Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 495: Why Is Everyone Talking About the Enneagram? And What the Hell Is It? | Susan Piver

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

In the last couple of years, many people have been extolling the virtues of something called the "Enneagram" but—what the hell is it? On today’s show, longtime dharma teacher, Susan Piver, is here to demystify it. As she explains, the Enneagram is a tool that allows people to figure out their personality type and says it has been one of, if not the most important, tool in her personal development. Piver has been a student of Buddhism since 1995, graduated from a Buddhist seminary in 2004 and was authorized to teach meditation in 2005. In 2012, she founded The Open Heart Project— the world’s largest online-only meditation center. She’s written ten books including her latest called The Buddhist Enneagram: Nine Paths to Warriorship. In this episode we talk about:What the Enneagram is and why Piver finds it so helpfulWhat she means by warriorshipThe nine personality types, which she views as maps of our blind spotsWhy, unlike other personality systems, there is no test for the Enneagram (at least in Susan’s view)And we talk about why Susan thinks the Enneagram and Buddhism mix so well even though on first blush it would seem to contradict the dharmic emphasis on the self being an illusionFull Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/susan-piver-495See 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. Just in the last couple of years, I've been hearing so many people in my personal and professional lives. I'm talking about friends, colleagues, meditation teachers. I've been hearing so many people extoll the virtues of something called the enneagram.

These are serious people who I trust and respect and they've been telling me that the enneagram, whatever that is, has genuinely changed their lives. In these conversations, I would often nod along genuinely intrigued, but too embarrassed to admit that I actually had no idea what they were talking about. Now I do, though. TPH fan favorite Susan Piver, a long time Dharma teacher, has a new book about the overlap between Buddhism and the Enneagram, and she's here to explain. So what the hell is the Enneagram?

You may be asking, I'm going to let Susan explain it in detail, but basically it's a tool with a mysterious and murky history that allows people to figure out their personality type. I'm definitely not doing it justice, but Susan will. In fact, she says the NEagram has been one of, if not the most important tools in her own personal development, and that is saying something. For those of you who don't know, Susan has been a student of Buddhism since 1995. She graduated from a Buddhist seminary in 2004 and was authorized to teach meditation in 2005. So she's been at this for a while. She's written 10 books. Her latest is called the Buddhist Enneagram 9 Paths to Warrior Ship. In this conversation, we talk about

what the enneagram actually is and why Susan finds it so helpful. What she means by warrior ship, we do a quick tour through the nine personality types in the en so helpful. What she means by warrior ship, we do a quick tour through the nine personality types in the NEA Gram, and she views these nine types as a kind of map of our blind spots. We talk about why, unlike other personality systems, there is no test you can take to figure out where you fall on the NEA Gram,

at least that's Susan's view. And we talk about why Susan thinks the neogram and Buddhism mix so well, even though on first blush, it would seem to contradict the Dharma's emphasis on the self being an illusion. We'll get started with Susan Piver right after this. 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 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 McGonicle 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 did 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. Susan Piver, welcome back to the show. I am so happy to be here and it's great to see you Dan. Likewise, likewise. So we've never talked about the anyogram on the show before. A lot of people in my world talk to me about it. I'll be honest, I don't actually know what it is. So let's start there.

What is the anyogram? Yes, I'd be happy to tell you. And there are people that hear the word and they just light up and they're like, let's never talk about anything else but the enneagram. And then the other half of people are like, let's never talk about the enneagram. So somewhere, the Twain will meet. Enne, enne is the Greek prefix for nine. And it posits that there are nine ways of being in the world, sometimes called nine personalities, but I think it's much bigger than personalities.

So it describes nine ways of being, nine kinds of humans, nine different things, get people's attention, nine different values matter and that kind of thing. Is it Greek in derivation? In other words, did the Greeks invent the anyogram? I was so hoping you would ask that because the answer to where does the anyogram come from is unbelievably crazy. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. That's the real answer. And Dan, trust me, when I tell you, I have gone to the mat to find the answer to this question. The person in recorded history known to have taught the enneagram is George

Gergief, the Greek Armenian mystic crazy wisdom master from the 40s, 30s, 40s and 50s, I think. First person to ever mention it, but he did not discuss it as a system of personality. He talked about it as nine cycles of nature. Sounds woo-woo I know, but it really isn't. And then fast forward, like 25 years, Bolivian dude named Oscar E. Chazzo started teaching the anyogram that people who are lighting up in your world when they light up, it's from his teachings. He had a student named Claudio Naranjo who died died a couple of years ago, and turns out that he was a Buddhist in a Tibetan tradition, and a vastly important contributor to the system.

And I made up a story that I was gonna be in his neighborhood in Berkeley, California, and I was wondering if we could have a chat about the Anyogram and Buddhism, because we share those things. And he said, yes. And I went to his house and if anyone can answer this question, where does it come from, it would be him. And he did not have a clear answer. I can just leave it at that. So anyway, long story, but unknown, which I find very heartening.

We co-author the neagram in the sense. Anybody who participates in the neagram is co-author it the anyogram in the sense. Anybody who participates in the anyogram is co-authoring it. Like the Buddha Dharma, you could say. Someone wrote it, sure. Someone came up with it, but you have your view of loving kindness, for example. And I have my view of the three jewels and things that Buddhisty people might be interested in, so we're not making them up.

But there's a lot of space to have your own point of view in both systems, I would say. If the earliest recorded pedagogical embrace of the Aniagram was in the 1940s with the aforementioned Gurgif, does that seem to argue that this is not an ancient development the Aniagram that somebody in the modern world came up with it? Maybe. But when you start to, when you start to examine the system and you see how vast it is and

how nuanced and how modern, certainly, but timeless, it seems, you know, stop me if I get to Buddhists on you, please. But in the Tibetan tradition anyway, there's something called terma, T-E-R-M-A, which means treasure, mind treasure, earth treasure. And they're teachings that are discovered rather than authored. And they come into the world fully formed, so complete that you think, well, maybe you said it first, but they can't be attributed actually. And in my discussion with Claudio Naranjo, the Tibetan Buddhist practitioner and

scholar who knew very well what Teremah was, we discussed the system as a Teremah, a fully formed teaching that just seems to have been there. Now, I know that sounds we will and wizardy, but somehow it seems to be the closest to the truth. Well, let's pick up on that, the wizardry that you just referenced there. Because I suspect there are some listeners who are going to be feeling skeptical. No known author, I can't pin this on some scientific tradition or spiritual tradition or philosophical tradition. It just shows up in some guy and the 40 starts teaching it and now all these modern people are really excited about it. Is this a cult?

What's going on here? Yeah, it's not a cult. If only there was something that specific to point to or rail against or embrace, but no, it's definitely not a cult because there's no leader. My perspective on this is it's a mystical tradition. It's a mystical view. It's a mystical system. And every great wisdom tradition has a mystical branch, Kabbalah and Judaism, Sufism

in Islam and Tibetan Buddhism in the Buddhist tradition. These are the esoteric schools. The esoteric schools, great. They obviously exist too, but each one has an offshoot that is a mystical branch, and the most rife for confusion and cultic behaviors and silliness. This is a mystical tradition. That's why I wanted to write about it as a Buddhist teacher, as opposed to a psychological tool. Is that relevant in any way? Yes, it's very much, but I'll have a million more questions. I would put you on the no bullshit end of the spectrum of teachers who come on this show, you're she's bowing at me in appreciation. So why are you so into this that you've written a whole book about the

NEA Gram and its intersection with Buddhism? A whole darn book. Well, I've been studying both for the same amount of time, about 30 years. And as I do not have to explain to you, and I'm sure to many of your listeners, in our meditation traditions, there is tremendous emphasis placed on compassion, generating compassion, expressing compassion, developing more compassion in all these various ways. And there's also an emphasis on fierce presence being awake. And so we practice these things through various teachings

and study and retreats and what have you. Okay, cool. Those are great. For me personally, nothing has been more helpful in embodying those teachings than the endogram. I just used them together in my own mind for probably 25 years. I didn't really think to mention it, but I just kept noticing year after year when I want to be compassionate and I don't know how because person being a jerk or I'm grumpy or

who knows what the anyogram swoops in with a light. This is what they're trying to say. This is what is getting you upset. This is how you can include or bypass these things to connect more directly. It's an upaya, a skillful means, as they say in Buddhism, skillful means, or upaya, anything that increases compassion, which sometimes is being nice, but not always,

sometimes it's yelling, sometimes it's leaving. And nothing has helped me be more compassionate toward myself and others than the anyagrap. And because it helps me see my wiring, it helps me stay awake to my projections, which I would otherwise believe are real. So it's got extraordinary value. Does that make sense? It makes sense to me.

I want to make sure it's making sense to the listeners. Let me see if I can restate that and maybe embroider a little bit on top of it and then let you react or correct. The NEagram, since you know which of the nine you are, helps you understand what your triggers and blind spots are. And then if you can see somebody else who's being a jerk or you think they're being a jerk and you can maybe roughly place them with in one of the nine yourself and understand what their triggers and blind spots might be, what their motivations might

be. It puts things in context and perspective for you. Yes, I stopped seeing them through my own lens and see them for themselves. There is no such thing as compassion without that. So I can give you a little anecdote if that's useful. Please. So I used to work with someone a long time ago on creative projects. We were like partners on making creative things in the music business. It's so happened. I would sit in my office and think,

oh, this could be cool. Let me go tell my friend about it, my colleague, and I would tell him my idea could do this. It could look that, and he would just look at me and then tell me 10 reasons why it was a bad idea, why it would never work, what all the obstacles were, and I would slink out thinking, I'm a loser or I don't like him or whatever it was I was thinking, until I realized his point on the anyogram, which in this case happens to be a six, the first attunement is always to danger, not to possibility, not to meaning, not to emotion, points that others might attend to, to danger. So I stopped telling him my

ideas until I wanted to know what could go wrong with them, which is a place you always come to with your ideas. What are the obstacles? And he would boom, boom, boom, a genius. And it cut out this whole rigmarole of he doesn't like me, I don't like him, maybe we can never work together, gone. Because I learned how we could play to each other's strengths. So it's very simple.

And it's very down to earth. Useful. Yeah, it sounds like a tool for self-knowledge, self-emathy, self-compassion, knowledge of others, compassion and empathy, cognitive and emotional for others. Exactly. Talk about marriage, for example, which we're not talking about. We can. So helpful to me in my own marriage. I don't know how I would be able to navigate the inevitable ups and downs of a long-term relationship without these insights.

What are the types? Can you give us a quick tour of the nine types? The first thing to note, the n-gram diagram is a circle with nine numbers around it. And a good place to start is noticing that they're grouped into three, three groups of three, and according to center of intelligence, and we all have all three centers, but one of them predominates. In this case, 8, 9, and 1 are the intuitive triad. People that respond to the world based on some kind of gut instinct.

We all do that, of course, but this is predominant for these people. 2, 3 and 4 are the emotional triad. People who respond to the world, not based on feelings, but on needing to know how they feel about something before they know what it is. Like, it's not real until I know what I feel about it. That's what makes things make sense to me.

And then 5, 6, and 7, the final three are the mental triad, the people who make their way through life with knowledge and statistics and history and rhythms and patterns and they need to understand these things before the thing itself has any meaning. So that's a good way to start. I'll just tell you actually what each type pays attention to because that's simple. One's pay attention to right and wrong. It's the most important thing for them to know. My mother's a one. She always said growing up the most important thing I can teach you is to know the

difference between right and wrong. Everyone wants their kids to know that, but that was number one for her. Number two, the attention goes to need. Who needs what? And how can I support that? I'll fulfill that to get my own needs met. Three's attention goes to status. Who has it?

Where's my? Four's attention goes to meaning. What's under the surface? Five's attention goes to what is knowable, knowledge, data points, observations. Sixes, as mentioned, goes to danger. Seven's attention goes to possibility. What could happen here?

Eight's attention goes to control, dominance. I need to control things, people, whatever. And nine's the attention goes to everyone else, but themselves. They cannot find their own point of view. So the attention goes to you. So very loosely speaking, when you can see someone's arc of attention, where is it going to go? Like, my husband is a one, is going to go to right or wrong. When we get in a fight about something, my attention, I'm the fourth type goes to meaning,

what does this mean? What does this say? But if I can say to him, I see what went wrong. Even though that doesn't really matter to me, it calms the situation for him because that's what he is most concerned with. And if you can say to me, what does this mean to you? I relax because that's important to me. So it's helpful in that way to meet each other

at everyone's point of attention to meet them there. It's quite useful. Like an operator's manual for yourself and others. Exactly. It's an astonishingly accurate roadmap. As I heard you tick through the nine and I know that was just one level of each of the nine, but as I heard you tick through that,

I was thinking, well, I could hear myself in a lot of those. So I mean, don't we all have aspects of all of these? Sure, we do. We all know how to pay attention to meaning and right and wrong and control and so forth, but one of them is first. And there's further complications, as you say, it's the top level. So it needs more investigation to discover yourself. And that's one of the things that I find most interesting about the NEagram is there is no test. There is no test. People say, I took the test, I'm a three, I'm like, probably not. It's not like other personality systems like Myers-Briggs or the Colby's or Strength Finders. they have tests and they seem to be pretty accurate. There is no test here. So it requires self-reflection and investigation and more thought

than someone telling you. You have to figure it out yourself. So how did you go about figuring out your type? I ask because I'm curious and also I have this suspicion that if you describe your process, that could be a roadmap for others. I appreciate that. It took me a while to find my own type, and I'm gonna make it more complicated, and if people like complications,

they're gonna be really happy right now. If they don't, maybe not so much, but within each type, there are subdivisions. According to what the NEA Graham calls instinctual drives. Now, we all have these drives. They're instinctual, and I'll tell you what they are in a second, but for each of us, one of them predominates, and that colors the type. These are called the subtypes,

and they're much easier to find than whether you're a one or two or three, your type. First, find this piece, the subtype. Don't be mad at me, everyone. It's really complicated. But the first instinctual drive that we all have is for self-preservation. And I want to want to kill me. Self-preservation person is whether there are two or a seven or whatever is going to, let's say, professional gathering. The thoughts will be, what if it's too cold, what am I going to sleep on? I will be food I like, I better bring snacks. The second instinctual drive that we all share is called the social drive to belong

to something bigger than ourselves, whether it's a family or a political party or a neighborhood. If the social drive predominates, going to the same meeting, that person will think, how will the room be arranged? And will people be able to see me? And will people go out to eat? And if so, will they invite me? Very different than, what if I'm too cold?

I better bring layers. And the third subtype is the sexual subtype or intimate subtype, which doesn't mean I want to have sex with people all the time. It means my attention goes to one to one connections. That's the most important thing to me, whether it's a friend or a romantic relationship or a collegial. So going to the same meeting that person would think, well, there'd be someone there that I can talk to about this, who I can share this with, who will get me.

I can side-eye each other and make jokes, and those are three really different sets of concerns. And if anyone wants to find their anyogram type, I really suggest starting there, which one of those drives the strongest for you? Because my type four, I did not want to have anything to do with. Nothing rang any bells for me with that type. Until I read about the self-preservation four, as opposed to the social for or the sexual for, that rang every bell.

Self-preservation for in this system is called reckless don't-less. It's an emotional type that thinks that emotional meaning will never become clear. So I'm going to kamikaze my way through my life, take risks, destroy my life, build a new one. When I was young, that's what I did. I just took a lot of chances, a lot of risks, destroy my life, build a new one. When I was young, that's what I did. I just took a lot of chances, a lot of risks,

from an emotional, a lack, a sense of emotional lack. Now, until I figured that out, I never would have found my type. So my suggestion is take all the tests, even though there is no good test, take all the free tests, start to see if some numbers come up. Then put that aside,

think about your subtype, your instinctual drive, which one is strongest for you. Then put those things together, these numbers that seem to come up, and then the subtype within those numbers. So seven comes up a lot, and you think your socialtype, just read about social seven. And you can skip a lot of craziness that way. Coming up Susan Piver on why she thinks the Anyogram has become so hot recently, whether you can change your Anyogram type and what she means when she uses the big word liberation after this. Hey, I'm Ares, and I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wundery's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities

the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about drag icon RuPaul Charles. After a childhood of being ignored by his absentee father, Rue goes out searching for love and acceptance. But the road to success is a rocky one. Substance abuse and mental health struggles threatened to veer Rue off course. In our series, Rue Paul Bornnaked, we'll show you how Rue Paul overcame his demons and carved out a place for himself as one of the world's top entertainers,

opening the doors for aspiring queens everywhere. Follow even the rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app. Why do you think this has gotten so popular? Hmm, that's a really good question. It had a spate of popularity in the 90s, the early mid 90s, which is probably when I found it, and then it receded, and then somehow the Christian world embraced it, and the Protestant Christian world, because early on the Catholic world embraced it way in the very beginning. It spoke to the

Jesuits and Franciscans in particular, and then the Pope issued a fatwa against the Enneagram and that ended. But somehow the Protestant world embraced it. And that is part of what's made it popular in some circles. And it's very, very popular there. And most of the best-selling books of the last five years have been in light of Christian values.

And I think it started to spread from there. And it has become like, why did meditation become popular, you know, relatively speaking. Some combination of news and science and your friends and social media and then you try it and it works or it doesn't. Anyogram just came back into the Gestalt and it explains things so well. And it gives you a way to own what you may think is damaged about yourself as a gift of some kind. So who doesn't want that? I want to get back to some of the technical stuff

about the types which you were talking about in a very interesting way. And I have more questions, but I do want to pick up when you just said right there about our attitudes toward ourselves. You had a conversation with one of my colleagues before this interview, and you said something, and I'm going to quote you back to you that really stuck out to me, Dan practices, you said in a teravata world, which means that my teachers

are old school Buddhists, Susan practices in a Tibetan world, which is one of the later schools of Buddhism. These two schools have in common loving kindness, slash compassion, and fierce presence. Those are difficult things to accomplish. We think the ability to do so as a result of will, of thoughts, of thinking, but it's not. It's the result of relaxing fully and seeing these things are already there. What prevents us from relaxing this way is self-hatred. Please say more. I'm so happy that that was picked up on, and by

we, I meant we humans, not we teravodins or weed-to-bentons. Yeah, it's such a big topic, and it makes me sad. Compassion, as you know, must begin with yourself. You have find a way to feel compassion for yourself. In the traditional loving kindness sequence you start with yourself and you wish yourself well. Then you go to a loved one, a benefactor, a stranger, an enemy, and so on, all beings. My guess is when the Buddha taught this practice 2600 years ago, it was like this is going to be hard for people. They don't like their

enemies. They don't want to wish them well. Let's start with the easy one. Let's start with you because who doesn't like themselves? And now 2600 years on, I think that's actually the hardest to feel softness towards yourself. For whatever reason, we're raised in a culture that says you need to do better. You're not good enough. So and so is doing better. We have what I call, I think I made this up, image poisoning that want to appear to be more successful, more beautiful, more powerful. And whenever you get to that point, it's not enough, and there's just constant driving forward.

And the ability or the invitation to soften towards yourself is frightening. But if we can't do that, we can't do it. So, you can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it.

You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it.

You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it. You can't do it within you, directed toward you. And most of us, I've certainly put myself in the front of this list, I've been conditioned to really not like myself, not good enough.

So how do I navigate that invitation from the practice of loving kindness when I have this sense that if I like myself, I'm going to fall apart. The whole thing's going to fall apart. I just have to keep driving forward. Do you really do that at all? Yeah, I mean, I think the core thesis of this book that I've been working on myself for more than four years now and it doesn't appear to be close to done is, and I think about this a lot, is that there's this kind of counterintuitive and a little bit cheesy process whereby learning to love yourself actually turns down the volume on self-centeredness and makes you more available and more effective for everything and everybody else.

Full agreement, and I'm excited to read your book, by the way, whenever it arrives, which I'm sure it will, but I know how frustrating it is. Yeah, it seems like we're told either from our religious culture or our culture culture, you come last. You have to put others first. And if you put yourself first, bad things are going to happen. So often people get into this diametric opposition. It's either you or me because it can't be both. And I don't know where that came from, but there's some sense that if I like myself, I'm being stupid. So then where do we go from there when it comes to compassion for others?

It's very hard. As is sometimes said, it's hard to pour from an empty cup. So let's bring it back to the neogram. I imagine what you're saying here is that understanding your type turned down the volume on self-hatred. First of all, it's very obvious if you're part of a type that there are other people like you. You're not malfunctioning. This is just a way of being the world. And I think there's this phenomenon. I don't know if there's a name for it where we catch ourselves having a thought or an urge or an impulse, maybe even a whole emotion.

And we then tell ourselves a whole story about how we're a bad person because we just had this, you know, shutter inducing moment of bigotry or we're judging somebody or we're planning a homicide or whatever it is that's just happening in the mind, uninvited, of course. And then we tell ourselves a whole story about how horrible we are because of that. I would imagine the anyogram relieves a lot of that pressure. You're so right. And I'll give you an example. For me, my type, four, on the emotional

triad, but for twos, all the emotional energy goes out. Always trying to make contact with others. This will all connect in a moment. For three, they're numb to their emotional energy. They can't find it. So they're very status oriented because if you don't know how you feel, you only have appearances to go on for my type. All the emotional energy is held in. Everything that happens out here is felt as something that happens in here, which is incorrect, of course. So if you hold two tuning forks in your hand and you hit one against the table, and people

don't know what a tuning fork is, Google it. If you hold one, then the other one will start to vibrate. And that's what it's like to go through life as a four. It can be extremely empathic because of that and extremely self-absorbed because of that. So for many years, I was very upset with myself for not being a good friend. I just lost friends because I'm not the kind of friend who to hang out. I don't like to hang out. I don't like to have chitchat. I don't let's go do something. Everything in me goes, I don't want to do that. And I don't. And I made myself because I'm like, this is how people demonstrate friendship. They go two things together. They call and how are you doing? I never do

things like that. And I very upset with myself. Then when I realized I was a four, and I saw what my gift for friendship was, which is not that. My gift is, if you're being born or dying, call me. I won't be there. Because the fours are interested in emotional complexity and pain and complications, they're drawn to it. So, I'm not drawn to it from a cavalier sense, but if you are being born or dying, my type can stand with you without blinking. That's a gift. So, I'm like, okay, that's how I am as a friend. And from then on, I wouldn't tell people that if you're being born or dying, call me, but I would tell people who I love. I'm not so good at hanging out, but I'll be there for you.

I'll be there for you. I promise you. And that is just one pretty small example of how I let myself off the hook for this thing that my world was telling me I should do, but I didn't want to do. Let's go back to the types. As I understand it, each type has, and these are some terms of art here, an idealization and avoidance and a virtue. What does that mean? All of that terminology. Yeah, the idealization, the best thing you can be, and I'm happy to run

them through. The avoidance, we don't want that. The virtue has a corollary, which is called in the anyogram system, the passion. Passion here means not good passion, but it's the grasping. It's where your grasping lives. And the virtue is what it liberates into. Upon relaxation, not upon application of will. So let's say, well, let's talk about type 9. The idealization is I am comfortable. Everybody wants to be comfortable. But the idealization idealization is I am comfortable. Everybody wants to be comfortable. But the idealization for four is I am special. Which always makes me laugh. My husband sees me all down and don't see goes, but you know, you're very special. I fall for it every time.

For him, type one, the idealization is I am right. So I am comfortable, I am right, I am special. Those are different. The avoidance for nine is conflict. I don't want that. And we've all known people, or perhaps we are, the person that will go way out of our way to avoid conflict. For me, the avoidance for the avoidance is ordinariness. Many people want an ordinary life, they want family, I don't know what a job. No, not force. That would be horrible. And for type one, the avoidance is being incorrect. So most of us are like, yeah, we're always incorrect.

But one ninth of us, it's like a death knell. So each type has a passion and a virtue for nine, the passion is sloth, laziness. The virtue is right action. How do you move from one to the other? That's what the NEagram system is quite brilliant at. Each type has a talking style. Each type has a fixation.

It's like a catalog of terms and concepts that help you see yourself. Not as good or bad, but as you. It's really helpful. In this system, are you supposed to change? No. You aren you supposed to change? No. You aren't supposed to. And in this system, you can't. You are this type.

But if you ever look at the diagram, you see there are arrows pointing back and forth to different numbers. And those are called arrows of integration and disintegration. Although other modern and A-gram teachers want to do away with those words, because they think they're too judgy or something, but I like them. So one, there's an arrow pointing to seven.

That's the integration point. So when ones become super one great, they're all comfortable being ones, they move through the ceiling of their greatness and take on the high qualities in this case of the seventh type. And there's a second arrow pointing at four when things don't go their greatness and take on the high qualities in this case of the seventh type. And there's a second arrow pointing at four when things don't go their way and they go to their defenses and they don't work. They disintegrate through the floor and take on the low qualities of four in this case. So there's a lot of movement around the circle, but you are one type.

It's just very upsetting for certain people to hear, like, don't put me in a box. But, Tan, I don't know about you. I'm in a box. I already am in a box. And I would rather see it than say, don't give me a box. Let me see the box. I already put myself in. So the answer to whether you can change is actually, I know when a yes.

No, you can't change to another type. But yes, you can improve within your type. Absolutely. And you can't change to another type, but yes, you can improve within your type. Absolutely. And you can improve even within another type. It's like if you're born in Newton Massachusetts, let's say pulling a town out of my hat, you're never not going to be from Newton Massachusetts. For better or worse. But you can move to China, you can move to New York City. Are you ever going to be not from Newton? No, but you're going to have all these other influences too. It's kind of like that. So I can rise to the highest qualities of my type and I can even take on the virtues of

other people's types. There's self-development. There's cultivation that can happen within your type, but you're not going to, you know, all of a sudden jump from a nine to a three-hole hog. No. And the journey, and this is another corollary with Buddhist thought, you know, and some people like the journey is to self-improvement

and God knows, let's have some self-improvement. I love that. But the journey really is to liberation, liberation from personality, liberation from type. And unless you know where you start on that journey, it's very hard to take the first step. A lot of people come on the show and use that word liberation, and I always ask, what do you mean on that journey, it's very hard to take the first step. A lot of people come on the show and use that word liberation,

and I always ask, what do you mean by that? Yeah, I'm so glad you asked. I'd love to hear everybody's answers. I don't know as an unliberated person. I don't know. But I think what it means is free of the cycle of suffering, free of, if you're a Buddhist, birth and death and all that whole cycle, free from suffering, free from suffering, not because you've decided to be

happy, but because you see things clearly as one interdependent. I don't know, this is what I heard. For sure, it's true, but I have not accomplished it. What do you mean? When you say liberation? I don't use the word very much. That's not because I've made some conscious choice. It's not because I know so much that I've decided, you know, after a lot of deliberation not to use the word, it's just that I usually avoid terms that can be misconstrued as grandiose and also I don't know as much as you do, so I don't know what the word actually means.

And also, I don't know as much as you do, so I don't know what the word actually means. No, I don't know about that last part. I don't know about that last part. Well, let's say liberated from small mind. That one works for me. I liberated from my small mind view. I can see things in a bigger way. Coming up Susan talks about why,

despite what you may think, finding your anyagram type is totally in sync with the Buddhist concept of the self-being and illusion. We also talk about how the anygram can be useful in finding your blind spots and whether it's possible to break the anyagram. After this. In Buddhism, and again, reminder to listeners, Susan's new book is about the melding, the mixology between Buddhism and the neogram. In Buddhism, there's a lot of talk about the self at some ultimate level is an illusion or the other term that's used a lot is not self.

In other words, you can look at anything that's coming up in your mind and see if you can claim it as yours and you can't, which is a healthy investigation. So how does dumping yourself in a type jive with the notion that there is no self? That's such a great question. J'adore that question. That was French Dan. That's French for anybody who took Spanish in high school. So yes, there is the whole idea of no self in Buddhism. So why would you just paraphrasing what you just said, why would you spend any time in investigation of which

self is you, of the nine, if there is no self? OK, however, I see you. You're right there. You're right there. And I'm right here. So my understanding of no self doesn't mean you're not there. And I'm right here. So my understanding of no self doesn't mean you're not there and I'm not here. It means there's no independent self, no self independent of causes and conditions that arose before you because of your parents, their grandparents, their diet, karma, whatever it

might be, there you are. Dan, here I am, Susan, we're right here. But we don't exist independently of those causes and conditions that gave rise to us, though we think we do. I think I do. So, okay, that's interesting, and there are countless schools of Buddhism, unless you just alluded that say, look for that self. Is it your finger? Is it where did your thought come from? Where does it go? Very useful. But as beings who may want to understand the truth of no self, it does not help to go, you're not here. Or let me pretend there's no self,

because I read it, that will not serve. Have to start somewhere with the absolute concepts and the absolute realm, no self concepts and the absolute realm no self and the absolute realm only compassion and the absolute realm pure beingness. Well, we can't just jump on a train and go there or pretend to be there. If it was here, this is what it'd be like. You have to start on the relative plane because truth in the Buddhist view and many other views, I'm sure, exists simultaneously in the relative and the absolute realm. It's very hard to start with the absolute unless you just have some dream or you get some insight, but we can start with the relative.

Let me start with examining who am I? Let me start with understanding this person to some degree and trust that that self-investigation will initiate a process that could lead to a more absolute form of knowing, which PS is impossible because there's no nowhere, no knowing, and nothing to be known. But we have to start with where we are. And I see this all the time in my Buddhist world and in myself and in students and so on.

If we start by saying, I don't want any of that. I'm just going to bypass that being human, getting angry, falling in love, having attachments because Buddha said don't do that, which he didn't. That leaves you in a very ungiving place. So I hope that made sense. We have to start with the relative truth and then navigate toward higher understandings, I would say. Some of this terminology around relative and absolute, maybe new to some people, but in Buddhism that we talk a lot about, the relative truth, which is, you know, the day-to-day consensual reality in which we all operate. I'm me, Susan, Susan, you, the listener are you,

you have a body, you look and marry, you see your face, you have to make dense disappointments, put your pants on, whatever. So you are you in some very sort of ordinary day-to-day relative truth. Ultimately though, or in an absolute way, you can think about it like quantum physics. The chair you're sitting in right now, or the sneakers on your feet, or whatever may look like a chair, or may look like sneakers, but put it under a high, high, high powered microscope, you're going to see spinning subatomic particles, which are mostly space. And so, is it ultimately a chair, or a sneaker, or is it ultimately these spinning subatomic particles? Same with yourself, if you look in your mind

onto the microscope of mindfulness, you will see a bunch of spinning thoughts and urges and emotions and sensory inputs and you can't claim any of it as yours. But given these two descriptions of the world of reality, what I hear you saying is, yeah, so the Anyogram really is on a relative level. We need to start with the fact that we do exist. We do have these patterns and it's great to understand them. And then we can use this tool to get us to the absolute or ultimate truth. Yes, there are some neogram teachers, mostly from the Advaita or the non-dual tradition that say the neogram is who you are not.. That's a very helpful way to look at it.

What does that mean? Your blind spots. It points to your blind spots. What you can't see about yourself. If you want to know what those are, the anyogram will tell you what you can't see about yourself. If you don't want to know, don't look. A simpler way of saying it, a better way of saying it is it uncovers your patterns, as you said already, and covers your patterns as you said already,

and covers your patterns that you think are real. And you know, this may be off topic, but in your examination of loving kindness, I won't call it a book because no pressure. You know, there's relative loving kindness and absolute loving kindness. And relative is, you know, be kind, think of others, try to do helpful things. And much more than that, of course, but absolute loving kindness is a recognition of emptiness of what we were just talking about, the non-separate existence of all phenomena. Now, how do those things relate?

How does this being a good person relate to, I dwell within emptiness? I don't know. But without this relative one, it's very hard to approach the absolute view. I'm getting too wordy maybe, but you know what I mean? Well, I think I might be able to answer it. I'll give you an answer and it may reflect my lack of understanding, but I actually find

that emptiness, which is another way to talk about no self or not self or the fact that the self is an illusion in that there is no independent homunculus of you in your mind behind your eyes. You can't find some core nugget of Susan or Dan there that it's all who we are right now is dependent upon a vast set of contingencies and causes and effects stretching back to the Big Bang and beyond.

But that actually does lead to compassion, I think, because I can look at somebody who I think is being a jerk and realize, well, there's this whole fluxing gumbo of causes and conditions that led up to this very moment where they're doing this thing of which I disapprove. And by the way, if I was in their mind right now, I might be doing the exact same thing. So that, to me, is how the relative and the absolute intersection when it comes to compassion, if I'm thinking about this correctly. Interesting. My sense is everything you described is the relative loving kindness,

extended, expanded, evolved. But the recognition of emptiness, which no one can explain because nobody understands it, is some sense of self-liberating into non-separate self. All one, whatever people call it, with the great Buddhism bodhisattvas, have recognized is there is no path, no wisdom, no attainment, no non-attainment to quote the heart sutra. There's just this. And that is as far as I've been taught, some way of defining absolute loving kindness is just this. I don't know, I don't know, but I'm interested. I don't understand it either. And I've probably demonstrated that in a full some way just now. So let's just go back to the anyogram for a second.

Can you do it wrong? Can you do it wrong? Can you do it wrong? That's a great question. You can certainly get your type wrong. You can certainly misuse it absolutely. And the misuse is you use it to ghettoize other people and put a label on them and stick them in a box and go, I get who you are and what you're going to do. Therefore I am triumphant and poor you.

That's a horrible use. It cannot be used for your own self-aggrandizement or to manipulate others. And it can be quite a tool for manipulation. So yeah, that is wrong. One of the rules I was taught in the NEGRAM is you shouldn't type other people. And I agree with that,

because nobody really knows only that person. But I can't help it. I hear things, I, oh, that's that. So I say to myself, instead, I feel the energy of three. I feel the energy of six, whatever it is, not year of six. And then the anti-gram is getting so popular, Dan. And this is hilarious. Sure one Williams, the renowned paint company, has now a series of paints by any gram color. If you're a three, you should paint your house like this.

I'm pretty sure that's not the best use of the system. And there's all sorts of memes and what if two orders at Starbucks and stuff like that? Okay, there's nothing wrong with that. But it's not a way of cataloging people so that you can write them off. Have you ever heard of anybody breaking the anyogram and that you just can't put them in one of the nine buckets? Yes, I have found people in my life, most particularly my own meditation teacher. I'm the last 25 years or 30.

I couldn't figure it out. I did, but it took me like 10 years, 12 years. My own father, I found very hard. So sometimes I think the closer you are to someone, the harder it is to see. The talking style is almost always the giveaway, by the way. My talking style is called lamentation. One talking style is called preaching. So you can hear it often.

But anyway, yeah, people have broken the enneagram in the sense that you can't find them. And the more processed a person is, meaning the more practiced and the more they've worked with their projections, certainly the harder it is to type them. Your book is called the Buddhist enneagram, Nine Paths to Warrior Ship. What is Warrior Ship? Well, in the Buddhist tradition I was trained in, there's a notion of warrior ship. And it's not like someone who goes to battle necessarily.

It's more like someone who will tell the truth with compassion, someone who will advocate for sanity. And the prerequisite for being a warrior is to not be afraid of yourself. A warrior is one who is not afraid of themselves. So where do you start there? How do you not be afraid of yourself? I'm to this, I'm not enough that. Well, I found that the Enneagram described nine ways, nine kinds of warriors, nine ways to stop being afraid of yourself, nine ways to embrace yourself so that you can embrace others. I'm going to quote you back to you on this same subject and see if you have more to say.

This is from your book. With the Anyagram, we untether ourselves from the merciless treadmill of self-improvement, side note to say, I like that verbiage. We untether ourselves from the merciless treadmill of self-improvement to see what is already perfect in ourselves and in others and in every moment. This is a warrior's journey. It takes courage to look at what we cannot see under normal circumstances. Thank you.

I like her whoever wrote that. No, yeah, I think it does take courage. And as we sort of were talking about at the very beginning, there are wisdom traditions, spiritual and psychological and philosophical that point very clearly down the road to self-improvement and that often extremely wise and valuable. This is how we can stop being traumatized. This is how we can stop being impatient, whatever it might be. But then there are other traditions that say, this is how you can go beyond conventional mind and see the wisdom of this world and yourself

and the truth of being human. And those are not conventional points of view. We need something else. So when I say, what is perfect in every moment, I don't mean everything is awesome and you're great, although everything is awesome and you are great. It means everything's real and graspable and itself. And that's the spiritual journey, I think, in some way. Do you say more about being afraid of yourself? Yeah, I appreciate that. My fear of myself and everybody has their own version is all the things. I'm afraid I'm not good enough. I'm afraid I will fail. I'm afraid

that who I am is not lovable, acceptable, knowable. And so my inclinations, such as they may be, I put first through a machine of conventional acceptance. Does this look right to others? Is this what I think I should be? Is this what I was raised to be? But who am I? I don't know. I don't know. I'm getting some ideas with age, but I don't know, because I'm too afraid to look for some native reason that I don't think is particular to me. But I think it's safer in some way to fear yourself than to embrace yourself. Does that make sense? What would you say? I mean, it's an interesting phraseology because self-hatred I get, but self-fear, I get that too, but it's less immediately graspable for me. It's not what I would, it would not be my go-to term,

digging in on it because it is compelling. It is compelling. A warrior's one who's not afraid of himself. I didn't say it, but I'm digging in on it because it is compelling. It is compelling. A warrior's one who's not afraid of themself. I didn't say it, but I'm quoting it myself, but that has always been extremely evocative to me. In a way to answer it, I think that is useful in addition to, am I afraid of myself? And if so, what am I afraid of? Is what might things look like if I was not afraid of myself? How would I go to work? How would I greet my friends? How would I open my computer and try to answer emails? How would I try to make the world a better place if I wasn't afraid of myself?

What would it look like? I was find something interesting in that kind of contemplation. I'm pretty sure there's a way to do that wrong to say, fuck it, I don't care. I am who I am and I'm going to be just an asshole all the time. And pretend you're not afraid of yourself. Yeah, exactly, pretend. We've all, yeah, I've been that person and I've known that person. Yeah, that's a different kind of fear.

And weirdly, the anyogram sort of paints nine ways to be afraid of yourself. And what you do out of that fear, become dominating or become submissive or become self-important or special in my case. It's interesting for me to hear you say that you have had this long running fear of yourself, because for 30 years you've been practicing meditation and the whole thing in meditation, as I understand it, is to close your eyes and let it rip and see all of the horror.

Yes, with one difference in my tradition, it's open your eyes and see all the horror. Yes, with one difference in my tradition, it's open your eyes and see all the horror. Right. Yes. Yes. I can forget who said this, the Indraan gaze as somebody smarter than me has said. That's lovely. Yes. So when you draw your gaze in, it doesn't liberate you from fear of yourself. You see it. And over time, it ebbs and flows. In my case, any I'm sure, and many others too. But the practice has given me some capacity on good days to see, to see my fear, not to navigate around it. So very useful. Is there something I should have asked, but didn't? I don't think so. You asked really great questions. And I really appreciate you taking on this whole notion of any gram and Buddhism? And the question most people ask, which you did not ask,

and good things, because I don't know the answer is, what type am I? Am I Dan? What type am I? Yes. Well, you told me that it takes a long time to figure that out. So I assumed that it would be there for a stupid question to ask you to answer.

If you ever decide to check it out, let me know what you decide. I will. Before I let you go, can you please plug this book, Remind us of the name, etc., etc., but also, Remind us of some of the books you've already written because you've written a lot of really great books. So, also, while you're at it, any other resources you're putting out into the world on the web or whatever, just give us the full thing.

Okay. This book is called the Buddhist Anyogram, Nine Paths to Warriorship. Previous books I've written include The Wisdom of a Broken Heart. Start here now and open-hearted guide to the path and practice of meditation and the four noble truths of love, Buddhist wisdom for modern relationships. And I have an online community called the Open Heart Project. There's close to 20,000 members all over the world, people who practice together and try to figure out why they're afraid of themselves and so on. And I occasionally teach in-person retreats

in Austin, Texas very small. And the next one is on the heart Sutra in November. So that's what's going on in this part of the world. Awesome. Susan, thank you very much for doing this. Thank you, Dan. Let's talk every day. Ha, ha, ha much for doing this. Thank you, Dan. Let's talk every day.

Sure. Thanks again to Susan, fascinating as always. A quick note, and I'm very excited to deliver this little message. A quick note before I let you go. One of the amazing producers on this show, you've probably heard me invoke his name, DJ Kashmir, has been hard at work on a side project that I want to tell you about. First, just a little bit about DJ.

You've heard me referencing before. He finds and vets many of our guests and then preps me for these interviews. And they will be hard to imagine doing the show, frankly, without him, he's a dedicated meditation practitioner at dedicated husband and father and a dedicated producer on the show. And he somehow found the time to produce

an hour- long episode of a podcast that is truly, truly excellent. It's a wrenching and revealing look back at his days as an inner city education reformer. And it's just been released out into the world. It's called no excuses. And I cannot recommend it strongly enough. You can find it over on the educate podcast feed from APM reports, or you can just click the link which we have And I cannot recommend it strongly enough. You can find it over on the Educate Podcast feed from APM Reports, or you can just click the link which we have conveniently put for you in the show notes of this episode.

Go check it out. It's really quite a brave piece of audio and it's a great story. You'll enjoy it. Worth an hour of your time. Congratulations to DJ on an amazing piece of work. Of course, DJ is just one of many outstanding human beings who work on this show, and I want to thank them before we let you go.

10% happier is produced by DJ Cashmere, Gabrielle Zuckerman, Justin Davy and 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 episode. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

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