Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 5 Ways To Get Over Yourself | Pascal Auclair

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

Understanding the Buddhist concept of “the five aggregates.“Pascal Auclair has been immersed in the study and practice of Buddhist teachings since 1997. He has participated in retreats in Asia and America with renowned masters from both monastic and secular backgrounds. Pascal completed four years of teacher training with Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield of the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts and Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. Pascal teaches mainly in North America and Europe. He is one of the founding members of True North Insight, where he teaches and acts as a mentor.In this episode we talk about:How the five aggregates got Auclair hooked on Buddhist practice and philosophyThe five aggregates as a way to work with difficultyLiving with the non-negotiable prospect of dyingPaying attention to pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feeling toneMeditation training as a way to understand that experiences are conditionalRelated Episodes:Seven Buddhist Ingredients for a Happy Mind | Pascal AuclairDharma SeedSign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter hereFollow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTokTen Percent Happier online bookstoreSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelOur favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular EpisodesFull Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/pascal-auclair-rerun-2023See 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, Bittings, how are we doing? The phrase get over yourself is often used in a flippant way, but I think it's actually speaking to a pretty deep human need to get out of our heads, to get off our own backs, to get out of our own way, to be blown away. In fact, the Greek word for ecstasy translates to standing outside of oneself.

At a fundamental level, this is what Buddhism is all about, seeing through the illusion of the self. The self is the source of so much of our suffering. We spend so much time building it up and defending it. When in the end, there's really nothing there, or at least not as much as we might think. To be clear, and a lot of people get confused about this, in Buddhism, we're not saying that you don't exist.

I mean, obviously, you look in the mirror, you'll see yourself. It's just that if you can learn to take your thoughts and your emotions less personally, you will be less owned by them. You can lighten up. So many Buddhist practices are designed to help you unlock this source of self-centered suffering. And today we're going to talk about a foundational Buddhist list that can help you get there. It's called the Five Aggregates, and I won't go into great detail, or any detail really right now about the aggregates because our guest who's a true Dharma nerd

is gonna hold forth with some great eloquence. Paschalo Claire has been immersed in Buddhist practice and studies since 1997. He now teaches retreats all over North America, and he's the co-founder of True North Insight, and one of T andNI's guiding teachers. I had never met Pascal before this, but I found him to be utterly delightful.

Just to say this episode is part of our end of the year, Deep Cuts series, where we dip into the archives to find some of our best episodes that we think can most effectively address any holiday stress or madness you may be feeling. Hello listeners, this is Mike Corey of Against the Odds. any holiday stress or madness you may be feeling. finding the perfect accommodations. Because with hotels, you often don't have the luxury of extra space or privacy. Recently, I had a bunch of friends come down

to visit in Mexico. We found this large house and the place had a pool, a barbecue, a kitchen, and a great big living room to play cards, watch movies, and just chill out. It honestly made all the difference in the trip. It felt like we were all roommates again. The next time you're planning a trip, whether it's with friends, family or yourself, check out Airbnb.

To find something you won't forget. What a life these celebrities lead. Imagine walking the red carpet, the cameras in your face, the design clothes, the worst dress list, the big house, the world constantly peering in, the bursting bank account, the people trying to get the grubby mitts on it. What's he all about? I'm just saying, being really, really famous. It's not always easy.

I'm Emily Loitani and I'm Anna Leongrofi and we're the hosts of Terribly Famous from Wondery, the podcast which tells the stories of our favorite celebrities from their perspective. Each season we show you what it's really like being famous by taking you inside the life of a British icon. We walk you through their glittering highs and eyebrow raising lows and ask, is fame unfortunate really worth it? Follow terribly famous now wherever you get your podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Wondry Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app. Hello listeners, this is Mike Corey of Against the Odds. You might know that I adventure around the world while recording this podcast.

And over the years, I've learned that where I stay when I travel can make all the difference. Airbnb has been my go-to place for finding the perfect accommodations. Because with hotels, you often don't have the luxury of extra space or privacy. Recently, I had a bunch of friends come down to visit in Mexico. We found this large house and the place had a pool, a barbecue, a kitchen, and a great big living room to play cards, watch movies, and just chill out. It honestly made all the difference in the trip. It felt like we were all roommates again.

The next time you're planning a trip, whether it's with friends, family, or yourself, check out Airbnb to find something you won't forget. Pascal, oh Claire, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you so much. Thank you. People at home can't see it, but you're wearing a fetching sweater that has a scarf knit right into it. This is high technology. I put my best look for you, Dan. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha deconstruct reality in this way? What's in it for us? Yes, yes. Great question. Yes. And there's many way we could deconstruct reality just by the way. We could divide it into, say, what's inside of me and the physical realm. We could divide it in

three past, present, future. So there's many ways to deconstruct reality. We could say, but this particular way, I find very useful because in each of these five aspects, there is a way that we get in trouble, that we get the particular way we get stuck. So it's a good way to study stress, confusion, suffering, and the end of it. So each aggregate is, and that's a technical term. I believe the poly term, the ancient term from the Indian subcontinent is Skanda or Pyle, the Buddha liked to talk in agrarian terms, which may not be so resonant now, but they were super resonant then because people did a lot of farming back then. And so you could think of these aggregates or parts of our

experiences like a pile of hay or manure or whatever, probably manure would be more useful here. And these are piles of conceptual hangups that hook us in a way that prevents us from seeing things accurately. Am I in the right direction here with this word salad? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, pile. It works for me, the pile, but you know, the way I think about it, and it might come from Jack Confield. I'm not actually sure, but I definitely think of them as not the five aggregates, but the five rivers, the five rivers of things happening. So a way to think about this is just even as right now, as you're listening to me or anybody at home is listening to this podcast, there's five types of things happening at once. And so if you want, let's look at it just now, inexperienced as it's happening.

So for example, there is the first aggregate or river running through, we could say, is the river of materiality. So as you're there, there's sensations in your, maybe your butt on the chair, there's sensations in your hand. So there's a river of physicality, materiality running through, right? It's happening right now. We could put part of it like the sounds, the sounds waves that are coming to your ears. So there's a river of sounds.

And so this is one river that is running through right now. The other river that is happening is the river of pleasure and displeasure. If I say something that is pleasurable to your ear, you're gonna experience pleasure right in the moment. If I say something that is either confusing or disagreeable. So there's always fluctuation.

That's why I call them river because it's always changing. The breath is happening right now, breath coming in, coming out. So what we call the body is a river of different sensation. It's a river also of pleasure and displeasure that is happening. And another thing that is happening on top of it at the same time here is that there's a river of making sense of what's happening. So there's not only, let's say, the sound waves happening, there's also it makes sense. You understand something of what I'm saying.

So you know, if there was not this river of making sense of the world, it wouldn't make sense. But there's a way that the mind is always organizing, organizing what is seen, what is felt, what is heard. And so that's the third river. And then there's another river of intention. I find this so fad as sitting, then I have to calm myself down as I'm talking to you. And so as you're listening to me right now and anybody else is listening to this, there's not only a river of making sense, you know, a series of

sense that it makes. There's also the intention, the intention may be to listen. I think I can see it in the way you're listening to me. That there's something happening in the mind, there's the intention to listen. And maybe somebody else at home has the intention now to cut a carrot or a banana. So what is it to be human being? It's these rivers of intention. There's one left that I didn't name.

Should I name it now? Yes, please. Yes, so the fifth one, and maybe we'll be able to come back on all these. We have time. The fifth one is a river of consciousness. So all these things are recorded, they receive the sensations, the pleasure, the meaning, the intentions can be known. And so this is what we're doing just now. We're actually deconstructing where our immediate experience in two parts. And yeah, it can be fun to do.

And so maybe one other way just to explore this just for a minute, if you allow me, I would suggest we look around the room. If we just move our eyes around the room, we see many things of the material realm, you know, I see window, lamp, drawer, books. So there's these forms that I see. And maybe I see flowers, for example, and they're pleasant to me, the flowers that my partner gave me. So there's a feeling that comes with it. It's not just like colors and form. It affects me in a way.

So this is happening right now as I'm moving my eyes. And I recognize things. It would be really bad if I didn't recognize window, lamp, things like this. I need to organize the world. So this is happening at this time. And what else is happening? Well, the intention to move the eyes around is happening for me.

And all this is being known, yeah? And so in a way, it looks really the word comes in French here. I'm not saying like not so important. Yeah, it's life, you know. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So not so important. But as I was saying earlier, in every aspect of what is happening of these five aspects, there's something that can happen, that can lead to my confusion, afflictive emotions, disappointment, getting trapped in my conceptual world. All kinds of things can happen, and that happens,

not only when I look around the room, but it happens in my relationships, in what happens in my own mind. And so that's the kind of play or practice around this is to deconstruct, to find out how I get in trouble with each one of these things. I heard this teaching maybe of more than 20 years ago and it was kind of intellectually interesting to hear.

But also it ignited something in me. Like I want to actually go closer to get intimate with these different things and to see how I was getting in trouble and experiencing a duke, this word, this pally word of suffering and feeling of separation. And there was a time in my life I was not aware of this, I was not aware of how I was perceiving and conceiving reality. It was like, yeah, unconscious. And it was revealed to me one time when I was in the doctor's office. So I was 25 years old, back in the 90s.

And I'm in the doctor's office and the doctor tells me, hey Pascal, there's something going on. It's not good. You're actually going to die. You don't have an immune system anymore, and you know, you're HIV positive. Not only are you HIV positive, at this point you have AIDS. There's no more immune system that works in your body. So I was sitting there, and what happened, you could say, when interpretation of this is that there was a spiritual experience. Everything I thought was solid, crumbled. Like youth, health, life that I thought was permanent and solid.

Suddenly, my spiritual teacher of the time, at that moment, the doctor, was telling me, everything you thought was solid and reliable and stable actually is not. And so that's how for me I was sent on a quest and a big quest because these things were revealed to me that what I thought was solid and permanent was not. And the Buddha, when he talks about this first aggregate, form the body, the material world, he compares it to foam. He says, foam by the sight of the ocean, or along the Ganges river, or any river, foam changes shape with every wave.

With every wave that crashes on the shore, the foam there changes, there's nothing to it, it's insubstantial, it's changing, it's ephemeral, there's nothing inside of it. Well, the body is the same, there's nothing solid in the body. And so when I heard this teaching, I recognized, oh my God, that's exactly what the doctor told me there in the isophys.

He told me what you thought was solid and permanent like the body is not. There's going to be death. Health is not solid either. There's going to be disease. It's coming. It's there. And so I think, to me, that's how, when I heard the teachings of the Buddha, particularly these teachings,

how it was, how would you say in English, striking? And so I recognized there was something true in the body as foam, and then he talks about, let's say, just take another one of these aggregates or rivers, perception, how we perceive things. He talks about mirage. Then I thought this was so incredibly right on, so right on. However, you perceive or conceive or interpret things to be, they're a little different. So that matched my experience of health, body, youth, or the stability of life. Suddenly, he was saying to me, that's how I took it, very personal. He was saying to me, hey, what you perceived as solid in a way is a mirage. It appeared like you owned health, for example, but life revealed to you that you don't own health.

Health is conditional. When the conditions supporting health are there, there is health. And then when something comes in, and then, you know, a different condition, and health suddenly shows that it's not that solid. Or for that matter, democracy or peace. And so when I heard this, especially this image of the mirage to talk about how we perceive things, I think I got hooked to Buddhist practice

and Buddhist philosophy. You answered a question I was gonna ask you, which is you talked a lot about how we can get in trouble if we're not seeing the aggregates for what they are. And the answer is, we assume things are more reliable and permanent, and then we set ourselves up for suffering when we find out that, yeah, you're going to die. Everybody who knows going to die, or yeah, you think you're receiving things accurately, but maybe you're not.

It can be hard news to hear. But if we're walking through life, understanding that everything is an aggregation, there is no core nugget of you that is permanent. It's hard to see, but it's better to see it than to be surprised by it. Yeah, because the downside of making all these things so eye and mine, because that's what we're talking about, deconstructing this kind of notion of solid permanent self. The bad side of really buying into this solid rigid eye is a sense and impression and experience of maybe separation.

No? Yeah, like you feel, you might feel that you are in one side of reality, you know, inside little consciousness inside this body, and there is the outside environment as a separation, and this separation is very stressful because it's viable. You know, there's me on one side and the world on the other side, it's viable, but it's going to require a lot of work. I'm going to have to be maybe aggressive or defensive or strategize a lot. So with the sense of I that is very solid that we might have, this we have conceiving things, it comes with lowliness, feeling of separation, and because we make it solid, this kind of sense of eye,

it might come also with fear, fear of death, fear of what's going to happen when I die. First, it looks to me, I don't know how you feel about it, but to me, from that view of a solid, permanent self, death seems totally weird. It seems like a nonsense, an insult, even, you know, it doesn't match, it doesn't fit with my conception of reality in the way that I feel that I so exist. And it's also the experience I have when somebody that I know dies. It's so strange that they existed, they so existed, they were so in existence, and now you're telling me that they don't exist anymore. This is so strange, it doesn't add up. So death is strange, and then after death, if there's a solid eye and it disappears, it's totally stressful. If it continues, it's also stressful,

because I don't know in what form, it's gonna continue. And so here the Buddha seems like very gradually, very metadodic least, some words like this. – Metadocly. – Yeah, thanks for helping me here. So in a very metadoc way, the Buddha is saying, hey, let's start to question this a little bit. I'll give you a few different forms to do this.

So let's remove the glasses of eye, what I want, what I don't want, what is mine, what is not mine. And let's put on, let's say, the lens of the five aggregates. And let's look at experience in this way. And what we might find is that there is constant death in a way, constant appearance and disappearance of things. You know, the body sitting feels away. And now or later the body walking feels a completely different way. In my mind it's the same body, but in experience it's a completely other body. The mind, the mind that is happy, the mind that is sad, the mind that is confused or shameful

or arrogant, I think it's my mind, but when I look at it more closely, I find such different event, phenomena, textures, you know, and so that's how I understand this invitation of the five aggregates of five rivers, of five aspects of piles, you know, the Buddha saying, come a little closer to this, look at it in actuality while it's happening, and let's see how it behaves, and we'll find a lot of comings and goings, and this might release the heart or mind from identification, fusion, appropriation, wrongful appropriation. I'm laughing at wrongful appropriation because one of the quotes I love, I heard it through Joseph, but he has this quote from some monk who says something to the effect of when you think of anger as your anger, that's a misappropriation of public property.

Yes, it's of the public domain. Yeah, I've heard them also say this. And you know, when we talk about this, it seems a little intellectual, conceptual, maybe fun, fun to think of, but it's not clear that we can grasp the relevance of this, you know, the importance, the, I wanna say the seriousness,

without being too serious about it, but the tendency that we have to appropriate, to define, to identify with all the events that happens in a body-mind, this can lead to stress. And we know, when we look in the mirror and suddenly youth is dripping, dropping, disappearing, crumbling, you know. And if you define yourself by youth or intelligence and then you have one night without sleep, you know, but I'm supposed to be at least a little intelligent and now I'm not at all. And what I find fascinating and liberating is to watch all these different aspects of our lives, how they're changing, how they're conditional.

My opinions, for example, is just another thing that I can appropriate. My opinion. And it's something I heard you say maybe on your podcast or one of your guests, you know, it suddenly becomes my opinions. My opinion, until I hear somebody else say something more clever. And then I just hook up on that one. And then I'll fight for it. My opinion is, you know, and two weeks later, it's probably going to be a little different.

And there's this constant appropriation. I imagine sometimes, Dan, like a monkey jumping from rope to rope or whatever the word is for that thing they jump on. You know, this constant appropriation. Now I'm my back pain. Now I'm my opinion. Now I'm my body. Now I'm, back pain, now I'm my opinion, now I'm my body, now I'm, you know, I just keep identifying like this

and I don't notice. If I don't look, I just think there's a permanent compact, solid, ongoing eye. Yet it's a series of moments of appropriation or identification. There was a film, I can't remember which one, it's a little character, it's maybe a Disney movie or the Lion King or something like this, there's a little character.

And when they run away from some danger, you know, and the little animal in the jungle is running and he's, he keeps saying everything he sees, you know, this is mine, this is mine. Oh, this is my branch, this is my fruit, this is my river, this is my mountain. It's like a linderatic, exactly like us. We keep identifying, identifying to what, to things that are constantly changing, appearing, disappearing, appearing this, I don't know how many lives I had since this morning that I know I'm going to talk to you, you know, proud of it, suddenly doubtful that I have anything to share, suddenly something else.

All these emotions, they're not mine. They're of the public domain. You know, if I take them so personal and make them me, it's going to be painful. But if I recognize as dear Joseph says, you know, oh, here's fear, here's pride, here's doubt, here's peace, here's joy. There's something so beautiful to... It's not so much me who gets liberated, it seems, it's things that get liberated. Fear is liberated, but does it's fear thing? Speaking of fear, let me ask about you. You told that harrowing story of being back in the 1990s

and getting the diagnosis. You appear to me to be thriving from what I can see through this little video screen on my computer monitor, but I'd be curious to check in to get the answer from your perspective. How are you doing and how do you currently relate to the non-negotiable prospect of dying. Yeah, I think, I mean, who knows, huh? Because if I went to the doctor and suddenly there was a diagnosis or a situation, like more will be revealed.

But through this practice, you know, I'm answering you the most honestly, I think I can. Like, I mean, I'm answering you about what I'm seeing and myself is, I see, it seems like I'm getting really close in a way to death, to a certain kind of death. You know, when I'm actually aware, mindful, generously attentive or a little bit more attentive, and that I see moments disappearing, I see a mind state disappearing, a thought disappearing, a breath disappearing, and an idea disappearing. I see a mind state disappearing, a thought disappearing, a breath disappearing,

and an idea disappearing. I see all these things appear and disappear. It seems like very slowly I'm getting used to the process of dying, of losing things. And I think it's really wise of the Buddha because he's inviting us to do this right now when it's not that important when I'm just moving around doing things around the apartment. It's like notice how things disappear all the time, Pascal, because one day something important will disappear. That's what I hear him say. Like I want you to practice noticing that things are very unreliable in

this way, unstable, intermittent, or, no, what's the word that you use for the flame of a candle? Flickering. Flickering. That's such a kind of Buddhist word to use, no flickering. The flickering, isn't that true? Like sometimes I think somebody is as something against me, you know, or as bad intention, and later it's revealed that no,

they just didn't understand what I said. And suddenly, boom, my point of view changes in one second, one new data, one new information. And I'm in another world. I'm not in front of an enemy anymore. I'm in front of a friend. And bang, it just vanished like this. And so to me, there's something about this,

about the dying process of things, things are dying all the time, and we can notice through the small things, and maybe in this way, either develop some equanimity, some balance of mine, or some, to me, talks also about joy, about appreciating things because they're ephemeral, they're just passing through, they're precious because they're going to vanish. And it talks also about compassion. So I relate a lot to qualities of the heart, the compassion to see that my opinions changes, opinions of the world, the others change, it's verance table. Things change like this all the time. There's something tenderizing in that for me.

And I think it applies to the aging process, to not knowing what's going to happen with just to talk about the disease I have, a virus I have. It's dormant right now. Medication is working. I'm in the West. I have access to medication have, it's dormant right now. Medication is working. I'm in the West. I have access to medication.

I live in Canada, maybe a good country to have access to health care. And so it's a little bit hidden for me right now. So that, you know, it seems like doctors and others are saying that I have as much chance to die at 85, and maybe you have or anybody else. So the prospect seems good, but we don't know what can happen at any moment. So that death is a little hidden for me right now. Before the medication came in, the cocktail therapy, it was not hidden. It was friends were dying, you know, as you know, you know, in the 80s and the beginning of the 90s, for a staff of the 90s, it was right in my face all the time.

When it was on my body that was dysfunctioning, getting dysfunctional in all kinds of ways, but now it's a little hidden. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah. Coming up, Pascal's favorite aggregate right after this. aggregate. Right after this. Hi, it's me, the Grand Poova of Bahambud, the OG Green Grump, the Grinch. From Wandery! Tis the Grinch Holiday Talk Show is a pathetic attempt by the people of

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I think what might make sense to do is to walk through the individual aggregates to really sort of approach it with a little bit of the methodical nature that the Buddha himself tended to muster. So why don't we start at the first aggregate and then go from there? How does that sound? Yeah, so the first one of these rivers running through is the river of physicality of form or we could think of our body and with this it's right there, you know, my body.

Like, check with you, is that the way you feel about it, the way you sense it, it would be very natural if there was a kind of appropriation or defining of self? And the Buddha, being very methodical, talks about four ways that we identify with things. And so let's take the body. How do you feel Dan? Do you feel that the body, and it might be the four views might happen at the same times, but do you feel that the body is yours? Is your body? It depends, you know, if I'm in meditation,

I can start to see that it disaggregates. I can see it's just a flow of sensations. However, if somebody stands too close to me while I'm walking through the streets of New York City, it really does feel like a personal violation. That's great. That's great what you're saying because you're showing the conditional nature of our perceptions, how we hold it is different depending on the mind state, the situation, the environment. And so I like this because in there, there's fluidity. What I'm here, you say is there's fluidity in my sense of how I hold the body. And so it can be that it's

my body or the views that the Buddha talked about is like, it's either mine or it's I, I am the body or it's mine or another view is it's in me. So it's very simple. It's either you think something is yours. It's you. It's inside of you or you're inside it. And you're saying to me, well, it can change. I noticed that sometimes it's just maybe a field of sensations. When I'm in meditation, you know, expansions and contractions of the belly, maybe, or tingling, or... And I love this in meditation. When you sit the first time before you've ever meditated, you're like, this is my body. I mean, it's mine, it's me. And then you sit. And if you stay there a little bit, at some point, it would be not so much my hand maybe, but tingling is happening. Suddenly the perception changes. It's very informative for me. When I see that my perception can change, even if I'm still sitting there in the body,

I can view it in a different way. And so what happens with the body or material form, so it could be things physical outside, is that we tend to either think there are, or not ours, and we can do this with the partner. It's my partner, and we can have ownership to claim something. It's good if we do it with nuance, like, oh, for the time being, it's my partner,

but sometimes we make things absolute, like, it's absolutely mine. And then when the data person says, I'm leaving you, suddenly we're like, no, you're mine, you're my partner. Well, you're going to have to adapt your perceptions here because it's not true anymore. And maybe it wasn't even true two weeks ago, but I was just getting ready to tell you. So that something is mine, my child, my car, my, oh, it's tricky, no? It's very tricky.

This is very sensitive what I'm talking about. When I think my child, my partner, and is that absolutely mine? And the wisdom seems to want me to acknowledge it some ways that things are changing, their condition or they could change, they will change. And how can I hold this? Should I hold this with rigidity or with some kind of fluidity, like your sense of the fluid sense of I, it's mind and it's not mine. It's my legs, my mobility, and maybe whoops, it's not mine anymore. So the senses we have that are functioning now, they're functioning only for a while. And so we want, in a way, to reflect on this prior to the event happening so that we can go through change

more smoothly. That's why I find this very rich to think of how I appropriate material form. I remember in one retreat, then there was one person who, at the Q&A, was asking one of the monastics who were leading the retreat. The person said, I own a restaurant. So that's the first aggregate form. I own a physical restaurant. It's my restaurant. And somebody comes every week and they do graffiti on the window of my restaurant. So what about this? That was a question to the monastic.

And the monastic said, well, you know, that's where wisdom, I'm pretty good in my words now, but the monastic said, that's where wisdom becomes really important here. It's your restaurant. Yes. On a conventional level, it is. Absolutely. But it's also not your restaurant because you cannot own something physical. Absolutely. You can own it as long as everybody else agrees. You went to the lawyers, sign papers, whatever you do, you own everybody agrees. It's a contract. You own the restaurant. But if war starts like it does in some countries we know, and suddenly you can find out that it's not your restaurant. Absolutely. I find this very intriguing and worth reflecting on. Things are mine yet. They're not absolutely mine. How can I hold that? Gracefully, carefully, caringly. And so the monastic was saying, if you really think it's absolutely yours,

you're going to suffer. But if you understand that it's yours and not yours, maybe there's going to be less grasping, less clinging to it. And it doesn't resolve it everything because the person with the paint might come back next week, but the understanding can be partly liberating. Oh, yeah, it's not exactly absolutely mine. To me, it removes the kind of possibility of the tantrum. So that's a little words for the form, this first aspect of experience that we're invited to come closer to being intrigued by, investigate, become attentive to our relationship to it and how it behaves.

There's something also that comes to mind that I've find remarkable. I've heard this a couple of decades ago. It's the Buddha reportedly saying, there's a different, talking about this aggregate of form, he's saying the, oh, the earth element, the earth element, wise beings, they recognize it when they see it, to experience the earth, the hardness, solidity, they recognize it and they stop there. The unwise beings, they add a little bit and that creates suffering for them.

When they experience the earth element, they recognize it like the wise beings, but they go a little further. Then they say, it's mine, it's my. And then they're in trouble. How they're in trouble? They recognize while they're sitting that there's a pressure on the butt. And instead of stopping right there, pressure on the butt, they make it mine. And from there, it's born the fear of death. What is going to happen to me, my body, my earth? I'm that. I'm inside of this. What's going to happen to me?

And in the practice of careful attention, loving awareness, sati and pali mindfulness. We stay close and then maybe we can clarify a little bit things. So it's not mine. It's just public domain, pressure, pressure, gravity, name something that is more of the public domain than gravity. And we make it personal. And then we build, we conceive. There's something very fascinating for me that happens in our experience is that what we experience, like pressure on the butt or tingling or a sound or a taste, what we experience, very natural that it would happen, what we experience, we perceive, we explain in some way or recognize. So what we experience, we perceive and what we perceive,

we proliferate on. And so that what happens, here's the wise being, they sit on their cushion or their chair, and they notice just there's gravity. And for us, we go a little further, what we experience, we perceive, and then we proliferate, we add on, we embellish, we build on. So this is my, not just like, oh, there's gravity, this is me sitting here, what am I going

to do later? I have to go over there later. And then we build a whole story, and we're entrenched under occupation by that story. We live in that story. And meditation is to come back to something very, very immediate, body sitting, breathing. It's a renunciation. We renounce into the, you know, embellishment that we get kind of trapped in. What if this happened to me later? What will happen to me later? Will I experience this later? And then we feel fear and a lot of things happen

from that construction. And in the practice of meditation, it could be on the cushion, on the chair, but it can be also in life to keep things very simple. Oh, here we are. Here I am standing. Oh, here I am stressed. What if it continues? What if this person says that to me?

What am I going to do? All this embellishment is making us further and further away from reality and further and further caught into a salving encaged. So that's aggregate slash river number one. Number two is often referred to as feeling tone. Tell us about that. Yes, so this is also something that it's constantly happening. It's happening now as we speak, and sometimes it's more obvious than others, but that's something that is part of our experience all the time. So with anything that we experience,

it could be something seen, something heard, something tasted, it could be a thought, it could be an emotion, with anything that we experience, it comes with it, some kind of pleasure about it or displeasure or the absence, the neutrality of it. If it wasn't there, I think we wouldn't even recognize life. So some taste we find pleasurable, some taste displeasurable, some things we hear, we like hearing them, some things they are unpleasurable to think of. And many things are, they don't stand

out in this way, they're neutral. And there's many of these moments, an in-breath. For example, for many people, breath, what's not like, oh my God, it's so pleasurable to breathe, sometimes it might be, sometimes displeasurable, but very often, maybe for many people, breath is neither pleasant nor unpleasant, it's neutral in this way. So this, the Buddha, oh my God,

he makes so important central in this teaching, and it makes it one of the aggregates. It puts it in almost all the lists, inviting us saying, hey, Dan, hey Pascal, tune in here, because there's a lot of trouble possible around this. If we tune in to these experience of pleasure, we'll notice how they arise and vanish, arise and vanish. So they're not stable, they're unstable, unreliable. You go back to the same restaurant, you meet the same person, and you're not assured that it will be as pleasant as the last time or unpleasant. Like it's very hard to control.

You go to see a movie from your favorite director and there you are, bored to death. You probably didn't work this time, or you've seen enough of his style or her style. And so there's something in it very liberating when we become really conscious that, oh my god, this is so unreliable or even here in this meeting with this person this evening, like it keeps changing, it's really, really pleasant and then suddenly, whoops, something happened with the waiter or with the taste and its vanishes or in a relationship over the course of a few years. And so the Buddha seems to invite us to pay real attention to see the variation and how, as you know, we tend to cling to things that are pleasant

and we tend to fear or really have aversion to what is displeasureable and also to not notice what is neither pleasurable nor unpleasureable. So there's a whole field of our lives that we miss. The mind doesn't even notice it because it doesn't feel pleasant or unpleasant. And in meditation, with the meditative attitude that we can bring to daily life or with that aspect of maybe we could call investigation. When something pleasurable happens, we notice how look at this. Pleasurable. Let me stay in relationship to it, instead of maybe wanting to keep clinging to it. You know, let me experience pleasure and notice how it appears and disappears. And when something unpleasant happened, let me see, how could this pleasure lead to calm or integrity,

or patience, or care, or honesty, instead of irritation, closing down, exploding, how can an experience that is unpleasurable lead to healing, or stability, or compassion, or humor, maybe? That's really intriguing to me. That's something that would naturally lead to more trouble, could lead away from trouble. It will require of me a lot of attention in life. The capacity to recognize opportunity, oh, Evwella, here's something happening, it's not what I wanted, it's what I did not want.

How can I develop courage here? Are patients or, yeah, again, integrity. How can I have my value of respect or consideration be at the foreground here when it's being challenged, not easy? And so there's a whole field here that we can explore and the Buddha use the image of the bubble to talk about this. Almost saying like, hey, honey, don't put all your eggs in the same basket. If you try to make things comfortable and safe and fun, pleasure, ball, and as you like it,

it's gonna be really stressful, right? Because you're not gonna get it. There's gonna be pleasure and displeasure and a lot of neutrality, maybe. And how can you be free in the midst of that? So here's a whole field. Here's a pile worth checking, you know? And that's for aggregate number two.

Aggregate number three, oh my God, my favorite. I love this one. So rich. And it's perception. I just want to point. We are listening audience members to a true Dharma nerd. I'd say that would love.

I'm an aspiring Dharma nerd, so I respect it. Yeah, well, you know this, I think this enthusiasm, it develops also in practice. We talk about the joy for inside the curious joy, the joy of curiosity. I'm so thankful to my teachers because they showed me this, that instead of having a version or not noticing things that I can actually come close, experience things and find things out about these phenomena

that I'm experiencing every day. And with the curious contact, the curiosity becomes very slowly, it becomes a joyful curiosity. And so now I'm like, oh, can't wait for something displeasurable to happen. To see how I can do with this. It's like the next episode of a Netflix series

that you're enjoying. It's like, what's gonna happen next year? Yeah. And so this third aggregate, I'm really enthusiastic about it because it's perception how we perceive things. And so when we were talking about the feeling tone, it's more like how we're affected by things,

how they're experienced as pleasurable or displeasurable. And now it seems like it's more about the object, the thing itself, how we perceive the things. And so imagine that's the classic example, you're walking in the woods, and it's getting dark, and then you see across the path a snake, and then you jump or freeze or want to fly, fly and so you see the snake and then you look a little closer and suddenly your perception changes and you discover it's a branch. Do you see how the internal experience changes? The thing hasn't changed, fascinating to me. It's the same old thing that is

on the ground there, but it's perceived differently. And therefore, the whole of the inner experience changes. When I felt like there was a threat, I needed to defend myself, I might die, poison, all the embellishment of my mind, you know, suddenly, it's a completely different thing. And so, this image is an old, classic image, but this is what we experience in life. You know, when we perceive things, we think that what we perceive is what the thing is. Yet, as we pay attention, we'll discover that there's a lot of projection in there because of past experience. When I met somebody looking like that person, it doesn't look good,

because a person who looked like that person in the past did something to me, or I learned through education or the dominant group that this kind of person are dangerous, they are dangerous, it's not a perception to me. It's a fact, they're dangerous, I need to change the side of street, go on the other side wall.

And with this practice, we learn to pay attention and recognize things for what they are. Oh, such a Buddhist expression, recognizing things for what they are, seeing reality for what it is. And here the work is to recognize that what we think is objective is actually very, very subjective that I see somebody and I will, it's not that they're desirable or dangerous. It might be, it might very well be. In many cases, I'll find out that I was actually infusing, suffusing, the sight with my own learned conditioning. And so, wow, that's remarkable. So when I think, for example, how the future looks bleak to me, the amount of freedom possible when I'm able to recognize that this is a momentary

perception, it's a mirage. If I'm confused like we are often, we take our thoughts to be reality. So the week is going to suck, the year is going to suck, the rest of my life is going to suck. That's really painful. Unless I know it's a mirage. If I know it's a momentary perception, then maybe I can hold it more lightly. It looks bleak. That's how it appears right now, appearances. And I can learn to relax in my projection. And we could think, oh, yes,

it makes sense for the future, but it passed. No. And maybe with practice or closer look, I might find out that depending on my mood, I'm going to perceive even the past differently. I always sucked, I suck, I always sucked. Everything I experience in my life sucked. Is that more about reality or it's more about a mood. And so here's perception, how I appear to myself in any moment, how others appear, people, then people, people when we're impatient, oh, people, they suck, people suck. That's a fact, that's reality. You know, on a bad day in New York City, you know, you're trying to reach

some destination and all these pedestrians, you know, they suck. And then you come out of retreat or meditation or something just happened to you, some beauty, some beautiful moment. And then you walk in the street and people, people are so touching, so moving, people are so much compassion for them, trying to find their way, be safe, experience ease. So people, how they perceive and past and future and myself, and some monindraji, you know that one? He was one of Joseph's teachers, yes. Yes, and when he says the thoughts about your mother are not your mother, that's kind of basic liberation. It's huge, it's basic, but huge.

To know that a mirage is a mirage can be so helpful in life. Oh, Pascal, you're discouraged. Of course it looks like this, instead of buying into a daring, into any perception, to see, let's see what's going to happen. I think it's good to know. It helps me for me when I meet people who have a different view on all these three, different view than mine, you know, to say, of course, they can understand things differently because of their experience, what they've been exposed to, and what I've been exposed to, and one

thing can be seen so differently from two people. Coming up, Pascal talks about responding instead of reacting to stuff and practices for working with selflessness. Hey everybody, it's Dan on 10% happier. I like to teach listeners how to do life better. Uh, I want to try. Oh hello, Mr. Grinch. What would make you happier?

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Wow, now I kinda wanna listen to the show, guys. Exactly. Join us on our next scientific adventure every Monday, wherever you get your podcast. Or, add free and one week early on Wondery Plus Kids. Just to take this aggregate in a slightly different direction, I have not done much practice using the aggregates as the focus of my meditation practice, but I certainly heard of it discussed this Buddhist list many times on retreats or in podcast interviews or just by being Buddhist books or Dharma talks in my day to day life. Somehow this notion of perception has weaseled its way into my practice in the following way,

which is every once in a while, I'll be sitting or doing walking meditation and I will hear something like a fire engine or a cat puking on the rug or whatever. And I'll notice, okay, lightning quick, quicker than I could ever have seen play out in real time. The mind identified what that was, but it wasn't me. I was not there for that. It just fire engine came into my mind. And so that's a very quick and I think very easily accessible way to unhook from the self. Yes, exactly. So the mind does that. It recognizes things. It labels things. It's perceived things. Yeah. So it does it on its own. So it's not that personal, right? Yeah. And by the way, that's one of

the perceptions we want to correct. And meditation is a refinement of perception, you could say, or what is meditation? It's a training and perception. And so what do we do? Partly, see if you agree with me on this. We can compare notes. But when we practice, we start to come closer to experience as they're happening. And we're invited to notice the specific characteristics of things. This is a taste, this is a thought, this is agreeable, this is disagreeable, this is felt in the toes, this is felt in the hands. You know, and we get really specific about the experience.

And at some point in that perception training, what starts to stand out is the characteristics that are not specific, but universal, to things. So some things are tasted, some things are heard, some things are thought, some things are blue, some things are red, they all have specific characteristics, things, some things are pleasant, other things are unpleasant. But what do they all have in common? unpleasant, but what do they all have in common is what starts to be noticed in the meditative attitude or in meditation. What we start to notice is that things appear and disappear. Some things are heard, some things are seen, but they both appear and disappear and experience. Some things are pleasant, others are unpleasant, but they both appear and disappear.

They're all conditional, and none of them are that personal, which is the most intriguing and counterintuitive aspect, but like you're just describing, oh, through meditation, I'm able to recognize that perception is just, does it's thing? You know, there's a sound and right there, there's the image of a cat or a fire truck or it just labels things. It organizes, it's not that personal. I totally agree. I totally agree. I do have my eye on the clock a little bit and I know if two more aggregates to sort out here. And so if it's okay with you, I'll nudge us in the direction of mental formations. Yes, mental formations. That is the aspect of mind that is large enough to include many things.

So, you know, the feeling tone is how we're affected by things, pleasure, displeasure. The perception is how we perceive, interpret, or see the thing. The mental formation is how we engage, how we react, or respond to events. So it means the emotions, the thoughts, the intentions that arise in my mind or in our minds. And so right now, as any of these aggregates are always happening at this any time, they're always happening.

Right now, for example, you have the intention to hear me. So what you hear might be agreeable or disagreeable. You perceive the sense of what I'm saying. And it elicits or ignites something in you. Sometimes it's a desire to push away. Sometimes it's a desire to push away, sometimes it's a desire to keep, sometimes it's a desire to think of. So this is the response or reaction that arises.

And the image for this, that the Buddha use, and that particular Suta where he uses these five images for each one of the aggregates, is the banana tree trunk. And so the story goes, imagine somebody who wants to build something solid. So somebody wants to build something solid. So they go to the woods, they go to Central Park looking for strong wood to build a refuge or something solid. They walk in the woods of Central Park,

and suddenly they see a banana tree. Like there are many, I bet, in Central Park being south of Montreal. So they see a banana tree, and right there they think, oh, wow, look at that, big leaves, big flower, big fruits. There must be solid wood in the heart of this banana tree. And so with their axe, they start axing the banana tree to find what? At the core of the banana tree, fiber, nothing solid, no hard wood. And so the Buddha used that image of the banana tree to talk about all these things

that arise in us. And if you are meditating, I'm talking to the adiads here, the listeners, if you've meditated just a little bit, you know how the mind will construct something. You're sitting, wanting to be with the breath, or just the sounds, or the silence. And the mind starts building up something. It creates a story, oh, next week this, I have to make sure that, and then 10, 20 minutes down the line suddenly you wake up, oh, I'm just here, banana tree trunk. There was big flowers, big leaves, big fruits, but in the core of it, nothing.

It was just a construction of mine, mental formation, a generation of mine. And the Buddha says, these construction, you have to recognize them for what they are. Because you take them to be solid, to be factual, to be reality, when they're constructions of the mind. They're just femoral things that appear and like the banana tree will fall on the ground after having born, born, it's roots. Born fruits, yes. Yes, yes.

And these emotions, for example, that very naturally we take so personal and are so invested in the emotions that we experience and we take to be mine or inside of me or mine or I you know the Buddha says There's no there's nothing to it. It's empty in its nature It's something that has the nature to arise and pass and in meditation We will find this out suddenly a big wave of anger rage a big wave of doubt shame a big wave of anger, rage, a big wave of doubt, shame, a big wave of arrogance, you know, I got it, I understand all this stuff, you know, only to be followed 20 minutes later by

doubt, what am I doing? Am I doing it right? How should I go about this? And so the Buddha is inviting us to notice the ephemeral empty nature of these erasings, and if you're interested in core kind of counter-intuitive, essential Buddhist thinking, we could think that the intention, the intention to open the fridge, the intention to go to this place or that place, we could think this is really I, this is I. Maybe I'm not the body, okay, maybe I'm not the emotions, okay, they come and go. Maybe I'm not the pleasure that comes and go, but the intentions, the one that intent, this is me, this is I. This is inside me, or I'm inside this, or something like this. And Buddha says, well, I put it in my words, you know, but well, I looked into it and I found no eye in there.

You know, intentions arise out of conditions, out of education, prior experiences. You could think some of the people decide, I'm gonna take up the weapon to go defend my country. It might look like a personal decision on a one level. You can say it's a very personal decision, but the intention to take up weapons or arms arise out of the conditions. If there was not the war in my country, maybe this wish wouldn't arise in me, it wouldn't, it just wouldn't. And so even this that seems so at the core of human experience, the intention, I'm the one who decided to think,

well, just sit a few minutes and you'll discover it that it thinks a lot in there and that's certainly not I want all this thinking as a meditator, I just want to be with the breath but it keeps thinking. So the thinking is not so much a core eye that does it, it's just habit, compulsion, not so personal. And then the last aggregate.

Consciousness. Shhh. Is that like a Carl Sagan imitation? What? So I tried to make it a little to get the attention of the listener because this has has been going off too long. Not at all. Grab the attention a bit here. And so consciousness, wow, the image, wow, so powerful, the Buddha compares consciousness to a

magic show. And so a moment of hearing, a moment of thinking, a moment of experiencing an emotion, a moment of feeling something in the body, in the back, or the legs, or the feet, all these moments of consciousness, one behind the other, creates the amazing magic show of I, the illusion of a solid, permanent, intrinsic, permanent eye. And so the Buddha wanted us knowing of the confusion that can come and how we can get caught inside of ourselves with the sense of solidarity, with all his compassion, seems to be saying, Hey, honey, notice the knowing mind, notice the knowing quality

of mind, how it appears and disappears. And you might find that there's not even an eye in the center of this, which you would think this is the last hideout. Pascal, you can take everything away from me, but the observer, this is eye, the one that experiences, this is I. And Buddha says you can go that far as to question that assumption. We're questioning all assumptions, all preconceived ideas in meditation. That's what investigation does. You know, we sit there and we notice there's a sense of eye, there's a sense of eye and we start to deconstruct it. Oh, sensations are not eye, they come and go, emotions are not eye, they come and go,

perception happened by themselves, they come and go. And consciousness, maybe also is of the public domain. Maybe it's just a knowing. Knowing is just knowing. Maybe there's nothing that I need to identify or appropriate here. And maybe through this I can lose fear of death. Because if I think I'm the little consciousness isolated inside this body and that I'm separate from the world, it's scary, it's stressful, but if I discover that, oh no, it's just something that happens. No, that's the most subtle point, and all these aggregates, then they're going from the more gross to the most subtle. I don't know if you've noticed, but experiences of the body sensations, the tastes, very gross, and then pleasure,

and then perception, oh, already very subtle. And then what happens in the mind, heart, so tricky, with thoughts and emotion, we can get caught, and then consciousness, which is transparent, huh? It's not the sensation, it's what knows the sensations. It's not the taste at what's experiencing taste. It's very transparent, it doesn't have much features, but there can be an identification or clinging to it as I, it's inside of me. What practices do you recommend to probe this

to probe this selflessness of consciousness. Wow, that's a good question. Well, to me, it's such a subtle point that it comes much further in the practice. That's what I would say just here spontaneously because I don't think it's easy to investigate. That's why in the practice, we start with the breath. And then the walking, the posture, the sitting, and then the emotions and the thoughts, and like it's very far. If you go sit a typical retreat, usually there's no talk about consciousness until day eight or nine. It's at the very end of a

week-long or ten day retreat that they'll start to talk about this, because one needs to have a mind that is very quiet and stable, I think, to start to be intrigued by this. So that's maybe a first response. But one way, we don't want it to become heady, that's the danger, if the mind doesn't have a lot of silence in it. But one way we'd be to ask, who's hearing? Who's thinking? Who's sitting? And then we can maybe feel. It's not that we shouldn't cling or identify what we want to do in practice is recognize as if it's happening. Oh yeah, the sense that this is I sitting here observing or feeling experiencing reality.

There's a very clear, different sense that I am meditating. Good. Nothing to do, just notice this. I. And then suddenly, as you describe, suddenly, perception happened by itself. It was not I perceiving, but perception was a function of the mind. It happened by itself. And so it's not like you have to get rid of anything, but just get curious. Where is the I, as happened by itself. And so it's not like you have to get rid of anything, but just get curious, where is the eye as I'm sitting here? If the mind has agitation to it,

it will become discursive. Conceptual, I'll be thinking, but if there is some quietness, then maybe I'll be able to sense how it appears to me, how it's perceived in this moment. Oh, eye is listening. And maybe sometimes something else happened. You know how we use the language,

and we can play with this also. Maybe that's going to be my last possible answer here, is you know how when we practice the wording that we use, we might remove the eye as we practice. And instead of saying, I'm hearing silence or sounds in the street just to say, hearing is happening. Hearing is happening. Oh, there's fear.

Fear is known. Instead of I'm experiencing fear or I'm knowing fear or joy. Joy. Joy is happening. So we remove the eye, not to go towards a dissociation, that's something else. We remove the eye from the language just to see how it lands in the experience. Oh, there is chopping carrots, you know, it's happening. There's breathing. And suddenly we might experience it for a few moments that, oh yeah, there's no eye in there.

And no one is disappearing, nothing is disappearing. Oh, we just removed that way of perceiving, conceiving the world. And things keep going. Two questions before I let you go. One is, is there something I should have asked, but failed to ask during this romp through the five aggregates? No, there's nothing you should have asked or could have asked. Is there something I should have said or could have said? Probably the it'll come later.

But this is what happened here this time, I would say. An important thing to me, though, that I tried to do when I teach and that seems very important is to make the connection that I try to do when I teach and that seems very important is to make the connection with these things that can seem so conceptual and almost cold, you know, no self, that I make the link with the heart because I think to me, that's why I'm still practicing today. It's because all this that we're talking about, these things, they become practice, and they can become practice, and if they become practice, they'll make the heart vibrant. To me, what I see in this, strangely enough, is that it's liberating, it's liberating the heart, it's freeing the heart.

What's at the end of it, I don't know what the very end, but what's happening appearing is that joy is more available, that tenderness or compassion arises more spontaneously, that there's more equilibrium, equanimity, balance inside the heart, mind, that there's more compassion in relationships and joy and appreciation that healing is possible. To me, it's really related to healing, to the heart. I don't know if I was able to convey it today, but that's definitely what it means of this. Is that joy becomes available and care, maybe less self-absorbed, fascinated by self and things like this?

The Tibet and Freize comes to mind all the time at moments like this. The rough translation for the Tibetan phrase for enlightenment is a clearing away and a bringing forth. And if you can clear away all of this grasping energy, then there's a lot of good stuff that can take its place so beautifully said you yeah Yeah clearing and bringing forth and Here's my last question which is can you

For the many people who will have listened to this and may want to learn more from you What are the best resources out there to get more Pascal, even though Pascal's an illusion, of course. I thought you would ask about, like, read more about the aggregates. And yeah, but let's talk about more. Well, you know, I teach here and there, I'm tour a bit, you know, different places, cities and countries in Europe and North America. And, you know, there's a website with my name on it. And, you know, on, on Dharma seeds, there's many teachings there that can be found. That's what comes to mind now. Pascal O'Clair.com. Yes. We'll put a link to that in the show notes, Dharma seed, which Pascal referenced is a website that aggregates to use a loaded word, Dharma talks, given at retreat centers all over the

world. If you go to that website, which we'll also put a link to and you search for Pascal's talks, you can find them there. Thank you so much for doing this. It was a delight and it was so great to meet you. Yeah, thank you, Dan. Thank you for much for doing this. It was a delight and it was so great to meet you. Yeah, thank you, Dan. Thank you for everything you do. It's really good you're out there.

Thank you for the listeners. I love practicing with people. To me, nothing greater than sharing a hall together for a few days and discovering human nature, which is quite a thing. Thank you, Dan. Thank you. Thanks again to Pascal O'Clair. That was a great episode. 10% Happier is produced by Justin Davie Gabriel Zuckerman, Lauren Smith and Tara Anderson,

DJ Cashmere as our senior producer. Marissa Schneiderman as our senior editor, Kevin O'Connell as our director of audio and post-production. And Kimi Regler is our executive producer, Alicia Mackie leads our marketing and Tony Magyar is our director of podcasts, finally Nick Thorburn of Islands, wrote our theme. If you like 10% happier, I hope you do. You can listen early and add free right now by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app war on Apple Podcasts.

Prime members can listen to add free on Amazon music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com-survey. We can't see tomorrow, but we can hear it. And it sounds like a renewable natural gas bus replacing conventional fleets. We're bridging to a sustainable energy future, working today to ensure tomorrow is on. Enbridge, life takes energy.