Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 514: Six Buddhist Strategies for Getting Along Better with Everyone | Sister True Dedication

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Relationships can be tricky. Especially if you find yourself upset with someone, and instead of talking it through, you let it fester until one moment you completely lose it and end up having to apologize. If you’ve ever felt like you had friction with the people in your life, or that you’ve been taken for granted, today’s episode offers you solid strategies to cope. Sister True Dedication is a Zen Buddhist nun and teacher ordained by the great meditation teacher and author, Thich Nhat Hanh. She edited several of Thich Nhat Hanh’s books, including The Art of Living and Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet. She was born in the United Kingdom, studied history and political thought at Cambridge University, and worked for BBC News before ordaining as a nun at the age of 27.In this episode we talk about: The six phrases – or mantras – that Thich Nhat Hanh recommended people use in their relationshipsKeeping misunderstandings “dust free”Taking action to make sure anger doesn’t festerThe importance of recognizing that our understanding of the world is always partialBringing mantras to workHow Sister True Dedication went from journalism to the monasteryFull Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sister-true-dedication-514See 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 there, have you ever had the experience where you're kind of pissed at somebody, either because of something they did or something they didn't do? You're kind of pissed, but you don't want to go through the hassle of bringing it up with them. So you just sit and stew. And then finally, after nurturing and watering your grudge for so long, the person makes one small mistake and you totally lose it. And then of course, you're

the one who has to apologize. Or what about this? You've got somebody in your life, you value immensely, but you never let them know. And then something happens, they move away, they pass away, or the relationship ends, and it's too late, and then you're living with regret. If you've got any static of any variety with the people in your life, if you feel like you're being taken for granted, if you feel like your needs aren't being met, or if you feel like the relationships just gone stale. Today, I think we've got some pretty solid strategies for you. My guest is Sister True Dedication. She's a Zen Buddhist Nun and teacher ordained by the great meditation teacher and author, Ticknoth Han. In fact,

Sister True Dedication edited some of Ticknott-Hon's books, including The Art of Living and Zen and The Art of Saving the Planet. She was born in the UK, studied history and political thought at Cambridge University, and worked for BBC News before ordaining as a nun 15 years ago at the age of 27. Today, she's here to talk about six phrases, six little mantras that Tick-Nadhan himself recommended that people use in their daily lives in order to make sure that their relationships don't go out the rails. She's going to walk us through what the phrases are and how to incorporate them into your

daily life. We also talk about keeping misunderstandings dust free. That's her term. Taking action to make sure anger doesn't fester. The importance of recognizing that our understanding of the world is always partial, bringing these six mantras into the workplace, using them in text messages and other tech contexts.

And she addresses my perennial concern, which is how to do all of this without coming off as forced or practiced or cheesy. I should also say that we also talk about how sister true dedication went from journalism to the monastery, which is a fascinating story in and of itself. We will get started with sister true dedication right after this. We will get started with sister true dedication right after this. Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and

what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral. Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the great meditation teacher Alexis Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10%.com.

All one word spelled out. Okay, on with the show. my head. Like, it's only fans only bad where the memes come from. And where's Tom from my space? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. Sister true dedication, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. It's wonderful to be here. What do people call you for short? Do they go with sister true dedication every time they need to like ask you to pass the mashed potatoes or what's the short hand? So this is my English name. I also have Vietnamese name for the English name. Sometimes it's sister true D, but then it becomes this running joke and so I recently became sister 2D and then sister 3D But sometimes just sister for short also works fine

All right, so we're going to talk about these six mantras that will help us communicate better and please correct me if I'm teeing this up incorrectly. But maybe let's just start with what are mantras? Good question. So these mantras come from our teacher, Ticknick Han, whom we always refer to as Pai, which simply means teacher. And he called them mantras in the sense that this is something we can invoke. This is something we can call on. It's a kind of, these are code words

that have some kind of hidden magical power. And I think he was really riffing off of this kind of thirst we all have, like in a difficult moment or when we feel really stuck. You want something you can say that's going to kind of unlock the situation, move energy through and kind of transform things, a phrase to kind of take refuge in. So I think that's why he chose the word mantra to describe these phrases. And first of all, he came up with four and then developed another two. So we have kind of what we would call six plum village mantras for us to use in our

relationships, whether that's at home or at work or with friends or with family. Just to be clear, because I suspect some of our skeptical listeners might have heard that words magical power and imagine that you're talking about something supernatural here, but you're not. No, I'm not sorry. No, so our teachers playing off that wish for us all to have something magical, but actually, you know, these mantras very down to earth, they're in English, French, any modern language they can translate into. So let's call them words of power, Words that can transform a situation. And mantra is an interesting term because technically it can be used in lots of ways. You can have a

mantra that you use in meditation. It just can be a word or several words that you use to you focus on those words. And hopefully the discursive thinking in your mind goes down as you concentrate on the words. A mantra can also be something you repeat to yourself internally as kind of an inner coach. And in this case, these are mantras meant to be verbalized externally to somebody else or some other people in order to change the barometric pressure of a conversation. Exactly. So, yeah, the mantras to be kind of sometimes you might say you pronounce or you announce a mantra. So in this case, yeah, you speak it out loud and it is something

you can rely on. It's something you can take refuge in. And I think we can say that so the reason I teach a developed these kind of mantras, so it's not in Sanskrit, it's not chanted, you don't need to sing it, right? You just say it like in normal speech. And it's part of this sense that, I think sometimes in Buddhism we can have an impression that it's just so old, how does it apply to our daily life? And so this is part of our teacher's efforts to be like, all right, well, what would a modern mantra sound like? This is a modern mantra,

this is the kind of mantra that we need in our times. Before we go through the six mantras, let me just step back and ask you a super obvious question. Why is communication with other members of homeless aliens so important? I think human connection is what makes life meaningful, it's what makes life joyful, and I think probably in our times communication has become so difficult. We live maybe more isolated lives, more virtual lives, then we maybe our ancestors did in the past. We live more

hypostimulated lives. So we've got many more means of communication. And yet, are we communicating about the right kind of things in the right kind of way? So we have this idea of being a hyper connected world. And yet, I think many of us feel lonely and disconnected. There's a lot of noise, maybe, but not that much quality of human contact because of how our society has become organized, because of the ways that we live, like just the modern ways we live, everyone

stuck to our phones, everyone overwhelmed by data, information, words on news, on the screens, in emails. So maybe there's just, we've had more ways of communicating and more volume of communication than ever before. But are we having a quality of communicative interaction in the relationships that are most important to us? And I think this is what these mantras are really trying to address to kind of cut through the noise a little bit to have that meaningful exchange between human beings.

I think sometimes in maybe in our professional lives and just the kind of daily hustle of getting on with life, we just forget our humanity and that heart level. Are we really interacting with the human being in front of us or are we relating to a mask? We're on a professional persona, everyone's external persona. Are we really being who we can be as homo sapiens? I mean, you said that word and I think we have such potential for love, for compassion, for deep profound connection to our deepest concerns. And I just think we don't spend a lot of our daily lives in that zone. We're just getting on with the deepest concerns. And I just think we don't spend a lot of our daily lives in that zone. We're just getting home with the daily grind. And these mantras are to try

to help us go to that deeper level with whoever we're spending time with. Let me see if I can make the case in an additive way. I think we know from the data that perhaps the most important variable when it comes to human flourishing is the quality of our relationships. And the basic currency of relationships is communication. So if you want to be able to have a happy life, to be able to navigate life's ups and downs, you need solid relationships. And if you want solid relationships, you need to learn how to communicate with other people.

Absolutely. And communication obviously is at so many different levels. There's verbal and also nonverbal, right? And so at the foundation, what lies behind these mantras is also what we would call the quality of our presence, our physical presence, there are awareness of being close to that person, whether through a phone call or literally in the same room as that person. So underlying even these mantras of spoken communication is the quality of presence that we can offer. And so for us in our training in mindfulness and concentration, we really use our bodily awareness to also show up for people with that nonverbal communication

to really be there for the people that we are alongside while we're eating, while we're drinking a cup of coffee, while we're working, are we really showing up for them with a quality of physical presence rather than distraction? So the opposite of being fully present nonverbaly is to be completely stuck to our screen, to our phone, or preoccupied with our thoughts, or whatever. So that's the other kind of communication that's underlying these mantras. I was just going to ask about that. It's an ability to be embodied, to be right here, to send the signal with your posture, with your lack of squariness, with your lack of squariness that you are paying attention, is that a separate set of skills from the mantras are related? As you'll see, it's the same.

It's the kind of foundation from which the mantras can be even more powerful because you can say these words and they can be empty and so it doesn't count. It doesn't work. But if we're really there and we would say following our breathing, listening to our body, and you see, because when we're having an interaction with someone, whether it's at work, whether it's at home, wherever it is, our body is also responding to that interaction. Say, we're listening to someone. Our body is having a whole load of things going on. If what they're saying is toxic, we'll have a physical response. If they're what they're saying is full of pain or anxiety,

we will also feel that in our body. And so in our sort of embodied mindfulness practice, we want to be able to use our breathing, to take refuge in our breathing, to take care of our response as we listen to that other person. And what we find time and time again in the retreats in our monasteries, in events we do outside and around the world,

when we can give people some of these basic principles of how to listen more deeply to others, it's so powerful and right away that person who is speaking, they feel more heard because the quality of our attention is so much deeper because we're not just jumping, waiting for the space so that we can come on with our response, we're not trying to fix whatever they're saying. We're being with our physical felt experience of what they're saying and that allows them in a way sometimes to open their heart much more than they would otherwise do to be more honest, to be more authentic, to be more real also with themselves. So what we find is that the

quality of listening that we can offer to someone, it actually allows them to kind of speak their truth more fully to themselves. So these tools that you mentioned for being more in your body while you're talking to somebody, should I ask about that separately from the mantras, will they emerge through the discussion of the mantras? I don't know, maybe we get going, and I think it could start with the first one. I can share a little bit more about that with the first one, yeah.

Okay, all right. So let's do the mantras. The first is, I am here for you. I am here for you. So you can imagine yourself, I don't know, maybe you got in from work, and maybe you're a yourself, I don't know, maybe you got in from work and maybe you're roommate, your partner, they're doing something else, right? They're busy doing something else.

And instead of just being like, honey, I'm home and then getting on with whatever you might get on with, there's this sense that I want to show up for the people I care about in my life. I want to be up for the people I care about in my life. I want to be there for them. We're both still alive. Every day is precious. Every hour is precious. And I want to be there and to kind of activate

a higher quality of presence. So the trick is you can't just, so saying, honey, I'm home is not a kind of version of I am here for you, right? So it actually means we put down whatever we're doing. We go to wherever they are, maybe we put our hand on their shoulder or we sit next to them and we really say, and we kind of capture their attention with our body language. We feel very present in ourself, very available. And we say, I'm here for you.

How are you? And then that person can turn around and be like, actually, I had a terrible day. Actually, I feel awful. But we, in our quality of presence, we've opened up that space for them to be able to be real with us. And so, this quality of presence, it means that we have to take care

of our own stuff first. So this is where a practice of mindfulness is really important. Perhaps maybe the last 200 yards or crossing from the car into our home, we might practice mindful walking to like take care of our own junk from the day, before we then return into our home and actually encounter our housemates, our loved ones, our family members. So we have a certain space inside before we encounter them. I used to practice this mantra with my partner when I was working in the newsroom.

I mean, he was a composer and I'd worked in the newsroom. So I would come home so full of like crazy days. And he would have had quite an intense day as a composer. So in fact, what I do is I come into the house, go straight to the bedroom to lie down, I do a 10 or 20 minute relaxation. Then I come down to his composing room and be like, Hi, how are you? I'm here for you. How is your day? And there's a quality of presence that we can offer that is completely kind of open and spacious, I'm here. I'm here for you. You're not alone with whatever is going on, whether it's kind of good or bad.

And I think sometimes we may think that we have to fix, we send a lot of time maybe fixing our friends, our family, people in difficulty. And this mantra is really saying, the best I can offer you is my presence, my openness, my availability, my listening. And it's very interesting because we can play around a little bit with the words, but when you say them exactly like that, they are unbelievably powerful. I'm here for you. Maybe someone's had a really hard time and there is no solution. There's nothing we can necessarily say right now to fix it. And in fact, that's not necessarily what people need. Life is messy. Life is really difficult.

But to be not alone in that can be such a source of support. And so to just share our presence is sometimes the most powerful thing that we can offer for people. We recently did an event for climate leaders in our monastery and we also shared with them this practice. We're always wanting to solve the climate issues so quickly. But to be able to teach them how to offer this kind of support to one another, like it is messy, it is really difficult. But we can be there for each other and

offer each other time just to breathe maybe even to be in silence with like difficult moments in their activism, in their leadership, in their struggles to take care of our planet. So these are very, even the simple first mantra can be very powerful. You did make a reference to we can play with the words. And because one of the things I wrote down at the beginning was, oh no, this just, it would feel a little force cheesy, trickle for me to say this to my wife or somebody else. So what to do with that? to my wife or somebody else. So what to do with that? So maybe we could talk about it indirectly. So you might sit next to your wife. I don't know if you have time to eat in the mornings for a cup of tea or coffee together. And you could, in fact,

say the second mantra, which I would like to move on to because I think they're a little bit interconnected. And the second one is, I know you're there, and I'm so happy. And so sometimes these two, I find myself using them together quite a lot. So maybe you might wanna start with the second one and then go into the first one. If I said that to my wife, she would do a spit take

because it's so out of character. That's why you have to do it. You know that right? I mean, my our whole way of interacting is me basically just being a kind of a joky asshole like sort of impish. I'm constantly just as I the little phrase we use is poking the bear. I'm just constantly just like kind of a little bit messing with her. And that's just our interaction. So if I sat down and unironically said, I know you're there and I'm so happy, she wouldn't just not know what to do with that at all.

And maybe that would be good. Like maybe that would mix things up a bit. Do you know what I mean? Because I think sometimes you see, we wait until things are really fragile, until someone's super sick or until someone even has passed away and we're just like, wow, I never actually had a chance to tell that person how much they've meant to me. I never verbalize it. And of course, there's cultural layers to this, right? So there are cultures where we say things out more and cultures where we say things less.

Actually, I thought in the US that you can say these things more easily, but I guess if you're a joke or it's harder, maybe you have to find ways to joke with this. But I think there's something that you can wait your whole life for someone to say something and it's only when they say you realize that you were waiting for them to say it. You're totally right. I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just honest with my hesitation. I was thinking about these lyrics the other day.

I'm 51 and so the 90s were a big time for me musically. And my favorite band in the 90s to this day, still one of my favorite bands was called Pavement. And their lead singer, Steve Maltemist, was kind of like the apex of slacker Gen X cleverness and Tunefulness in his is who lyrically and melodically quite sophisticated, but it one of his lyrics that really summed up This type of person is it's hard to say what you mean when you really mean it Because this was the age of irony and We didn't say things directly and I thought of that the other day and it just came into my mind again as you were talking about saying things before it's too late.

And when we say things that we mean, you can actually hear in the tone of someone's voice, like kind of which tone point is coming from in their chest, you can really tell when someone means it. And that's already a lot, a huge gift. And I think sometimes also in, especially in intimate relationships, people always want to know about how to resolve conflict and misunderstandings. And this is a kind of like, I guess, a way to keep the misunderstandings a bit dust free, that things can accumulate also because we're not appreciating each other fully and we're not able to keep those channels of communication open. So they're very, these are very powerful phrases, I am here for you and I know you're there and I'm so happy. I feel so lucky. And so of course you got to make it real because it doesn't work if it's not real. That's also a part about this. But I teach a Thai, he also said, we can send it as a text message. I just want to let you know I'm here for you. We may hear bad news from someone and we just don't know what to do or what to say. But we can say this and just send that text message and

that's already something. People can feel less alone, more accompanied. And I think also these are super powerful to use in some version, also in professional settings. And I really want to say that because I think part of the reason why people can feel burned out or we can have sort of toxic work environments is because we're not showing up with all our humanity enough for our colleagues. We're not making time for the human care. There's just competition and hustle. These from mantras can really help us show up in a different way for our colleagues that ultimately allow us just to be more human together. And we're not, yeah, the way we work can be more rewarding and more fulfilling.

I used to show up in this way silently for my colleagues when I worked in a newsroom. Like, I would do this practice of deep listening. So maybe the place where we can be most flexible is with our colleagues and how we phrase it or how implicit it is. But it's really possible and it's something to do with how we want to live our life, how we want to show up. Do we always want to be running and racing and moving on to the next thing and just getting through the day, or do we want to really just stop and be present for whoever is there? It's interesting to think about doing that at work.

I feel like I'm playing the role of a person who's just coming at you with objections. I promised to shift into a more supportive interviewer mode at some point, but I too come out of a newsroom culture 21 years at ABC News and seven years of local news before that. And at least in the States or at least in the cultures that I came out of, it doesn't really reward earnestness. So if I said I'm here for you, I could imagine it being greeted as either A and empty bromide that I don't really mean or B over the top and it's earnestness in some way that would raise eyebrows.

Yeah, so I think there's a way to do it that is not so earnest because, geez, I mean, I'm sure you saw it too, right? I mean, people suffer in newsrooms. I think in terms of toxic workplace systems kind of up there. So, I saw my colleagues suffering a lot. I mean, they were over full of toxic information, using toxic language in a toxic struggle with each other. And so the question is, how can we be an ingredient? Because for me, I saw that meant that the quality so the question is, how can we be an ingredient? Because for me, I saw that meant that the quality of the news is going to be affected, though the way we work together

is a team. I mean, production and broadcast is a team effort, right? So for me, that's what became really important is, I wanted that to be a better relationship among the people in the team. So I was offering a lot of listening, a lot of presence presence a lot of hearing out. There's a way to do this So it's about being in our body while we listen following our breathing Not being distracted. Sometimes we suggest to someone that we're listening like you're on the phone and someone's talking like yeah, right

Yeah, yeah I mean we see this all the time around us. Okay? So it looks like two people are communicating, but the level of communication is quite low, because we're not looking at that person. We're not really trying to hear what's being said. So this is what these mantras are really pointing to. And it's also a reminder for us, like how are we showing up to our way of being there for the people around us? And what would happen if we only listen to one person at a time? Or, I mean, it's not exactly mono-tasking because I'd say that when we're listening deeply, there's so many data points we're picking up on, right? Body language, our own internal responses

to what's being said, the tone, the energy behind what someone's saying, as well as the wider environment. So in real mindfulness, there's loads of data points. So it's not exactly monotasking, but we're kind of plugging in to at least one frequency, let's say that. And we're really being there to soak it all in and really try and understand what the person is trying to say. And so behind the toxic rank, I'm thinking of a particular toxic rent of one of my colleagues. There was so memorable because he had a habit of always coming into the newsroom. And just as soon as he threw the door open, it was straight out, the cursing, the shouting, the whole thing about his journey to work, about the latest political news that had broken that morning. And everyone would be like, still with their heads buried in their computers.

They would be like, morning, yeah, morning, hi, yeah. And that one morning, it was so toxic what I was hearing. And I was like, I have no idea what to do because I had the desk right next to him. And I was like, I can't work if this is going on. So I swung my chair around, gave him 100% of my attention. And I realized it wasn't about what had happened that morning. He was a very lonely person. He lived alone. He felt persecuted in his life. He felt really unfulfilled.

And suddenly this colleague who I would have said was like the hardest to work with. I started having compassion for him while I was listening. And that day, the rant only lasted like two and a half minutes because I was staring him full in the face. I was like, go on, say it, have it out. I just give it to me. And giving him that space to totally offload

into true listening. And then he's like, and then he finished, and he's like, well, what the hell are you doing listening to me for? Go ahead, can I go and get your cup of tea? And it was so funny because I was like, well, what the hell are you doing? Listen to me for, go ahead, can I go and get your cup of tea? And it was so funny because I was like, oh my goodness, I found the most efficient way to make him be quiet. Like, actually, he just needed to be heard. So this is why it's so powerful because that's a gift I gave my colleague, right?

And he couldn't even say thank you because like you say, you got to, you can't be too earnest or too whatever. And his way of saying, thank you, was can I make your colleague, right? And he couldn't even say thank you because like you say, you've got to, you can't be too earnest, so to whatever. And his way of saying thank you was, can I make you a cup of tea? Like, so yeah, it's very, I think we can play with these. But I think especially in our intimate relationships, the actual words themselves can be so powerful. That story really does illustrate another thing that I made a note of wanting to highlight from your previous comments. The attitude behind I'm here for you is not one of trying to fix somebody else's problems.

Brunei Brown has been on the show a couple of times. She said this thing on the first time she was on the show that has always stuck with me. She's talking about her children when they come to her with their problems, that she would say to them, can't fix it, but I can sit in the dark with you. That just seems incredibly important to know if you're going to try to operationalize these mantras in your own life. Absolutely.

And to trust that we've got so many ways of knowing, we've got so many ways of meeting our difficult moments. I don't know how much to go into Buddhist psychology, but we talk about deeper levels of consciousness in our kind of Buddhism, including what we would call store consciousness. There's so much insight that can emerge from store consciousness. You could call it like, yeah, just a deeper, it's not exactly background consciousness,

it's got more wisdom than that, but it's the kind of consciousness that drives the car, right? You're turning it, waiting at a stop light. All the things that we're doing while we're driving a car, it's not our conscious mind doing those things. That's our store consciousness, but our store consciousness also holds like all the potential seeds of insight, of courage, of compassion, of forgiveness, all of these things that lies in our deeper levels of consciousness rather than in our kind of cogitating mind. And so that sense of being present and being supported to be present,

just having a loved one sit with you quietly, breathing with you, the problem solving is can be happening at this deeper level. Maybe over time, it takes time for insight to emerge, what's the right decision to take, what's the right thing to say, to do, what's the right way to look at the problem. All of those kind of insights are emerging from these deeper levels of our consciousness. And having the supportive presence of a friend is so helpful to allow those seeds to kind of mature and for that insight to emerge.

Coming up, Sister True Dedication unpacks the concept of stored consciousness or deeper levels of consciousness. That's a Buddhist notion that she will explain to us. She'll also tell the story about how she went from journalism to the monastery. And she'll talk about how to use the mantras we've been talking about to lean into painful moments that many of us would rather avoid after this. Life is short and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What is happiness really mean?

How do I get the most out of my time here on Earth? And what really is the best cereal? These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast, Life is Short, with Justin Long. If you're looking for the answer to deep philosophical questions like, what is the meaning of life? I can't really help you. But I do believe that we really enrich our experience here by learning from others. And that's why in each episode, I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists, scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life. We explore how they felt during the highs. And sometimes more importantly, the lows of their careers.

We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times. But if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats between friends about the important stuff. Like, if you had a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Follow life is short wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to ad free on the Amazon music or wonder yeah. That I'm interested in this concept of store consciousness. It's for some of. I heard it would it be safe to say that a lot of the practices we do in Buddhism in particular right now

I'm just thinking about love and kindness practice where we're which can feel sort of awkward and you're repeating phrases Like may you be happy may you be healthy and can feel very forced a lot of people have a negative reaction to it but What you're doing is kind of changing Your default settings at the level of store consciousness so that when things happen in the real world that require you to be friendlier or more compassionate, but your actually, your mind is ready for it in a way that it wouldn't otherwise be.

Absolutely. So, these seeds, in other words, could be potentials or fields of force. So, you've got these potentials in your consciousness. And so when we do an intentional practice like loving kindness meditation, or even let's say mindful eating or mindful walking, we're strengthening certain seeds in our consciousness actively.

So it's what we would call appropriate attention or actively strengthening certain capacities. You could call them neural pathways, if you like. And so that the stronger they are, the more likely they are to manifest for us in the more active, higher levels of our consciousness, in our actual thoughts, speech and actions, in the moments when we need them. So yeah, it's sort of an active cultivation of the mind.

The Buddha had this image that the mind is like a field or a garden, and the role of the meditator is to cultivate the seeds of the mind in that garden. So there are certain seeds that we don't necessarily, we don't want to water, like maybe the seeds of bitterness or jealousy or anger or despair, even anxiety or fear. So they are, you could call them like the weeds, so you don't want to water your weeds, but you want to take care of them when they emerge. And then these other seats like compassion, kindness, forgiveness, courage, non-fear. These are the kind of seats that we're activating when we're sitting and breathing and being really present for our loved ones or our colleagues.

We're getting at, for me, what is really the animating insight that led me to quit being a journalist and focus full time on this rather strange side pursuit, side note. I do want to hear about how you went from journalists to none at some point. But the animating insight for me is that the mind is trainable. Just like you can work your body in the gym, you can train your mind at really deep, interesting levels that allows you to lead a happier, more useful life. And so I think what I'm hearing here is that these mantras are just part of that cultivation. If I please Buddhist scholars send me a note about whether I've screwed this up, but one of the initial terms for meditation in the language of Pali, which was the language in which the original Buddhist teachings were written down, is Bavana, B-H-A-V-A-N-A, which translates into cultivation.

And that's not an accident because the Buddhist has spoken a lot of agrarian terms because he was a lot of the people were farmers. So he was talking to you, he was really good at meeting people where they were. And you just use the same analogy. And even though these matras aren't quote unquote formal meditation, you're still doing the cultivation. You're still doing the bicep curl,

whatever metaphor you want to use. Exactly. And we may think, oh, in order to do that cultivation, I've got to do how many thousand hours of meditation or whatever other kind of practice. So sometimes we can have a kind of, we have a sense we need to accumulate hours of practice. So as these mantras, I can teach them to someone in five minutes and they can use it at home that evening. And I think this is some of the power actually of what our teacher has offered in his really contemporary Buddhist practices is, we don't need to wait. You can just shortcut to the result. You don't need to like earn it with thousands of hours. Like anyone can do this and that is for your bicep curl. That is the is the muscle, you're building the muscle. And you can,

you can use it right away to save to protect. You don't need to have a sense that I don't know the fruits of Buddhist practice need to somehow be abstract and oh, one day I'll be a kind person. It's like, no, just when you show up to work tomorrow, just say this to your colleague when you go home tonight, just say this, send the text right now. Like, I guess also we're a Zen tradition. And Zen, like, the fruits of the practice are immediately available.

Anyone can do this. And it doesn't need to be mystifying, Buddhism doesn't need to be kind of complicated and mysterious. But that's why I find it so funny that these are called bantres, that just raw insight, roar impactful immediate insight that we all can apply. I want to continue with the remaining four mantras, but can you tell us the story of how you went from journalists to none? Well, so actually the

secret is that I went to my first retreat with Ticknut Han just before I began working for the BBC. So I had this unusual pathway where I was sort of deepening my meditation practice while also learning how to be in a newsroom. And actually my first day, BBC was working on the Iraq war. And I was an analyst and a researcher, so I had to analyze the military capability of the UK in the Iraq war in 2003, at the same time that I was a very clear pacifist, into nonviolence, and meditation, and attending anti-war protests. So I had this weird kind of parallel, which kind

of ended up making sense because I was able to contribute to a different kind of news because at that time, there was a lot of concern in the UK for how news can be supportive of democracy, supportive of citizen engagement and all these kind of things. So actually, in the end, I was able to navigate an ethical path through my newsroom years. I think for many of us, we want to find a place where we can leave a change in the world. And that's what drove me to be in the BBC because I thought, oh, well, Johnless needs to report on the things that matter the most and the way we report on it

will affect how people experience it. So I thought that would be where I could have the most impact. But then, because the newsroom environment was so toxic, I found myself, my negative seeds were also being watered, so speaking about the store consciousness. My sharp speech, my anger, my, I wouldn't say ambition, but maybe my aggression was watered in the newsroom simply by being in that environment, because if you're not serving with it, you're sinking, right? And so I started seeing myself become a kind of person that and sharper and tougher than I wanted to be. And I could see so clearly because of my mindfulness practice, so I was keeping my mindfulness

practice in the newsroom. I had a few tricks every time I walked to the water cooler, I would practice mindful walking. It was 12 steps. I still remember them. I have 12 steps around the corner from my desk. And no one needs to know your practicing walking meditation, but I would really feel each footstep on the carpet. And then when I would drink the water,

I had a little poem that I'd learned from Tignette Han before drinking the water. So I would visualize mountains and waterfalls and feel connected to the whole universe before I drank my glass of water. And then going back to the desk. And in the difficult moments when I did really intense new story broke or we lost one of our live guests for our show, I would do like a five minute body scan in the really fancy toilets.

Because I just was like, I had to just regulate my nervous system. So I was, I had all these ways and the deep listening, I think was probably the most visible one to my colleagues. When I came to leave, they didn't want me to leave, but I think they kind of understood that I wanted something else. And I thought, oh, they'll really appreciate my insights that kind of cut through the paradigm from my different perspective because I had this practice

and other values than many of them. But in fact, at the end, they were like, no, we just missed your presence. We missed your presence on the team. And at the time, I was so, I was a little bit hurt and disappointed, but over the years, I've come to realize that, yeah, sometimes we think even in the workplace,

we have to do something or we have to be brilliant or we have to be excellent, but actually genuinely my colleagues just appreciated my presence and that was a real contribution to the team. And I think when you ask about what was the decision that how did it come to be? Well, I think all of us, and I guess for anyone young listening as well, we always have this question, like what to do with my one precious life. And how can we have impact where we are? And I just realized that that particular environment was watering the wrong kinds of seeds in me and that the most impactful thing I could do would be

to become, this is going to sound so cheesy. The better version of myself by which I mean, I wanted to cultivate those better seeds in me and not cultivate the bad seeds in me, right? I wanted to do the good things, not do the bad things and purify my way of being in the world somehow. And so, yeah, that was just a sense that I know my job can be replaced a thousand times, but I only have one life. And is this really what I want to fill it with? And Buddha's only do a lot of this death meditation. And sometimes it can sound like really spooky. Like, why would you do that? But I found it really powerful. So there's a particular contemplation that you can do on impermanence and being aware that you will die one day. And that all we will leave behind us

is our actions of body, speech, and mind. Like what we've done in our life will be what continues us. And so somehow I can't remember how it struck me, but I'd been on a retreat and then straight back to the user. And I just realized that if I died, like if I had a tombstone, it would just kind of say editor or something. And I was like, wow, well, if I continue on this pathway, that would be the sum total of my life.

And it just really woke me up and I was just like, my life. Oh my God, I just get this one banner editor. I was like, oh no, I'd rather die than have that on my eighth grade stone, you know? Which of course, it's funny in itself. But yeah, somehow I realized that, yeah, what's life for? And I realized life is for healing, it's for transformation, it's for doing the deep inner work and for working out how to be a better human being. And with Thai and with the community in Plum Village, I just suddenly realized, wow, I could do all of this work, which is the kind of hardest work to do,

and very few people are doing it, but I think it could be very beneficial to do it. And I would be able to be a kind of better version of myself. And that would be meaningful, not only for myself, but also to heal some of the things I've inherited from my ancestors and to kind of reckon with a lot of things. The more I'm in the monastery, the more I see. I mean, I don't know if your listeners are aware, so I'm a white British person.

We've got a hell of a heritage to reckon with from my country, and that is also part of my spiritual journey to wake up to that karma, that privilege, and also to see how I can help be a source of transformation and healing and, yeah, lifting up what has been oppressed. You described your comments as variously as cheesy or heavy, but didn't land that way for me. I understand that going from journalists to non-involves, even Norris amount of life changes, you shaved your head, you're not making a salary, like whatever the BBC pays anymore. I have two Zen monks, slash priest friends who are married to one another. In your tradition, the plum village tradition, did you have to break up with your composer

partner or could you stay together? No, we broke up and actually, so that we both ordained. So he's a monk, I'm a nun. And we've been in the monastery now for 15 years as monastics. And we had a path of training for a year to prepare us. And then we ordained that now we're both, as you say, celibate. And he lives with the monks. I live with the sisters. And we both have shaved heads and yeah, follow the big shoe, big shoe knee pre-sav, so in this particular tradition of Buddhism, yeah, we are celibate and you have a whole code of conduct to support that. That's a whole other podcast probably. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Okay, so I've taken

us pretty far afield. Let's get back to the mantras, But thank you for humoring me. So the third mantra is, I know you suffer and that I'm here for you. Yeah. So this is to acknowledge and this is really building on what we were sharing in the first two mantras about really being there for others and acknowledging their presence. And this is this mantra, I know you're hurting. I know this is painful for you. And that is why I'm here for you. So it's sort of builds naturally on the first two. I'm here for you and the second one. I know you're there and I'm happy. And this third one is I know you suffer. I know you're having a hard time. I know you're in pain. And that is why I'm here for you.

And I think many of us, I don't know, if we have friends or family members when they're sick or even dying or facing a terminal illness, it can be really hard simply to be present, but this is what this mantra is pointing to. How to, I don't know, sit in a hospital room and breathe and just be there. And I was able to do this when my father had a critical moment and I was able to fly over and accompany him in hospital.

over and accompany him in hospital. And to be silent and to be present in moments of pain, it's not so easy, but with mindful breathing it is possible. And even flexibly applying the loving kindness practice that you spoke about, Dan, it is possible to simply be there and breathe. And what we find is what I found, being next to my father's bedside, was that when I could just sit there and follow my breathing, so a real practice of generating the energy of mindfulness while being aware of his presence in the bed, while being aware of the machines and the noise of the hospital. I was aware that my breathing itself, like traced the contours of all of his suffering, of all the stress in that environment,

and that by bringing my gentleness, my practice of compassion, of kindness, my attempts to cultivate more courage in that moment, I would be able to come and be with my own breathing thanks to this energy of mindfulness. And the quality of my breathing could change and I could see how the quality of my dad's breathing could also change in kind of responsive synchrony

because we are really connected to our loved ones. And that quality of presence, I don't know, maybe one day they'll have machines that couldn't measure it. But it can be very meaningful and very powerful to simply be there and breathe when a loved one is in pain, is struggling, is hurting. And the energy of mindfulness can really help us do that. So sometimes when our loved ones suffer or our colleagues suffer, we kind of turn away. We

don't have space, we don't have time. We've got our own stuff to deal with. So this mantra is reminding us that we can lean in and offer a quality of presence in moments of pain for others. And whether we can offer five minutes or we can offer 20 minutes or we can offer half an hour, those minutes have value when we have that energy of mindfulness with them. And to let people know that we are there. So I have to say, in the case of my father, I didn't say the exact words like this, I just came in, I acknowledged that it was difficult for him and that I would just like to sit there

and just be there in the room with him. And I just settled in and followed my breathing. And if you like, lived this mantra in those moments, I think, I don't know in the US, but in the UK, we're a little bit reserved around painful things in relationships. There's some shyness, some hesitancy to name things. And what's fascinating is that actually also in our teachers, home culture and Vietnam is the same. It's quite a reserved culture, but he was really saying, so many misunderstandings can happen because we don't have the courage to lean into those

moments of pain. So to be able to say, I know your suffer, I know this is a hard time for you, and that is why I'm here for you. That can unlock something in the relationship. It can give the other person permission to maybe describe the way it's hard. And maybe because of that closeness, they haven't had a chance to put words on it, but knowing that you can hear, they can describe their difficulty in a way, and that may be the first time they've been able to really put words on it. So this is a really important mantra of giving us courage to lean into these

painful moments. Coming up, Sister True Dedication talks about how and why to include people who have heard us, who have done us dirty in our meditation practice. And on a very different note, she talks about when to recite these five words, this is a happy moment after this. You use the term mindful breathing for people who are listening, who are new to the meditation world. We have a lot of OG meditators here, but there may be folks who are coming to this show, just as they're starting to get interested in meditation. You're not describing some esoteric, difficult practice. It's just feeling the breath as it occurs naturally as a way to, for a few nanoseconds at a time, get you out of the spinning

stories of the ego. Of course, you will then get carried away, probably less for you, giving you years of practice, but for most of us mortals will get carried away in planning or worrying or resentment or whatever it is. And then you can remember eventually to go back to the breath. And then once you're stabilized a little bit, you can expand to whatever is happening for the other person, whatever is happening in the room. It's just waking up. My putting this accurately.

Yeah, that's a very lovely way to describe it. And I would also say, in my practice, I really enjoy following the whole length of the in-breath and the whole length of the out-breath. So for me, I often feel like I'm riding the waves of the breathing flowing into my body and the wave of the breathing flowing out of the body. So it's not simply, oh, that's an in-breath, oh, that's an out-breath. I mean, that identifying it is like the kind of first step, but the second one is really to sort of become one with the breathing. Sometimes we speak about it as like awareness of the body or the breathing from the inside. So it's really that whole felt experience, the whole mechanism of the trunk of our body or the breathing from the inside. So it's really that whole felt experience,

the whole mechanism of the trunk of our body, you can feel the air being welcomed by the lungs, by the diaphragm, you can feel so much moving inside and then flowing out. And then over time, we can really start to feel, oh, we can identify all this tightness in my chest, all this tightness in my tummy, all this tightness in my throat, all this tension around my mouth. So it's through the kind of portal of this mindful breathing, portal of the energy of mindfulness that is

embracing the whole experience of this whole mechanism of our breathing. That is what allows us to have this real embodied quality of presence and a truly embodied energy of mindfulness. It's plugged in if you like, to the experience of breathing. And it's very simple. So, for example, at work, what I used to do is because we had these big boardroom meetings with these big tables. And you can always put your hand on your tummy, like underneath the table in these big meetings.

And I would, I found in our especially on Monday morning news briefing meetings. It was so helpful to really follow my breathing at the level of the belly and I just have my hands on my belly underneath the table. No one could see and I could really breathe deeply into my belly and I found that really helpful to navigate these difficult moments. But as you said, following our breathing as it is, not really changing it in any way, but just allowing it to somehow be a refuge, a place of grounding familiarity. And that is what we mean when we say mindful breathing or the energy of mindfulness through our breathing. I've got my eye on the clock a little bit now because I've forced you into so many

digressions. So the fourth mantra actually answers a question I had written in the margins of my little papers in front of me. You know, in the face of the mantra is like, I'm here for you. I know you're there and I'm so happy. I wrote down, well, what if you need help? The fourth mantra answers that question. It is, I suffer.

Please help. This one is quite intense because it's to do with our kind of, tie with describe it as, ammo, pop, a pride. When we get hurt by someone, that kind of sense to like shrugging your shoulders, someone's like, are you OK? And we kind of pull your shoulder away. And you're like, I'm fine.

What's up? Nothing. This mantra is the medicine for that, which is it is pointing to a need. I said we're allowed to be angry for 24 hours, but after that we have to take some action to make sure that anger doesn't fester. And that's what this mantra is about. It's like, when you said that yesterday, actually that really hurt. That is the meaning of, I suffer, please help. It is opening up the communication

and letting a loved one know that something was really difficult. And we have other communication practices that can kind of surround this to make sure it doesn't become a really negative conversation and interaction. We have a practice called beginning and new where we take time to appreciate what's going well in the relationship before we move on to some of these more tricky pain points like when someone has said something or done something that was really hurtful. But this is about inviting us to kind of reach out for help. And sometimes people even, we try maybe even to solve our problems with our mindfulness practice or with our meditation, I'll take care of this alone. I can solve this. I just got to get over it. And once I've got over it, then I can get on being the relationship. And this is really,

over it, then I can get on being the relationship. And this is really, this mantra is really inviting us to take refuge in the people around us, including the very people who have hurt us. And sometimes we can be forgiven by someone close to us for something we didn't even know we did. Like many of us, we're not as self-aware as we may think, and we can hurt people without even knowing that we've hurt them. And by saying, I suffer, please help, it gives that person, or you said that thing, and I'm suffering and I need your help, because we may be able to have a certain quality of healing that we can do ourselves alone. But the deepest healing is when that person can explain why they said that thing, why they did that thing, when that person might be even able to apologize in the best case scenario. But this is really about saying

that meditation is not something we do alone and living well is not something we can do alone with social beings. Our teacher's famous for this phrase that we inter are, that the truth is inter-being between ourselves and others. And so we have to have that courage to open up our heart and to ask for help, and to not try and solve all our problems alone. And that's what this mantra is really pointing to. Just to say the beginning and new practice, we did a whole

episode on that and I'll post a link to that in the show notes. Wonderful. Moving on to mantra number five. I like this, but I'm not sure I like it for the right reasons. The mantra is, you are partly right. This is very powerful. So, when someone criticizes us or says we did something wrong, their view is only partial. The response is to be able to say to ourselves and to the other person. Yeah, you're partly right. And so this kind of works both ways, right? It means, yeah, we take it with a pinch of salt, but also we've got to take it.

We've got to take what we hear. So it's allowing people to be partly right. And our task as a meditator is to look into what are the ways in which they might be right. And how can I allow my pride to kind of step aside a bit and really see what is the grain of truth in what they are saying and how can I learn and how can I grow as a human being from what they are saying.

This hard piece of feedback is difficult to kind of swallow. So they are partly right. And that is, it speaks to this practice of openness of mind that is so important in meditation and in I guess our spiritual journey to really be open, not narrow-minded, to be open and curious to learn something about ourselves and others in the world. And that includes getting feedback from other people about our shortcomings. And then the flip side of this is that when someone praises us, when someone says, wow, you're so incredible.

Oh, you did this so well. In that case, the mantra is also, ah, you are partly right. They are partly right. So it's also not to self aggrandize and think that, yeah, I've got this down. I'm so great at this or I'm so good at that or I did something. There's always room for growth, like everything everybody is only partly right. And actually, this speaks to the particular school of Buddhism we belong to, in which we understand that our experience of the world is only ever partial. Everyone has their own perspective, our view is always conditioned by what we're seeing, what we're hearing. And so these mantras help us not become dogmatic, not become overconfident, not impose our views on others. This mantra, you are partly right, it invites us to always have a spirit of kind

of questioning about our position or our views. And if we think about the polarization that is happening around the world at the moment, it's quite a tough one. Can we say, wow, can we use it as a kind of a co-an, a question, a threat to open up? Like when someone says a view that we find really triggering, can we breathe for a moment? And can we try to see if we can stretch our heart and mind to see what are the ways in which they are partly right. Now the key word here is also right, okay, so the word right or wrong, like we also can't have absolutes in this. So it can be in what way from their perspective, with their concerns, with their values, can we see that view feels right to them?

So it's a thread to see something that feels completely wrong. It's like how can we try and understand the human being and their concerns that have given rise to that view. And these qualities of openness, openness of mind, openness and non-attach, what we would call non-attachment to views, is really important for what we call engaged Buddhism, which is the kind of Buddhism that applies out in the world, in society, even in politics, in ethics. It's really important to keep a kind of radical openness and a non-attachment of views. And that is what this mantra also points to. And this kind of teaching

comes from our teachers experience during the Vietnam War when you had two sides in the war who were ready to kill each other for their views. And in Buddhism, we should not ever kill, not ever want to eliminate the other side simply because they hold a different view. We can disagree with the view without wanting to eliminate that person. That is what this mantra is pointing to. That's incredibly important and a beautiful antidote to much of what ails us as a culture right now. The final mantra is, this is a happy moment. Absolutely. And to say this is a happy moment, is a realization.

It's not a kind of auto suggestion. It is to declare that a moment, for example, the family is sitting around the table. I don't know when this will be broadcast if Thanksgiving is coming up. To say everyone is sitting around the table, there is a happiness that everyone present is still alive. And our teacher, Tai, he used to ask us to say this mantra before a meal. So everyone would join their palms and often we might have a kind of contemplation or it's like a grace that would be read formally but it's quite

long. But when we would be having an informal meal with him, we would join our palms and then he'd look to someone and kind of raise their eyebrows and kind of nod him, be like go on, say it. And you have to know that you don't recite the whole five contemplations before eating, but you simply recite these few words, these five words, this is a happy moment. And that's enough to then just smile to each other and then enjoy a great meal together. To be able to celebrate life is an active practice and we've been speaking about seeds in our consciousness. When we have a moment that is precious,

that is beautiful, that is rare, that is wonderful, we need to be able to know, to name it, to declare it, to celebrate it. And these five words, this is a happy moment. This is a wonderful moment. This is a legendary moment. It's another version that Tai gave us of this mantra. It's to be able to declare it is a moment of awakening. And whoever is there, whether it's, I don't know, it's a picnic, it's a meal,

it's a moment of laughter, it's a beautiful sunset. Whatever that moment is, we declare it to be a great moment. And that is an awakening for everyone. And I think sometimes we let really special moments kind of pass us by. We're in it. And yet we kind of don't know we're in it. We just get on with it. It's like, oh, I think heaven's rule around the table. Okay, let's tuck in. Let's dig in. Let's start eating or oh, wow, that sunset's great. I'll keep driving. Or I don't know. There's a lot of moments, I think, in our daily life that passes by. And so this mantra is an invitation just to stop, to name it, to arrive into the moment

and to wake up to its wonder. For me, much of the brilliance, and I think it's pretty clear that Tignaton was a spiritual genius, but much of the brilliance of these mantras is that they counterprogram against our more noxious tendencies, our bad seeds are unholsom seed at the store level of consciousness. In this case, it's our negativity bias, which we evolved for some decent reasons because we needed to be on the lookout for threats. It was pointed out in that book, Sapiens, that we're the only apex predator who went from prey to the top of the food chain.

And so we have this anxiety baked into us that has made us, I think, probably the cruelest apex predator. Nonetheless, there are threats that we do need to have, the mind does need to boost their salience in order for us to get our DNA into the next generation. And yet, that can lead us to drive past beautiful sunsets, rush through meals with our family, and there's only a finite number of those available to all of us.

And this happy moment mantra really just, I think it forces, and I'd use that term not in the pejorative, but it forces us or allows us to hang on lantern on to double click on these incredible moments, which again, there is not an unlimited supply of these. Absolutely. If we want to get more information on how to practice these mantras in our own lives, are there resources out there that we can access? Yes, there's a wonderful book by our teacher, the Art of Communicating, which goes deeper into a lot of these communication practices and into these mantras. Also, we have an app. The Plumb Village app is a free app with lots of free meditations

and teachings from our teacher, including on the mantras and many other things. And that's becoming even more popular way for people to be able to connect to. I guess a kind of living stream of modern meditative wisdom and insight and it's lovely to be able to give people the monastery in their pocket so people can download the app and discover more about these in the app as well as the book, the art of communicating. Any other resources that you've put out into the world that we should highlight here? Well, if people want to hear a bit about my stories and this journey, as you were asking from

the newsroom, and what it's like to be a young western, none, in Tick-N-T-Hans community, I recently edited his teachings on engage Buddhism and our kind of existential crisis at the moment. And that book's called Zen in the Art of Saving the Planet. And there's lots of wonderful, very powerful teachings from Tignan in the book. And then I also offer a commentary and I draw on these different moments of having been learning and practicing meditation and studying with Thai with with our teacher, and then also drawing on my experience of trying to apply these teachings as a regular human being and not a Zen master. So some people have found that book fun and we also have an audiobook

version of that. So that may be an interesting thing if people would like to discover more. And also really see how mindfulness practice can be a source and an energy and agent of change in the world. I think we don't just practice meditation to feel better, but to make the world a better place. And those two are linked inextricably. Inextricably. Yeah, it's a double helix. Well, it's been a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you, Dan. It's been wonderful to be quizzed by you.

I've enjoyed it a lot. Thank you so much. I was going to close by snarkily saying, no, only semi snarkily saying, I know you're there and I'm so happy. I know you're there and I'm so happy. I know you're there and I'm very grateful for this conversation. Likewise, likewise.

Thanks again to sister true dedication. Thank you as well to everybody who works so incredibly hard on this show. 10% happier is produced by DJ Cashmere Gabrielle Zuckerman, Justine 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 Bonnaventure of Ultraviolet Audio. We'll see you on Friday for a bonus meditation. Hey, hey, prime members.

You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free 1-3-plus in Apple podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash Survey.