Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 523: A Masterclass in Handling Yourself When Things Suck | Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Daniel Goleman

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

This episode is for anyone who has ever had a tough or tricky moment. In other words, everyone who is currently drawing breath on planet earth right now.Today’s guests are powerhouse duo Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Daniel Goleman.Tsoknyi Rinpoche is one of the greatest living Tibetan masters who has a whole toolbox of techniques for dealing with difficult moments, habitual patterns, and common meditation obstacles. He’ll be in conversation with Daniel Goleman, a trained scientist and science writer best known for his landmark book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Together, they have just written a book called Why We Meditate: The Science and Practice of Clarity and Compassion. This is the fourth and final installment of our series called, The Art and Science of Keeping Your Sh*t Together. In each episode we bring together a meditative adept or Buddhist scholar and a respected scientist. The idea is to give you the best of both worlds to arm you with both modern and ancient tools for regulating your emotions.In this episode we talk about:The single word that Rinpoche believes captures the most challenging aspect of modern lifeTwo of the biggest obstacles for meditatorsWhat Rinpoche calls the “drop it” practiceRinpoche’s term, “beautiful monsters”The four steps of the “handshake” practice, which is meant for meeting difficult emotions and being OK with themWhy reasoning with your feelings doesn’t workHow to experience a fundamental OK-ness independent of external conditionsA personal story from Rinpoche about being with one of his own difficult habitsWhat Rinpoche calls the “three speed limits”And, “belly breathing”Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/tsoknyi-rinpoche-daniel-goleman-523See 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 gang, this is, I think, going to be an incredibly useful episode for anybody who's ever had tough or tricky moments in their lives. In other words, it's going to be useful for anybody currently drawing breath on planet Earth right now. We've got a powerhouse duo on the show. Tokeni Rinpoche is one of the greatest living Tibetan masters who has a whole toolbox of

techniques for dealing with difficult moments, habitual patterns and common meditation obstacles. He will be in conversation with Danny Goldman or Daniel Goldman, as he's often professionally known, his friends call him Danny. He is a trained scientist and science writer, perhaps best known for his landmark book, Emotional Intelligence. Together, Tukni Rinpoche and Danny Goldman have just produced a book called Why We Meditate, which will be out in a few weeks and is currently available for pre-order. This is the fourth and final installment of our series called the Art and Science of Keeping Your Shit Together. In each episode, we bring together a meditative adept or Buddhist scholar and a respected

scientist. The idea is to give you the best of both worlds to arm you with both modern and ancient tools for regulating your emotions. In this conversation, we talked about the single word that Soakini Rinpoche believes captures the most challenging aspect of modern life, two of the biggest obstacles for meditators, especially early meditators. What Rinpoche calls the drop it practice, his term, which I found especially meaningful, beautiful monsters. He'll explain that. The four steps of the handshake practice for meeting

difficult emotions and being okay with them. Why reasoning with your feelings doesn't work? How to experience a fundamental ok-ness independent of external conditions? A personal story from Rinpoche about being with one of his own difficult habits. What Rinpoche calls the three speed limits and finally, belly breathing. And at each step along the way,

Danny Goldman is gonna chime in with what the science says about these various techniques. Okay, we'll get started with Tukumi Rinpoche and Danny Goldman 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 wanna do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral?

Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist, Kelly McGonical, and the great meditation teacher, Alexis Santos, to access the course, just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10%.com.

All one word spelled out. Okay, on with the show. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, baby, this is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts. I'm a new podcast, Baby This is Skiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad.

Where did memes come from? And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby This is Skiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. Soak me Rinpoche and Danny Goldman welcome to the show. Thank you. Happy to be here. Thank you.

It's such a pleasure to be here. Rinpoche, let me start with you. You say in this new book that a major part of your inspiration for writing the book or co-authoring the book was that you were finding that your Western students were intellectually grasping what you were teaching, but they weren't really getting it in their bones. Can you say more about that? Yes. At the beginning of my tour to the US, I give a lot of teaching to cognitive-based understanding,

and I thought it went very well. And then over the years, I think the communication between the cognitive mind in the feeling world, I little bit disconnected. So I thought, I think we have to connect from our mind to the feeling world,

that the feeling can also feel the same understanding of the cognitive minds information. So I developed some kind of, you know, dropping into the body and the open our heart and then can receive the teaching in conjunction with the understanding and feeling transformation. So you develop some practices that we'll go through over the course of this interview to get people out of their heads and into their bodies. I'm curious though, what do you think is going on in terms of the differences that you're seeing between your eastern students and your western students? Why is it that the western students were apparently so good at grasping the techniques and the ideas intellectually, but there was some block between the intellectual understanding and the more visceral understanding.

I think is the culture and the modern influence, speedy and and goal oriented, and everything went into the head and trying to grasp in the intellectual way, and there's not enough time to bring into the body and need some time to digest. Open, I think that is lacking. You say in the book, I made a note of this, and I'm turning it to it now because you just used the word. But in the book, you say, if I had to pick, and this is a quote, if I had to pick one word to capture the most challenging aspect

of our modern lifestyle, it would be speediness. Can you say more about speediness? I found there's a three-speed limits, cognitive fast thinking mind and then physical body movement speed. And there is, I call, subtle body and energetic feeling connected with the emotion. And that is very much speedy in the world, especially in the modern world. Danny, while we're on this kind of high level setting the table piece of the interview, do you have any comments on any of the foregoing

that you want to jump in and share? Well, I remember saying keeps referring to the cultural difference. And I think since we are in this culture, you may remember moments when you came home from school as a kid and your parents asked you, how do you do on the test? They didn't say, who was nice to you today? Who are you kind to today? They asked a completely different question, which implies conditional love. We will love you if you do well. That also, a verse of that is, we won't love you if you don't do well.

I mean, children get shaped by the culture. So we become driven, particularly those of us who becomes quote successful in the normal sense of the word, but I think part of that success is what Rippesche is referring to a speediness, where you feel too driven to notice the people around you, what's going on in your body. I think this is one reason that mindfulness has such value for people today, because it brings them back to that. And Rippesche has a really wonderful methods for helping people find

what I would say is an organic speed limit rather than the one that's been imposed. As I keep promising, we will get to some of these techniques, but let me just ask one last contextual question here, and this is for you, Rinpoche. In the book, you say that the two biggest obstacles among the early meditators that you've seen in your teaching are one, and I'm quoting here again, my mind is wild and I can't find calm. And two, my most troubling thoughts just keep coming back and coming back. Can you say a little bit more about these two principle obstacles? I think for me, calmness is not in the mind. Calmness is in the body, especially the subtle body.

When I say subtle body, it's not the cognitive thinking, it's not a physical, in between there's an energy subtle body. I think when we disturb that subtle body, then you cannot find calmness in your mind. At least you have to bring calm in the body, then the mind starts to become more clear. And then meditation works very well, and also in general, whatever you want to do, there's a clarity in your mind. Second one is, I call repeating thoughts as part of a reaction towards to first thought, and second thought is reacting. So there's a way I sort of developed practice called handshake practice to aware of that reaction and stay with that and not doing anything.

Stay with that either emotional reaction or cognitive reaction, be with that reactive mind and relax. And then that will open up the thought. There's some magic. When aware of that reactive thought, relax that, then that also open up because everything is impermanent. And where there is impermanent, there is a space. Dan, could I add something?

Of course, anytime you want to jump in, Danny, do you don't need to ask permission? So you asked about the thoughts that keep coming back. And it was important in the evolution of Rumpesche's methodology for the Westerner that he had a series of conversations with my wife, Tarvana Goman, who's a pioneer in integrating mindfulness with a kind of psychodynamic cognitive therapy. And she, in her book, Emotional Alchemy, which Rumpesche listened to, lists like the top 10 such repetitive thoughts like fear of abandonment and

or relationship or a sense of emotional deprivation. No one cares about me or self-sacrifice. There are these patterns that we develop early in life and she talked about how to transform them. How mindfulness, for example, can help you not be so powerfully taken over by them and Rippeshey will later talk about I think if you want to, this beautiful monster concept which grew out of those conversations so basically try to help them understand that Westerners have these patterns that we experience as repetitive thoughts and feelings and then how to work with them to transform them and then he took it in his own

direction. While I have you Danny,, Rinpoche keeps making references to subtle body. He did define it, but I want to bring you in as the representative of science here to maybe see if you have anything to add on that. Well, Dan, as you know, science does not know everything. One of the things science knows, I think about is the subtle body. It's a concept that you find in yoga and you find in Tibetan Buddhism well developed. It's an ancient understanding of a very, I have to use the word subtle again, energy level that matters to us enormously, which Western science is frankly oblivious to.

And so I look to people like Rinpoche as experts on it, but I can't think of a single Western scientist, maybe Richie Davidson, who knows the thing about it. But given all of your training, both in the meditation or contemplative world and in the scientific and research and journalistic world, the concept lands for you. It makes sense to you. Well, you know, you think about how emotions come to us. They come to us unbidden out of somewhere else, right? All of a sudden you feel angry or sad or whatever it may be. And I think that there is a level of visceral,

as the word you used, biological, emotional reactivity, seething within us that perhaps has to do with subtle body. That may be where they come from. And I also think that these systems, yogic systems in Tibetan India both say it's extremely important to be able to manage your subtle body in order to make deep progress in spiritual practice. But I can't claim to be an expert. I'll always take that as an answer.

We come from a tradition where not knowing is venerated. Okay, so we've been dancing around the various techniques, but let's start where you start in the book with the first technique that you offer Rinpoche, which is called drop it. What is drop it practice? Dropping is all the extra worry carried by mind and also in the subtle body, in the gross body I call back back. So it's distorted phenomena and they're left over in your system and we're still taking that as a part of our being. So I think in order to really open up, there is something you can drop. So the mind is all up here and holding on the unnecessary hope in fear. Those hope in fear are not relevant to our life. But it's still a part of imprint

and we're holding on that and we don't know what to do with that. So there's an exercise, it's like a breathing out and the hand putting down and the attitude is let it go. Whatever happens happens. Whatever doesn't happen. So what? Almost like, who cares?

And if you want to make a mantra, so what? Who cares? Because we have love and compassion in our heart, but sometimes we care too much. So I make this exercise. We let it go everything first as much we can. Then we can nurture the healthy love,

healthy care, healthy insight to help yourself, to help others. So my one is like this, if you're holding something in your hand, I think better to put it down, then you can hold Then you can hold next one nicely. But while you're holding the left over, no use anymore, it's kind of distorted. And then if you want to hold new things, there's no room. There's no space. So first drop means drop all your concern. Whether I'm good, no good, right, wrong, people love me, no love me.

All these anxious conscious just drop and breathe out, stay there for a while. Just one, two, three, four seconds and aware of that freedom. Because you still have a conscious, you still knowingness is there. Awareness is there. Awareness is there except you are not holding extra baggage. So let me see if I can repeat that back to you a little bit. I imagine this is a practice you can do in formal meditation or in the course of your daily life. Yes, both. Yes, both. So in either context, you might notice,

oh, I'm completely caught up in anger or fear or some difficult emotion. And you can do this kind of radical thing of who cares? And people listening couldn't see your gesticulations, but you were using your arms as you did this practice. It's almost like you can physically mimic the dropping of whatever junk is in your backpack onto the ground and then take a deep breath and enjoy a few nanoseconds of freedom from whatever it is you were carrying. Correct.

Beautiful did that. Yes. And then you stay there for a while, not breathing in, breathe out. The moment you drop from your head and little bit shake your body and then hand drop into your knee and then like this.

And then stay there for a while. And aware of that beautiful freedom. And if you can do time to time that, and that could be your reference point, that there is clear, open, without useless back-back. But to be clear Rinpoche, this exercise is not going to solve whatever problem you have. It will solve some problem, but not everything, sorry.

Next, technique we need handshake practice, because some are deeper than just dropping. We need a transformation. So we need a kindness, insight, mindfulness, awareness, and be with the beautiful mantra, I call, left our imprint in our subtle body or our unconscious. So we have to meet them, stay with them, listen. Many emotional imprint is in the body, not only in the mind. So I make difference between cognitive mind-based, a feeling, body, or emotional base.

Danny, as you know, the way the book is structured, obviously, you know that since you corroded the way the book is structured, Rinpoche will offer a teaching and then you'll swoop in with the science. So, swoop away on this one on the drop-it practice. So, you know, Western sciences studied anxiety for decades actually and they've come up with several different kinds of worry. One of which is extremely unhelpful. It's called technically rumination, where you think about that same thing that upsets you over and over and you wake up at two in the morning thinking about it. And it's the first thought you have the next day. And it doesn't help because it doesn't solve the problem.

Useful worry in contrast. Thinks about something you can do, a step you can take, and then you can leave the worry and then take the step. That's quite healthy. That's functional worry. I don't know that worry is even the right worry. It's planning. So just contrast those two. And what we're best is talking about is the worst kind, the rumination, and what to do with it, just to give ourselves a break from it, and it makes very good scientific sense. Of course, dropping something for a couple of seconds isn't going to solve the problem, it just can give you respite from it. And in terms of the methodology that Rimbusche deploys in his approach to meditation, those

seconds are very precious because they make it clear that there is a way of being, as he said, which is just open awareness. That's not occupied by word thoughts. And that will be built on. Can you define open awareness? I think it's been well-defined in the mindfulness area by simply paying attention to what's going on now without judging. But he adds actually something a little more profound without worrying, without even maybe thinking, just open aware of awareness. Can I say something here? Of course.

Neither of you needs to ask for permission. You could just talk. I'm scared of you, so I should ask. I know Jokey. Okay, thank you. Thank you. So, open awareness is like this right after you're dropping, and then you find some freedom there, not glue by all the stuff. And then you are aware of that openness, and be with that openness

for some time, until the next glue comes in. Many things you can let it go by dropping, Many things you can let go by dropping, but some are deeper than that. Then we need a next practice to honor that a deeper part of the difficulties could be many things as the Daily mentions, top 10, top 20s. which is the most prominent to you and then invite awareness from cognitive mind and aware of our body first and within the body then there is the difficulty rigid. Could be sadness, could be holiness, could be big regret, many things, and then the hand of the awareness go there and stay next to it. Don't do anything, just listen from the wounded or difficult feeling of emotions and be closer and then one day from the emotion start to open up. Then I call first is meeting, second is conversation, and third is become liberation, opens and friend. So is what you're describing here the handshake practice that is described in the book? Yes. Before we dive into this, because I want to hear more Rinpoche about the wise and

wherefores and how's of the handshake practice. But let's talk for a moment about beautiful monsters. Where did you get this term and what do you mean by it? In our Buddhist tradition, we have two habitual patterns. One is called karmic habitual patterns coming from past life and influence our present existence. Another one is from learn habitual pattern from childhood up to now. In that learn habitual pattern, some are healthy, some are not healthy.

An unhealthy one I call is a distorted habitual pattern. So I say, beautiful monster. It feels real, but it carries distorted messages. It is real, but not true. So in the West, I think we refer to these as our demons. And, you know, for me, some of my demons are selfishness and anger and fear. And I've come over time to see that these demons that I was at war with for many decades were actually trying to help me, but not doing it the right way. And so, when you talk about beautiful monsters, that's where I go in my mind. Does that make sense to you,

what I'm saying? Yes, but I think there is beauty in that. Of course, yes, because they're trying to help you. Yeah, trying to help you and then if you understand well, then it will help others. You'll understand others. And then, you know, sometimes the difficult, beautiful monster, you know, if you resolve the difficulties, it open up. And I think the tremendous joy and compassion arise.

And you understand, especially your friend, your partners, your parents, your children, are there having the same difficulties. But if you don't transform them, and you are under the power of that completely, that is like, as you say, it can be demon. But not necessarily, there's a beauty there. So the real beauty in your view is that when you make peace with these monsters or demons or whatever you want to call them, it's the wellspring of compassion. It allows you to understand everybody else who has, of course, their own beautiful monsters or demons or whatever word you want to use.

Correct. Because we all have some kind of beautiful monster. Sometimes I say, if you don't have a beautiful monster, you are not normal. So we have two, three, four, five, and then some are there, connected. So if you know one how to transform, wow, there is a small liberation. I'm scared of height. So now I have handshake practice.

I think cognitive clarity is important. This is a left over from past things. It's in my system, but it is not me. It's just a letter over. I know I respect that but I don't need to believe 100%. We have to separate identity from that beautiful monster. The soon we are free of this identity, there is a space. My mind and the beautiful monster,'s openness so can help each other.

If everything lumped with the oneness and there's no space for opening. After the break Rinpoche will talk us through the steps of the aforementioned handshake practice. You'll learn why reasoning with strong feelings is likely to be a losing strategy and Rinpoche will share a personal story about how he has dealt with one of his own And shake practice, you'll learn why reasoning with strong feelings is likely to be a losing strategy. And Rinpoche will share a personal story about how he has dealt with one of his own difficult emotional patterns or imprints as he calls them a fear of heights after this. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page six or do, or in court.

I'm Matt Bellissi. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wonder E's new podcast, Diss and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud. From the build up, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feud say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans formed the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them.

It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or The Wondering App. In the West, we have this notion of slaying our dragons, but you're proposing a very different technique for dealing with difficult emotions, and that is the aforementioned handshake

practice. Can you describe how we would do this practice as I understand that there are four steps. First thing is there's two hand. The cognitive hand and the feeling base hand. Cognitive base hand, there's a usually call is a mind. There's a knowing mind, thinking mind, awareness and clarity. So when I say drop, drop means that the repeated thinking mind drop, but not the knowing, not the awareness, not the clarity. So we invite awareness to aware of your feelings. I think this is very important. Many people, they cannot feel themselves.

They know there's some feeling, but they are not really connected for aware of their feeling, even the physical feeling. So keep aware of your feeling, and then one day you feel your feeling. It's not that you know your feeling. When you feel your feeling, and then connection with the awareness and feeling together and handshake the beautiful monster. So there's a kindness and there's an insight. There's four key points. Not suppressing, not indulging,

and not running away from the beautiful monster, stay in the same room and not bringing some antidote to the beautiful monster that you are not okay. And I'm going to fix you by this special method. And that will not work also, because some woundedness there. So only kindness, try and not do these four key points and stay in that feeling, doing nothing but aware and feel the pain of the beautiful master. No rejecting, not holding, no suppressing, try and not to fix. I think it is a compassion, it is a kind,

I call non-judging is the kindness. So, I think first our beautiful master needs some kindness. And after that, slowly open up. That is the nature of everything. If we try and not to disturb, slowly it will open up. It's like, you know, I saw a lot of movies, the horse trainers, sometimes the difficult horse doesn't like human. So the person go there, do nothing. Just be there, being in front of the horse, become and relax, and go closer, andilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Em, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Em, Em, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Em, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Emilia, Em you do anything, waiting is kindness,

listening is kindness, doing nothing is kindness. I really want to transform the human blockages. If you give amazing lecture from your mind to the feeling but feeling will not feel that way, because you are giving lecturing, you are giving inside. We give so much to beautiful monster, trying to open up. I think that beautiful monster is sick of our knowledge, our method. So anything coming from mind is shut down, and there's no chance to communicate each other. We always command, we always give order to the feeling world.

We never listen to our feeling, we scare of listening feeling. And that is not the way we must listen. If you cannot listen, then you go a little bit far away, maybe two feet away, three feet away, and just stay nearby. Calm, don't give any story, just relax and come. Then I think beautiful monster might invite you and join together and that can happen. So if I'm hearing you correctly, it's about getting out of the mode of trying to fix anything. And this handshake practice can be done in formal meditation or any time in our lives. And the four steps are one, dropping, which we discussed a few moments ago,

taking a moment to notice what's happening and to actively drop it. Step two is meeting, happening and to actively drop it. Step two is meeting, seeing clearly what your beautiful monster is up to in any moment. Step three is being with without trying to interfere, bringing your awareness to whatever difficult emotion is at play in your body and in your mind at any given moment. And then step four is waiting. And all of this you described as kindness. You have warm intentions vis-a-vis your difficult emotions, vis-a-vis your demons, vis-a-vis your beautiful monsters. So am I, am I restating this with some degree of accuracy? Correct. And eventually there's one step come, it's called communication. How do you communicate?

It's not true. You communicate to the beautiful master, you're carrying up the misunderstanding of this imprint, somewhere it happened, but you're still carrying this until now. I think it's time to let you go that. Are you talking to the feeling, not like a giving order? And then, at some point, from the feeling, from the beautiful monster,

will feel, oh, yeah, I should let you go. It's no real. Yeah, I'm carrying a wrong perception. Ah, I can find openness here. No one is judging me now. Enough love that I can express myself. No one hammering on my head. Usually, a difficult emotional start to express, then we give a hammer, suppress or indulging or run away. You are not good, I don't like it. I don't want to feel this way. I'm going to go somewhere else to scape that. Then it's the wrong direction. So now you are not doing all of that.

And the difficult, beautiful monster start to trust your mind. And then, mind can bring all the great understanding in the world. And the mind and the feeling start to communicate. Not only mind is telling to the feeling, feeling also express and there is a neutral understanding. Wow, that is the beginning of transformation. mutual understanding. Wow, that is the beginning of transformation. Danny, what's the science? Because engaging in a handshake with your beautiful monster, that's not scientific language, obviously, although I think it's quite beautiful. What does the research suggest about what the efficacy of these kinds of practices might be? Dan, when I looked at the literature, I was surprised to find that the literature, the scientific research actually really supports this approach.

And for a Western point of view, demons, as you call it, we're talking about learned dysfunctional emotional patterns. And we all have them, as Rinpoche says, it's not normal in the West not to have them. And psychotherapy is based on helping people deal with them, for sure. But what I found when I looked at the literature is that there's some wonderful work

at Stanford University on acceptance. The scientist named Philippe Golden had people who have social phobia who were just mortified, you know, speak in front of other people and so on. He had them think about the worst scenario they could imagine and then just be with the feelings in an accepting non-judgmental way. And it turned out that it really helped them not be controlled by those feelings. It was a very strong study,

and it completely supports this. By the way, Rampishay mentioned in passing Horse Whispering, the movie is referring to as the Horse Whisperer, and Tara's second book was Mind Whispering, which talks about how to use these methods to transform these patterns. There's another source I'd like to acknowledge John Wellwood, who was a student of Rimpy Shae, talked about the danger of spiritual bypassing, which is using your meditation technique to suppress

rather than deal with and transform. And I think Rimpy Shae acknowledges in the book that this too was an And I think Rumpish's he-glogges in the book that this too was an influence and is thinking about all of this because it's a big danger. Like when I first meditated, I was just dealing with undergraduate anxiety. And it was a relief to not feel it for a while. But you don't go anywhere near the beautiful monsters, the demons, or the patterns if you do that. Also in the West, or the patterns, if you do that. Also in the West, and I don't know how much data there is to support this approach, but we've talked on this show about a style

of therapy called internal family systems, or IFS, where you're cultivating a relationship with the various characters in your mind, I believe the term that IFS practitioners use is your parts. And in this kind of therapy, you're actively in dialogue with your parts or that's just another way of saying

you're beautiful monsters. Have you heard of this? And do you have any thoughts about how well it rhymes with what Rinpoche is teaching? Well, I don't really know that much about IFS stand, so I won't comment, but I will say that there's another therapeutic approach, acceptance and gratitude therapy, which is this kindly awareness of your patterns, which has been actually quite well validated and is quite, I would say, synergistic with the Mepreche's approach.

All of this militates against, militating, and the Western idea of slaying your dragons. It seems like all of the research you're looking at would strongly suggest that slaying is a fool's errand, that the better approach is a sort of befriending. Absolutely, yes. Rinpoche, back to you. Another key practice you describe in the book is called Essence Love. What is that?

After dropping and after handshake practice, then whatever difficult, beautiful monster start to open up. And you find some space, some open. And then we are connecting in our one of the innate nature. And sometimes I call it a birthright. There is a love, there is a spark, there is a fine joy within us intrinsically. So that start to show up because the whole thing is start to balance. And when you, we are aware of that, essence

love and be with that and nurture that with a mindful and awareness. And slowly, slowly conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive, conmissive,being of essence love, we feel hollow. Somehow you feel there's hollow and londy without any particular reason. And I think that is a modern problem. We give too much value outside and trying to make happy ourselves and instead of connecting with our basic happiness, I call essence love and that is happy without any reason. Happy by itself, love by itself. And once we found that, we found inner strength, inner well-being,

then whatever we engage outside, I call extra happiness. Basic happiness, extra happiness, but we look too much on external happiness. I don't think that is the right direction. I think we need a both. So the essence love is just basically feel okay. I'm okay. Difficult things happening around you, but deep down I'm okay. Why you're okay? There's no reason. I'm sure the cognitive mind will ask you why you're okay.

And then you answer, I don't know, I'm just okay. I think we should value that. That like a child heart. When we are young we should value that. That, like a child, heart. When we are young, we have that. But then at some point, we lost connection from that. So I want to open all the blockages and reconnect with that well-being of essence love. And then from there, express loving kindness, compassion to the world, then I think it will

minimize unnecessary suffering in the world. So this fundamental okness that you describe, this happiness for no reason, it sounds great, I'll have what she's having. But how do we But how do we access that? What are the actionable practices that we can do to get there? Yeah. Get there is handshake with you. Don't feel I'm okay. A way of that feeling and handshake that let it open up. Then there is okay.

Nays is there. Oh, I don't understand. Oh, so difficult this one. How to practice this one? All this thought, reaction, emotion, handshake that. And stay with that, let that open up. Then there's a well-being. There's a freedom. There's a love.

So the way to go there is connected with not ok feeling. Meet the not okay feeling and be with that and be patient and wait. And sooner or later, it will open up. And then there is a sense of love, smiling to you. Because it's your nature, it is your intrinsic. Yeah. Meditation is sometimes described as a practice of purification. And I feel like maybe that's what I'm hearing you describe here, which is it's counterintuitive, but you have to lean in with some warmth to the difficult aspects of your mind.

warmth to the difficult aspects of your mind. And in that way, you kind of burn it off, and what's left is the essence of your describing. You can call burn it up, but I will say open up. And not only the mind, difficult mind is a difficult feeling. Je vais trouver plus plus plus diferent between feeling world and cognitive mind. Je vais te dire story que en la fois je suis dans Malaysia je suis une trin tower et là une briche

qui est une glace de mette. Je me suis venuït après 5 steps je suis très bien je me suis très bien je me suis venuït I was walking on that after five steps. I was so scared that almost I felt that I was dying. So then I went back. Then I thought, oh, maybe something wrong with the bridge. So I checked and the bridge was so safe. A lot of people going and coming,

group of people taking photo there. My own friend already went there. Then I thought, wow, the bridge is so safe. Gurubaugh people taking photo there, my own friend already went there, then I thought, wow, the bridge is so safe. My intellectual mind understood my investigation kind of mind that found the bridge is so safe that I thought, oh, now it's no problem. So I walk second time, I thought, I'm okay,

but the same place, same thing happened. And then there is a split between the mind and feeling. Mind says, go, it's safe. The feeling from the body, in subtle body says, no, if you go, you will die. So what shall I do now? Shall I listen to the mind? Shall I listen to the feeling? So I went back because I couldn't walk. Then I thought,

oh, this is not the bridge, something inside of me that afraid of height triggered by the bridge. So then I felt, oh, I felt very compassion to my imprint. Instead of, wow, we all have Stephen kind of imprint and I have that imprint. Then I handshake with that imprint, I have chan mantra with that imprint. And then I do all this what we are talking about. And eventually I got a confidence or feeling, confidence feeling from the feeling says, okay, now you can go. So I try a third time, then I can cross the bridge.

If I suppress that, I will never cross. If I run away from that, I will never cross the bridge. If I close my mind, someone carries me to cross the bridge, that is not a beautiful thing to do. So the best is to, because cognitive mind knows the ability to save. The problem is not a reality. The problem is a left over imprint. And you have to be kind to that. It's in you. It's not like one button you can delete. It's not like that. You have to be there, be patient, and it will open up. You have

to have a trust that we need a symbol trust to the beautiful monster that it will open up. You have to have a trust that we need a symbol trust to the beautiful monster that it will open up. I like that story. I've been dealing with some claustrophobia on planes recently and I was talking to a therapist about it. The last thing she said before we hung up was, don't fight it. Don't try to lead your fear. It's just going to make it worse. But Danny, let me bring you back in on the scientific tip here. This notion of essence love, fundamental ocanus, a capacity to be happy for no reason. Are there data on this? We all have the data if we've had children, toddlers have it naturally. They're joyous. They love life. They're happy for no reason. What Richard Davidson at University of Wisconsin found

He developed a curriculum on kindness for preschoolers But he did some follow-up research where he found that while children had this kind of joy before they went to school Once they started going to school they got into a kind of competitive me first headset. And that killed it. And that's where we live, most of us, most of the time. So what Rubechet is talking about is getting back to a kind of joyous outlook on life that we have had. We've all known as Julian. And psychology and research is coming around to this after ignoring it for decades, under the rubric, for example, of well-being. There's lots of work going on now, on how to help people feel well, be well.

And that means emotionally as well as biologically. And there are many methods, mindfulness being one of them for doing this now. Richard Davidson, who I mentioned, has a free app, for example, that helps people do this. And there are several components of it. One of them is interestingly having a sense of purpose or meaning in life, that what you're doing matters in some way seems to help people get to this well-being. And I think Ripper-Sheiz methods are a very direct path to this. Coming up more practical tips and tools, including, so if the Ripper-Sheiz concept of the three

speed limits, belly breathing and his contention that the exhaustion you are experiencing, maybe less of a function of how much you're working and more of a function of how much your subtle body energy is to use his term banging away at you. After this. Ripeche, I think we have time for one more practice if you'd like to go there. Speed. Speed. Do you want to talk about speed? Little bit?

Sure. What about speed is interesting to you to discuss at this point? I'm also having this speedy problem. So I have my own way of dealing with that. And then I found it's very helpful for myself. And I can see almost every of my friends, students, somehow they have a distorted speedy inside their feeling. So I think I want to help myself, help my friends to identify it.

There's three kinds of speed limit. One is the cognitive mind thinking, fast, for example, someone makes joke, you immediately laugh. It's not like you laugh after one minute. So the fast thinking is very good. And then body, you have to have some kind of speed limit that you move as much as you can. Out of that, you cannot function.

But then there is emotional subtle body related, is banking on your mind and your body. For example, if you are flying after three days, the speedy already entered in your mind, you already went to airport few times. For example, one time I was in UK, I was waiting to go into the restroom, but no one is coming out. So I was waiting, waiting, and at some point someone is coming, I start to come out, then I thought, oh, he's coming out, oh, he, yeah, he's coming out. So I went to that door, as soon as he opened the, I went inside. Then, he said, Sir, let me come out first. Then of course, he came out, I went in, then I was, what happened with me? While I saw that unrealistic speediness

in my being, it feels like you don't have enough time. Masrash, masrash, masrash. But when I look at my being, it feels like you don't have enough time. Mass rush, mass rush, mass rush. But when I look at my watch, I have three more hours to go. So if I listen to that, it's a distorted speediness. So there's a way, you are aware of that. And then awareness makes big difference. And aware of that speediness is not your mind, is your physical, is energy, subtle body,

restlessness, bringing down into your navel and then relax that. No need to relax your physical. Relax that rigid energy, aware of that, be kinder, relax that. Then you can be speedy. Speed enough the physical body. Energy, a way out there, be kind there, relax there. Then you can be speedy, speed enough the physical body. You can think fast, but this restlessness, anxious feeling is not banking on your body.

I think most of us when we got exhaust, burn out, it's not by how much you walk, how much you think, it's like how much this energy is banging on you. So the practice in the book that you recommend as an antidote to speediness, if I understand correctly, is belly breathing. Can you describe how to do that practice? It's a little bit like a French coffee press. So when we have this feed-e, enter in your system, everything goes up into your head and then churning there. So you are aware of that and then slowly almost like a mind

scan with a feeling and breathe in and then while you are breathing in, that restlessness is coming down and relaxing and then you hold and or breathe in, you hold five seconds or seven seconds there with the relax. Then you are breath out and breathe in. Again, you feel the burning, restless, hot, make your eyes very small, mouth dry, back hot, you know, like a stream is coming from your head, aware of those symptoms, and then scan down and breathe in and push down a little bit and hold there.

If we do this again and again, then we feel, wow, my head is clear, and the eyes are also very beautifully rest. The mouth also not so dry, the steam of heat also comes down. And then one day you can hold that breath very gently there, while you're working, while you're meditating, or anything, there's some guts there.

I call a grounded body, not so much airy, not so much speedy, but sufficient enough to catch whatever you need to do? Danny, I think this kind of deep breathing, there's a lot of research to suggest it really can reset the nervous system. It seems to take you from sympathetic nervous system arousal or anxiety, you know, being uptight, speediness, or pichets calling it. It actually physiologically shifts you to parasympathetic, which is the rest and recovery mode of the body. And it's been well-established physiologically that this occurs, there's some even more interesting data

from this, which is that when you make this shift, you get greater heart rate variability, which we don't hear much about, but it turns out heart rate variability is which we don't hear much about, but it turns out heart rate variability is quite adaptive. It means that your heart can go fast, it can go slow, and it can adapt to whatever particular challenge of the moment. So that's a bonus that comes along with this shift, but the main shift is to calm you and clear your mind. Danny and Rinpoche, we're almost out of time, but as we veer toward the end of our time together, are there any closing

thoughts you'd like to share either or both of you? One of the things that I really value about Rinpoche's approach is that he doesn't ignore what modern research and psychology says, but rather includes it and builds on it with the ancient wisdom from Tibet, which has been working for a thousand years. And Western psychology just really is beginning to learn about what Eastern methodologies for working with the mind can offer us, and he integrates them in what I think is a quite useful, pragmatic and beautiful way.

I really like to see our future generation to reconnect or not lose this basic well-being of Essence Love. I think they will make very calm. I think it will contribute to the planet crisis. Because if you feel hollow, you need so much unnecessary stuff. And that I think is very bad for a planet. So if you have basic well-being, then whatever you need, it can be in the right amount. And then I think our planet can survive. And it also will give you some real expression of love and compassion to the world. And last one is be kind to your beautiful monster. It's not you, but it's part of you right now.

Be aware and be kind and kind in the form of non-judging. Being is kindness and let it open up by yourself and we must have trust that beautiful monster can open. I just want to say that kids is transformational advice in my own experience. I might language it a little differently, sometimes talking about high-fiving my demons, this counterintuitive move of showing warmth and kindness toward these inner aspects of our experience that we habitually are taught to struggle with, it can really change the way you're relating to yourself and to the world. And of course, those two are deeply and inexplicably linked. So, Rinpoche, thank you so much for coming on this show. Thank you for writing the book. Danny, always great to see you.

It's always a pleasure to do this with you. Love it. Likewise. Thank you. I invite you to be here. Happy to see you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks again to Suki Rinpoche and Danny Goldman. I should say I ran into Suki Rinpoche in person here in India where I'm recording this intro and outro for this episode after we recorded remotely with Suki Rinpoche. I flew to India to do an interview with his Hol, the Dalai Lama, which will be bringing to you in the new year. But while I was here, I ran it to Soky Rimpashai and got to spend some time with him amazing person, just really blown away by him and person. Before I go just to thank you to everybody who works so hard on this show, 10% Happier is Produced by DJ Kashmir, Gabrielle Zuckerman, Justin Davie and Lauren Smith.

Our senior producer is Marissa Schneiderman, Kimi Regler is our managing producer and our executive producer is Jen Poient, scoring and mixing by Peter Bonaventure of Ultraviolet Audio. We'll see you all on Friday for a bonus. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

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