Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 536: How Not to be Owned by Your Cravings | Bonus Meditation with Alexis Santos

Episode Date: December 23, 2022

Develop insight into your cravings and find some freedom by observing your thoughts and physical sensations when you are lost in desire.About Alexis Santos:Alexis has practiced and taught Insight Meditation in both the East and West since 2001. He has been a long-time student of Sayadaw U Tejaniya (a well respected meditation teacher in Burma whose teachings have attracted a global audience), and his teaching emphasizes knowing the mind through a natural and relaxed continuity -- a style of practice that's particularly useful during our crazy lives. Alexis has completed the Spirit Rock/IMS Teacher Training, teaches retreats across the globe, and currently lives in Portland, Maine.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Understanding Desire,” or click here: "https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=14b7581a-9121-40a8-87a1-11bfbf50c3b3"See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What does it even mean to live a good life? Is it about happiness, purpose, love, health, or wealth? What really matters in the pursuit of a life well lived? These are the questions award-winning author, founder, and interviewer Jonathan Fields asks his guests on the Top Ranked Good Life Project podcast. Every week, Jonathan sits down with world renowned thinkers and doers, people like Glenn and Doyle, Adam Grant,

Young Pueblo, Jonathan Height, and hundreds more. Start listening right now. Look for the Good Life project on your favorite podcast app. This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, there. Happy Friday. It's time for a bonus.

My meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein, has a phrase he likes, which he actually appropriated from one of his own teachers. Here's the phrase, lust cracks the brain. When we're in the grips of any craving or desire, it can really degrade our cognitive capacities immensely. We can make extremely stupid decisions in this state. So how to work with this? Our teacher, DuJour, is Alexis Santos,

who's also actually a student of Joseph's. Alexis has practiced and taught insight meditation in both the East and the West since 2001. He now teaches retreats all over the planet and guides meditations on the 10% happier app. Here we go now with Alexis Santos. Hi, this is Alexis. It's important to remember that desire is natural

and universal, a powerful force in our minds. Desire shows up in pretty much everything we do. Understanding desire and exploring how to work with it can make an enormous difference in our sense of well-being. Let's get started. Find a posture that is comfortable for you. Something that feels natural so you can feel relaxed but still awake and aware. Allow the eyes to gently close if you like. Begin to rest your

attention on your own experience. Have the simple intention to be aware. to be aware. Sit and know that you're sitting. Simply recognize in a relaxed and general way what is happening in this moment. When desire is present, there is often a lot of energy in your body and mind. The nature of desire is that it wants. My teacher used to tell me that desire's job description is to want. It wants to get the thing it finds pleasant. So desire is just a process.

It's a conditioning that affects all of us. And it's important to look at desire as a habit, as a well-worn groove. Take a moment to consider the desire that tends to hook you. And bring in the understanding that desire is a natural phenomenon. It's a process that everyone experiences. Rather than trying to be free of desire, mindfulness practice invites us to turn towards the experience, to become interested in it, and to learn about the process of desire. Notice any desire that's showing up for you in this moment. These are deep grooves of habit. So we take our time.

Patiently being interested, each time craving takes over. It's a process we can learn to understand. See if you can turn towards the experience with curiosity. When you're ready, allow your eyes to slowly open and reconnect with the space around you. Good to be with the space around you. Good to be with you. See you next time. Thank you to Alexis, and we'll see you right back here on Monday for an episode from the Archives. We're going to replay a great interview with Gretchen Ruben, who talks about ways to improve your life in lots of small, doable ways.

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