Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 598: Joseph Goldstein On: How Not To Try Too Hard in Meditation, Why You Shouldn't "Waste Your Suffering," and the Value Of Seeing How Ridiculous You Are

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

It's always a big deal when we get the maestro Joseph Goldstein on the show. He's one of the greatest living meditation teachers—and we cover a lot of ground in this conversation both related to meditation and to life.This is the third installment in a series we've been running this month on the Eightfold Path. If you missed the first two episodes, don't worry. Joseph starts our conversation with a brief description and explanation of this pivotal Buddhist list. The list is basically a recipe for living a good life.In this episode we talk about:  How to strike a balance between trying too hard and trying too little in meditationHow to handle your doubts about whether you're meditating correctlyWhat the Buddhists really mean when they say “let it go” What Joseph means when he says, don't waste your sufferingWhy he uses the word ridiculous so much to describe the way our minds workHow the eightfold path encompasses both daily life and formal meditationThe simplest possible definition of mindfulnessHow mindfulness can prevent unwholesome or unhealthy states of mind from arising What to do when unwholesome states have already arisenBeing mindful of seeing, which is an often overlookedA simple explanation of the tricky Buddhist concept of not self The Buddhist concept of wisdom And the importance of having a sense of humor about your own mind A note that we initially conducted this conversation live via Zoom as part of a benefit in support of an organization called the New York Insight Meditation Center, which is an offshoot of IMS.Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/joseph-goldstein-598See 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, kids. It's always a big deal when we get the myestro Joseph Goldstein on the show. He's one of the greatest living meditation teachers at a huge figure in my own life. We cover a lot of ground in this conversation, both related to meditation and to life generally. We talk about how to strike a balance between trying to hard and trying to little in meditation, how to handle your doubts about whether you're meditating correctly, what the

Buddhists really mean when they say let it go, what Joseph means when he says don't waste your suffering, and why he uses the word ridiculous so much to describe the way our minds work. This is the third installment in a series we've been running this month on the eightfold path. If you missed the first two episodes, don't worry. Joseph starts our conversation with a brief description and explanation of this pivotal Buddhist list. The list is basically a recipe for living a good life.

It's often divided into three buckets, and we covered the first two buckets on the previous episodes. And in this one, after doing an overview, we cover the final bucket, which includes the last three entries on the previous episodes. And in this one, after doing it overview, we cover the final bucket, which includes the last three entries on the list, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Again, if you're new to the A-fold path or to Buddhism, this conversation is structured

to be friendly to beginners, so don't worry if you are having trouble with any of the lingo, any of the special words that have come out of my mouth over the last few seconds. We're going to explain everything. And I think you're going to like it. For anybody new to Joseph Goldstein, he is one of the most respected meditation teachers in the world, a huge force behind the rise of mindfulness in modern society. And he's got a sense of humor as he will hear on top of it all. In the 1970s, he co-founded the Insight Meditation Society, or IMS alongside

other great meditation teachers with familiar names such as Sharon Salisberg and Jack Cornfield. Since IMS was founded, thousands of people from around the world have gone there. It's in Barry, Massachusetts, to do silent meditation retreats, and to learn about Buddhism. It is where I personally go on retreat. I should also say that Joseph is also the author of several books, including Mindfulness, One Dharma, and the experience of insight. Just a quick preview of some of the other topics we hit in this chat. How the Eightfold Path encompasses both daily life and formal meditation. The simplest possible definition of mindfulness, how mindfulness can prevent unwholesome or unhealthy states of mind from arising, what to do when unwholesome states

have already arisen, being mindful of seeing, which isn't often overlooked, sorry, that's a little cute, but an often overlooked area of practice, a simple explanation of the tricky Buddhist concept of not self or the self being an illusion. We also talk about the Buddhist concept of wisdom and about the importance of having a sense of humor about your own mind. And the relief that I personally get from knowing that even Joseph sometimes compares himself to other meditators. One quick note, we initially conducted this conversation live via Zoom as part of a benefit in support of an organization called the New York Insight Meditation Center, which is an offshoot of IMS, and we'll put a link to both

NYI and IMS in the show notes if you'd like to learn more about either of these organizations or donate. I'm a huge supporter of both. Before we jump into today's show, many of us wanna 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% calm. 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 did 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. Joseph Goldstein, welcome to the show. Thanks, Dan.

Maybe you should see how it goes before you release it on your podcast. Welcome, everyone. It's really good to be with you all. So we're going to talk about the eightfold path, specifically the final three bullet points on the eightfold path, specifically the final three bullet points on the eightfold path. But let's just start with the bigger picture. For people who are new or even for those of us who've been around for a minute and may have faulty memories,

what could you say as a context setter about the eightfold path in its entirety? Well, one of the I think interesting and important aspects of the eightfold path as it's teaching is that it really encompasses both the activities that our experiences in our daily life as well as informal meditation. So I think that's really important to emphasize because sometimes people think that the practice is only about the formal meditation. And yet, right at the center of the A4PF, things like right speech, you know, and right livelihood, right action. And so, I think that enlarges our sense of what our Dharma practice is about when we understand the eight steps of it in their entirety. And of course, the first two steps have to do with the cultivation of certain

wholesome minds, states like meta and compassion and renunciation. And also the very first step on the path is a wisdom factor. And one of the questions that I really like to encourage people to reflect on, both in their formal practice and in, you know, their practice in the world, is, what am I learning from being aware? I'm not practicing being aware, but that's not an end in itself. The end is really wisdom, you know, liberating wisdom. And so just holding that question, well, what am I learning as I'm paying attention? And really, the entirety of the Eightfold Path

supports that inquiry. In this conversation, we're going to focus on the final three aspects of the Eightfold Path, which are effort, mindfulness, and concentration. These are often described as the sort of on the cushion aspects of the eightfold path. Am I right about that? They are often described like that, but of course, each one of even these three steps can be applied to our activities in the world. So we don't want to stop being mindful

or stop arousing energy once we're off the cushion. So even though they're really highlighting the meditative practice per se, the implication is then that we carry that development into having a living. And I think that's really important. Agreed. So let's take the first of these final three

and start there at effort, or right effort. What do the Buddha mean by this idea of effort? Yes. So first to start even with that translation, there are two words in Pali which describe this and the one that captures what I think is the most useful understanding of it, is the Pali word Virja, which is more often translated as energy. So, Vierier, I like that quality of energy because sometimes in English, the word effort can just often morph into efforting, right? And so, it can easily get out of balance. And of course, one of the practices of right effort or of right effort or

Vierier energy is In finding the balance You know so that it's not too much where we get all tens or it's to lose Where we simply space out as most of you probably know the Buddha gave a very Act similarly for this he said it's like Tuning the strings of a loot you know we might take a tar in these days, you know, for the two tight, it doesn't sound right, it was too loose, it doesn't sound right. And so this is the quality of right effort or right energy really has to do with tuning it within ourselves. And this is a ongoing practice. It's not that we find it and then we have it. It's a continual state of monitoring the quality of our effort or energy.

So specifically, it refers to the letting go of unskillful states and the cultivation of skillful ones. As again, most of you are familiar with this verse from the Dharma part of where it says avoid what is unskillful, do what is good, purify the mind. This is the teaching of all the Buddhas. That's really a beautiful summary. In three lines, we get all the teachings of the Buddha. Of course, it's a little challenging to actually put it into practice. I would imagine that as a meditation teacher, some significant percentage of the questions you get from students falls into this bucket of effort. I mean, I just interpolating back to all the many desperate questions I've asked you in the middle of retreats, but where it's obvious that the problem is, and I'm just trying to

hard. Yes, so again, what we have to learn is how to pay attention to whether the strings of our inner being are in tune. That is, are they too tight? Are they too loose? And I think sometimes as instructions are given in meditation, it may be that it's not so often that we make that a specific instruction to pay attention to the quality of effort and it's more in response as people come in and report their experience and so then maybe the teacher will get feedback. But I think it's really helpful for each one of us to integrate this part of the practice. So we monitor ourselves. So we're not having to wait, you know, for the next meditation interview or anything like that, we're monitoring. Am I getting too tight? Okay,

so then we relax a bit. Am I spacing out? Okay, can I be more mindful? Of course, having guidance from a teacher can be very helpful, but I think an important part of the practice especially for those, you know, have been practicing a while, really have some experience. I think we can, in part, become our own teachers if we're learning how to monitor, especially this quality of effort because it's so easy for it to get out of balance. Yeah, I've been trying to put you out of business for a while. Good. It's just thinking about a thing that you've said to me so many times,

often in the context of a meditation retreat, when I'm complaining, you've said this one word to me, surrender. And again, you know, it's interesting how different words can strike different ones of us, you know, in different ways. And so for many people that word really just allows one to let go a bit, you know, and to relax. Another word might be allow. Often in meditation circles, a lot of the teachings about letting go, but I found that perhaps a better phrase is let it be, instead of let it go. Because to let it go implies that there's something we have to do, whereas let it be already acknowledges the truth of impermanence. So if we're really being mindful and we let things be, in and of themselves, they will arise and pass away, if we're not interfering. So any one of these phrases,

each person needs to find the words, the vocabulary that resonates with them, but it could be surrender, it could be allow, it could be let it be, and it's really helpful. So under the rubric of effort, which is, as we've noted, part of the eightfold path, there's at least one other list embedded in the list. I'm about to reference. It's just amazing.

But there is this list of the four great endeavors that you often reference when discussing right effort. So let's see if we can get through a few of these great endeavors. The first is preventing the arising of unwholesome states that have not yet arisen. What does that mean in plain English? It means that once we have some sense of the unskilled states that arise within all of us from time to time. We can learn to really investigate and pay attention. Well, what are the circumstances in which those unhulsing states arose? First, we might see, well, what sense do they arise most predominantly from?

Is it from what we're seeing? And then we either get angry or desire, you know, is it from what we're seeing and then we either get angry or desire, you know, filled with desire agreed, is it what we hear it, is it the sensations in the body, is it our thoughts? So the first would be to see, okay, what's the field where the unholstent states arise predominantly? And it's probably some combination of all of them. And then once we have seen that or learned that, we can pay a special attention to that field. So I'll just give you an example which this had an amazing impact on my practice and could be really helpful, I think, for folks to practice with. One of the very common unwholesome states of mind is judging ourselves a lot, but

also judging other people. This came so clear to me. I was on retreat at IMS. I just noticed every time I was in the dining room for meals, I would have a judgment about every single person, about what they were wearing, about how they were moving, about how much food they took. It was totally ridiculous, you know, but that's what the mind was doing. Just this running commentary of judging. So at a certain point I saw that and saw how ridiculous that was. I realized, well, what's the cause of all these judgments to arise? And I saw that they arose because I was not mindful of seeing. As I would walk into the dining room, all those judgments came from what was being seen.

So, as soon as I recognized that, every time I walked into the dining room, I would just be noting seeing, the whole time, seeing, getting online for food, seeing, going to the table, seeing, sitting down at the table, seeing, it was amazing. All that time that I was mindful of seeing, which was held by the noting, there were no judgements at all, they all disappeared. And it was such a simple understanding of how mindfulness can prevent unwholesome states from arising. But it came retroactively. I had to see first, oh, that's where they do arise, and then investigating, well, why are they arising in the serena, and then taking the appropriate

action, namely being mindful in this case of seeing. I was just amazed at how simple it was once I saw it, just one further thing, not only in the IMS dining room, but for people who have, you know, vision, the vision is not impaired in some way, seeing in some way, I think, is the predominance and sense field of our lives. We're just moving about in the world of what is being seen. And yet for the most part, I think we are not mindful that we're seeing. And so as we go through our lives through the day, it's one of the reasons our mind is continually caught up in reactivity. It's usually reactive to something we're seeing. Sometimes hearing, but seeing is a big one and

it's more difficult to be mindful of seeing than hearing because it doesn't have the same tangible impact. It comes in very softly, so we're not even aware that seeing is going on, even though we're immersed in it. So, this is just an example of how powerful mindfulness can be in the ordinary circumstances of our lives. This is not exactly on point, but there was something you said at the beginning of that last answer that it was just reminded of how this is a thing I've heard you say many times, and I find it very helpful. It's the word ridiculous. that last answer that it was just reminded of how this is a thing I've heard you say many times.

And I find it very helpful. It's the word ridiculous. You repeatedly describe your thoughts and my thoughts as ridiculous. And I really find that it's a little, it could be humbling at first, but it's very helpful. Yeah, and that points to actually a bigger attitude of mine that's really helpful, which is having a sense of humor about our own minds. You know, this actually one yogi came into an interview once and they had a great comment. They were reporting on what they were learning about their minds and they said, the mind has no pride. And I loved it because I think we all know that all of these thoughts come and all of this reactivity.

And it's all just the habitual conditioning of our minds. So it's really helpful to see the impersonality of it all and to see it with a sense of humor because that itself is a very effective way of not being so caught by it. You know, we're just smiling ourselves a big help in fact this. Absolutely. So let's get to the second great endeavor and heads up that this is where we get into a list within a list.

But the second great endeavor is to abandon the unhulsome states, which have already arisen. Yes. So unpack that and then we'll get into the list. So this is really in some way a major part of our meditation practice and our practice in the world. Once we recognize that an unhulsome state has arisen, what do we do? How do we abandon the unhulsam states that are there? And this is a whole range of ways of abandoning the unhulsam, abandoning the unskillful. So the first one is mindfulness. You know, we're mindful and it's there. And depending on the strength of our mindfulness and the strength of the particular defilement in the mind, sometimes just that, just by being mindful, oh, look at that.

And it's gone. And so that's an easy release. Sometimes though, we need to strengthen the mindfulness. You know, there's a state that I've talked about a lot. I call it a meditative disease, which is the state of more or less mindfulness. We're kind of there. You know, we're not totally spaced out, but we're not really there. So I'll just give one example of this. One point I was unretreated in Nepal with side of Upandita, and the conditions were really terrible. There were four or five of us living in this one room, a cement floor, we just had our little beds,

it was right next to the train, the food wasn't good, it was just, you know, it wasn't IMS. So one time I went in for my interview with Sido Pandita and I was saying, you know, my mind was just in complaining mode about all the conditions. And he said, well, be more mindful. And my first reaction in my mind, I didn't say this, but what I thought was, thanks a lot. Here, these conditions are really terrible and he's just saying, be more mindful. However, I left the interview, I started walking meditation, and other well, he was this great teacher, this is what he said to do. So in fact, I started being more mindful in the walking, and really feeling the sensations of the movement

very precisely and very carefully. Low and behold, as soon as the mind dropped into that level of mindfulness, all the complaining, all the unholes in the aversion, it was gone. Because my mind was fully occupied in being mindful with the steps. That's one of the first strategies. Another strategy which I have used a lot, and it's one of the things that keeps me most interested in the practice, and that that is when there's some kind of suffering in the mind,

and the suffering is always coming because there's some unholes of state going on. Whenever there's some discomfort in my mind, something is not flowing easily for whatever reason. It really peaks my interest. I use that situation of an unholes the mindset and the attendance suffering. It's almost like from this bell to investigate. Okay, what's going on in my mind? That's causing this suffering. There's a phrase that I use and people might misinterpret this. So I say it with a little bit of caution, but the phrase that I like using is, don't waste your suffering. And by that, I mean, don't drown in it, you know, and don't just get so caught up and lost and maybe with self judgment or self-pity or whatever it is. Don't waste it on that. The suffering is really a wake up call to investigate. And it's very interesting when we start to look at our minds, we can see very directly the causes of the suffering.

So right there we have the first two noble truths. You know, there's the truth of suffering which we're experiencing. And then if we really investigate it, rather than simply just enduring it, so then we're experiencing the second noble truth, understanding the cause of suffering. So I'll just give one example of this. And this really has also changed my practice a lot. It's been really effective. So as most of you probably know, one of the lists that Dan refers to, the list of all the defilements in the mind, they're basically

the Buddha highlighted 10 different defilements or unwhwholesome states which are uprooted at different stages of enlightenment. Well, one of the last filaments to be uprooted is something called Mana in Pali, M-A-N-A, and it's usually translated as conceit, but it's not conceit in the usual meaning that we have in English. It's any kind of comparing. And as most of you know who you know have been meditating a while, you know, we all know how common this comparing mind is. You know, we meet somebody and maybe we're comparing, I don't know, just different attributes or whatever. But one particular example I had, I was doing a self-retreat. And at the same time, Bicco Analio, who many of you might know of,

he was doing a retreat down at the study center, just down the road, at the same time. So I was on retreat in my house. And I think I spent an hour to just free doing away sometime. And then I thought of Analia who's super disciplined, you know, and I just knew he was not free doing away his time. So then I started getting down on myself a little bit, you know, you know, what kind of yoga, just that whole pattern. But then quite quickly, I noticed, oh, that's just mana.

That's just this comparing mind. As soon as I recognize it, oh, that's just mana. Because in the being mindful of it, it was the remembering that that mana or comparing or conceit in that way, is itself impersonal. The mono is not eye, it's not self, it's just a conditioned, a deeply conditioned pattern. As I said, it's not uprooted till final full enlightenment. So becoming mindful and seeing it as

impersonal in the moment of recognition was organ,on, my mood lifted, and I got back to being a little more diligent, jokey. So again, all of this has to do with investigating, you know, when there's suffering, when there's something unholsom. Okay, how can I unhook? And this is really an interesting part of the practice. I love hearing that even you compare yourself to other meditators at times, it's a relief. It's all non-self. Fortunately. Right. And I believe

the original poly word for non-self was ridiculous. Exactly. So there are five other options that you list for support in this second grade endeavor of abandoning unwholesome states, which have already arisen. I don't know that we're going to have time to do all of them because we've got a lot of other ground to cover, but let me list them and then you can pick which one, if any, that you would like to dwell further on. The first is meta or cultivating the opposite of many unhulsome states, which at love and kindness or friendliness or warmth. The second, and these are more polywords here, Heary and Otappa, which I can't translate, but maybe you will. The third is to find something

else to focus on. The fourth is to look directly at the unhulsome states, and the fifth is to suppress. So the general principle of the first one is with unwholesome states, if the investigation aspect, which I just talked about, doesn't quite get it, or doesn't release it, finding the antidote. So the antidote, for example, to ill will or anger,

or fear is meta, is loving kindness. The antidote to envy is mudita, sympathetic joy. So just a little story there, which will illustrate how effective some of these tools can be. One of the times when I was going to burn into practice for a few months, so my friend and colleague Steve Armstrong was a monk there and had been a monk for quite a few years. So I get to the monastery, you know, from the busyness of my life,

trying to settle in and Steve was just there, you know, having spent the last few years and intensive practice and he was just like floating off the ground. You could just see kind of the lightness and the stillness and my first reaction was a little bit of mana, you know, comparing and oh look he's doing so great and I was struggling and whatever way I was. But again, I saw it pretty quickly and then I started doing the Moodytop practice, which, as most of you know,

it's translated off in this empathetic joy of sympathetic joy. And the phrase in English would be, may you are happiness increased? May you're well-being increased, man, I never leave you. And again, some of these things are so simple within a few minutes of starting to do the moody time. And really feeling it, I was really wishing that for him, all of that comparing completely fell away. Yeah, and I was just there in this very wholesome state of appreciating his good fortune, nothing had the opportunity to impact us so much. So this is an example of using the antidote, or if we're really feeling greed,

the antidote is renunciation. And it doesn't have to be some super big renunciation, just, you know, moments of, there's a desire to do something that maybe it's not that important or necessary or whatever, and just for the practice of it, say, no, I'm not going to do it. Yeah, I'm going to let it go. And again, redemptiation, I would not say that's the strongest of my

power means. So it's something that I'm really interested in and play with. Just a simple example, you know, I make, especially when I'm on retreat, maybe doing walk and meditation and the thought comes, you know, a cup of tea would be nice. And then no, no. And then the thought may come again and again and again and again. But at those times when I can really, I don't need this, I don't need to do it. Even though it's not that there would be anything wrong in having the cup of tea, it's just a very simple thing, but it's a chance to practice the move of renunciation. You know, when we have some desire, even if very small, and like that, and we have a wise, no, you know, I don't need this for myself. I feel that,

first I feel it is a great victory for my mind. But also more important than that, it's energizing, because it's like the conservation of energy instead of our energy going out to the fulfillment of all our desires. No, I don't need to do that. It feels so strengthening. So again, this is just a way of applying an antidote. And simple things. You know, one doesn't have to be a great meditator,

or have practice for 20 years to do these things. They're really simple. Coming up, Joseph Goldstein talks about the simplest definition of mindfulness. What Joseph calls black lab consciousness, which is a funny term. I'll let him unpack that. And how to handle all of those thoughts you might have about whether you're meditating correctly. Life is short, and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What does happiness really mean? How do I get the most out of my time here on Earth? And what really is the best cereal?

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

during some of the harder times. But if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats between friends about the important stuff. Like, if you had a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Follow life is short wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondering app. Just to reset for everybody, we're talking about the final three entries on the eightfold path, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. We've been talking about right effort. And within right effort, we've been talking about these four great endeavors. I am going to move us on to right mindfulness, but to say Joseph has given Dharma talks on

these four great endeavors. So if you want to hear about the two that we haven't covered, we will put a link for podcast listeners in the show notes. All right, so let's talk about the seventh entry on the A-fold path, right mindfulness. This is a word a lot of people use a lot in our culture these days. There have been books on mindful, loyering, mindful sex, mindful parenting, whatever. Not even kidding, there have been actual books on all of these sometimes several. So what in its simplest form is the definition of mindfulness? Okay, so I'd just like to give a little mini-wrap on what mindfulness is and what it isn't, because sometimes by seeing what it isn't, it kind of clarifies what it is. So very often people will, you know, when you ask somebody, well, what is mindfulness?

A very common response would be, well, it's living in the present, it's being in the present moment, you know, not lost in the past, not lost in the future. And that is a foundational aspect of mindfulness, but it's necessary, but not sufficient, right? There are many more aspects that are needed to really understand mindfulness, because that living in the present, that quality is what I have called black lab consciousness. You know, or it could be any of your favorite breeds of dogs, or black labs, they're really fun. You know, they're joyful, they're playful, and they seem to be in the present. You know, it doesn't look like they lost and passed the lost in the future.

They're just in the present. But as far as I can tell, they just don't seem to be very mindful. They're just bounding along on their instincts and their desires, whatever. So they're present, but not yet mindful. So something else is needed. And that is, you might call it a metacognition. So we're aware of what's in the moment and it's like there's that quality of knowing we're aware. So that brings in a really important dimension. So there's a very experiential feeling of being in the present, being aware of what is there, what our experience is. But that's still not enough. And there's an important distinction here that really clarifies the difference between these states that might look like mindfulness

but or not. And the distinction is between recognition and mindfulness. Because very often we think that if we recognize what's present, oh there's anger or there's greed or there's love or there's compassion, we often feel that in the recognition that means we're being mindful. Now the recognition, like being in the present moment, is necessary, but recognition by itself is not mindfulness because we could be recognizing what's present. For example, suppose there's a version or anger in the mind. We might recognize that, but being aware of it through a filter of not liking it, of wanting it to go away, of judging it.

And so the filter itself becomes another unholtzer mindset. So mindfulness is a very special kind of recognition. We're recognizing what's there. We're being mindful of it, but without greed, without aversion, without delusion. Right. And so we're seeing it without that filter of an unwholesome mind state. And as many of you know, I've told this story many times, for many years I was working, this goes back quite away in my practice, but fear was a very

predominant emotion. And I've been noting it and aware of it and recognizing it, thinking I was being mindful, but I wasn't, because I was always noting it and wanting it to go away. And it was only when I finally came to a place of acceptance of it without a version, without wanting it to go away. Oh, fear, fear is like this? It was in that moment of acceptance that I could begin to see the impermanence of it and the whole mass of fear that I had been struggling with, it really just dissolved in that moment of acceptance. Not meaning that it never came back, but my relationship to it had changed completely.

You know, and so it's really seeing that we want to recognize what's there, but then look at how we're relating to what we recognize. So that's when we're really beginning to get into what mindfulness means. Right? It's being in the present, recognizing what's present, being aware of it, free of greed, free of aversion to it, free of delusion. So here we're getting a really quite refined understanding of mindfulness, and that's why it's such a powerful mindset to develop and why the Buddha gave so much emphasis to it. I remember having a conversation with my aunt Emily back in 2000,

was spent 2009 when I was first getting interested in meditation. I can't remember what I had said to her about why I was interested. And I remember her saying something like, yeah, well, I know I'm angry when I'm angry. So what good does that do me? And everything you've just said sort of answers the question better than I could have back then, which is, yes, it's knowing you're angry without being caught up in the anger that allows you not to be owned by the anger. Exactly.

Is Andyemeli still alive? She is. Go back. Give me this little rap. Recognition and mindfulness is not exactly the same. I'll corner her. You can get her by own little Dharma to be delighted.

So I'm imagining that some people are having the following question, which you have answered in part, but I just want to put it to you in a very pointed way because I know from firsthand experiences very easy to get in your head while you're meditating with the following question, which is, am I doing it right? And after having listened to you talk in a fine-grained way about what mindfulness is and isn't, I imagine through my not-divine year, but some other divine power that people are wondering, how do I know in any given moment whether I'm actually being mindful?

are wondering how do I know in any given moment whether I'm actually being mindful? So one of the really fine meditation teachers, Burmese, who many people have connected with in recent years, Saito Utasiania, he has a really simple way of addressing that question. So he suggests just periodically, for example, in a sitting, but it could be any time, but take a sitting as an example, he suggests, you know, intermittently throughout the sitting, just asking the question, what's the attitude in my mind? And that's really pointing us how am I relating to whatever's there? And what's very interesting is very often simply by asking the question, it settles us back into a true mindfulness.

So again, just another example for my own practice. One time I was sitting and just feeling my breath, it was totally ordinary sitting with the breath. And then I remembered this suggestion of sideotagioneer. So I'm just feeling the breath and I asked the question in my mind, what's the attitude? And I didn't really think there was much of any attitude, it was just, you know, simple being with the in and out breath. But I asked the question, what's the attitude? But I asked the question, what's the attitude? And it was amazing just by asking the question,

I could feel my mind settled back from a wanting that I didn't even know was there. Right? And it very subtle. It was more like an energetic leaning into the next moment. So we were in this breath, in order to get to the out breath, or maybe there was a subtle warning of concentration. There was something that was extra. And again, it was just by asking the question, I didn't even need to be looking for an answer. need to be looking for an answer to what's the attitude. And I felt the whole mind relax back in a more profound way. So that's one way. Another very useful suggestion he had, which I think you've used this thing in your practice, when we're caught up in a lot of thoughts, and we may be thinking we're being mindful of them. So, you know, we're recognizing that they're there, but in some way caught up in them,

one of the other questions he suggested is asking, is this useful? Is this so useful? And as I'm sure most of the people listening in this evening will recognize most of our thoughts are not that useful. So just to ask you the question again allows the mind to settle back into a more mindful state so we're not so caught up in the thought. So these are just some very simple ways. Lastly, I would say, keeping all of these suggestions in mind and just the basic understanding of what mindfulness means. You know, that is a being with things, but without the wanting and without the aversion,

without the identification. So if we just have that in mind and maybe some of these specific suggestions, I wouldn't worry too much about am I doing it right? Because that itself could just become the cause of a lot of judgment and a lot of self-judgment. So a note that I used a lot, this was much earlier in my practice in seeing a lot of those kinds of thought. Am I doing it right thoughts? I started calling them practice assessment tapes. Pat. Practice assessment tape. And as soon as I could just see it and name it as that, again, becoming mindful of that thought pattern, help the mind release from it. And it's like, oh, yeah, that's just a personal thought.

So that question is a common one that comes up, am I doing it right? And we really do want to see it and recognize it. And in one way or another, let go of it. You used a word a few paragraphs ago that I'm going to bring up again, use the word concentration, which is the eighth entry on the eightfold path. It's not the most attractive word concentration. It, you know, for me, that someone's mental images of a farrowed brow or the thinker.

So what does concentration mean in a Buddhist context? Okay. So I want to respond to that on two levels. First, I agree with you that the word in English, it just has a lot of baggage with it because the connotations of the English word concentration can call up these images of that furrowed, you raw, super focused on something, which is not that helpful. It's actually a hindrance to the real meaning of concentration. There are two words in Pali. The more general word is samadhi for concentration or a kagata, which is specifically one point in this.

So both of those, you know, refer to this. A key component of Samadhi is relaxation, right? And that's a hard lesson to learn. And I'm, it's an ongoing practice for myself, as well as many students that are practicing because there is a lot of emphasis on developing samadhi, and yet the very wanting is a hindrance to it. You know, we get too caught up in a grasping at it, and that is a hindrance to developing it. So it's kind of a subtle aspect

in terms of watching our own minds. So I wanna emphasize that relaxation is really a key point. The word that I find more helpful for myself rather than concentration is steadiness. Because steadiness doesn't have that connotation of over effort, you know, hypervigilance. Steadiness, at least in my mind, it almost suggests a kind of relaxation. Okay, can I just settle back and be steady in the feeling of each breath?

Well, a step, or whatever the object is. So that's a word that I like to use a lot. But a word that I have found more helpful in leading the mind to a place of steadiness and relaxation, rather than the effort to concentrate, I started using the phrase or having the intention to be steady. And just that intentionality for me, it's a softer energy than concentrate. So this intentionality to be steady. And we can apply that. You know, something as simple as a breath or taking a step at the beginning of the breath. It's just like a moment's remembering, oh yeah, intention, like have the intention to be steady for the duration of just this in-reth,

and then steady for the duration of the out-reth. So it's very soft, it's very simple, but that's actually what builds the one point of this, the steadiness. These are some nuances of working with right concentration and finding the language in all of these teachings, unless you happen to be a polyscholar, we're receiving them all and hearing them all in translation. And the translation often, you know, in English words can have different connotations than are in the poly. So we need to find the language that actually supports the meaning of what the poly is referring to. And as I say, steadiness and intentionality for me has worked well. So just one more thing to say in terms of

the basic understanding of this is that there are two kinds of concentration of steadiness of samadhi. One is when we're staying steady on a fixed object, like one object, and it could be anything. It could be the breath, could be movement, it could be a light, a sound, and we're just saying steady on it. And the other kind of concentration and steadyness is momentary, where we're one pointed on changing objects. And this is the kind of concentration that develops in the Pasuna. We're open to the changing objects, but the mind is steady, moment after moment. And both of these develop stronger samari. You know, and they have different flavors, but the quality of the samari is that steadiness of mind,

whether it's on a fixed object or on changing objects. How do we develop this concentration or steadiness of either flavor? Well, so in the way we traditionally teach for person, we actually combine these two, because in the beginning of the practice, there is a lot of emphasis on using a primary object, and it could very often it's the breath, you know, whether it's the rising falling,

or the in and out, the breath, you know, whether it's the rising falling or the in and out, the breath, the nostrils. So that's really a kind of fixed object concentration development. And by giving emphasis to the primary object, we really are strengthening this quality of steadiness. But in the way we teach for a person as we learned it in Asia, it's not exclusively that. So, inovapossinopractus, we're really starting with an emphasis on that single object concentration, but it also includes becoming mindful and one pointed on other objects that may arise and become predominant. And so, as we all know,

you know, we can be working with the rise fall or in and out and maybe be with it for quite a while, and then sounds become predominant. So we note hearing or a thought thinking or another sensation in the body. So the practice actually is combining the two. At a certain point, when the steadiness has reached a certain level of maturity and strength, there are times when the practice becomes totally choiceless, where we're not using the primary object. So then it's all the momentary concentration. But before that, we really are intermingling these two ways of practice. So just to re-say that a little bit in case anybody hasn't heard the term

choice list before in this context, once you've got enough steadiness of mindfulness, often developed through paying attention to the breath or you've chosen some primary object like the breath, you may ultimately notice that you can drop your attention to one primary thing like the breath and whatever happens, you're steady with whatever is coming up and in that way, it's choiceless. You're not picking or choosing. It's just whatever comes up in the mind, bird song, pain in your knee, whatever it is, you can just be with it in a non-judgmental, maybe even slightly warm,

accepting way. But let me get back to something you talked about earlier, which is, I think catch 22 of practice, or one of the principal catch 22 is a meditation practice, which is I often described it as a video game where you can't move forward if you want to move forward. So where you can't move forward if you want to move forward. So how do you go about developing greater steadiness without wanting to develop greater steadiness? Right. So here again, I think it's really a linguistic problem because we use the word wanting in English in a wide variety of ways. So the wanting that is not helpful is the wanting of a clinging or grasping or expectation. That's what gets in the way. But there is a wanting, we could call a more wholesome wanting. And the term or the word I like to use for that is aspiration. So we can have the aspiration to develop more steadiness, right? And so it sets the direction. Without an aspiration, we may just be all over the place because we don't even know what direction we want to be going in.

Right. So we have an aspiration, you know, let me develop more steadiness of mine. That's the aspiration. It sets the direction. But then we'd let go of it. We don't have to continually be having the aspiration in mind. Once we've set the direction, then we just engage in the practice of being steady on this breath, steady on this breath, steady on this breath, and trusting, and here's where trust or faith, you know, in the Buddhist terminology, is really helpful. It's trusting that if we're heading in the right direction and we know what to do, you know, taking stuff by staff or breath by breath, we will arrive at where we want to go. And so it's really trusting that we don't have to be, might say, hyper-vigilant about it,

or have expectations. Expectation in practice is a huge hindrance. It's a setup for suffering hindrance. You know, it's a set up for suffering because our expectations are almost never fulfilled, at least when we want them to be. You know, and so just letting go of all that. So one of the things that strengthens the aspiration to develop this steadiness is something the Buddha said, which is very powerful and I think can be lost very often, especially in these days, mindfulness has gotten so popular that sometimes some crucial aspects can be left out. The Buddha made a very strong statement. He said that there can be no wisdom without concentration, without this steadiness of mind. So he clearly is placing a lot of importance on this, of developing

that steadiness so that we can see clearly. And just one other really important part here, concentration is not the goal, it's not the end, right? We want to develop it in the service of wisdom. And it's a necessary component of developing wisdom. So for me, understanding that and experiencing it to some extent, it inspires me actually, you know, to always be working, okay, how can I strengthen the steadiness of mind, understanding how that's what leads to greater wisdom, to deeper seeing, and that's why it's such an important part of the path.

Coming up, Joseph talks about the Buddhist concept of wisdom that word gets used a lot in Buddhist circles. What does it actually mean? A simple explanation of the tricky Buddhist concept of selflessness or not self, and we talk about how to bring gatefold path into your daily life. throughout the conversation. I mentioned there are some people who hear the word wisdom and then, you know, maybe you get an image of Dumbledore or some, you know, to cysteine chapel image of white haired, long-bearded God or whatever it is. What do you mean specifically by wisdom?

Yeah, I saw it again within the Buddhist framework. I love the teachings because the Buddha was just so clear about everything. So there's a very simple response to that. And there could be many ways of describing, okay, what is the wisdom about? So one, very obvious one, is the wisdom of understanding the four noble truths, suffering in the cause and the end and the path leading to it, but more specifically even in meditation, and this we really can experience very directly for ourselves. You know, and we do, as our practice goes on, is the wisdom or the insight into the changing nature of things, of impermanence, wisdom into the unsatisfying nature or unreliable nature of things, because they're changing. So it doesn't mean that things are necessarily always painful or suffering in that sense,

but they're ultimately unsatisfying because they don't waste. So even if things are enjoyable, and we have many beautiful, enjoyable experiences, but they're not the final refuge because of the impermanence. And of course, the most challenging aspect of wisdom, because it's the most counterintuitive is the wisdom into the selfless nature of phenomena that there's no self behind experience to whom it's happening that self is simply a designation for the flow of changing experience

It's not something in and of itself that sits behind It's not something in and of itself that sits behind experience to whom it's all happening. So this is the wisdom of understanding Anata of selflessness. And we all touch on these three aspects of impermanence, the unsatisfactoriness, the selflessness. You know, at different times in our practice, we really do get glimpses of each one of them. Just as you brought up selflessness or not self, we solicited questions from the New York Insight community. And one of the questions was, can you offer a simple explanation of not self? You said a few words there, but it might be worth saying a few more if you're up for

it. Yes. So just to reiterate briefly what I just said, it's to understand that the word self is a designation for the flow of our mind body process. So it's a designation for a flow of impermanent phenomena. It's not that it has some substantial reality independent of the flow of changing phenomena. So that's what I mean. It's not that it refers to the someone behind

experience to whom it's happening. Rather, it's understanding that what we're calling self understanding that what we're calling self is the flow of changing phenomena. So that's one way of understanding. To see itself as a word is simply a designation for that flow. Okay, that's one way. One of the examples which I've been using a lot is that of a rainbow. You know, look up at the sky after rain, sun comes out of rainbow. Beautiful. You know, look up at the sky, after rain, the sun comes out of rain, bow, beautiful. We all enjoy the rainbow. But is the rainbow something in and of itself? No, it's an appearance as this light and sun and moisture and whatever the conditions are that create the rainbow. That's actually what's there. Conditions come together and rainbow appears. Conditions change.

Rainbow disappears. So the rainbow is simply an appearance arising out of certain conditions, changing conditions coming together. It's not a self-existing phenomenon independent of those conditions. So self is like a rainbow. You know, there is on a conventional level, we see the rainbow, we enjoy it. We relate to one another as, set for itself.

So on the conventional level, all that's fine. You know, we use that kind of language, but it's to understand that it's a conventional designation for a certain pattern emerging of this mind body process. You know, it's the constellation of thoughts and feelings and sensations and appearance, all of that, gives rise to the notion of a self. And we can, as I say, on a conventional level, we use the word no problem, but it doesn't point to anything substantial behind it. There's no rainbow lurking behind the moisture and the sunlight and waiting, waiting to show itself, it simply arises out of the conditions.

I hope that's somewhat helpful. It is. And just to put a fine or a point on it, once you develop some steadiness, then you can develop the insight into the lack of some core nugget of rainbow hiding behind the rainbow or some core nugget of Joseph hiding behind your eyes. That actually, it's not like learning integers in high school and it has no real world application. The real world application here of understanding selflessness is that then when anger comes along, you don't have to think of it as my anger and then get owned by it so wholly. Perfect, then.

Yes. I'll always go for the gold star. You got it. No, that's it exactly. There's an Award Dorma talk about to emerge. But then I'll just put it out. This is an interest, interesting point that interests me. We're not going to have time to go into it in detail.

But I found this something very interesting about the insight into selflessness. And another word for that is ungovernableness. The things that are just following them on laws. That the insight into Anata, it helps us understand duke, it helps us understand suffering as well as being a doorway to liberation. So it's almost like it has two different implications and I love that. So just as a quick little summary of that, one of the meanings of duke or one of the causes, what might say, of things being duke, unsatisfying, you know, and sometimes suffering, is that conditions are ungovernable.

So, for example, you know, we might have the wish, may my body never get sick, but that's not going to do anything. You know, as the Buddha said, what has the nature to grow old, will grow old, what has the nature to grow ill, will become ill, die, will die, and we are not exempt. And so it's that ungovernableness of things, that things are following their own laws, not necessarily or wishes or will. That really gives an understanding of why the first Noble Truth is the Truth of Dukha. You know, we would all like to be free of illness, or like to be free of pain, or difficult circumstances, but they're not always in our control.

So that's the meaning of anata, which points in the direction of dukkha. The other meaning of anata, which points in the direction of liberation, is that because it's not self, if we are not identifying with any of these phenomena, then we don't suffer. Even with painful things,

you know, or unpleasant things, if we are not identified with the experience, if we are not taking it to be self, then it's just part of the passing show. Sometimes pleasant, sometimes unpleasant. And so in that sense, the insight into selflessness is tremendously liberating. And I just find that interesting,

that you know, the Anatai has two sides to it. inside into selflessness is tremendously liberating. And I just find that interesting, but you know, the Anatai has two sides to it. This has been a great romp through the final three entries into the eightfold path. Before I wrap things up, is there something that you wanted to say about either the final three parts of the eightfold path or the eightfold path generally, or, you know, my stellar record as a meditator, anything you wanted to talk about that I haven't given you a chance to talk about. Yes, let's talk about your stellar record as a meditator.

Dan is a great meditator. I think the most important thing, and of course the Buddha said this over and over again, it's obviously not enough to simply know what the eight steps are. It's a path to walk. You know, these are things to put into practice. And it might be interesting for folks who are interested to maybe undertake particular kind of development of practice, where you really investigate and do some study of each of the steps of the eightfold path. And maybe, you know, it could be an eight-month project.

And for a month at a time, really just highlight the practice of each of the steps. I know there are so many places where you can begin the investigation. In my book Mindfulness, there's many chapters on the eightfold path. And so that could be one place to explore. Bikubodi has written a wonderful book called Noble Eightfold Path.

So actually to do some study where you can explore in depth the subtleties of each of these steps because we just really touched on some of the highlights. And then to really undertake the challenge of putting them into practice and then learn it from your exploration of them. So that's when this teaching becomes alive. At one point someone asks the Buddha, how long the teachings were going to last? And he said, as long as people are practicing the eightfold path, you know, as long as people are practicing with path, they will be in light and beings in the world. So that's a great inspiration, you know be enlightened beings in the world. So that's a great inspiration. You know, he laid out the path.

And if we understand it, and we keep walking, liberation is inevitable. Now, because we know the right direction, we keep on walking on the path. And it just takes us, you know, to, to the goal of freedom. Just to say that book, Joseph reference, their mindfulness is great. And I highly recommend it. And for people who are listening to this on the podcast, Bikubodi, the great translator of the original utterances of the Buddha has been on this show a couple of times, we'll put some links in the show notes. Joseph, thank you very much for doing this. a couple of times we'll put some links in the show notes. Joseph, thank you very much for doing this.

Yeah, now this was great. And again, to just reiterate encouragement to support New York Insight because New York, like every place else, needs a vibrant, dormous center. You know, as a focal point for really keeping the teachings alive. So I'm very grateful for its presence. And I hope you all can support it

in whatever way you can. I echo that and many of my most important early experiences with the Dharma happened at NYI. So thank you to everybody at New York Insight. Thanks again to Joseph, you're the best. I also want to say thank you to everybody who listens to this show. You two are the best. We really wanna say thank you to everybody who listens to this show. You two are the best. We really appreciate you listening. If you've got a moment, give us a rating or a review

that actually helps us quite a bit. And lastly, I really wanna thank everybody who worked so hard to make this show a reality. 10% happier is produced by Gabrielle Zuckerman, Justine Davy, Lauren Smith, and Tara Anderson. DJ Cashmere is our senior producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior editor, and Kimmy Regler is our executive producer, scoring and mixing by Peter Bonaventure of Ultraviolet Audio, and Nick Thorburn of the band,

I-Lins, Rodar Thien. We'll see you all on Friday for a guided meditation. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with 1-3-plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash Survey.