Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 78: Lodro Rinzler, Meditation for the Heartbroken

Episode Date: May 17, 2017

Buddhist meditation teacher Lodro Rinzler, who had been meditating for most of his life, found himself dealing with multiple, heartbreaking tribulations in his 20s and he fell into despair for a while. After working through his experience, Rinzler, who has written six books and co-founded MNDFL in New York City, focused on having conversations about how Buddhist teachings can help others cope with devastating life events. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out..com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. 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. Before we get started, a little special announcement for you. We started a 10% happier newsletter that the word newsletter doesn't sound particularly exciting. But let me just say this in its defense. I have found personally that a great way to stay engaged in meditation and mental upkeep generally is to read about it because it's really easy if you're trying to meditate with any regularity for it to feel kind of stupid just to sit there watching your breath coming in and going out and you can lose touch with the intellectual infrastructure of the thing.

So reading great articles can really help. So we started this newsletter. You can sign up for it at 10%happier.com slash newsletter. And you'll get all the, we were sort of collecting all the latest and greatest writing about meditation and putting it in one place for you. So there you go. Also, we'll have links in there to free guided meditations if you want to do it on the 10% happier app.

Anyway, this week, a really cool guy, Lodro Rinsler, he is a meditation teacher based out of New York City, doing tons of interesting things. One of the things he's doing is he started a chain of drop-in meditation studios that are secular and really lovely in their decor. They're called Mindful, M-N-D-F-L. They're spelled so they've taken all the vowels out. Mindful. And he's got one in Lower Manhattan, one of the Upper East Side of Manhattan and another in Brooklyn. This is a really interesting trend of meditation studios, they're opening up all over the country.

I think that's actually a really positive trend. And Lodra has also written a bunch of books, including The Buddha walked into a bar, which is funny. He book designed to make Buddhism relevant to young people. And his most recent book is called Love Hurt's Buddhist Advice for the Heartbroken, which is a really interesting book and actually the focus of much of this interview.

And so here he is, Lowdrow Rinsler. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Well, thanks for doing this. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having me on. And it's great to see you.

Yes. It's always great to see you. So, how did you get into this whole meditation racket? You were born into it, weren't you? I was. Yeah, it was just always around. So my parents started practicing meditation in the Buddhist tradition when they were in their 20s.

And then by the time I came around, it was just sort of like in the household, they came across me when I was six years old and I was just sitting there They're like should we disturb him? Is he doing something and they asked me later? And I mean this gets to you know all the beautiful things that you talk about in 10% happier about the sort of simplicity Like the dumb-founding simplicity of meditation practice that they said their six-year-old son You know what were you doing in that and I said I just sat up right and I started paying attention to my breathing. And they said, that's it. And I said, that's it. And they go, it sounds like he was meditating. Yeah. Wow. What came over you to do that? Had you just heard you talk about it a lot?

It was again, I think it was environmental. You know, I get a lot of questions from people who are interested in meditation that got young kids. How do I get them into it? I think it's just we show up for people and they start to pick up uncertain cues, definitely with kids. We all know this for kids. So for me, it was just around to the point that I thought, oh, this is something that is not only like acceptable to do, it's encouraged. So you were six years old and you started meditating? Yeah, and I started doing like longer retreats when I was a teenager. Did this whole stint in temporary ordination become a monk when I was 17, lasted all of a summer before I went back.

At the age of 18, went to the polar opposite extreme, went to college and did keg stance. Yeah, nice. Nice. Get practicing. I have a two-year-old. Do you have any advice about how to get that little mom girl to meditate? I mean, I think there's something about young kids that they really are quite present already. No, he's definitely present, but he's present as he's ripping the face off of the cat

or or shoving a cupcake in my face. Apply mine on this practice. Yeah, the cupcake, yeah. No, I think, you know, for people who have young kids, it's really just showing up and being willing, I think to talk about it. So I think a lot of parents who do meditation and have young children, it's really just showing up and being willing, I think, to talk about it. So I think a lot of parents who do meditation and have young children, it's almost like a shyness of wanting to keep it separate

and not letting the kids in on what, but if it's sort of like a generally accepted thing in the household, the kids start to pick up on it and they want to do it too. So you saw your parents do it. Because I don't see it in my kid in the room because it's impossible to do it because he's gonna scream in my face

or pull my hair or whatever. Well, that's the thing. So I don't do it in my kid in the room because it's impossible to do it cause he's gonna scream in my face or pull my hair or whatever. Well, that's the thing. So I have a meditation student named Nicole. Nicole lives outside of Minneapolis. She's got two young kids. She wakes up to meditate before anyone the house gets up. And the kids somehow have the spider sense

that they hear her meditating. They get her meditating. They just have this sense of like, oh, mom's up, she's meditating. Run into the room, tackle onto her, and like fight over who gets to sit on which knee, and she still gets 10 minutes of meditation in a day. So I honestly think if she can do it, anyone can do it.

Yeah, absolutely. No, it's not that I don't get meditation time, I do. It's just that I do it when he's in- You have kid meditation time. Yeah. Well, though, I do my meditation in whatever room he's not having a panther. Right. So in other words, he's not having a pan from. Right.

So, in other words, he's not really exposed to it. Hopefully he's exposed to me being a better parent because I do it. Yeah, I mean, that's part of it, right? Again, it's just sort of in the environment, as opposed to you having to come up with the 10-step plan for why your kids can end up rotating down the road. So anyway, we, we, we, I've made us digress. You were talking about you here. Although I reserved to write to ask you to talk about your kids.

We know we're just talking about me at length, or to ask you advice on anything that happens to be bothering me. I'm happy to. But on you, what your parents were Buddhist? Like of what flavor? So I was born and raised in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, which is so comes from Tibetan Buddhism. Yeah.

And it has a special emphasis on really being in society though. Really very much like, okay, we meditation practice and we practice for our everyday life. So there's a heavy emphasis on how do we show up for other human beings. And I think that sort of like community service oriented aspect, the sort of view of we do this so that we can be helpful to the world was always sort of like imprinted in my brain growing up. So, you know, right along the side of meditation house became more involved in activism, in skillful, and also totally not skillful ways and found my own way around that.

And continued on to the point that like I ended up going full blown into a career after I graduated from college. I served as the executive director of the Boston Shambola Center. Oh, well. So I did that and then served as their head of development for Shambola International for a number of years before writing my books, just starting to teach more and more. So I've been teaching meditation for about 15 years to all different types of people, but it's been really beautiful to continue to sort of reflect back and say, well, you

know, what a treat that I was actually raised with this view that we could do meditation practice and that this is just a normal thing that we do. Where were you raised into other kids in your life? I think it was normal that you were meditating. I was raised in this very bizarre foreign land called Manhattan. Oh, you were right here.

Right here. And it was, though. It was cool for you to do it. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I don't I think it was weird. It was weird. Yeah. And I honestly, like at this point, I grew up meditating. I also grew up reading comic books. No one has ever asked me to come to their company and talk about the X-Men. No, for whatever reason. But now, all of a sudden, with all the science that's come out

around meditation, it's this super amazing mainstream thing that everyone wants to talk about. So how did you deal with it? What are your friends were like, wow, this is weird, why are you, why are you meditating? I don't think I dealt with it well. We in all the time in the face. Right. So I think like honestly, Shambhala training level one, like the very intro weekend, I think it used to be called something like the art of the warrior. My parents were like, let's give you the art of the war. And it was just sitting there.

And I thought that I was going to get like tools for how to deal with bullies and I did not. Warrior, of course, in that tradition being like one who is brave and by bravery, you mean like one who looks at their own aggression. So the idea of a warrior being someone that's willing to look at their own neurosis and their stick and get past it. Which I think wasn't the best bully preventativeative and so I ended up getting pushed into a lot of lockers.

So did I and I wasn't even meditating, mostly just a wrong thing to large people, really. I still do that, but no one's pushed you into lockers this month. No, no. Anyway, I do a blessing again. So you really kind of burst onto the scene with this book, The Buddha Walks Into a Bar, which I have to admit I'm really embarrassed to admit I've known you for a while and hadn't read but just actually downloaded and been listening to in the gym. It's really good. Actually I think our goals are really constant and I was writing 10% happier because I wanted to make meditation accessible to skeptics and you you are writing, you wrote the Buddha walks into a bar

and then a bunch of sequels really as a way to make Buddhism accessible to 20 somethings. So that's a statement. Can you just amplify that and then and and describe a little bit how you went about this? Yeah, so sorry for why did you think that was important and then how did you go about it? Sure.

So, okay. I mean, a lot of people at this point have probably heard of Pemma Children. She's a very well-known Buddhist teacher and author and one of her in the Shambhala tradition, in particular, yeah. And although honestly, I really do think that she's like Oprah main stream at this point.

Yeah. I picked up her book, when I was in my mid-20s, I was going through a break. Which one? When things fall apart. Okay. And I believe that's the chapter. Her first chapter is about how she comes home

and she realizes that her marriage has fallen apart and she's getting a divorce. And she picks up a rock to throw at her husband or something like that. Yeah. I interviewed her. She's cool. Yeah. Right.

So I immediately connected to that and I was like, oh, but I don't know, I know that heartbreak, but I don't know getting a divorce because I'm in my mid-20s and I was not married. And I thought, who's writing about that first big heartbreak or instead of the mid-life crisis, who's writing about the quarter-life crisis where you're figuring out what you want to do for work?

And I just looked and looked and looked and looked and I couldn't find anything. And he, he like Buddhist teachers talking about it. So I said, I know very little, I still know very little, but at least I can open up a conversation around it. So I think all of the books are conversational. Here's my understanding of the Buddhist philosophy, the teachings that were presented. Here's how I've put them into use in my life. And then it's really opened up so many dialogues. Okay, what does it mean if we are gonna go out with friends and have a couple drinks?

Could we actually bring some of the meditation practice off the cushion and show up and actually deeply listen to our friends? Can you, I mean, can you go get hammered mindfully? I wouldn't say hammered. But I think, you know, there's different aspects. Like when we go out on a Friday night, are we, it's actually pausing and saying,

what's my intention here? Am I looking to get drunk and forget about my week? Am I looking to just connect with a friend? And knowing that actually starts to guide our behavior to the point that we could approach it with a little bit more intentionality, could we actually mindfully sip our one glass of whiskey or whatever it might be and enjoy the company

that we actually set out to enjoy as Most looking around the room seeing if there's anyone hot that we want to hook up with What's wrong with it? Well, if that's your intention then that's different, right? So it's literally saying how much can we actually bring a sense of intentionality One can even say applied mindfulness like consciously trying to show up for certain things whether it's a conversation or a food or drink or whatever it might be To the point that we actually end up with the fruition where we feel uplifted as opposed to completely hungover and spaced out. So looking at all of those aspects, both in going out with friends, but work life, romantic life, you name it. And so then you wrote the Buddha walks into an

office, into the office, which was about applying the stuff at the office. Yeah, leadership principles in terms of how to show up and be more compassionate at work. Was that the end of the Buddha walks into a, or was there one more? There was walk like a Buddha which was like literally, I had this column for a number of years in the Huffington Post called What Would Siddhu which was horribly offensive to traditional Buddhists. What would Siddhartha go to my historical, do you really think all his friends would like Siddhartha go to my Siddhartha? I think they would call him Sid.

Or they called him the Buddha. Well when he became the Buddha, but this is the whole point. Back before he was the Buddha, he was a human being that probably had made mistakes. He was a fallible person. So do we. How do we deal with any, like if we're not enlightened, which I'm not, I suspect you may be, but we'll see. Trust me. No. But, you know, how do we actually start to apply these principles to the nitty-gritty things in our life?

So, that column got, I kept going with it and it got made into a book which was Walk Like A Buddha. So literally questions from people that would read my columns and write in and say, I've got this weird scenario that knows I've heard of that I've heard 10 times before. Of course, I'd answer it in the book. So a lot of walking themes. A lot of walking themes. Then we did sit like a Buddha though. That was simple, it's just how to meditate.

Very small volume. As small as sit there and follow the breath, but, you know, how do you actually launch a meditation practice, which I'm sure you must, you must get this question all the time. Like, I tried it once and it didn't work for me. Yes.

So literally, just a small volume. What do you say to that? I say it's a little bit like going to the gym once and be like, oh, I didn't lose 10 pounds. Like, that's just not how it works. It's cumulative in nature. So it's giving yourself a wide berth and sort of trusting that over time we'll start to see

subtle effects. Even if the subtle effect is like, Oh, I didn't snap at my spouse as much as I used to. Yeah, but what do you say to people? Because this is what I really hear is that I sat and tried to do it and I couldn't stop thinking. Yeah, well, that's part of it. So I always use the definition in the Tibetan tradition. Because I get geeky sometimes around this stuff. And the one that you start geeky around this. I start geeky sometimes around this stuff. And the one that's been- Well, you start geeky around this. I start geeky and then I relax. The word gom, GOM in Tibetan, can we translate this meditation?

It's also be translate as become familiar or familiarization. So it's the idea that meditations are becoming familiar with all those thoughts, becoming familiar with the strong emotions that come up. And ultimately, I'm of the school that, actually, the thing that no one talks about with meditation that we should be is that where we go with this is that we learn to accept ourselves as we are, as opposed to thinking we should be better. It's not a self-help thing, right? Like,

we're not trying to improve and level up and be something different. We're actually improving our understanding of who we already are. And that's part of it. It's the thoughts. It's also referred to as, you know, go, I guess, the bet in term of familiarization, but in in in poly the ancient Indian language, Vipasana is just, you know, is insight seeing clearly, right? And that's not some lofty thing. It's just like actually seeing clearly what is happening in your mind and your body right now so that it doesn't yank you around, not complicated. Not.

Not easy to do. Yeah. I mean, our mutual friend Sharon Salisberg, I love this because anytime she gets this question, she goes simple, but not easy. Yeah. Right. And I think that's it. That's really like if there should be a heading under any meditation book that already

just like simple, but not easy. Very simple. So so if somebody says to you, uh, as as people say to me all the time, I sat, tried to meditate, I couldn't stop thinking, your answer is, you don't have to stop thinking. Not in the least, like asking the mind to stop thinking is like asking the heart to stop beating because you don't like the sound of it. Right. Like that's not practical. Um, the mind is always going to generate thoughts and concepts and emotions. It's just us starting to look at them, befriend them to the point that we learn to become more okay with who we are. Really though, if your practice is, and I think this is the kind of practice you teach, to pay attention to your breath, and then you're going to be invaded by all these thoughts

or they're going to arise, is don't get uptight about it. Notice that you're thinking, maybe even make a mental note about the variety of thought and anxious, impatient, rushing, planning, whatever. And back to the breath. And you may just have to do that a million times. But it's so funny, everybody needs to hear this a million times

in order to get comfortable with it. That's 100% right. I need to hear it a million times. I say this all the time, that basic meditation instructions are like the opposite of the airline safety instructions, because the diminishing returns on airline safety instructions are like, you know, very steep. And there's very little values, my apologies to everybody in the aviation community, of hearing these over and over and over again, right?

Which is why they have to sex them up now with all sorts of animations and all this stuff. But every time I hear the basic meditation instructions, I'm like, yeah, pay attention to your breath and when you get lost, start over, it's still cool. It's a hugely important and useful reminder. And just simple changes, wherein it's supposed to someone saying, pay attention to your breath, you might say, feel your breath. Yes. Oh, wait, you're right It's not a mental exercise. I'm not thinking about your breath. It's the raw data of the physical

Liveness of oh, I'm breathing. Okay, I can tune into this How so you did the Buddha walks into a bar You did the Buddha walks into the office. You did walk like a Buddha sit like a Buddha. Am I missing anything? How to love yourself and sometimes other people, which is obviously completely different. But it is this notion that we are just talking about the befriending yourself as you are. Just learning to, meditation as a practice to actually learn to be kind to yourself,

to actually learn to love yourself. The more, in the same way that if you met a new friend, you started spending time with them, you wouldn't immediately be like, hey, you do exactly what I want you to do. What I want, you just follow my lead and just the moment you do stray from it, I'm going to be upset at you. We would actually be gently inquisitive with them.

We would get to know them. We'd become familiar with them. Maybe months, years past, we look over our shoulder like, oh, I love my front. Same thing with our mind. So meditation as a practice actually not only just become familiar with ourselves, but actually learn to love ourselves and the more we actually have love for ourselves, the more love we have to offer to other people in our life. Not quite sure how that works out,

because I definitely see how meditation makes you more familiar with your mind and makes you see what's happening more clearly so that you're not driven blindly by it. But I don't necessarily see how that makes me like or love myself more. Here's the part that no one talks about with meditation. Because everyone's so focused on, I'm just going to become more present, which is great.

I mean, all the science around is incredible. Most of the time, I don't know about you, most of the time for me, meditation is, oh yeah, I just drifted off. I got to come on back. But here's the thing that we don't talk about. Like, what voice do we use when that happens? Off in a very judgment. A very judgmental voice.

My friend actually has a term I'm just wondering if I'm allowed to say it on the podcast while I'm like, okay, it's inner bitch radio. Like this little channel in our head going like, oh my god, you jerk, I can't believe everyone saw that. You know, just constantly some self-aggressive talk. So when we drift off, we might be like, oh my God, you jerk. I can't believe that you keep doing this. Everyone else is sitting here completely peaceful, except for you.

And instead, could we actually transform ourselves to the point we say, oh, it's not a big deal. Everyone drifts off. It's okay. You know, just come on back. But that's taking it easier on yourself, which frankly, after seven and a half years, I'm getting tiny bit better at. but that's not necessarily loving yourself. I think that's offering yourself kindness.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, I really do think it's actually being like, oh, I can, it's not, I don't have to think that there's some horrible, distant part of myself that I'm trying to get rid of in meditation. You think of meditation off as like this rigorously corrective process? Well, it's described often as purification. office like this rigorously corrective process. Well, it's described often as purification. Right. Which I mean, you know, we're in literally how many decades has it been here in the States, not that long.

When you think about Buddhism, for example, going from India to Tibet, it took hundreds of years before they even figured out the right language around these things. And here, we're like babies trying to figure out how to talk about this. So I don't know about anyone else, but my own experience is the more I actually treat myself with kindness when I drift off, come back, the more I actually feel like I'm accepting myself more as I am, and I think that is love. I think that's a big part of love

that we actually learn to be with things as they are, as opposed to how we think they should be or how they used to be or any of it. So I just talk a little bit about how it works for me. So when I notice that when I wake up from the street, well, first of all, one of the things I think about is just the blatant hypocrisy, because I'm out there telling people all the time,

it's not a big deal. If you wonder, you should expect to wonder a million times or bake that into your baseline, blah, blah, blah. But then when I wonder, of course, it's self-lesseration central. But so what I've noticed is that I really can't control what my initial reaction is going to be. All I can do is make a good, clean mental note that I'm judging myself.

And that's when I can relax. But to expect to train myself to be sort of warm and loving in the face of incessant wandering seems to add another layer of pressure on top of things. So all I'm doing is just saying, okay, if I'm judging myself harshly when I get lost, just make a note of that and then you're cool. Yeah, I mean, I think that's where we start. I honestly do.

I think it's just in the same way that the first type of recovery for an alcoholic is admitting that you have a problem, right? Like at first we're like, oh, I've been admitting that I'm extremely judgmental here. And that's big part of how I've habituated my mind. Okay, I acknowledge that I come back. But over time we're like, oh, this is something that I'm doing a lot.

And you know, go back to this great book on meditation called 10% Happier. At the end of your meditation retreat. And you asked your question of Joseph Goldstein not to give away the ending of it to anyone. But you know, what was the advice that he gave? He said, after the 50th time that you're running in your mind to go catch your flight and you're going through security,

you can just ask yourself, is this useful, right? So same thing here, like the 90 millionth time that we're beating ourselves up for wandering off in meditation, can we just stop for a second and be like, is this useful? Is this actually helping me? You know, I get, I can intellectually grasp firmly

how the dis-utility of beating myself up in meditation. It's just that in the moment of waking up, there was a reflexive self-laceration. And that, I feel like it adds a lot of pressure on me, at least, to expect that not to happen, to expect actually to embrace the waking up with this loving response toward myself. Actually, that seems to be putting a lot of pressure on the practice where I just allow myself to have the moment of self-laceration and then notice, oh yeah, I'm just doing myself

and then get on with it. Yeah, I mean, it is a different way of doing it. I think just sort of allowing ourselves to be how we are, which is a big part, I mean, the book, the Love Hearts book that just came out. It's however many pages of me just being like, it's okay to feel exactly how you feel. Right, that's my point.

So you should, if you wake up from distraction, you feel a little annoyed with yourself, it's too late, what are you gonna do? Last rate yourself for feeling annoyed? Well, that's why I'm saying, we don't perpetuate it at that point. We serve let it go and we're like, okay, I notice that tendency I have to get myself on.

That's what I'm saying. But in that moment, we're like, all right, I give myself a break. Yes. And then we come back. And I honestly think that's love But in that moment, we're like, all right, I give myself a break. Yes. And then we come back. And I honestly think that's love. Just giving ourselves a break, a sense of kindness, when we notice that we're wandering off and starting to get annoyed.

You can make an argument, I agree, with everything you're saying, as usual. But you could make an argument, and I've heard it made, and I find it attractive, that actually, you could use the moment of waking up as like a celebration, like, wow, I'm waking up, like, I'm getting better at this You are training the mind to be lost for shorter periods of time and then wow look at look at how Amazing it is to be awake as opposed to lost and thought look how much better it actually feels to be awake Then it is to be lost and thought and so I could see I can see on the horizon maybe Gently training enough over time so that

the moment of waking up is actually could be seen as good news. Yeah. Yeah. And then it translates into off the cushion behavior. We had someone come into, I read something called Mindful, which is a drop in meditation studio here in New York City. We're just going from one to three locations, which is insanity. And we had someone who'd been coming every single day,

which I never expected that people come every single day for a drop in 30-minute class, it's just part of his routine. He started bringing friends, and we got to know him pretty well, and he brought this one friend. I said, what are you doing hanging out with this jerk? And she said, you know, it's so funny you mentioned that, because he really was a jerk for a long period of time.

And then all of a sudden, he started being really nice to me and actually paying attention when I talked to him and trying to be really helpful. And I said, what's going on with you? He's skeptical New Yorker that she was. And he goes, I don't know. And then goes, oh, I've been meditating. It was like this such a subtle thing

that he's like, maybe I'm learning to be kinder to myself and to others because I've been meditating. So, I mean, it's my experience, but I'm also seeing it like in all these meditation students that are coming through our doors that the effects are such a variety of things that are beyond just being present. Yes. So, I want to talk about mindful your drop in studio stuff, but let's talk about the new book.

Because you had five books before this new one? Yeah. Okay, so the new one is called Love had five books before this new one? Yeah. Okay, so the new one is called Love Hearts, Buddhist Advice for the Heartbroker. Okay, and I just want to say for the record that I as a podcast host take pride in reading my guests books before they come in, but you are a bad boy and then send me the thing.

So now I'm going to go into this blind. So Love Hearts, what's it about? Okay. Because I don't know anything because I didn't read the book me the thing. So now I'm gonna go into this blind. So Love Hurts, what's it about? Okay. Because I don't know anything because I didn't read the book. I know, and I apologize on behalf of everyone at Shambhala Publications. Like, I just threw them onto the bus there.

Yep. No, I should have also followed up. So Love Hurts, it's a choose your own adventurous style book. Really? Which is new for me. Because if you're a hard-broken, you don't know how to just go through

a 10-step plan, like you're not interested in that. So, the chapter titles are, if you feel angry, you go to that page. Okay. If you feel depressed, you go to the page. If you feel like you will never love again, and you go to that page. And there is advice or a story or a Buddhist practice or something. That's a great question. I was just, I'm sorry to interrupt you because I'm just excited because I was just this morning

talking to a close colleague, a woman I've known for a long time, who is heartbroken. And then deeply in the throes of it, and is crawling out of her skin. Yeah, totally anxious. It feels that way. I mean, and it's also, I've gotten these emails from people being like, hey, I flipped to that one page

because I didn't think anyone knew how I was feeling and now I don't feel so alone. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting.

Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident not-so-expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking. Oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone.

So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts, you can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. So how many times have you had your heart broken so that you can categorize all of these? About a million. But I think so here's the thing. There's romantic people. I mean, people who's dumping you? No, okay. So the personal story that goes with this book, my mother was always

like, oh, this is what we get because someone so dumped you. No, but it's like it was this eight week period in 2012. I don't know. As you said, I'd been meditating for most of my life. I had been teaching meditation for 10 years at that point already. And the bottom just fell out. I lost my full-time job, which was like a big sting to my ego and a little bit heartbreaking in that way. What was the job?

I was the head of development for an international Buddhist nonprofit. And I just, I mean, it was sort of shocking at the time that they would be like, we have no funds. We're eliminating the development department. I thought, okay. So it was a shock. It was a heartbreaking.

So there was that sort of heartbreak around child laws and the ego sting that comes with it. My then fiance, who I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with woke up and said, I think I want to move to London and you're not invited. And we broke up that day. And that was incredibly heartbreaking because I had the whole expectation story that we were getting married. And then a few weeks after that, one of my best friends from college passed away unexpectedly

at the age of 29 from heart failure, which just was complete shock. There was nothing physically wrong with him until his heart stopped working. And that was the real struggle that broke the camel's back for me. When I was devastated and I wasn't meditating at that point, I was sleeping a lot, I was drinking more than I should, I was not treating my body well, wasn't taking care of myself. And I did have a great community of friends that were taking care of me. They really stepped up and sort of got me to the point where I realized, oh, I should probably go seek therapy like a normal human being and you know, start talking to someone and that got me to the point that I started meditating again and started working with some of the strong emotions that came up. That got me

to the point that I could start eating better and exercising again. To the point that at this point, you know, I can talk about this from a point of not from the place of open wounds, but from scars, right? It's still on me. I still feel the heartbreak every time I talk about it, but it's not defining who I am. It's just one part of me. And that really, I mean, it was a life-changing event for me. And I've, you know, rebounded in many, many different ways. I, you know, have other work and I'm engaged again and all these things. But the topic of heartbreak, I think, is not something we often talk about. It's something that we often deal with in isolation.

So I wanted to just open up the conversation around that. After all these other conversations I've been having to say that you're not alone, that there's ways that we can take care of ourselves. And I did it in a completely bizarre way. I wrote this book in the course of a week at ABC Carpeton Home, this giant store here in New York City, where there is, I mean, I've no idea why they let me do this,

to be honest, but they let me take over one of their storefront windows for a week, sort of, did an author and resident situation where I'd write in the afternoon and evening and just get into it. And in the mornings, I would meet for it with people one on one in a space right about the size of the studio. And I would just hold the space. And I literally only had four questions. Most of the time I couldn't get through all four with the time that we had, just one or two. One, what is your experience of heartbreak? And

for anyone that's been listening so far, I honestly think they would probably say, oh, so you heard a lot about my boyfriend or ex, my girlfriend did x, y, z's. Everything from, I gave my kid up for adoption and I don't know what happened to him to, I fell in love with my heroin sponsor and I relapsed to, to him. To I fell in love with my heroine sponsor and I relapsed to I look exactly like that person who is the victim of police brutality. I look exactly like her. And I was so touched and honored to bear witness

to these stories. So this book is not just romantic art break. None the least. It's personal, interpersonal societal heartbreak, all of it. Just and but the emotions, the storylines are also different. But the emotions of feeling devastated or emotions of feeling angry or that you are feeling rejected or betrayed. These are all things that we feel.

So how do we work with those? So once you taxonomize in the book, how the various kinds of heartbreak are you then recommending meditative interventions? Yeah. I mean, it really is based more on like, what are you going through, as opposed to like, oh, I feel heartbroken because my boyfriend left me. Like, that's, it's- That would require too many varieties.

Right. It's more like anger, shame, etc. Yeah, exactly. Relief guilt is one of them. Like, if you break up with someone and you feel complete relief, but you also feel guilty that you feel relief, you know, like that's in there. Yeah, variety of guilt. So, I get pretty like down into the weeds of it all. But it took you a week to do this. That's it. Yeah. I mean, I honestly feel like I was a little

bit on fire. I mean, I spent a week working on a paragraph. I've it took me years to write. You're a fast writer. I had something in my head and heart just I needed to go with this topic. And honestly, I am so thankful to everyone that came in met with me and shared these stories because it really, in addition to talking about their heartbreak, they also shared how they took care of themselves and that really fed into the book. So it's not just my voice. It's all of these other people who, they would always say, I know the thing I shouldn't do.

That would always be the first thing they would say. I know I shouldn't reach for the junk food and overeat. I know I shouldn't reach for the bottle and have a drink. But here's the thing that I know I thing I shouldn't do, like that would always be the first thing they would say. I know I shouldn't reach for the junk food and overeat. I know I shouldn't reach for the bottle and have a drink, but here's the thing that I know I should do and I do. Like I spend time with my kid. I go for a long walk with a friend, I take the day off and I sleep a lot, whatever it might be. Hmm.

Well congratulations on the new book. Thank you. And I swear we will get your copy in 24 hours. Well, I want a copy for my colleague, who is hard-working. I'll bring you a stack. You mentioned before, mindful. And that is M and D F L, which is the name of this meditation

drop-in bar, was that what you would call it? Yes. So, yeah, it is. It's 13, 45-minute drop-in classes all day every day, which is great for the busy New Yorker and Horrible for my sleep schedule. First of all, let me just soak in how absurd it is that you can have a successful little business teaching meditation in this very chic little space, now three shake little spaces in Manhattan.

I mean, 10 years ago, people would have laughed at you. I mean, this is the thing that we were talking about earlier. I can't believe that for being pushed in lockers for meditating, now it's like people wanna come do it. Probably the same people. Yeah. But no, I mean, I think there's something really special because it's not just me, by the way, teaching.

It's 30, at this point, 35 teachers from different traditions. Some of them are Buddhist traditions, some are Vedic, Kundalini, you know, even of Jewish mindfulness instructors, Hindu teachers, but they're all speaking in plain English. It's not a religious experience necessarily even though people come from religious traditions. They're trying to really make these very ancient traditional practices accessible. So that's why there is these short classes. You just get a taste of these different styles of meditation and then you can, you know, wear the gateway drug short classes. So you just get a taste of these different styles of meditation. And then you can, you know, we're the gateway drug, really.

Like you can check out a bunch of different teachers and styles, figure out what you most connect with and then go deep within that tradition. And so do you find that people come once a week, three times a week? What's the how often are people? It's not because it's not quite like a gym. Right. Yeah, it is interesting We have people who come often two to three times a week

We have people who come every single day. Well, we've been open. We opened our first studio in November 6th in 2015 so just a little over a year ago and in that first year I Won't give his full name, but a guy named James came I won't give his full name, but a guy named James came 335 out of the 365 days. Is that incredible? Mm-hmm. So, it's just sort of like, okay, I have a cramped New York apartment.

I need the support and accountability of going to a class in a beautiful space that I can actually train with people. The teachers all know me. You know, we had a situation where there's a woman who was very, very pregnant and she disappeared. She was a daily practitioner with us. She disappeared for a few days and we were like, oh, I bet she had the baby.

And we were able to like put two and two together and find her address and run over flowers and things like that. I mean, it feels very much, it's not just like a gym. It's actually a real community that spread it up. It's incredibly diverse and incredibly kind. How do you keep people motivated? Because like go to the gym,

I mean, you might see your biceps grow, you might see your waistline shrink, et cetera, et cetera. It's not quite the same thing with meditation. Yeah, I think there's two things. One is the personal connection to teachers, right? Like the fact that you, Megan knows that you come to her one o'clock class every Monday. And you know, like there is a group of you

that always go. And the other thing is we're brutally honest. Like, we're not the sort of meditation space that's like, come once and you're just gonna feel happy. It's like literally we, we're very clear. It's gonna take weeks for you to start to see the effects of this. But if you wanna try to dislike changing

and people who are motivated to make a real change end up sticking around. What do you think of the biggest hurdles to adopting a meditation practice? The fact that we live in an instant gratification culture, and this is not that. I really do. So if you go to a soul cycle,

if you go to a soul cycle and you're like, I feel awesome after. Like that's something that you immediately feel. With the meditation class, you might be like, I don't know if I did it right after, and that's not so you immediately feel. With the meditation class, you might be like, I don't know if I did it right after, and that's not so helpful. I got this immediately from Soul Cycle of, I like, I immediately felt insufficient.

Because every day was so much better. There's so much better and there's so much better at it. It worked really well. Like it was fast and long lasting. Yeah. But back to the obstacles for meditators. I'm really interested in this as an app guy now. What are the hurdles and then how do you help people

get over them? So you just identified this sort of inflated expectation thing. So how do you manage that? And then after that, I'd love to hear about some of the other obstacles. I mean, one of the things we do is, you know, if we say, hey, honestly, all these studies are on mindfulness, so many of the things say it's two you know, if we say, hey, honestly, all these studies around mindfulness,

so many of the things say it's two months. So give it a month and see what happens. And we have a 30-day challenge we've run twice a year, where you come 30 days in a row, you get your next month membership on the house. And people are like, oh, that sounds like the financial incentive there, sounds very good. And it's just the challenge aspect.

People end up saying, well, whatever about the next month membership, but there's a little punch card that they come. People love that. The large punch cards. Yeah. So it's like, I like punch. I like punch.

I like punch. I like punch. And I'm tracking my progress. And it just feels good. So we find those things to be incredibly, incredibly effective in just keeping people on track. But I think there is something to be like, hey, please talk to us about what you're experiencing per class. And we can make recommendations because it's actually like,

this is the difference, unfortunately, between having an app that's out there with beautiful regard recordings and having a person to person transmission that with apps, we're not able to just say, and here's your next obvious step based on what happened at work this week, you know, to have a human being say, that sounds really difficult, That difficult person at work. Have you tried loving kindness practice? You might like it. So this is why we built a coaching feature

into 10% happier. That's awesome. So we have actual human beings. And we find that our users are talking to these human beings who are, it's asynchronous. So it doesn't, you don't get it here back to them immediately. But within 24 hours, you'll get a limitless amount of ant you can ask whatever you want, and they'll help.

I mean, they're not gonna help you like cook soup. I was gonna say, I'm gonna start playing with this. Although, we've gotten some strange questions, but I do hear you, I think the personal touch is super, super important. I really believe them. So, what else is, do you think stands in the way with people who want to meditate, who are like

into it? Because I know I feel like this is a huge population. I think a lot of them are listening to this podcast because they're in a meditation kind of they know they should do it, but they're more likely to download and listen to this podcast than they are to actually sit for 10 minutes and do the practice. Yeah. That's a great question. I think there's something about having to get it right

that holds us back from meditating. Bingo. Yeah. I'm doing it wrong. I'm doing it wrong. And I mean, there is something isolating if we are like sitting at home on our own. Like, is my back even straight?

I can't even see it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're, you know, like, This is the beauty of a class. Yeah. Like, there is a teacher that says, hey, can I just, do you want to sit down and let me see how you're sitting on a cushion? Yes. And if you're having knee problems, like, let's look at

where your legs are. And I think there's something, we actually, we've added a mindful body class just for posture correction, because people are like, I want to make sure that I'm getting it right. And of course, we don't want to feed into like, there is one right way to meditate because there's so many different types of meditation out there. But for people that want the very basics of like posture correction and things like that,

we wanted to make it available so that people could feel confident. And honestly, it might mean, and we've had this happen a lot, people come regularly to us and then they get their techniques that they really love and they go and do it at home we never see them again. And that's okay, it's just getting more people meditating. So you have three meditation studios, you've just published your sixth book, you're engaged to be married, how often do you meditate and for how what length of time? Yeah, well, so there's periods of time where I'm teaching a lot in periods of time where I'm not, which is really nice.

And the periods of time where I'm not, I feel like I have more time to sort of deepen the well of my own practice and study. So right now actually I've been doing a lot more practice in particularly in the mornings. I got the way that we do mindful is that I often don't roll in until like 11 and then there until like seven o'clock a night.

So the mornings are for exercise and taking care of myself and practicing. And I have this puppy who- We have a puppy too. Yeah, and I have a puppy too. So like, I associate, like, it's definitely not the same as having a child, but like, the idea of a puppy jumping on me while I'm meditating is probably the closest I have to- Yeah, I love streaming cats. Three cats for a long time.

My wife and I had three cats for a long time, my wife, and I had three cats for a long time, and we would say, oh, these are our babies, and then you actually have a baby, and you're like, that was the most ridiculous thing to say. I'm sure. This is why I'm always careful about it. Yeah.

But I do have a puppy jumping on me, and depending on the morning, anywhere from, you know, 20 minutes to an hour and a half, you know, it's just depends on what's going on that day. So sometimes you'll get a 90 minutes in it. Yeah, absolutely. When I it's less than that, I often feel hypocritical. And that's okay because that's my own journey

of figuring this stuff out. Like what is my, as someone who is doing a lot right now, there's gonna be periods of time when I, it's sort of like what I call meat and it sits. Sort of like I'm holding it down and I'm just sort of like maintaining some certain level of sanity in the midst of the storm. And then there are times when I can go away

on retreat for a week or two, you know? And that's like where I can go really deep. And I try and do that at least once a year. So what is your style? Like when you sit to meditate in this chambala tradition, what do you do? Like what does that look like in your mind? Um, I often, like I often still do what we call in this tradition, Shama Takama Biting

or Peaceful Biting Meditation, and that opens and closes my sessions. But I studied with my teacher, Sakyong Mipam Rinpoche, since I was 19, and he has given me different practices to do over time within the Vajrayana tradition. So, tell us what come abiding is before you. Okay, so it's mindfulness meditation. It's actually bringing your full attention to the breath. It's always feel, it's open in your mind.

It's open in your mind. Like, it's kind of cast down at the floor. Yeah. I mean, even within shaman, there's so many different ways of doing it. There is raising your gaze at a certain point. There is just putting your gaze about two feet down, four feet down. And it has different effects on the mind. And we can focus on different things. Some traditions you might focus on the in-breath and the out-breath, or counter-breaths, or

just focus on the out-breath. And there's different ways of doing it. But the idea here is that it doesn't always feel calm as anyone who's ever meditated once knows, but that inherently innate to who we are is the sense of peace and calm and that it's right beneath the surface if we can peel back the onion, so to speak. So calm abiding is you're noticing the feelings of your breath coming in going out, actually feeling it, and then when you get lost, you start again.

That's it. Okay, so that's the beginning. Simple, but not easy. Exactly. Beginning and end of your practice, but then what would you do in the middle? Yeah, so the particular style of, so I used the foreign term Vajrayana. So Vajra being indestructible, Yana being pathore vehicle.

So it's a Tibetan Buddhist series of practices. There's contemplations, there's mantra recitation. Get like bowing. I have at periods of time done prostrations. Yep. But most of my practice these days is visualization and mantra recitation. Interesting. So tell me what the visual is. I can't. But most of my practice these days is visualization and mantra restitation.

So tell me what the visual is. I can't. You come do the Vajrayana practices, you get initiated into the practice, I'll tell you all about it. But don't you think it's a little like undemocratic that you can't talk about it? Yeah. So they're wanting you to make the rule. I'm sorry, I didn't make the rule. The Tibetan monastic system is democratic.

You know, there's thing that's been around in Tibet for hundreds and hundreds of years, you know, these particular practices, it's often best to be shown by a teacher directly as opposed to reading up on it or just watching a YouTube video because you sort of do in the same way that we're talking about before. There's something about having a teacher guide you through a practice that you really understand what you're doing as opposed to someone who's only been doing it for however many years, like myself, just talk about it out loud without knowing anything. So kind of what you're saying is, I'm Lodra Rinsler, I'm Mr. like meditation for everybody

wrote six books and I have three meditation studios, but I do some stuff on the side that I can't talk to you about. Yeah, it's actually really interesting. I'm not trying to make fun of you. No, it's not even me. It's also like all of the Vedic teachers. So people, okay, then those are the Hindu teachers, but that's a different tradition. So yeah, the Vedas have been, you know, they've been around five, eight thousand years, depending on who you ask. And the whole thing around that, whether we're talking about transcendental meditation,

it's a form of Vedic meditation, or teachers like Emily Fletcher or Tom Knowles or Hunter Cressman, they have to initiate people into that practice and then they receive the mantra that they do 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes in the afternoon. But until you do that, you don't really know much about it. It's all sort of hearsay and gossip. So I think there's longstanding traditions, not just within Buddhism, but within that system and other systems, that you sort of need a teacher to guide you

and show you what is best for you in order to have a whole practice, like a wholesome practice. So can my lesser Buddhist, because I'm doing this stuff, I mean, there's nothing I do that I can't talk about. Honestly, if I'm doing 20 minutes in the morning and not the full 90 minutes

that could be doing, I'm just doing shamata. I'm mindful of the breath. And that is as awesome as the practice because no matter what practice I'm doing, Dan, my mind is my mind at the end. Like, am I actually working with it? Am I actually becoming more authentic, present and kind? I honestly think these are just different skillful means, different tools on a toolbox to work with yourself. Back to mindful for a second. You're now a businessman. Someone told me that recently and I'm still catching up and deciding, I guess I am. You better hope your investors aren't listening to this. Yeah. They think you're a businessman. They really think and it's

going great. So I'm a businessman too and also readily admit I don't know what that I'm doing although I have a CEO who's awesome and that totally knows what he's done. I do too though. Right. So that's not my question. My question is there are those who have the view that you shouldn't be making money off of the Dharma or spirituality or contemplation or whatever you want to call it. What do you say to that? Yeah, it's interesting because what we're talking about is these ancient practices, whether it is Vedic or whether it's Buddhist.

I'll just speak from Buddhist because that's my experience. 2600 years of generosity within a culture that actually allowed these practices to flourish. So it's not like the Buddha just sat down somewhere and was like, hey everyone, gather around. Let's talk. It's like people actually donated land and would bring out food for all of his followers and himself so that they could feel supported in doing this endeavor. And I always choked that someone wanted to buy us this beautiful townhouse and Greenwich

Village and just pay for all of our teachers' rents and stuff. Like awesome. I would love that and we would not have to charge money. But in our consumer society, there is an exchange where people say, oh, I offer this so that I can support the work you're doing and keep this business open because I love this business and it's actually helping me. And I think it's actually a more sustainable model to be, and I'm sure we'll get lots of feedback about this, I think it's more sustainable having served as the executive director of

nonprofit Buddhist centers than the nonprofit model. I think, you know, in my own experience, there is a certain sense of poverty mentality in many of our nonprofit Buddhist centers, where we're just trying to stay afloat and just trying to keep our doors open as opposed to saying, Hey, this is what it actually takes for us to run this thing. And we're being honest with you, like we also want to pay our teachers well. And I think mindful is one of the few places actually is able to say, because you actually come and you pay for a class, our teachers are able to pay their own rent and not have to take on lots of other jobs or not have to only teach at nine o'clock at night because we're working all day.

They can actually be teachers. Okay, so I'm down with all that. I'm down with, I'm a capitalist, so I don't really have a problem with any of this. And clearly, if I did, I'd be massive hypocrite because I'm running a company, but, or helping run a company. But we're, I think everybody would see what you're saying as reasonable, but where it becomes interesting potentially is if you guys are like the McDonald's in meditation, where you've got mindful,

mindful's all over the place, and you're making a ton of money. Or with 10% happier, the app, if we become, you know, as popular as, I don't know, Twitter. And everybody's got the app, our app on their phones, and we just have hundreds of millions of dollars. Does that kind of 12-phone space? You know, I mean, as a meditator,

this is also going to get a lot of critique. But like, there is some element of all of us running the business at Mindful, we're meditators, and we are just trying to focus on what's going on right now. And right now it feels a complete integrity because we have these beautiful teachers who are able to do what they do. I honestly think we have some of the best teachers in the entire city from all these different traditions, all under one roof, which is the first time I've ever seen that happen. And you know, I mean, at this point, no one's getting rich off of this, right? Like this is, this is, we show up and we honestly believe that we're a service business.

We are in service to absolutely every single human being that walks in the door. And if I'm sitting there, I'm not, you know, sitting there like, oh, I'm the author of six books and I've been teaching meditation 15 years. I'm the guy that's checking you into class and showing you around and showing you where the bathroom is because that's kind. So, yeah, I mean, maybe if there were a hundred of them, I just, I honestly, Dan, you know, maybe, isn't that your goal? Isn't that your goal to grow?

No. That's the weirdest thing. Like, I can't imagine there being a hundred of these. I couldn't have imagined at the same time that there would have been three of these a year ago. I guess what I'm saying, your goal is to have a hundred, but your goal is to grow. I mean, businesses are like sharks, you gotta keep moving.

Yeah, I mean, right now we're just focused on, we're focusing on creating a kind community across three studios. Like that's my main focus for the next six months to a year is just to say, can we replicate the completely kind accepting diverse community that we have at our first location? Where people are coming and actually having like life changing experiences over time

because they're launching a meditation practice. We've had people meet and fall in love there. We've had people start lifelong friendships like all sorts of really funny things that are wonderful. Can we do that across three studios? And that's as far as my mind goes. I'm not even like bullshitting like, oh no, we've got some secret 10 year plan in my back pocket.

I'm not talking about radio. I don't suspect that you have some secret plan. I guess what I'm wondering is, is there, it's a bit theoretical, but it doesn't even have to do with just you. But for any of us, there's a growing number of people in the meditation business. Me, you, the guys from Headspace,

there's some company out now that's selling cushions, there are companies that are doing corporate, mindful, you know, meditation inside corporations. So I guess somebody's potentially going to get really, really successful and then take a lot of crap for being really, really successful. And I just wonder whether you think that's legit. Yeah, I mean, I feel like Headspace is getting knocked up in the media right now. It was a piece in New York Mag that was really critiquing their ad campaign.

And I think, you know, something like headspace which is helping 8 million people, something remarkable. If you ran an ad campaign that gets some critique, like, and that's where people are attacking you, I think that's probably a good sign. Yeah. So similarly, like, I think that's a great position to be in and it's the nature of the beast that I think,

even as we talk about this, I'll probably get a lot of flack for saying that, for example, I don't think, if at any point, I feel like we are no longer in integrity in representing traditional techniques and teachers in a way that is accessible and helps people. If we fall out of integrity of that, I walk away. And also, I think we need to scale down

until we can really nail that across the board. That's really important to me in particular. That's entirety of my role. My half of the business is to make sure that we remain in spiritual integrity. And that's like, I mean, a ticket extremely serious. I don't think I've actually ever talked about this openly, but that's the guiding thing. Every day I wake up and I say, okay, that copy in the newsletter feels

a little bit too lovin' lighty to me. It doesn't feel like that's actually representing what meditation is. I got to change it. I got to be honest with it. So I think we can only grow to the extent that we can do that across the board. That probably means the massive education process that's going into the meditation industry right now. All of the questions that you were asking me earlier, like what are the obstacles? You've gotten these questions, headspace has gotten these questions, the meditation, cushion people have probably gotten those questions.

So there's a giant part of education right now is saying like what is meditation and making sure that it's being responsibly communicated that I think it has to happen first. Yeah, very exciting. Also daunting at the same time. Absolutely. Low drill for people who want to learn more about you

and mindful where should it go, where can we get info? Yeah, I mean, we're actually launching this online channel for all of the mindful videos. So everything from the studios, and of course, if you're not here in New York, visiting New York, you can watch our teachers at home and check them out for yourself, because I think they're, as I said, they're absolutely wonderful.

And it's mndflmeditation.com, all one word. And I'm at loadforrinslow.com, which is very easy to spell. Go. L-O-D-R-O-R-I-N-Z-L-E-R. For the spelling V-Wim, thank you. Great to see you, man. Great to be here.

Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for putting up my obnoxious question. I love him. All right, there's another edition of the 10% Happier Podcast. If you like it, I'm going to hit you up for a favor. Please subscribe to it, review it, and rate it. I want to also thank the people who produced this podcast, Josh Cohan, Lauren Efron, Sarah Amos, and the head of ABC News Digital, Dan Silver.

And hit me up at Twitter, Dan B. Harris. See you next time. 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 Wondery 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.

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