's arising, what their mind's doing. When we start recognizing again and again the knowing of that and whatever the mind's doing, we can know it. That's the beginning of practice because basically our habit is just to overlook it. It's always available. So nothing special. We just tend to overlook it.

So we're needing to shift habits to recognize that. It's funny because awareness you describe it as nothing, but it's also like the container in which everything arises at the same time. It's a mystery or it's mysterious at the very least. Awareness, it's language, right? Just what you said is how we talk awareness is a container that contains everything. A container has an in and out and it has limits. It's the thing. It's a noun. It's a process arising in our mind that we can watch happening but we don't know who's doing it or why or how we develop this capacity. That's the

mystery. I would say the mind is arising in awareness, actually. I mean, my is such a tricky word. Mind often, you know, is used as a, not use scientific, but all the mental processes, right? So seeing, thinking, perception, feeling, pleasant, or unpleasant, all the concepts, you know, seeing a fire truck and turn all of that. Mental activity arising.

But each one is a mental activity arising in this moment and gone, right? A thought comes and goes, it's not in some mind somewhere. That arising is the mind. I'm not trying to say I have the ultimate answer to this. I know I'm going to get all kinds of flak. I'm just trying to describe how I talk about it in your chat. You're not going to get a flag from me. No, I know. You're not going to get without my address. But anyway, it's just more simple than when we try to get conceptual. It makes

it to complicated. The simple recognizing is very available. So let me pick up on that then because I agree with you that if we conceptualize and can be a thicket, you talked about practicing this on retreat, but I want to empathize with and leap into the shoes, socks, and sandals of some listeners who may never have an opportunity to go on retreat and would be interested to practice what you're describing in daily life. In terms of ways to do that, the first thing that's coming to my mind as somebody who's not a teacher, so this may be a bad idea, is just using a gentle mental note, which you described early on in this interview, you said you might just know when the doorbell rings

hearing. Oh, there's some awareness of hearing, not just what is being heard. Is that one technique that we could use? It could be. I mean, yeah, it could be. This is what's tricky to me about techniques, because that depends what's going on in the person's experience when they say hearing, because I've worked with mental noting a lot in my practice. So first I want to say when I say I use retreat just to help me remember to recognize the knowing quality, but I'm trying to do that all in my life. I mean it's not like I leave it at retreat. It's just because it's so always available and so not sexy you could say we overlook it so we just need to train. So yes a mental note noting of hearing or recognition of hearing if that helps to recognize

the process of hearing that you're feeling the process see if that helps you do that. It can also be even without the note too. I mean some people when they use noting they get too glombed into the note, into the word, and that's just another object. So you have to look and see what helps you relax, allow experience, all experience is just coming to itself. Allow yourself to relax and just notice what experience is coming. And I would suggest in daily life to take some quiet time,

whether you're doing formal sitting meditation or formal walking meditation, or just some quiet time, because when there's so much coming in and our habits are so strong, that's really like make it the most difficult, you possibly could and try to recognize a simple moment of awareness.

It's just not gonna happen. Take 20 minutes to just sequentially, eyes open or closed, and I would even start with a simple, not just be aware of everything that's happening, because thinking I'll just take over, because we practice that so much. Be really simple, like lately I'll be sitting and I'll let my attention just not go to but feel the sensations in my hands, for example. There's always a lot of tingling there. I'm not trying to focus on that. I'm just allowing those sensations to be known because they're very obvious.

And then if hearing arises, it could use noting to say, oh, hearing, or just knowing that there's hearing, explore for yourself. And then all of a sudden, it's five minutes later and you were thinking about what you're gonna do later. And then, oh, thinking, as soon as there's recognizing thinking, you recognize that the difference between loss and thought and awareness of thinking. There are little moments.

They won't give you a lot of sense you're doing something, or you're not trying to change the state of your mind, but you're just trying to shift what we notice. So I would take some quiet time to sit. I just do, I feel my hands, the sensations, then I'll just go into hearing because it's very receptive. It's so clear you're not making the sounds happen. And just letting them fall in and there's a moment where just at first the mind's going out to the hearing and then it's just kind of the lax. Let your attention, let your whole being relax and just be interested in the process of hearing, noticing the whole process. So you keep practicing that. Walking's a great way. When I get up in the

morning, I do just walking back and forth for about 20, 30 minutes, because my mind is kind of all over when I wake up in the morning. And I'm just walking and feeling the feet, not like this, and the mind's doing this thing, and there's these emotions and they're seeing and they're hearing. And if it gets too confusing, I feel the feet. But it's not about trying to name the sensations. It's using this very simple experience to recognize the knowing. Learning to recognize moods and emotions when they're happening, I found that so useful in

daily life. You know, I mean, we could say, yeah, I know I'm angry, but that's different from just feeling, oh, anger feels like this. Not to say you shouldn't be, not to say you're trying to fix it. The emphasis is always noticing the mind's relation to shouldn't be, not to say you're trying to fix it. The emphasis is always noticing the mind's relation to what's happening, not just what's happening, the mind knowing what's happening. Then the awareness of your moods, your emotions, as you go through the day, becomes much more available. And that's that's also bringing in the simple awareness through the day. You're not trying to be better. You're just trying to shift that foreground background a little bit.

But it can make you better because if you are not so caught up cognitively in your anger and a little bit more in touch with the way anger is acting in your body right now, well then you might not act out of anger reflexively and habitually. Exactly. It's so intrinsic. It's our habit. But you're absolutely correct. Otherwise, why bother? So this is again nature. The wholesome feeds the wholesome. The Buddha talked a lot about what feeds wholesome states and what stars unwholesome states. He used that language a lot. And steady awareness or steady mindfulness is one of the conditions that allows wisdom, the wisdom of clear seeing, the wisdom of the mind that let's go

because that version that anger is so unpleasant. So you get you get information. I was like, oh, feeling disrespected. Feels like this. And again, it doesn't have to run my life. You know, there's a sense that, okay, disrespected is unpleasant. And there's a space. I don't need to act from that. I sometimes describe meditation as like a video game where you can't move forward if you want to move forward. But hence, I think your emphasis on receptivity because it is an antidote or can be a, I think, an antidote to the striving type A mind

where you have repeatedly throughout the course of this brief conversation, referenced, oh, well, a hearing, for example, tunes you into the fact that it's all happening on its own, it's nature, and we don't have to interfere. And that, I think for me, the effortlessness of awareness is very powerful to try to witness as frequently as I can. Yeah, yeah. It's just so opposite of what we've always been taught.

I mean, we've been taught. You want to get something done. You do it. And the only way we know how to do mostly is by trying and creating. It's all cause and effect is what it means by its own nature. And even if quote, I interfere, what arises? If awareness keeps noticing, you notice a feeling of wanting,

wanting wants something, a leaning forward. It's an unpleasant experience. And the movement of wanting says, our habit is, well, let me get the thing I want. So I don't have to feel this unpleasant experience. That's how wanting works, keeps us going, going, inertia, right? And so then

we think, I interfered, but there was no I there. It was just again, the habit of, it's unpleasant, the wanting comes, the movement in, to trying to do, to get what I want. It's just the habit of wanting, doing its thing. And since it doesn't work, then we feel disappointed. And then there's like some aversion. And then, you know, those times in meditation that went so quickly from, oh, this receptive, effortless awareness to feeling like you're in one big knot. How did I get here? And I could never do it. And you can go like that. But what I got from Tasia Nees, once you recognize, oh, just keep noticing, what's the rising? How is the mind relating to this moment of experience?

And so I'm trying to move forward. I'm trying now. I can't get the effortless. What do I do? Instead of trying to figure out the content, widen, like the sense of the field of awareness, what's happening now? Ah, wanting. That's good enough.

We don't need to know all the particular stories you notice wanting is coloring the mind right now. In that moment awareness isn't wanting, it's noticing. And wanting is not a problem. It's just another arising experience. But once you recognize it, we're free from it. But when we don't recognize it, I know this, I know this for myself, but you learn it from watching your mind. When wanting isn't recognized, and it's driving the bus, it's coloring the intentions,

it's coloring the decisions, it's coloring perception. Once I recognize, I've been acting from wanting what I know is, I can't trust any assessment. My thinking mind is making in that moment, same with a version, same with confusion if I recognize it.

It could be right, it could be wrong, but I can't trust it because the assessments being made through wanting, I love recognizing wanting in a version when it's operating in my mind and in my heart, all through the day, because I'll be doing something, I get an email, I think, oh, well, this answer is obvious and I start to write it. And now it's getting better, maybe 50% of the time. I feel, I feel that tightness, which comes from my averse if I know it's right and let

me just explain to you why I'm right, you know? And if I can just not send it, when I read it the next day, the aversion is just screaming off the page. Maybe I was right. Maybe what I was saying was accurate, but I would never have seen it clearly without aversion. And then the next day I see all these other aspects of the situation that I wasn't able to see when the mind was narrowed and the aversioner and the wanted, you know, it just a tunnel vision. So when I see aversion, the aware mind is happy.

It's happy to see that. And you're not suffering from, you're really not, ah, aversion is like that. There's this, it's not a place, but it's how I know I'm recognizing awareness and not pretending because that sense of ease, even while the difficult situations still happening is there. And you kind of think it's there, but when it's really there, you know, it's just a second, but you really know it. Oh, yeah, right. I'm feeling disrespected. It feels like that, right?

That's what's going on. That's interesting. But it's not a problem when you're being aware of it. It kind of reminds me of something, and hopefully this is an appropriate association I'm making here, but I remember being on retreat once and realizing that if I was struggling or suffering, that inevitably meant there was something I was struggling or suffering

that inevitably meant there was something I was not being mindful of, it's as simple as that. Yep, and not even simplify it. If you're struggling, there's something you're not being mindful of, and I would bet my life is greed, hatred, or confusion in the mind. You know, we can be 360 degree awareness, I call it, that kind of relax and receptive, not trying to hone in on one thing.

But it's not as if I have to be mindful of every single thing in the environment, right? I mean, that can get to be a trip. But when I'm suffering or struggling on or off retreat. Absolutely. There's some form of holding or some form of denial, there's some form of a version or delusion making it all about me that I'm not seeing that I'm not aware of. Absolutely. If you're feeling compassion, you're not aware of it. You won't suffer. You just won't be aware of it. Right, right, right. But this explains why you got so enthusiastic when you said, I love the mind loves to see even the greed because the seeing is like a self-liberation. Absolutely, absolutely.

And that's where you move to the not-self. That seeing isn't taking it personally. It's not saying Carol has so much aversion. I mean, that's a common way we think, isn't it? And I remember very clearly, it was a moment of insight. The insight comes and goes, but you keep reliving it, where it was so clear aversion arose in a particular moment, as a cause and effect habit. You know, unpleasant, unpleasant, there was this thought, but it was a habit. And it just arose when it was seen, it went away. It wasn't anything about Carol or personal. It didn't require getting all upset about it. And in that case, it also doesn't last so long.

And so the happiness of seeing the torment, the condescent greed hatred confusion, all the happiness of seeing it. Part of that is that moment of freedom from view of self is that moment of freedom from the the narrowness of little self of personality view. You're not thinking I'm free from it, I'm thinking about it. It's just this moment of life with no self reference point back. And it doesn't matter that what awareness was noticing

was greed or aversion that really doesn't matter, awareness doesn't care. Notice, notice, see when you, you know, awareness and the, you know, the conditions just keep going rolling along. I'm sure I'm not sure, but probably for Joseph Goldstein, quote, his teacher, Minindra G, who used to say, is a very famous quotation, that life is just empty

phenomenon rolling along. Yes. But that's like not metaphorical. That is actually what is happening when you pay attention Whether we're paying attention or not The thing that's what's wonderful about the awakening of it about insights. It's not that something different starts to happen That's why they say You know that wrong perception

is what's leading to our suffering. It's not that we go to a different place. You know, we recognize more accurately how things are. So if we're in right perception, which is that it's empty phenomenon rolling on, meaning that it's a bunch of mind, moments, or mental objects that are insubstantial in and of themselves that just keep going and going and going forever, that

just knowing that that's the truth instead of our solid movie of, I have a good person, that person's a bad person, whatever, there's freedom in that. It doesn't have to be that complicated. I'm just trying to help listeners grasp it consistently. As you talk about it, that might be a way of explaining it. Yes. But I actually have a rather simple mind. I'm not very philosophical, which I only discovered to my chagrin, quite late in life. I hang out with all these philosophical types and I suddenly realize, oh, I can't keep up with these guys.

And they're mostly guys. And I'm not saying it's better. I'm just saying it's different. But lines were simple, but as I said before, that it's moment to moment. So in a moment, right perception doesn't have to be all of that description. It's simply a moment of being present

without the veil of greed or aversion or putting a story of me on it. It's just a moment, right? I said, it's just a moment of, as Ajahn Simeido says, it's like this now. You don't have to make the story into that whole emptiness, phenomena rolling on, but in that moment, oh, oh, not being respected feels like this. In that moment, all that stuff we were talking about is happening. You don't have to think that. You don't have to believe that or not believe it.

In just that simple moment of letting go of the attachment to wanting it different and being fully present with it as it is, that moment of clear perception without confusion or greed or meaning. That's a moment of clear perception without confusion or greed or mean. That's a moment of freedom. Shocking that I would over complicate anything, but it's impressive for that. That's what we all do. And when I say it's so simple, people go, yeah, right, you know.

Coming up, Carol Wilson explains the crunch place and how to deal with that crunch place with awareness. And she talks about a different way to think about the practice of generosity after this. Life is short and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What does happiness really mean? How do I get the most out of my time, you're on earth? And what really is the best cereal? These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast. Life is short with Justin Long. If you're looking for the answer to deep philosophical questions, like, what is the meaning of life? I can't really help you. But I do believe that we really

enrich our experience here by learning from others. And that's why in each episode, I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists, scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life. We explore how they felt during the highs and sometimes more importantly, the lows of their careers. We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times, but if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats between friends about the important stuff.

Like, if you had a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Follow life is short wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to Add Free on the Amazon Music or Wondering App. When you say the story of me or seeing not self, let me see if I can overcomplicate things by trying to put that into words. Now, we have to talk about it, we have to talk about it.

We have to talk about it. Okay. So, when I see the feeling of being disrespected, I can drop me being disrespected in all the stories I have about why I'm always the one who's being disrespected and why do I always put up with this stuff? And just notice the physical and mental phenomena that arise in that moment. Doesn't mean I disappear and that I don't exist and don't need to wear pants or go to the dentist. Just means that I can see that this is impersonal at some fundamental level.

Okay, that's your basic mindfulness. Just being fully present with present moment experience as it is. That would be your basic mindful of the instruction for being with an emotion, right? So feeling disrespected feels like this. Just let your attention be fully with the physical experience of it, which is not even a label at that point, you know, it might be some tingling, it might be some hardness, or the heart might be pounding. There might be a kind of a, like a cloud, a mental feeling cloud of kind of heaviness or tightness or glue or something, just to try and describe it,

just a kind of ugh feeling. And that's what's happening, right? And then being present with that, you're not thinking me or not me or anything, but all that story about past and future and what if and back then, it's just not arising in that moment. But it requires that balance, that trust to be fully present with an unpleasant physical emotional experience, right?

Just present there. There's not about me or not me, but then if you notice, you keep paying attention, and then the thoughts do start coming, because that's the how, oh yeah, well, why did they disrespect me? It's because I'm a woman, it's because, you know, and whatever particular story gets going, that can also be met with mindfulness. And then that also, if awareness is noticing that story, it also isn't personal, right? That's the habit that comes. But at some point for most of us,

that noticing those thoughts stops and it's kind of like our energy of attention goes into believing those thoughts. It is true. I am a woman and this and that did happen. And the feelings get stronger of unhappiness and we sort of know they're there, but we're really in it. We're really identified with it at that point.

And that's what I call the story of me. Does that make sense? You could have the same thoughts and watch that they come and go, they won't last very long. But then we suddenly lose the awareness and we're really in it and it kind of just keeps feeding. Keeps feeding. It does make sense.

I can imagine some people saying, well, since you invoked sexism, the movie, maybe it's unsubstantial at some fundamental level, but we are still living in this movie in some ways. And so sexism is a thing that we need to be aware of and deal with. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. This is always kind of like the, it's the crunch place, you know, because it's absolutely true.

I think we said this earlier, where I was saying, you know, the Buddha, he's teaching us ways to understand how suffering is arising in our own heart and mind. And then that will affect how we relate and interact in the world. So all the teachings of the Buddha and meditation and techniques can't change the fact that sexism exists and they're not denying that sexism exists.

The way we're describing is helping us see how when I walk into a situation where I see sexism, if I have a sense of understanding how it triggers anger or feeling disrespected and how if I don't recognize it, I get more angry and then I'll react with anger and then that person reacts with anger and then we're budding heads or there's no communication. That's one way. We have to, as we practice and learn to trust more that I can, using the same example,

see how when the feeling of disrespect is there, the story's about it because I'm a woman come up. And I can see those stories running, see how it affects feeling disrespect and be able to be aware without getting triggered by that. And then if you stay with it, what really comes when the torment goes, when the aversion, when the self-justification and all isn't there. That's when the beautiful qualities arise. These are the equanimity or clear seeing or compassion. So you can walk into a situation where there's sex, you feel your own reactions come up, but it's met with clear seeing and even some compassion. Oh yeah, that's really suffering. And enough awareness that I can either keep my mouth shut

until I can respond in a way that's actually connecting with the person, or at least not responding out of anger. And that comes from awareness of really seeing this pattern and how it's running in this personality. Without that, we just can make the whole situation worse. So it really, that's the thing with these teachings and with meditation, it's starting from the inside out.

It's all about how we respond and relate in the world. But it all starts from this. Tiktok Nhat Han was saying, I'm just listening to this the other day, you know. You can't bring peace to other people if you can't find peace within your own mind and heart if you can't find peace with your own difficult emotions. So, but it's not a piece of pushing them down and pretending we don't feel them or judging ourselves.

It's actually welcoming them into the light of awareness. It's just kind of weird, but that's that, you know, happier to see it than not. I wanna go back to the beginning of our conversation because I started out by asking you about something you had said to me before, we started rolling about the kind of two aspects of practice. The second was just kind of holding things in awareness. And the first was, I made a note about like every

day techniques for changing our mental habits that lead to suffering. Have we covered both of those because I didn't carefully delineate? I didn't talk a lot about the first one. Okay, please. When we're leading these retreats that are really about practicing just whatever's arising arises without any judgment and awareness is noticing. So in the retreat, you're not trying to stop greed. You're not trying to say greed is bad. I've got to feel meta, you know, because that's just more aversion.

We're not doing that. But there's other ways to continue to choose beauty, or choose love, or choose compassion, you know, not just wait for the steadiness of awareness to reveal how much suffering there is. So for example, practicing generosity. I mean, when the Buddha taught, he always started teaching lay people with Donna, which is generosity, Sela, which is conscious conduct, non-harming conduct, and then Bavana, mental cultivation, mental development. All are working to, I know this is a weird word, and you can purify or transform the suffering habits of our mind.

So generosity, which I learned a lot from all the years I've been going every year to Myanmar, to Burma, it's really deep in the culture, is it like the thing I learned growing up? It's good to be generous, it's wonderful, in the culture. Is it like the thing I learned growing up? It's good to be generous. It's wonderful. And we should because we have more. That's true. But the generosity that Donna has practiced is this sense of the joy that arises

when we really open it off or something, whatever it is, just a smile to actually allow one's awareness to feel that open-hearted, just that openness for me to share, there's a happiness there. That's wholesome. That's different from feeling, oh I'm writing out this check because I'm so generous for this still all about me and should. But the offering of generosity is just a sort of here. Have this flower. It's not about the thing. If you tune in to that wholesome motivation,

and it makes you happy, and makes you want to be more generous, and it makes it easier. And this is actually cultivating the wholesome as opposed to holding on, as opposed to clinging. The Buddha said, there's one sutra where he said, when your mind's all caught up and you can't kind of see clear my language. One of the practices you can do is sit down in your home, when you're at work, whatever you're

doing, and reflect on your past acts of generosity. Actually remember, and you're not remembering, I'm so great, you're remembering the happiness that came with that and he says when you're reflecting on your generosity and Similar to non-harming conduct your mind your heart is going straight It's not clouded by passion. It's not clouded by a version or fear this headed towards the Dhamma Well, we can alter that you know the Buddha always started teaching to lay people with that. Similarly, with giving attention to our motivations

for action, of course, the five lay precepts of not killing, not stealing, not harming ourselves or others with our sexual activity, not lying, or using harsh speech or divisive speech, and not indulging in any kind of intoxicants that cloud the mind to the point of causing heedlessness. Those could just be seen as rules to be a good person. But if you dive into them from the motivation, of course, we're all going to blow it. It's not that. But it's good to have a lie. And yes, you don't kill people.

You don't kill animals. OK, that's a good line to have. When you come off against it, something to remind us. But to give awareness, again, without judgment to our motivations, and when you do some little thing, you take a spider outside instead of just sweeping it away. I'm not thinking I'm so great, but just feel, oh, it just feels nice. Feel that. Tune into it. Just the happiness of non-harmonic. The sense of,

don't try to say, oh, I feel so connected to the universe. Don't make up a story. But just feel like the lack of aversion, you know, the lack of separation. When you start to talk bad about a third person because it makes the two of you who are talking feel closer together. Have you ever noticed that? How much of gossip is like that? You start and then you realize what you're doing and you just stop. That's all you don't say you're so big, just stop. Feel how it feels to refrain from acting in a way that causes harm to others who want some. It feels light. It feels happy. There's not create an aversion in the mind. So these are ways of training and you can't do them without awareness. Awareness slips in there everywhere. It's very sneaky. You're just noticing what you're doing. Those are two basic,

sneaky. You're just noticing what you're doing. Those are two basic, very available. It just means we're willing to pay attention to what we're doing. And it's not an ego thing. It's different from an ego thing to recognize the happiness of wholesome non-harming activity. The Buddha, like I said, really emphasized that. When you go to bed at night, you know, a lot of Tibetan teachers talk a lot about looking at your motivations through the day. At the end of the day, stop and reflect on all the little good things you did in the day, little things. You recycled little stuff that helps the planet a little bit. You know, you went to visit a sick friend. You didn't have to and then I was sick, but you were happy to do that. You did a little shopping for somebody else. You refrained from writing a nasty email, even though clearly you were completely right and they were completely wrong. For moments, another thing is gratitude.

Ajahn Sainteh said once that he thinks gratitude and contentment are very supportive conditions for awakening. I love doing gratitude practice. Just at night, again, start thinking about all the things we can be grateful for. I know people listening are all over the place and many in much more difficult situations than I am sitting here. But for me, it's endless once I start what I can be grateful for. I had the good fortune to meet the Dharma in my lifetime. It can be big things. Start with gratitude and again it brings this joy to the heart and we can appreciate have one friend who told me she said she's very versed and she's older woman she's been trying to practice gratitude and she's so pleased because she wakes up in the morning and all her life she's

walking up with cold feet and now sometimes when she wakes up in her feet or warm, she thinks, Oh, I'm so grateful for warm feet. She says, it sounds silly, but it changes the mental atmosphere, it changes the weather pattern in your mind. From all on, another grumpy day to all. I'm so grateful, I'm getting up with warm feet and nourish, you know, it's much more likely to arise in the next moment. So those are just a few things off the top of my hand. Loving kind of practice, compassion practice, all those things. Let me just see if I can send this up again, just to make sure I've got it and to give you an opportunity to expand where I may not have gotten it. We have these habits of mind that are deeply ingrained, including greed, hatred, and confusion about the way things are. And in moments where we're getting

caught up in those ancient and often pernicious habits, there are a bunch of moves we can make that can help untie the knot, including love and kindness practice, generosity, gratitude, ethical conduct that can jar us out and into something more productive. Yes, that can be. It depends how caught up we are. So you can do, say, gratitude practice, you do a moment of gratitude very sincerely. This is again, back to that, If you really want to move ahead, but you really want it, you can't move ahead.

Same thing, same thing. I'm going to say I'm grateful that bombs aren't falling for me because I feel aversive and I want it to go away. I'm grateful, I'm grateful. It has to be sincere, even just for a moment. But yes, but not only when we're caught up. There's plenty of time when we're just kind of neutral, just kind of dulling out a little bit,

or just kind of la, la, la sitting around, cultivate the wholesome in those moments, and it'll be much more available as you describe it caught up moments, you know? Much more available. So at first when we're really caught up, if we even just recognizing we're caught up moments, you know, much more available. So at first when we're really caught up, if we even just recognizing we're caught up, that's awareness. You've already taken a step out of identification into awareness. Appreciate that. That's already a disentangling moment.

And the more you practice them, like say loving kindness practice, we can do that as an intensive practice, not just when we're a versive, but just I'm going to do a week of loving kindness, right? Whatever comes up. And then I find the next week that it's more available. A situation might come up where your mind starts to be aversive. And before it even goes, are you think, oh, let me change the channel to loving kindness. And it really doesn't. It really does it. You're not like wrenching it away, but because you've stricted that muscle, it's much more available. Coming up, Carol Wilson, on the concept of total presence,

why the real source of suffering is making it all about you, and the vast power, often pernicious power of the habitual mind. That's after this. You've been practicing for a non-trivial amount of time. And I'm just curious, does it work? Yes. I don't honestly can't imagine my life without it because it's been, you know, all of my adult life since I was 19. Absolutely.

Everything I've said is like, it's, it doesn't work in the sense that we have, I'm going to do this and have this insight in that everything's okay from now on. It's moment to moment, as I've been talking about, for the rest of your life, that never stops. The empty phenomenon don't stop rolling along, but it gets more and more clear. The wisdom gets more available. The suffering gets more obvious,

and it really decreases. Absolutely. I mean, your personality doesn't get that different. But it doesn't matter so much anymore. Yes, there's so much more ease. There's so much more willingness, understanding. When I'm really caught up these days, I can get caught up easily, more easily with politics, with any of the suffering in the world, pick any of the 50 different countries right now that there's immense suffering. And I read about it, it's just almost unbearable. And then I remember, yes, this is what it is right now. Instead of pushing, this takes the fate of omeliers of practice to open into that sorrow. And in that awareness, there really is a sense of freedom from it.

I can't believe when that happens. I'll remember another time and try and make it happen. I'm trying to make it happen because I don't want to feel the suffering and it doesn't work. It can fail. So yes, it does work, but it's not a short-term thing. And it's never what we think is going to be. And the happiness, from my understanding,

and my limited understanding that the Buddha's offering us, is different from any happiness or normal day-to-day mind thinks of. I know this is 10% happier. It really gets to be a lot of more percent happier, but it's a different kind of happiness. But yes, in daily life, more than 10% happier, 15% happier, a lot more than a percent happier. But the real freedom is a completely different kind of happiness that is not dependent on the presence or absence of pleasant or unpleasant experience. It's not dependent on what's happening at all because that's out of our control completely. So it's a kind of a deeper faith,

totally being present, the things as they are in this moment, that's all there is. All I can know is this moment. The total presence is, you know, the third Zen patriarch poem, they used to read it and retreats all the time. Don't just remember the first line, but the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. Make the slightest distinction, whatever though, and heaven and hell are set infinitely apart. But that doesn't mean you can't tell what anything is. It just means it's all this right

now, it's all this moment, total presence. We can't do it with an act of will. Why does it make you happy? Really, because that source of suffering really are the qualities in the mind. I was a great hatred delusion. You know, the real source of suffering is making it all about me. And when I'm the centrist, Carol, relating to this, even if it's a happy experience, it's just as soon as it's not the center of everything, it's in ease. It's the happiness. There's no reference point. There's no comparing back to something else.

Happiness doesn't actually apply because that implies unhappiness. There's nothing to suffer about. It's like this. And that applies in a world that, you know, is a mess and we can't make stop being that way. Happiness is a tricky word. For me, but at different temperaments, my temperament tends more to silence and peace would be more than words I use. But other people might use the word happiness or love or connectedness or joy. Any word is just kind of coming out of our personality. But I know it sounds weird to think that that sense of me being the center is actually the thing that kind of types things up.

But a moment of that, it's available to all of us. You know, when you go out at some clear night, which isn't tonight, and look up at the stars and there's just a moment, ah, not thinking, oh, what's that star? Or, oh, I'm having a nice moment. Or if this is good, at least I'm out of the house in the kids, but just that, you know,

that sense of peace house in the kids, but just that, you know, that sense of peace or awe, whatever. That's what I'm talking about. You all know that, right? That can be with anything. It doesn't have to be incredible like the universe, the stars. That thrilling feeling of being small in a good way is, think what you're pointing at and that can even come up when you notice that greed doesn't have to have the wrapper of your stories. It can just be seen as an impersonal phenomenon rolling on. That's right. Yeah. Small in a good way or yeah, you're not the center of everything. You're not looking at everything, reflecting it back to me. It's just not there. You're not trying to get rid of it.

It's just not there. Right. You're not even small. It's just not, you're just not even pregnant. It's just not a thought at the moment. It's not things so mystical. It's an experience we all have. We're just mostly overlooked.

It's mystical in that it's hard to describe without running up into the thicket of language. It's mystical in that it's hard to describe without running up into this into the thicket of language. It's absolutely. I mean, I have been practicing a long time and it's true. I can read your here stuff now that makes total sense that, you know, 35 years ago I would be beaten by my head against the wall trying to parse it and understand it totally, believe me, totally.

I do believe you, because I've had a centilla of that experience myself. Yeah, totally, you know. And what was interesting was, I understand it because I quit trying to understand. The thing that went away wasn't that I got the answer. It was like, oh, it doesn't work like that. But you have to get that like a million times.

Oh, it doesn't work like that. So many times in my own practice, which is, you know, unspecacular, but there's so many times my practice where I'll be on day six of a retreat and banging my head up against the wall. And Joseph has to say, for the millionth time, surrender, take yourself out, just let the Dharma do what it has to do. I also heard this great expression once, stop chasing the Dharma, the Dharma's chasing you. Oh, that's nice. I like that. I like that. And it's true. We do here at 10 million times. That's okay. That's just why we're talking about habits. And I don't know if this fits in, but I've been liking it. I just remembered it lately.

I was telling her friends, said, you know, human beings, we don't like suffering, but we love the causes of suffering. Okay. Okay. Yes. I love cake, but I don't love the 30th slice sending me down the shame spiral.

So yes, that makes sense. Exactly. Yeah. And you're exactly right about, in my opinion, about we have to hear it a hundred times. I remember when I started this podcast, somebody saying, well, how many episodes can you get out of the dharma or happiness? And I say, do you think the people will just get enlightened by episode 30? And I have that can stop producing? You just need to hear it over and over from many different people or even the same person using the exact same words.

I know. You just need to keep reminding ourselves. Yes. Actually, the thing that kind of is most amazing to me, the more I practice, is the power of the habitual habits of mind. The power to just sink back in and forget. These moments are free to retake. It's so obvious when there's that moment of happiness for you. Obviously, other stuff just isn't really interesting. The other thing to think about it is clear.

It can be one hour later, five minutes later, you turn around and it's like, wow, I really hope they have been on as a breakfast or I'm really going to be upset. And how can that be? It's amazing. So yes, there are, you know, unusual beings who do see through really quickly, you know, and that's the only thing of karma and past lives or whatever. see through really quickly, you know, and that's the only thing of karma and past lives and whatever. But for most of us, we need to keep just, you know, resetting, resetting, resetting, and whatever helps us remember. That's why I said there's so many techniques. Podcasts, you know, the Buddha spent 45 years walking around India,

you know, trying to share his teachings. And according to what we know from the poly scriptures, he helped a lot of people. And he didn't help a lot of people, right? And it's been 26, 2700 years. And we just keep doing whatever we can, whatever we can. Realizing every moment, every moment, one commitment in the beginning of the day, that's what it is. It might help us the next moment, but we need to do it again. I mean, that's inspiring, but to me that seems how it is, except for some rare beating,

so that it gets steady quicker. It is inspiring, actually, and it's it's reassuring that this is a practice we're all going to mess up, but we keep practicing. Absolutely. I mean, I, well, I don't know who all you've talked to, but I can't imagine you've talked to anyone that I know who would say, oh, yes, I've got it all down. I'm completely awakened, right? No, I have not.

Yeah, right. Neither. Well, I'm very grateful Yeah, right. Neither. Well, I'm very grateful to you for making the time for this. I appreciate it. I just hope it was somehow helpful to one person. That's what I always think. Something I say helps one person. I'm happy.

10% happier. Well, I can reassure you because I'm the one person at the very least. Oh, that's very nice of you. Before I let you go, do you have a website if people want to learn more about you? They could go to the IMS website, the same meditation society, dharma.org. And as a list of all the teachers, I'm one of the guiding teachers. If you can click on my name and they take me to a list of things I'm teaching, or you can write to me care of that that care of IMS. That's it. I'm not a good

promoter. It kind of makes me like you even more. I really appreciate you doing this. Thank you very much. It's nice to be sure glad to be here. Yeah. Thanks for your time. Thanks again to Carol Wilson. Great to have her on the show. Thank you as well to everybody who makes this show a reality. Gabrielle Zuckerman, DJ Cashmere, Justin Davy Lauren Smith, our senior producer is Marissa Schneiderman, Kimmy Regler is our managing producer, and our executive producer is Jen Poient,

scoring and mixing by Peter Bonaventure of Ultraviolet Audio. We'll see you all on Friday for a bonus meditation. We'll see you all on Friday for a bonus meditation. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.