Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 539: The Cake Incident | Part 2 of The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

The Dalai Lama makes a risky move. When confronted by a young American woman coping with incredible loss, he does something surprising and counterintuitive. The incident surfaces a question that is more urgent now than ever: As social media, tribalism, individualism, and a global pandemic conspire to keep us separated from each other, how do we maintain what psychologists call “social fitness”?In conversation with Dr. Richard J. Davidson, world renowned neuroscientist and longtime friend and collaborator of the Dalai Lama, we unpack the scientifically demonstrated benefits of the social connection embodied by His Holiness, and give easily accessible strategies to incorporate this wisdom into your everyday life. Also, Dan has a bit of an identity crisis. Want more of The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness? Download the Ten Percent Happier app wherever you get your apps.Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dalai-lama-guide-539Other Resources Mentioned:Healthy Minds InnovationsCompassionate Leadership SummitThe Wellbeing ProjectAdditional Resources:Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/JoinChallengePodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody, welcome to the second installment of our special weeklong series, The Dollar Lama's Guide to Happiness. I have a very protective producer, Liz, and she won't let me get any closer than this. But they look cute. I'm in Darm Sala, home to his holiness the Dalai Lama, also home to an astonishing number of monkeys. The two

creatures I'm looking at right now are on the larger side about the size of a golden retriever. They are calmly perched on a balcony railing until one of them decides to come and sail up. Oh my God. Alright. I'm gonna stay behind the cameraman. That looks like a warlike stance. You do have to be careful by the way with these monkeys. Our friend, Rochie Joan, left the window

to her hotel room open, and the monkeys got in and tossed the place. Propensity for mischief, notwithstanding, all of the street animals here in Darm Sala, the monkeys, the sacred cows, and the dogs and cats, they're all incredibly well cared for. There's a non-profit here that takes in the cats and dogs, gives them checkups, spays, and neuters them and then releases them. It's actually funded by the actress Regique Bardot.

It's called Regique Bardot. I love how even with all the chaos here, these dogs are just totally relaxed. It really is a concerted community effort here, compassion in action. Today, though, we're going to talk about a different flavor of compassion, one more focused on human beings. As the Dalai Lama likes to say, over and over again, we are social animals.

We need each other to survive and to and over again, we are social animals. We need each other to survive and to be happy. We evolved for social connection. It is how we became this planet's apex predator, not because we were the strongest animal, but because we had the capacity to communicate and collaborate. And yet, we are really losing our capacity for connection. Modern life, suffused as it is with technology, political polarization, and an emphasis on individual achievement and consumerism, is conspiring to keep us separate.

And the pandemic has, of course, just made it all worse. The consequences are severe. We've seen massive upticks and anxiety, depression, loneliness, addiction and suicide. Bottom line, if you're serious about getting better at life, but getting happier, the research shows that perhaps the most important variable is the quality of your relationships. Psychologists have a term for this that I really like. Social fitness. And the Dalai Lama is a master at this. In fact, as we rolled up for day two of the Compassionate Leadership Summit,

we were about to witness his holiness do something unconventional and very risky in the name of social connection. No, I want to come here. Oh my God. And it was a moment that produced for me a kind of identity crisis. Keep it here. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on Page Six or Du Moir or in court.

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You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. It's day two of the Compassionate Leadership Summit. The day after we had all seen one of the young leaders Ronan do something that to paraphrase my friend Rochie Joan was kind of a slapdown of the Dalai Lama. As I mentioned, I really wasn't expecting there to be so much action at a conference of compassionate leaders, but here we are. And as his holiness walks into the room accompanied by two large monks who are helping him walk

given that he's got a bum knee, it becomes clear that if he was miffed by the tone of the questions yesterday, he's showing no signs. Yes, start. Good morning, Your Holiness. Thank you. Did you get a good sleep last night? See. Yes, good sleep.

Always. Nine hours. Wonderful. But now, around today, problem. Toilet not yet come. If you couldn't hear it, he just said, toilet not yet come. He's boashing to his rear end, making clear that he hasn't made number two today.

And then he starts to warn that there could be some gaseous consequences to this. At this meeting, some without sound, little thing come out. He doesn't actually break wind, but his joke does break the ice. Thank you. The tension from day one is largely gone. The rest of the comments from the young activists continue much as they had the day before. One by one, the activists take the mic and tell their stories and ask their questions. One, a mental health advocate, is searching for how to cope with the suffering she sees. Another, who's an education activist,

wants to learn how to have his students be motivated by compassion instead of a desire for fame and recognition. How can we inspire a person who is responsible for his holiness once again plays the hits? Oneness, altruism, compassion, however, it feels like the room is more open to it today, even though it does still feel like he isn't directly addressing any of the activists. I think the sense of human brother, sisters.

But that changes when a young woman named Crystal McCloud from New York City takes the mic. Thank you. She's a recent law school graduate who now works in the field of restorative justice. Five years ago, I lost my brother. He died by suicide. Sorry. And that experience broke me open.

And it made me wonder how did he get there? And then six months later, I was in a similar situation where I attempted to take my own life. And I was confronted by the question again of, how did we get there? And I realized your holiness that I spent most of my life in grief. And so my question to you, your holiness, is how in the immense suffering that you've experienced, how did you find hope in your grief?

that you've experienced, how did you find hope in your grief? Whenever you face some problem, you say, you should feel, I'm human being, I'm not alone. There are many human brothers, sisters, I can also ask them to help. So, you never feel hopelessness. Okay. It's at this moment that the Dalai Lama does something I was not expecting. He sticks his tongue out at Christa, whose subs start to turn to laughter. Come here. Christa's face changes again into total surprise.

She gets up and the Dalai Lama has a piece of cake in his hand. As I may have mentioned yesterday, at the midpoint of these meetings, a bunch of robed monks dip into the room and hand out cake along with delicious milky tea. Anyway, his holiness is holding up a little piece of cake and he's circling it around like he's playing, here comes the airplane to the toddler.

cake and he's circling it around like he's playing, here comes the airplane to the toddler. And then he feeds, said cake, to crystal. Her mouth full of cake while she's laughing, crystal sits back down in her seat as the room starts to compose itself. But the Dalai Lama isn't done at this point, he blows her a few air kisses. I'm monk. Oh, otherwise I can kiss. Which he follows up by taking a bite of cake for himself. Sert for confidence.

Very important. And if whole world, other human being disappear, then you yourself alone remaining there, then really difficult. Otherwise, there is no problem. We are social animals. We always helping each other. So you should not feel lonely. I'm

helpless. You should not feel dead. The Dalai Lama and Crystal are locking eyes each of them doing prayer hands At which point his holiness calls her back over No, no, I want to do to come here Crystal gets up walks over again, and the Dalai Lama does something I never would have seen come. He picks up his arm and he tickles her right under her. And then she tickles him right back. Human, kasoda, Lordre. One of the six cities, samtana, pampodua.

In fact, as a human being, it's important not to feel alone, but feel connected to others, and then always look for ways in which you can actually help others. That really is important. As I'm watching this, I'm experiencing a complex starburst of thoughts and emotions. how others that really is important. As I'm watching this, I'm experiencing a complex starburst of thoughts and emotions. Visually, I'm genuinely moved by the spontaneity and warmth of the Dalai Lama's gestures and by crystal's surprise and delight.

It's counterintuitive, of course, but to my eyes, clearly, this is uncontrived compassion. However, intellectually, I'm also wondering in the era of me too, should an 87-year-old guy be summoning a much younger woman over to him and feeding her cake and then tickling her? In the end, I land on no. This was a great move and awesome moment. But my conviction on this score doesn't last long.

Just woke up after that incident with his holiness and I've been just lurching all over the place in terms of my analysis of that moment. I had dinner in terms of my analysis of that moment. I had dinner with some other folks who had been in the room. And they had a pretty cynical take on it. They felt like it was a failure of the Dalai Lama to kind of read the cultural mood. And they even went so far as to say that there was a dynamic in the room

that I could kind of feel where everybody wanted the whole thing to feel so meaningful, you know, having this very rare audience with his holiness, and that there was this kind of groupthink that set in or this group psychology that forced a kind of imbuing of meaning upon every little encounter, whereas maybe it just, it wasn't that meaningful, in fact. So I was really rattled by that conversation. It had like kind of fundamental identity ramifications for me because I'm this self-styled skeptical journalist and maybe I too got caught up in the moment of thinking that that encounter with crystal was quite beautiful, and maybe I lost my skepticism.

So that's where I'm at. On this morning, as I pace around my hotel room in Darmsol are looking out at the beautiful foothills after a night of drenching rain as the city starts to come back to life. All right, I'm going to meditate. After the break, I talked to some key players to get their opinions, including Crystal herself. Okay, welcome back. I've got a lot of stuff swirling in my head after that incident with Crystal and the

cake. I'm aware that the Dalai Lama's team does live in some degree of fear that he will say something politically incorrect in public and that that could provoke a kind of media feeding frenzy. They say he's sometimes misinterpreted when he's trying to be playful. In fact, many years ago, he made a joke that maybe he would reincarnate as the 15th Dalai Lama as a woman, but it would have to be a pretty woman, he said. The critics pounced on that one. To get my head straight on all of this, I turn to Richie Davidson.

You will remember him from our last episode. He's the eminent neuroscientist who's been a friend and collaborator of the Dalai Lama's for about 30 years, working on groundbreaking studies into what meditation does to your brain. Richie's here in Darm Sala moderating the Compassionate Leadership Summit and also as a collaborator for the course we're shooting. In fact, he's been present for every encounter I've ever had with the Dalai Lama since I first interviewed him all those years ago. And so Richie seems to me like the perfect person to put this incident into context on a personal and scientific level and also on a practical one.

You were sitting right there, so what was it like for you as you watched his holiness feed cake to this woman he had just met who was clearly suffering. in action. His holiness was doing something, acting in a way that clearly was helpful to crystal at this moment in time. She was clearly suffering no doubt about that, and he was doing something which was available in that particular context and it turned out that that was extraordinarily helpful. And I've seen that Al-Alamah in many different circumstances do different things that are appropriate in that context to help relieve the suffering of people that come to him. And he is a beacon. He is an attractor for suffering because he is a Buddha of compassion. I'll be a little personal here and say and admit that when I saw the moment with Crystal and the cake, I had kind of two simultaneous responses.

The majority of my response was taken up by a feeling of being moved. And then I had a little voice saying, is this a little weird? You know, he's calling this younger woman over and kind of putting the cake in her mouth. But mostly I was just feeling moved. And then I kind of went out a bit of a rollercoaster over this and I had some conversations with other people in the room. And some folks were voicing some skepticism about, was this appropriate given the cultural context?

And I'm just curious, what's your response to that? Did you have any moment of like, whoa, is this okay? I didn't have that in the slightest. It is simply his way of expressing affection and love and compassion. It is a natural response. Now I understand why there is this cautiousness and compassion. It is a natural response. Now, I understand why there is this cautiousness and concern. And I think the key is the context appropriateness of it. But I've seen the Dalai Lama in many different contexts, hold someone's hand, touch their head, smack them in the face

in a friendly way, touch their nose. I mean, there's so many different ways. They're all expressions of compassion. I saw him head butt you. Yes, he's done that on numerous occasions. The Dalai Lama part of his regular social interaction is touch. And we know from scientific research how important touch is for human connection. This information about the psychological and physiological benefits of compassion and human connection is really compelling. And we're going to tell you what the research says about how to put this into practice in your life coming up. But first, as to whether the cake incident itself

was the right way to go, the one other person I of course want to speak with is Crystal herself. We catch up at the large public Buddhist temple attached to the Dalai Lama's compound. So you're gonna hear some background noise here. I'm just curious what it was like for you to go from sharing something so incredibly personal to being fed cake.

Oh my gosh, I'm still actively processing. I was so nervous about sharing my brother's experience and particularly mine of my attempt of suicide. And realizing that there was a lot of internal shame that I was carrying. And so, yeah, I was so nervous. And to see his holiness, witness my pain, my grief, and to just hold it with care. I can't even put words. And then to also hold it with care and then humor, like helping me move that emotion

as well and feeding me cake and tickling me. It was an experience. It was an experience. It was an experience. I was like, this is so beautiful that we get to be playful. Yeah, that was... Even when things are that heavy. Even when things are that heavy. Yeah, even when things are that heavy, there are places where we get to be playful and sit and enjoy as well. It was a risky move on his part because I mean there was no guarantee that you were going to respond well to that. I didn't even think of that. That was a risky move.

And you know and I think that's what a compassionate leadership is about is making risky moves. Even in sharing our stories, it's a risky move. Sometimes it's not going to be received. Do you think he was, I'm trying to, I'm trying to grapple with what was the message? Was the message that we shouldn't take ourselves to seriously even when things are really serious was the message. There's always somebody here to help you. What it felt like for me was we don't have to hold our pain in isolation. You can share this with me and I can hold this with you. I think you know his holiness for the

last few days has been talking about this concept of oneness, the oneness and humanity and I think at least I know I come from at least in the U.S. not my ancestral traditions but it's an individualist culture right where it's you're going through something. You're having an experience, not we. And there's pain in that loss of going from we to I. And I think what I received, which I think will continue to help me in my journey, is that it's not you. You can share the parts of you

that feel like the most vulnerable and it can be held in community. And that's what I felt with him and with the rest of the group. For Crystal, this entire episode, Crystalized, sorry, couldn't resist, Crystalized a really important insight from the Dalai Lama and modern science that relationships are key, maybe the key to human happiness. But if social connection is such a central part of doing life better, how do we actually do it? How do we get better at social fitness in a world that emphasizes

disconnection? Richie has a lot of thoughts about this. The research shows very, very clearly that having at least one significant person in your life that you have a social connection with that you can confide in is really important for our mental and physical health. It's not necessarily the quantity of people, but having at least one good relationship is really key to promoting our well-being. And we know from recent research that loneliness is reaching epidemic proportions in a study that was done just before COVID, 76% of Americans reported themselves to be moderately or significantly lonely. And the key attribute in this measure is not having someone close to them on a regular basis that they can confide in. And this is really concerning

they can confide in. And this is really concerning because the consequences of loneliness, which is kind of the flip side of social connection, are devastating. We know, for example, from hard-nosed research, that loneliness is more than twofold the risk factor for mortality compared to obesity. And so it gets under the skin and has these devastating consequences. The flip side is that social connection also gets under the skin and is really good for us. It's good for us both mentally and physically.

You know, another takeaway for me of watching that moment with Crystal and the Dalai Lama and the cake was that compassion can take many forms. It's a big word and so we can associate grand operatic acts with it, but it can be as simple as holding the door open for somebody or feeding them a little cake. Yeah, I think this is really true. And sometimes we think of compassion in these grand heroic terms, but actually it's much more common, and you can see it every day if we just open our eyes to it. There's research here that's really compelling too, that shows that these micro moments of

connection with a barista, with a stranger on an elevator, can really add up to a boost in happiness in our daily lives. When we think about the granularity of most people's everyday lives, they are infused with these positive moments. We just don't pay much attention to them. We often take them for granted. They happen quite automatically, and one of the opportunities, the invitations in the meditation practices, to notice these

positive moments. One kind of related practice is appreciation. Appreciation is very available to many, many people. And if we simply spend even a short of time is 30 seconds appreciating the positive qualities of people we might be meeting with, for example, or our family members, it can change the tenor, the demeanor of an encounter, and research shows that. It doesn't take much to get these circuits in the brain activated. We just need to remember to do it. And so, when we meditate, when we put our butts on the cushion or on a chair,

really what we're doing is we're doing that so that we're more likely to remember to bring this to all the nooks and crannies of our everyday life. For me, at least this last point is really important. We don't meditate to get better at meditation, although sure, yes, that is possible and important. But the real point is to get better at the rest of your life, to be less reactive, less aggressive, and less cut off from the people around you. So now we have come to a crucial juncture in our Indian Odyssey. Tomorrow will be a key test of my own personal social fitness. My one-on-one with his holiness is first thing in the morning.

I'm definitely more nervous about it than I normally would be, just because there's so much build up and the stakes feel higher because there are people we are serving. You know what I mean? Like, we need to teach them a thing. After my experience at the Compassionate Leadership Summit, I'm realizing that there is a non-zero chance that this interview will not go as planned. And this really is my big chance to ask him

about the purpose of life, how to deal with difficult people, whether he ever gets angry, how to improve my meditation practice, and perhaps how to make peace with my own selfishness. But what if he doesn't answer my questions and falls back on sound bites, or what if he tickles me? My producer, Liz, chimes in here to help soothe my frayed nerves. I don't blow it down.

Oh! That's coming up tomorrow on the next episode of the Dalai Lama's Guide to Happiness. Before I let you go, I should say that if you want to see some video of the conversation between crystal and his holiness, you can check out our free meditation challenge, which is also called the Dalai Lama's Guide to Happiness. It will kick off over on the 10% happier app on January 9th, but you can join right now.

Here's how the challenge will work every day for 10 days. You'll get a short video featuring the Dalai Lama, Richie and Rochi Joan, followed by a guided meditation to help you pound all of the lessons from the podcast and from the videos right into your neurons. So go check it out. To get free access to the Dalai Lama's Guide to Happiness, just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps, or visit 10%.com, that's all one word spelled out, slash Happiness. If you already have the 10% Happier app,

simply open it up and follow the instructions to join. And by the way, if you're listening to this after January 2023, the Dalai Lama's Guide to Happiness will remain available as a free course on the 10% happier app forever, so you can check it out now. 10% happier is produced by DJ Cashmere, Gabrielle Zuckerman, Justin Davy and Lauren Smith. Our supervising producer is Marissa Schneidermann, Kimi Regler, who I have to say has been

driving force behind this series and is amazing. Thank you, Kimi Regler, who I have to say has been the driving force behind this series and is amazing. Thank you, Kimi. Kimi is our managing producer and our executive producer is Jen Poient. Audio services are provided by Ultraviolet Audio with scoring mixing and sound design by the great Matt Blinken and we had additional engineering by Peter Bonneventure. Nick Thorburn composed our theme. Check out his excellent band, Islands. And there are a lot of other folks I want to thank from the wider TPH universe and beyond. They include Liz Levin, Jade Weston, Gemma Vardy, Conor Donahue.

I also want to thank Richie Davidson and the whole team at Healthy Mind's Innovations as collaborators on this course you can find out more about them in our show notes. I also want to give a shout out to the Wellbeing Project, which provides mental health services for change makers, including activists, will link to them in the show notes, but you can find more about them at WellbeingProject.org. And I do want to give a special shout out to Daniel Goldman and Tara Bennett Goldman, who are two of the prime movers behind the compassionate leaders summit. Thank you, Danny and Tara.