Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 582: Sharon Salzberg On: Openness, Not Believing the Stories You Tell Yourself, and Why the Most Powerful Tools Often Seem Stupid at First

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

Today’s episode is a rangy and fascinating conversation with a titan of the modern mindfulness scene: Sharon Salzberg. She is the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society, a renowned meditation retreat center and has written twelve books. Her latest is called, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom. We get personal and talk about a fascinating question: why did so many Jewish kids of Sharon’s generation (the Boomers) get interested in meditation? Sharon was part of a whole crew called the JewBu’s — young Jewish people, mostly from New York, who found their way to India and other parts of Asia in the 1960s and 70s, learned about Buddhism, and then came home and taught it to so many of us. In this episode we talk about:The case for openness versus constriction. What is openness? Why do we want it? And how does one achieve it? How not to take so seriously the stories you tell yourselfWhether shame is ever usefulHow the most powerful tools (like self-compassion) can often seem so stupid at firstThe importance of having a growth mindset versus a fixed mindsetWhy gratitude gets a bad rapThe difference between self-centeredness and “healthy pride”Sharon’s recent and quite harrowing medical odyssey — and how meditation helped her get through itFull Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sharon-salzberg-582To join a live coaching session, sign up at tenpercent.com/coaching.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, hey, today it's a ranger and fascinating conversation with a Titan of the modern mindfulness scene. She's been called the Beyoncé of meditation. It's Sharon Salisberg, ladies and gentlemen. We talk about the case for openness versus constriction. What is openness? Why do we want it?

And how does one achieve it? She's got a lot of practical tips on that front. We also talk about how not to take so seriously the stories you tell yourself whether shame is ever useful. How the most powerful tools like self compassion, for example, can often seem very, very stupid at first. The importance of having a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset, why gratitude gets a bad rap and the difference between self-centeredness and what she calls healthy pride. Then we get quite personal and talk about a story that has long fascinated me.

Why did so many Jewish kids from Sharon's generation, the boomers, get interested in meditation? Sharon was part of a whole crew called the Jew Boos, a young Jewish people, mostly from New York who found their way over to India and other parts of Asia in the 1960s and 70s, learned about Buddhism and then came home and taught it to so many of us. Without these Jubuz, I would never have gotten into the meditation game personally. They have really changed the world, in my opinion, because some of them became teachers, like Sharon and Joseph Goldstein and Jack Cornfield.

Others became scientists and writers. I'm thinking of people like Richie Davidson and Daniel Goldman, who wrote books and produced studies that really changed the way the world saw meditation and made it accessible to skeptics and others. And Sharon was right there in the thick of it. So she's going to talk about that. And while we're at it, she gets very personal here about a recent and extremely harrowing medical Odyssey, the second for her in recent years and how meditation helped her get through it. If you're unfamiliar with Sharon, just a little background here. She's the co-founder of the

Insight Meditation Society in Barry, Massachusetts, a renowned meditation retreat center where I do most of my retreats personally. She's written 12 books. Her latest is called Real Life, the journey from isolation to openness and freedom. 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 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 Kelli McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher, Alexa 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 the questions that are in my head.

Like, it's only fans only bad, where the memes come from, and where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby This is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. Sharon Salisberg, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much. All right, well, congratulations on your new book.

Let me start with a very big question based on the subtitle. What is openness? Well, the book was born actually while I was in lockdown, as so many people were during the pandemic height. And I was watching this show on YouTube called Saturday Night Sater, which was my Sater of the Year because I wasn't going anywhere. And it was, I think, one of the first programs created on Zoom, you know, where the writers were never in the same room and people were just

contributing. And I found it brilliant and, you know, funny and educational. And in the course of that I was reminded that the word Egypt is symbolic for a constriction or a narrow place it means narrow streets and so taking it totally out of geopolitics is a journey from constriction feeling trapped to openness and expansion. So the word expansion is maybe not so common, but that's what openness was meaning, be able to breathe free, seeing options, feeling creative, not feeling so trapped. And so I embarked on that exploration, like when do we feel most constricted, most trapped,

most overwhelmed? When do we feel most expansive and open and connected? And that was really the book. How do you answer that question for yourself? When do you feel most constricted and most open? I think very classically, you know, like, I feel most constricted when I'm afraid, and not just feeling fear, but when I'm overwhelmed by fear. And when I, I see no way out and I've seen through my meditation,

often based on the stories I'm telling myself, it's not that the reality of the situation is providing no options. It's like, I've shut down. I just see, there's no way out. This is it. This is going to define my life. This is who I am. And there's no way out, this is it, this is going to define my life, this is who I am. And it's those stories, if I get invested in them, which is a point I keep trying to make

in all contexts that it's not the arising of these things that's necessarily the problem, it's diving into them and taking them to heart, that's much more of the problem. And when I feel most expansive is when I am more abiding or dwelling in that awareness of rather than the state itself, even in the presence of something like fear, it's a little bit like I think in psychological terms, when you remember you're an adult now, it's not a question of survival, even though it feels whatever it is, as primal and urgent as it might have when you were two years old. Now you're an adult and you can sort of let that fear arise and pass and hold

things in a different perspective. So, and then of course, I would say, it's the connection, it's through love of any kind, which might not be like a relationship with somebody, but if I am feeling connected to a neighbor or something like that, then there's just this moment where I don't feel so isolated and like I'm holding it, you know, just me. When you're talking about the states of mind where you feel the most open, free, expansive, you listen to One was awareness. Yes, being aware of whatever's happening in your mind without getting caught up by it, and the other is feeling connected to other people or the world. You didn't use these words,

but other words that could be used are mindfulness and compassion. Yeah, indeed, those are the words. Well, one of the things I challenged myself with in writing this book was, when do we feel most constricted, greed, hatred, and delusion in Buddhist terminology? And I tried to think of kind of more contemporary or immediate ways of describing that.

So for hatred, for example, I really focused on self-hatred, which was shame. And that just became any more interesting as a vehicle for understanding the broader context of hatred, you know, in that way. Is shame ever useful? Yes. Here, you know, one runs into the problem with language, like in the British psychology, also there's moral shame and moral dread that are talked about, which are more like conscience. These things tend to be specific to something we did or something we didn't do,

because that too is an action when we hold back from saying or doing something. And feeling the pain of it when it was wrong, when it was hurtful or harmful. And it is a very beautiful line for the Buddha where he said, if you truly loved yourself, you'd never harm another. And so it's not puritanical or mean spirited or self-righteous. It's understanding that when we get reckless, we get overcome, we blow it in some way, then it's painful. And it's born out of some lack of love for ourselves as well. And so we feel that, and it's important to feel that because that's the road to really

determining, I don't want to do that again. You know, I want to step up and be more careful. And that's the difference in than that more global condemnation of lacerating self-hatred. Like, I am a mess than I always will be and things could never change. And this is who I really am. And we go on and on and on. It's kind of endless. I think in Western psychology, as I learned the words are different, like they would more use guilt the way we would use remorse and produce psychology and they would use shame the way we would use guilt. So it takes some parsing of the language, but conscience is really important in a sense of possibility is really important in terms of one's ethics and it's very important to recognize what

is so rarely recognized, I think, in this world that actions have consequences, that it really matters, what we do, what we say, but that sort of wholesale denigration of ourselves, it's just not onward leading in any way. It's so painful that it's not useful to do one more time. So there's a kind of healthy shame that we might consider conscience or wise remorse. And then there's an unhealthy shame that is coiled into self obsession kind of you say in your book, the brain filled with shame. And now you're referring to the unhealthy or unwholesome version of shame, cannot learn.

Can you tell us more about that? Yeah, I think one of the last gatherings I was with people in the same room teaching was February 2020. And I was in California with a small group of people and the psychologists in the room said that line that the brain filled with shame cannot learn. And so then I was in lockdown, you know, and I was working on the book and I had time to really ponder that and try to think more deeply what it might mean. And it seems so right that what we're looking for is behavior change. We're looking to see some sense of possibility. Like my life doesn't have to be this crummy or this complicated, you know, like telling a million lies to people or have really secrets.

And it's so burdensome. Like I can't look people in the eye or whatever it is that when we realize actions have consequences, and we feel those consequences, what are we then going to do? And what's useful to do so that I don't have to come here again in two months and three months and four months as I'm trying to undertake this process of getting more free. It's like, I can't keep doing the same stuff again and again and again and again and not have it be impactful. And so what am I going to do? And what it turns out, and this is very difficult for many of us, is that sitting

and stewing and hating yourself and reviling yourself is not actually going to be that helpful. If it were helpful, it would be good because we do it. You know, it's very habituated. And the thing that does make a difference like self-compassion seems like one of the stupidest things ever, right? Right? Hey, man. And yes. And yet, it seems to be perhaps the most powerful tool for actually learning and making a change and developing a new habit. It's difficult for a lot of people. You know, like I have been so many times met with, that's just laziness, you know,

that's just not having any standards of excellence, that's giving in or something like that. But really, I think if we just look at our experience, it changes from being like the stupidest thing ever to like, whoa, that's interesting. That's challenging. It's different. Let me try that. As you've written in a prior book, self-compassion is not letting yourself off the hook. It's holding yourself accountable, but the way you would hold a friend or a child accountable, not doing what most of us do reflexively in this culture, which is

self-lacerate over and over and over again, add infinitum. Indeed. It's one of the reasons I think these things are best explored experientially, because it's a little difficult to get just intellectually because it's so different. Okay, so there are a bunch of very practical things you talk about in the book for relating to your own ugliness and specific things we can do to feel more open or expansive every day. But before we dive into that and I want to go pretty deep, let me just go back up to a high level for a second

and ask you about some concepts that are pretty important and that you establish early in the book. You talk about a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. Can you explicate that? Yeah, I think in mindfulness terms we would say let's look for the add-ons to what has arisen, you know, a certain emotion, like when I feel that fear, for example, how do I relate to it? What's my interpretation of it? And if I see it as a kind of irredeemable character flow, which I used to, you know, this is like my inherent weakness, this is going to be here forever, this is where I really am. What would people say if they only

knew how afraid I was? And that's kind of that fixed mindset that this is a character trait, this could never change, this is the hand I've been dealt. And so this is who I am. Whereas a growth mindset would have a very different interpretation, a very different set of add-ons, like this is a painful habit. What are lessons to be learned, you know, are the ways that I can relate to this or approach the situation that's bringing up the fear that would be different. Maybe I'm not so alone. Is this part of the human condition? Can I find support? And understanding in different ways is the work of Carol Dweck that set that terminology in my mind of fixed fixed mind state and growth mind state.

I just felt like it fit into this mind for this paradigm very well. Just to restate her corthesis of fixed mindset is I am this way. These are my factory settings. They're unalterable. A growth mindset is actually what we know from the science is that the brain and the mind are trainable, the body's trainable, change is possible. And all the evidence suggests that nothing is fixed. I mean, literally nothing is fixed. Yeah. So let's get back to practical stuff about what we can do to have this growth mindset to feel this openness that you've

been talking about. One of the many practical techniques that you talk about in this book will be familiar to close listeners of this show. We had a gentleman on the show several months ago who is a teacher to you. His name is Sokni Rinpoche, and he has something called the Handshake, which you talk about in your new book. Can you tell us a bit more about what it is and why you find it so helpful? Well, I think the kind of larger frame of all this is that we don't want to get lost

in what some people call toxic positivity or kind of up leveling everything or spiritual bypassing. I'm sure this was, let's say in your mind when you were first hearing these approaches, like, uh-oh, you know, there's a big warning sign that's saying, this is make believe, you know, this is pretending these issues don't exist or that pain is not there. And everything's fine, you know, it's all it's all good and we're into expansion and we're into the oneness of all things and so what, that I'm waking up shaking every morning or something like that. So that's very important to state as the larger context,

because not dealing with those constricting habits is not going to work. And so the question is what do we do with our fear, with our jealousy, with our shame, you know, with all of those habitual states? And so that's interesting, you know, because what we want to do is abolish them and destroy them and make them go away, and be above it, or something like that. And that's not going to work either. So we're basically, and this again comes down to mindfulness, trying to avoid both extremes. One is just getting consumed by something so that it defines us, it overcomes us, and the other extreme is hating it and trying to push it away or denying

it. And that place in the middle is mindfulness. And so we want to connect in some way that's different to those very states, rather than pretend they're not there. And Sonny Rubichet has one way of describing that that I was found fun and useful. One part of it is he calls them beautiful monsters. These are your beautiful monsters. And he has developed this practice, which he calls handshake practice, which has a well-essential mindfulness teaching. It's like basically, you're going to hang out with this state. You're going to be as companion. But as we were saying earlier,

you are now the adult. You're not that terrified child who's very survival is at stake. It's like you're bringing perspective to the moment. Everything changes. This is here. It is real. It hurts. you're bringing perspective to the moment. Everything changes. This is here. It is real. It hurts. And it's going to change. You're bringing some balance. And some wisdom like this is not who I essentially am. This is a changing state, born out of conditions. And if I try to push it away, it's like an help. So let me hang out with it. There are lots of images that are used, like invite your inner critic to dinner. Don't let them have the run of the house, but you don't have to be so freaked out. Your awareness can handle this. Your awareness is bigger, or the very classic Tibetan image, like your thoughts and feelings

are like clouds moving through the sky. And she kind of land more in that I'm the sky rather than I'm that very gloomy looking cloud that's moving through. And he does it through handshake. In the book you talk about the fact that you recognize that this this ain't easy and you talk about learning how to open wider or window of tolerance. Yeah, and that's Dan Seagull's formulation, the window of tolerance. And it's so perfect, you know, that, that sense of this is what will actually work. And it's confounding, you know, because it's like, I've got to get rid of this or I've got to hide this or this is so shameful, is very near at hand.

You know, and so I'm sure I tell the story here because I so often tell it of my early practice. I was 18 years old, as you know, and I was very psychologically unsophisticated. I'd never been in therapy, for example. You know, I went to India before anything. And there I was in my first retreat. So it was really my first very kind of clear introspection and I was horrified and I am somewhat famous amongst my very good friends who are still my very good friends for my first

retreat, for marching up to the teacher, as I'm going and saying, I never used to be an angry person before I started meditating. Thereby laying blame exactly where I felt it belonged, which was on him and clearly it was his fault that it was so angry. But of course, I had been hugely angry and I hadn't ever really seen it completely. And I could hear until the end of time, it's okay. This is present. Can you be with it with more awareness and balance and kindness towards yourself? And because it was always no in the beginning, but that's the path. And that's what an effect the training was. The education was like, yeah, you can. Maybe just for a moment at first, but try it again, you know, and look at that. That's actually effective.

Just to say a few things for my own life, to give people permission to struggle with this. I've had a couple experiences recently that were humbling vis-a-vis my meditation or my fullness practice. One was about 18 months ago I was given a sleep gummy, a cannabis gummy for sleep. I've historically had not the best relationship to marijuana. My first panic attacks ever were on marijuana. So I was a little reluctant, but I was told this is a sleep gummy.

It's not going to be powerful. So I ate like a third of it. Sure enough, an hour later, I started the pack. And it was the fourth thing that came to my mind to meditate. The first thing was, let me go wake up my wife and go and wind her up, but then I didn't want to do that because I didn't want to ruin her sleep or my sons. The second was, do I have any clonipin? And it was the third thing that I finally just started to do walking meditation and was able to just realize if I'm right here awake right now, there's no problem.

It's all just the projection. And the other thing I just wanted to say is that along those lines that a couple of days ago, I was having a pretty uncharacteristic bout of depression. I was feeling really low. And I just wanted to get rid of the feeling. And it was again, like the third or fourth thing that popped in my head was to meditate. Anyway, I say all of this just to hopefully add to the discussion in a way that will emphasize for people that we're not saying this is easy. No, thank you. And it's definitely not easy. And it's powerful, especially like when

you talk about panic, you know, what came to my mind was again, from the Buddha psychology, panic is also described as like a high energy state, like your energy is too high for the amount of tranquility or concentration present. And so it's not bad. It's not terrible. It's not that you're an awful person, but you're at a balance. So let's see about some balance. One of the ways they talk about balance is that when a high energy state is trying to move through us, if it's trying to move through a tight, constricted place, it's going to be really jumbled. whereas if you can create space, like big space, somehow, then the energy can move through as intense as it is.

And so that tendency we would have to like dampen it down, you know, or close down around it. It's not going to work, but what helps you create space that becomes a personal question, like walking, you know, being outside, doing loving kind of stuff, all beings everywhere. Listening to sound, listening to music, something, you know, it's very personal, but it's not something we necessarily think of. It's like, okay, what's going to create that kind of openness and help this just move through? Speaking of openness, there are a bunch of other techniques that you recommend for feeling more expansive on the day to day.

Let's just take through them and let you hold forth. One of them is gratitude or reflections on good stuff. Yeah. And I think here too, gratitude could have a pretty poor reputation in some ways because I've had a lot of people say to me, well, that's stupid. You know, that's like being grateful for crumbs and you're letting people press you or abuse you in some way and not treat you fairly. And you can say,

what I'm grateful for the little bit, you know, that I've got. But I think even the research I'm told shows that gratitude does a different thing that it gives us energy for one thing. And if we feel depleted and just sort of despondent and like we have nothing going We're not gonna have the energy to seek change or to try to make a difference for anyone else And so it's an energizing quality and it doesn't lead to being self-satisfied

Or limited. It's out of gratitude that people often want to help someone else like pay it forward in some way you feel resource In a different way, and so those practices are also very simple And I will say also kind of in response to something you imply that I'm very into techniques Not everybody is but I really appreciate methods and techniques because it just gave me a path, a sense of a path, and I could go to bed at night thinking, yeah, I did write down three things I'm grateful for, or not, you know, like I blew that one. Let me just write down three things now. And so I'm just a kind of person that is supported by structure. And so that would be a very common one, you know, like right down three things by the end of the day that you're grateful for. And it also is a way of establishing some sense of

community like had students retreat say to me, I found a gratitude buddy and we're going to text each other every day about something that we're grateful for. And this too, it feels like so yucky to a lot of people. So sentimental or kind of gooey, but, but it's actually powerful. Many of the most powerful things are sentimental. Yes, do it. Sadly, I'm with you on techniques. So staying on that tip, another technique you recommend is something called yes am. This comes out of the world of improv where you're about to speak perhaps or perform and you're following somebody. So rather than trying to tear them down and counter them, you build upon it, even if you don't agree with it, you kind of say, well, this is what's in the room. This is what's present in the air. And there's this. And so it's an interesting way of sometimes reframing a situation, you

know, the example that I use is something to do with visiting relatives for the holidays. And you could either place it, you know, as those people were so awful and I had to sit in a room with them for that whole dinner and their views were poor and or you could say I got to see my grandma and it was in the context of all these other people who were kind of nasty but wow there was that grandma. It's not unrelated to gratitude. No, it's not related to gratitude. It's like yeah, this is what's in the room. This is what's happening. Another thing on your list here, and this, I think, will be for some counterintuitive is pride. How is pride helpful? I often think of it in the majority. It is often used that way,

and could be a very difficult quality, but in the sense that I was using it, which also would come out of both positive psychology and the British psychology, it has more to do with self-respect. So that would be the going back to the question of conscience and morality. If you really look, I think we find that having lots of secrets, a lot of deception, a lot of confusion, complexity in your life, morally or ethically, is a burden. And you do walk into a room kind of more like, what do they can say, what do they know, what do they think, whereas you can walk into a room just kind of resting on the dignity

of your being, you know, or your efforts and and you're carrying and you did the best you could. And that's what we would call pride is just having that kind of self-respect. And that's not bad. That's good. Because otherwise you're always second-guessing relationships. And if you're meditating and kind of lost in that world of, but what if I say this and today, a lot of the right people, you know, where they find out that I cheated or, and it's a mess and we don't need that. It's something about the power and the radiance, even of one's own mind when it's not so cluttered

with all that stuff. And we can live in that way. And we should take pride in that. There are lots of choices and it's not easy to figure it all out. And remember what we really care about. And it's not easy. And I did the best I could today.

You mentioned the scientist, Barbara Friedrichson, who with a researcher, she recommends to Nicole the Pride portfolio. What is that? It would be just that description, you know, if we do in fact as many evolutionary biologists would say have a negativity bias where we tend to move into a situation and see

what's threatening, what is a warning, what could be wrong. It takes the kind of intentionality to see what's positive. And just the same way, if you're thinking about yourself at the end of the day, do you dwell on or even fixate on the mistakes you've made and the things you said wrong or you regret or do you leave a little bit of time for what you're grateful for or you look at that. I was, I mean, a conversation with somebody and I wasn't really paying attention and then I got there. Her recommendation is an urging to remember that stuff and to actually delight in, you know, it's difficult for us to because it feels like conceited or arrogance. Like, this is my list of good qualities, but it's really just a way of paying attention in a broader fashion because we're not necessarily automatically going to recognize that stuff.

And draw the link for me again, and I apologize if I'm being obtuse here, but draw the link again between having this kind of pride, this healthy pride and being open. Well, Barbara, Fredrickson has a theory, which is called the Fredrickson Theory of Broadening Build, which is that when we cultivate positive states, like loving kindness, she's a big loving kindness researcher, it's not just to be pleased with ourselves or be so satisfied it's because it functions in two ways. One is to broaden our perspective. When we're full of fear

and it's overwhelming, everything narrows, we shut down, we can't see options, we can't connect, and loving kindness is the opposite energy, we're connected we're open and the other way it functions is the build part which is it gives us a sense of inner resource so we don't feel so exhausted and so depleted and deficient in meeting adversity or just enjoying a day so it's broadening build both so those those states like loving kindness, like equanimity, like gratitude, function to broaden our perspective, open us and also build that sense of resource. And every time I talk to Barbara, I question this

because it seems so spooky to me. But they found that people doing something like loving kindness or any of these cultivation states will actually have their peripheral vision change and get better. And each time I think that's so weird, is that really true? And every time she says, yeah, that's true. I'm just writing that down because I should put that in my book. You should put it in your book. I hope you get many resources from this conversation and others. Coming up Sharon Salisburg talks about more of her tips for creating openness.

Why so many Jewish people of her generation got interested in meditation, the history of the so-called jubu. And her contention that no journey is exclusively linear. 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 serial? 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 Add Free on the Amazon Music or Wondering App. As we continue to sort of give people practical tools here, one of the lists that you include in your book is actually a list that somebody else made. It's the seven rules for a happy day.

Can you tell us who wrote this list and why you like it so much? Her name is Zainab Salby and I met her when she was working with the organization she had founded, which was Women for Women International. So she's a really impactful and effective organizer and activist. And she also talked about getting burnt out and never feeling she was doing enough and kind of crashing and burning and going to Zen retreat, even though she knew very little about meditation or retreats and seeing so much of her own kind of psychology and that retreat.

And then through the years, you know, coming to see that there are things she has to put in place to have a more balanced life, because this is the way to sustain the work. You know, you just can't go on forever and just giving and giving and never getting that sense of, you know, back to Barbara, that sense of inner resource getting replenished and renewed. And so her list includes things like drinking water, being in nature even is just like seeing a tree, you know, and taking a moment and appreciating it. And this is often a lot and people's lists about rest. And I could appreciate that, you know, if I were making a list, it would have to include remember the rest. I mean, it's terrible night out. And I can easily be up till two, three in the morning. And it's not good. You know, I mean, so that would be on my list and meditating every day,

even if it's walking, even if it's just washing dishes, just stopping for a few moments. In any rate, if not longer. And Barbara also did some research on people doing not formal sitting or walking meditation, but like washing the dishes as they're practicing, drinking tea and things like that and found that those things were very impactful. As well, even though for me, I would say that that becomes kind of more like a story I tell

myself. If I haven't also sat formally every day, it's like, yeah, you can be mindful whatever you're doing, you know, to worry about it. And I'm just not going to do it unless I've also sat. And so, you know, having some period of sitting is really important for me. Me too. People don't want to hear that, but just an end of two here, two people, not saying this is true for everybody. There are a few other things on her list

and they include eating healthy food, doing something with the arts, anything, like playing piano, connecting with family and friends, and then something called making an appointment with your heart, which, as you might imagine, is not the language I would choose, but what do you mean by that? What does she mean by that?

What does she mean by that? Yes, what do you think she means by that? Well, I would naturally think about loving kindness, maybe for oneself, maybe for others, or even just remembering the value, I went to a dinner once, which we used to call Jeffersonian dinners. I don't know what they call them now. I think something else, but it's like a small dinner party where you don't speak to the person next to you, just kind of chit chat, but there's a question that everyone gets in advance

and that everyone dresses that question to the whole table. And the question was something like, talk about a time that compassion was really important for you. And what was intriguing about the question was that it didn't say when you were compassionate towards someone else or yourself or someone else was compassionate

toward you, where you witnessed an act of compassion, it just was very general and open. And so people answered it in every way. And so for me, like checking in with my heart would be a question like that so that it wasn't too narrow, because it might be that I witnessed something that nothing do with me, you know, and it just inspired me and reminded me, oh look, we can treat other people that way. Look at what it looks like when somebody lights up because somebody thanked them or something like that or it might have been that someone was kind to me or I remembered to be kind to someone

else. And so I think that's a beautiful thing to ask oneself is whatever your most cherished value is? What's happening around that? The stay or this week, something like that. You mentioned dinner that reminds me there was something I wanted to get back to at the very beginning of this conversation, you talked about the Passover Seder, the annual dinner that Jews have to celebrate Passover. I'm curious what your relationship is to Judaism now. And also I asked that question to see if I might get you thinking about why so many young Jewish people of your generation went over

to India, got interested in meditation and then built their lives around it. You Joseph Goldstein, Jack Cornfield, Richard Davidson, Daniel Goldman, Mark Epstein, Sylvia Borstein, Tara Brock, John Kabatzin, you know, all of these like chewy Jewish last names. What was that? What was in the water? What was going on? At that time, I think there was kind of striking movement. And people have different answers, you know, because of course nobody actually knows. But the most common sense answer for many of us, so the Sylvia's, you know, because of course nobody actually knows, but the most common sense answer for many of us, so the, you know, Sylvia's, I think, 16 years older than I am, so that's like half a generation anyway. The kind of education or relationship most of us had to judyism was very ceremonial. Like I grew up in part with my grandparents and they

were quite observant, but I didn't understand anything of any depth, you know, and why couldn't we turn on the lights on the Sabbath? It was really only the satire that had any kind of resonance for me, and that was different. It was more in terms of a family. Oh, look, have a family. And if you wanted to go deeper, it just wasn't, it wasn't done, you know, and many commentaries of Christianity or Judaism have said that one of the contributions that contemporary Buddhism or meditation and then you rate has made, like mindfulness meditation is made, is that these other religions themselves have kind of gotten revitalized because at the time, the point, decided from like family practice, you know, or like a satir or whatever

one might be doing in terms of ritual, the point was sort of where to admire saints gone by, you know, like saints of old. And if you said, I'm going to see how saintly I can be, you know, there was ridiculous, you know, it just wasn't, wasn't done. And yet, you know, that's in contrast to say my teacher Minindra in India, who once said to me, the Buddha's enlightenment solved the Buddha's problem, naives of yours, which also I heard as you can solve your problem. You can solve the problem of the confusion and the unhappiness that's brought you here to India to begin with. You can do that, but it just didn't exist in Judaism. You know, Joseph will tell the same story of his experience going to a rabbi and there's just sort of like what, you know. And so that kind of claiming of liberating spirituality for oneself is sort of at the

heart of Buddhism. I mean, it's not concede or something. It's right. You know, we look at the Buddha because he was a human being. And so we're seeing something better on potential. But I was never taught that about Rabbi Nockman, you know, of Ukraine, you know, some centuries ago. knock me in, you know, of Ukraine, you know, some centuries ago. It was just a time, it was a wave, and I want some journalists someday to write the story of that wave, because I think it's just so interesting, like the Vietnam War was going on, it was tremendous dissatisfaction in the country, tremendous anguished, there were drugs, you know, the Beatles had gone to India, it was just like, We're just anguished through drugs. It was, you know, the Beatles had gone to India. It was just like, it was a very interesting time

to leave the country of the US and go to a whole other place and experience a whole other culture. So if you know any journalist who was like, I'm gonna take that story, I think. I think it'll be a great story. Yeah, I wanna be the guy who undertakes that story. I was taking a walk recently

with our mutual friend, Danny Goldman, who's been on the show many times, perhaps best known for having written a book called emotional intelligence. And he's working on a book where he's going to talk about some of his personal experiences, which of course, it overlap with yours. And he and I were talking about the fact that somebody should write the larger story. And yeah, I want to do that. I just have a long to-do list. Oh, well, let me keep nudging you about that because I would love it. You know, like Danny, as we call him, really kind of brought me to my first retreat. That's what he's bested on for in my life. Side for emotional intelligence. I mean, I heard him give a talk in New Delhi. It's a yoga conference

and he mentioned he was going to this retreat at the end of it, and it was a retreat going. I had just left Burma and I had just started teaching in India, and it was a kind of process, best known for being very direct. It's like it's the how-to stuff of meditation. And I thought that's it, That's what I'm looking for it. So I followed him along with like 50 other people to Bugaya, which is where the retreat was. And with Joseph had already been practicing for about four years. So from Joseph's side, there was like an invasion of all his Western people, inspired by Dan Gullman to come to this retreat. And Ram Das was there as a student and having a lot of conversations and setting Joseph because he could hear them and he was trying to meditate.

It was a tremendous gathering. I love these stories. The one thing you didn't reference when you were talking about why all these Jewish kids got so interested in Buddhism is the cultural tendency toward neuroticism and anxiety. Well, that's for sure, but I don't know that there's an exclusive, like people say to me something rather than they say, that's just Catholic guilt, and I think Catholic guilt. Like, you've got guilt too? I don't know. guilt too. I think it's also to look deeper there. Because it's an interesting question. Many of us were one generation away from lots

of family members being killed in the Holocaust. There was a lot of trauma which is never spoken about, of course, but there. And all the attendant kind of inheritance of that There's a lot there to look at Especially interesting. I think the more we learn about the reality of generational trauma Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'd mentioned her before on the show, but by Executive assistant my colleague Amy Breckenridge is an amateur genealogist and I wanted to be her first client for what I hope will be a genealogy business that she runs. So I asked her to do some looking into my family tree. And you know, on the Jewish side, I'm half Jewish, half wasp, sort of any hall mix. And on the Jewish side, there are these kids who immigrated from...

I'm talking 16, 17 years old, came over to escape the oppression of the Jews in Russia in like 1906, 1907, that zone came over by themselves and just tried to make it in America with all of this trauma that wasn't the Holocaust, but it was bad in Russia in the late 1800s and early 1900s, forced conscription, parents trying to get their kids out of it by mutilating the kids and the Jews returning on each other. It was a really bad scene over there. And so they escaped that trauma and then there's one great-grandfather of mine who came to America, hustled, had a grocery store, did a bunch of things and then basically became

a crook. And she found a newspaper article about him having been basically a corrupt bail bondsman who took his relatives homes and put them up as collateral for a con man and he got busted and killed himself. And, you know, I've referenced this suicide before, but I actually subsequent to having referenced that in the past podcast. I saw this news article about the guy. And so anyway, this kind of fear-based hustling, it gets handed down and the genes is not of course exclusive to the Jews by any stretch,

but it's real and I do think it can get people interested in things like Buddhism. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a lot there. And some people would say kind of a premium on study and understanding life and things like that and coupled with trauma, it's a heavy mix. Yeah, a pretty powerful motivator.

One thing you say, this gets me back to your book. We're talking now about the beginning of your journey and 18 year old who went to India after having endured a lot of trauma as a kid. And we're now chatting several decades later. And it gets me back to a line from your book that was quite resonant for me personally. And the line was, no journey is exclusively linear. I'll just say something personal before I get you to talk about it. I was giving a talk via Zoom. And I mentioned on the talk that the reason why I wasn't there in person is that I had been going through a bout of

claustrophobia and panic. And I couldn't get on the plane. I actually had to get off the plane. And I've mentioned that part of the story before on this show. But when I said that to this assembled audience, one of the women in the audience raised her hand and said, well, if you're Mr. Meditation and you're having panic, how am I supposed to feel? And I wish I had no journey as exclusively linear in my back pocket as an answer. You know, of course, life is still going to happen you. No matter how much meditation you do, you're still subject to aging illness and death. And so is everybody around you and hopefully meditation will just help

you handle all of the mess better. And that is what's happened with me. I'm way less claustrophobic right now than I was at that moment. So, okay, I just now hurled a lot of words in your direction, but can you talk a little bit about the journey not being linear? your direction, but can you talk a little bit about the journey not being linear? Yeah, and I think I understand the person's comment too, but I think it's one of the ways that we're not really fair to ourselves and not really just to ourselves, because if we were looking at a good friend who has been going through lots of changes and doing so much better and then they fall down and they pick themselves up or they let others help them up. Maybe they never had that ability to let in help before something really positive about starting over and being able to have some resilience and having an interlude, let's say, of being overwhelmed last and afternoon rather than a year, you know, like all the things that do happen if we were looking at a friend, we would say congratulations.

You're doing really well, but with ourselves, of course, we're merciless. In a way, it goes back to the window of tolerance. It's not so much what's happening, but can we have a kind of openness and presence and balance and kindness in the face of what's happening and maybe not right away, but it comes back sooner than it used to. Then it's the process, you know, can we be with what's happening, can we work it through and maybe learn some things about how to deal with it or whatever. But we have this idea that, you know, we're going to have it the breakthrough experience and everything's just going to be smooth from then on. It doesn't seem to work that way. My friend, my colleague Sylvia Worstein came up with this phrase in terms of the

eightfold path, which is so classical and Buddhist teaching. She called it the eightfold dot because we just go round and round and round and round and round and round. And we go up and we go down and that's what's real. And people often say to me things like, how do I stay mindful all day long at work? Or how do I keep the level of concentration? I got in the retreat and I always say, it's not gonna happen.

You are gonna yell at your kids again. Or you're gonna forget and stay up till three in the morning. Or you're gonna, you know, whatever. But you will recover sooner and you'll maybe recover differently and you'll treat yourself differently over time and, you know, of course, you tend to have your panic attacks in public, so maybe it's a little different for you, but there are lots of things we would rather not admit to, you know, that's a change for some people to reveal vulnerability. And it's sort of like the surround the environment with which we hold these things. That's what

changes and that changes everything. So if something used to last long, long time and it lasts much shorter time and it's really painful, that's different than taking over your month. And I do feel like in the great trajectory of self-compassion, for many of us, the person we are the least kind to is ourselves. Coming up Sharon talks about her recent experience in the healthcare system, quite harrowing, and how she leaned on her meditation practice in some very difficult moments. And she'll talk about learning the incredibly hard skill of hanging out with somebody else's pain, especially when there is nothing you can do about it.

You recently had a pretty terrific experience that I had a chance to talk to you about when I saw you in person a few weeks ago, where you landed in the nether reaches of the American healthcare system in ways that you described to me as being, I think you used the word retraumatizing. So I wonder if you could describe that experience to the extent that you're comfortable and also How you handled it because I think that's really relevant to this discussion Yeah, I ended up in the hospital with a diagnosis of pneumonia needing oxygen and through the variety of circumstances It was an healing experience

It's a say the least being in that facility. It was sort of more a combination of like a nursing home or a place where people would go who had no other place to go who were sick and people raving through the night for drugs. I didn't see a doctor, for example, the whole time I was there. And so it was very retraumatizing. First of all, it was really a scary experience. The bed I had in the chair I was sitting in each day were wired so that if I got up where I moved wrong, a siren would go off. And this voice would scream, don't get up, don't get up, don't get up. And you know, these places were quite understaffed.

These days, you know, the nurses, the nursing aides were wonderful people and they were really trying. But the system was such that it was just awful, you know, and they were doing the best they could in those circumstances. But it was almost like being restrained. And, you know, I grew up with mentally old father and so that specter of ending up in an institution was always somewhere in my consciousness. That is the most terrifying thing that could happen for me in one day when I woke up there and I

thought, oh look where I am, you know, it happened. And then through a variety of means, you know, the great efforts of my doctor in New York and things like that. I was released to go back home and you know my process is really always very similar in that it's being able to sit with the feelings and be with them in an effect handshake, not feeling so alone and knowing Sunni Roochay for example is doing prayers for me you you know, and that people cared, and that I wasn't going to be abandoned in this place. And you know, later I found that people were plotting to kidnap me, like rent an ambulance, take me out and bring me to a real hospital. And, you know, it's really the same thing. And it's something I always have said to people

when they've asked, you know, even when it was interviewed for something once, and the question was, how would mindfulness be helpful in the time of total crisis? And I say, well, don't wait. Just don't wait. You know, people say, I don't know. There's nothing happening. I'm fine. It's boring to sit.

Why should I do it? And I say, just do it. Do it in the ordinary time. do it in the easiest time. Do one thing seem boring because the day may come when you can really need it. And that's what it felt like. Those same old tools. And it's me, there may be people who have different kinds

of resources in terms of psychotherapy or trauma work, and I think that's great. They're not mutually exclusive. No, they're definitely not mutually exclusive. And who knows what else I will experiment with, because what a wonderful thing, you know, these tools exist. Well, I've said this to you before, but I'm very sorry this happened to you. It sucks uncontrollably and the suck at baseline for anybody to be stuck marooned in a place like that, but given your family history and how traumatized you were as a child, when your father had to leave home

and be institutionalized and to find yourself in a similar situation that is, I don't understand what it's like, but it seems negative the very least. And that you can bring the tools to bear in extremists is really heartening. Yeah, it's heartening to me too, because they exist. And it's so easy to think, well, this is like a hobby or this is a little challenging, but all my friends are doing it or whatever, you know, but it's so much deeper than that. I was having a conversation with my therapist earlier today and we were talking about how often, and this is eventually going to get us back to openness and your book, often when

people go through horrific things, it can sensitize them. I was in an elevator with my therapist today because that's what we do. We go ride elevators together so that I can get used to being confined. And we end up just talking about a lot of stuff. Turns out he went to high school with Richie Davidson, actually. And he's a great guy, this therapist. I won't name just to protect his confidentiality, but I really like him. And one of the things we're talking about today is that actually one of the upsides for me of this resurgence of panic is that I feel a little bit more sensitive to the anxiety of people around me. And then we started talking about how my wife,

when she was eight, she had a benign brain tumor that had to be removed. And it is largely because of that that she became a physician physician and how what we might call negative or unpleasant or unfortunate or bad things that happen to us can lead to this kind of openness that you talk about in the book and that you talked about in this conversation. One of the things you talk about in the book and this might be a good place to close because we've talked a lot about how we relate to ourselves, but the point is, of course, that once our inner weather is bombier, we can have improved comportment vis-a-vis others. And in the book, you talk about learning to be okay and sit with somebody else's pain, even if, and especially if there's nothing you can do

about it. Do you agree with this connection I'm making here? Does this all make sense? Am I being cogent? I do see it. I mean, sometimes we, I think, interpret compassion is fixing something, you know, being able to fix a person or a situation. I don't see it that way, really, anymore, but being with and seeing what emerges out of that being with, I think is more in the nature of compassion because it's also not hierarchical. Like, I've got it all together and I'm going to be stowed this kindness on you way down there. You know, it's like, okay, here we are. And so the need to fix it, the need to be the savior would be a kind of narrowness. You know, it's like being in a role definition and fixation and also shielding yourself from being equal in that situation, just sort of more like I'm the fixer, in contrast to here we are.

Together let's see what happens. And like I had not known that about your wife and yet, if we really knew everyone's story, I think it would be, it would be really powerful, because no one is invulnerable really. So there's that, and I think there's just the sense of connection is opening. And the story that I tell in the book is about being in New York. I was teaching all day, and I was supposed to have dinner with a friend further up town. So I got into a taxi and then she wrote me and said, you know, I'm not feeling very well. Maybe we should call it off.

And so I said to the taxi driver, we're not going up to him. And we're going downtown. Let's go downtown, which is where I lived. And I wrote something to my friend like, you know, they really big germs going on around. I'm sorry, you know, feeling well, she wrote back and said, Oh, let's go downtown, which is where I lived. And I wrote something to my friend, like, you know, they really big germs going on around. I'm sorry, you know, feeling well, she wrote back and said, oh, it's not physical. I just had a really hard day, and I don't want to burden you with my suffering.

And I wrote back and I said, I'm a Buddhist, I'm not afraid of sitting with someone in suffering. So she said, okay, come. So then I said to the cab driver, rather dramatically, turn around, we're going uptown after all. Jay had never done before. So we narrow and fixate when we feel we have to be the savior.

We also narrow and fixate when we feel I've got to hide this. This is too shameful to reveal or no one can tolerate this. No one can tolerate this, you know, no one could bear this. So from both sides, you know, it would be just falling into that habit and openness would look like just a kind of sheer connection. It's such a pleasure to talk to you always. And as I say, congratulations on the new book, speaking of which, before I let you go, can you just remind everybody of the name of your new book where they can get it? Any other resources you've put out there

that might be supporting that people could be interested in? Please plug. Okay, actually, I want to say I like this book. I like it a lot. You know, sometimes when I think it's my 12th book, I think. But I feel like one thing I did in this book was in theater where we would say I broke the fourth wall. I felt like I was addressing people very directly in different ways called real life. The journey from isolation to openness and freedom, published by Flatiron.

And I was moved by seeing the different sources and psychology and so on that have really been nourishing my understanding. Yes, so the book should be available everywhere. As I say congratulations, you've made many, many, many contributions to improving the human situation. And here we go with another one. So thank you Sharon Salzburg. Thank you so much. Thanks again to Sharon Salzburg. Thank you as well to you for listening. If you've got a moment, go give us a rating or review that stuff really helps. And finally, thank you to everybody who worked so hard on this show. We've got an incredible team. 10% happier is produced by Gabrielle Zuckerman, DJ Casimir, Justin Davie, Lauren Smith, and Tara Anderson.

Our supervising producer is Marissa Schneiderman, and Kimmy Regler is our managing producer, scoring and mixing by Peter Bonaventure of Ultraviolet Audio, and Nick Thorburn of one of my favorite bands, Islands, Rodar Thiet, thank you Nick. We'll see you all on Wednesday for a brand new episode. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad free on Amazon music.

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