Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 92: Moby and Google's Bill Duane at Wanderlust Hollywood (Live!)

Episode Date: August 9, 2017

In the final installment from the "10% Happier" road trip, Dan Harris and meditation teacher Jeff Warren ended their cross-country tour at a Wanderlust Hollywood event in February, where they hosted a live discussion and Q&A with recording artist Moby and Bill Duane, the Superintendent of Well-Being at Google. The guys offered their advice on how to overcome meditation frustrations. 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,

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talking to people about meditation. The culminating event was held at the Wanderlust Studios in Los Angeles. And we had a pair of amazing guests who came up on stage with me in my partner in crime, Jeffrey Warren. Jeff Warren is this amazing meditation teacher from Toronto who was writing shotgun on the meditation tour in he and I are turning this into a book that's going to come out at New Year's called meditation for fidgety skeptics, which tackles all the reasons why people aren't meditating and helps you get over the hump. So you can actually do the thing and also in the process teaches you how to meditate.

Anyway, the guests at this event at Wanderlust were Bill Dwayne, who is the superintendent of well-being at Google. Basically, he's the guy who teaches meditation to folks at Google. Among other things, and he's a great guy, Ann Moby, who's a somebody you may have heard of, is a DJ and a musician and mixed hit records and is politically active and does all sorts of stuff. And he's just a guy that I've known for a while. And it is also, I think he refers to it as a secret meditation teacher. So he's done a bunch of meditations, not teaching folks.

So we brought them up one by one. You'll get to hear both of them. And the sound will be a little different because this is not done in the studio. This is done in a big room at Wonderlust in LA. Here we go. Moby, Bill Duane, Jeff Warren, Dan Harris. Take it away. Bill Duane, Jeff Warren, Dan Harris. Take it away.

Bill Duane, who's coming up the stage right now, is as I mentioned before, the superintendent of well-being, whatever that means at Google. So Google, everybody knows, obviously. And so is it fair to say, Bill, that your job is to try to get people to meditate at Google or part of your job is that? Yeah, part of it.

So my job is I look after the programs that deal with individual resilience and also organizational wisdom. And part of that is meditation. Although interestingly, part of that is not meditation. One of the things that I think it's crucial is to, if you're representing mindfulness or meditation in organization, is not to force it on people, to make it available, to open up the door. But for the people that want to, we

really try and create structures and organizations that help have their actions match their intentions. Because this stuff is radically counterintuitive, right? You want to get more done, go sit silently in the corner. If your heart is suffering, turn towards it. It's radically counterintuitive. So there's all these things about what non-chorus of structures can be put in place. So I like what you said about Don't Force.

And on people, I like to talk about this cartoon that ran in the New Yorker a couple of years ago. I had two women having lunch. And one says to the other, I've been gluten free for a week, and I'm already annoying. And I think it's important not to lecture people about this, whether you're an employee or, with all due respect to you and your wise book buying choices,

or a friend. And for example, my wife doesn't meditate. She's one of the people we interviewed on our tour. And I know if I was to lecture her about it, I would lead to divorce. So I think that's really wise that you do that. But what you've done some research on why people don't, you have an expression.

We know the medicine works. We just can't achieve compliance. So you've been listening to us talk about the research. We've done what have you gathered at Google? Well, it really mirrors it's the chief compliance. So have you been listening to us talk about the research we've done? What have you gathered at Google? Well, it really mirrors it's the same thing. These four things come up over and over. And one is, I think, just to acknowledge that this type of work is radically counterintuitive. And when I, what I figured out, I've actually figured out by being wrong, right?

So my own personal experience is, most of my practice has been longer-form retreats. I did a retreat a little bit after my dad died that was phenomenal in terms of the opening. And so therefore I built programs. You mentioned that I said, if I could have one metric, it would be time spent but uncushion, because it seems like there's a relationship the more you practice, the more benefit you get. And so I set out programs that were really emphasizing longer form practice. And my colleagues really said, you know, we think we're missing something because there needs to be that on-ramp. It seems like once you get to a certain point where you're sitting for 10, 30, 40 minutes

that you're going, but there's this large group of people who have an intention to practice, but it's just sort of getting over that hump. So somewhat paradoxically, knowing that the more you practice, the more benefit you get, most of our programs have been moving into shorter and shorter increments, or making them overlap with our days more and more. So you think one minute counts? I do, and I used to argue with my friend Mang about this all the time, I'm like, no, no, no. And I think part of it is that there's not much research on very, very short what you called I do, and I used to argue with my friend, man, about this all the time. I'm like, no, no, no. And I think part of it is that there's not much research on very, very short what you call

to our shared teacher, Shinsen, called micro-hits. But we do find that if people can get, it's almost like building an on-ramp into the regular practice. And I think it's crucial that if we don't get to that point, Google is full of high achievers. And if we set our minds to do something and then we don't get to that point, Google is full of high achievers. And if we set our minds to do something and then we don't do it, we have a tendency to meet that with a fair amount of self-criticism.

And that's really difficult. Imagine if someone gave you a device, and they said, if you use this device, you will be happier and more effective and more compassionate. And then the first thing you do is you start hitting yourself over the head with a device. Right? You're like, oh, I'm doing this wrong. I'm terrible at this. Wow, I really tried to do something

and I'm not doing it at all. And then you say this device is broken, right? But of course, the key is to actually stop hitting yourself over the head with a device. And I think this is where particularly the work around kindness and compassion, Ajahn Brahm, Teravadanman, really talks about kindness. What's it like to look at your experience?

Everything, good, bad, and indifferent with a sense of, huh, all right, so this is going on. And that's where you start to get those, the practicing of resilience. Because even if it's a crap show, right? If you actually train in terms of being with it, then your capacity to bring that to bear in all sorts of crazy situations

would speak to resilience also is there. Do you have an answer for the really nice young woman in the back who talked about the fact that she's having trouble maintaining a consistent practice? I feel like we talked about a few things which is give yourself a break. If you fall off the wagon, you don't have to tell yourself the story that you're a failed meditator. Nothing has been lost. It is okay to start again just the way we do when we're actually practicing, get

distracted, start again, stop meditating, start again. Let's talk about the how it can be beneficial to have accountability structures in a community or with friends and also how ongoing inspiration just looking at to have accountability structures in a community or with friends and also how ongoing inspiration just looking at a good book once in a while listening to a podcast or whatever can keep you can keep you connected to what the practice is all about because just sitting and feeling your breath coming in and going out can start to feel a little stupid and pointless after a while and just being reminded at what this is for is useful.

But do you think there's more to that list that we should have added? Yeah, I'll add two things. One is I'll shamelessly steal from John Cavazin. Something he said, no book that really resonated with me. And this goes back to the idea of meditation being a transactional thing.

I think all of us come to practice with something that's not working in our lives. And we hear that mindfulness and meditation may be useful. But what John said was, if you can, like, why is mindfulness part of who you are? Not something you want, but who you are. For me, the beginning of my practice was disturbing. I really knew, I became aware that my inner voice

was really self-critical. What my inner voice says to me, if you guys set it to me, I would totally punch you in the face. And so it's nice. My inner voice would punch you in the face back. Yeah, we get an inner voice. And so you know. You were talking about stealing from John Cabot's name.

Yeah, and when I thought about this, for me, I would rather know the truth. Even though it's an unpleasant thing to realize that I have a very strong, critical voice, I would rather know than not know. And for me, every time things get uncomfortable or I get bored, I'd say, I'd rather know. And that really gets me over a whole bunch of humps. And it takes away, I feel like that's an intrinsic part of who I am, the sense of curiosity of wanting to figure it out.

And I find that's a really stable base. The other thing for me has been community. And I think in particular, faith community is a really good at this, this idea of knowing that you can go to a place where you're wanted. And in addition to the secular practice, I was a practice with a group, this in San Francisco in LA called against the stream. And it's good to have your people.

It's good to have a community. It's good to have folks who will miss you, folks will reach out to you. And I think that's a little different than just having accountability buddies. And so one of the things I'm really interested in is that given that traditional wisdom and faith communities really have this, it's a real question of, what's the secular answer to this? And I think this is one of the things that's evolving. And it gives me great hope. Like the parent thing, there are some meditation retreats

where mom can go home at night, or dad can go home at night, where they're explicitly designed for people with small children so that the structures, the beautiful, amazing life structures that we've inherited from these wisdom traditions, why don't we make them so that people with kids can do them? It's very hopeful. So I'd say the community and then this idea of, you know, for everybody here, why is this part of who you are? I can't answer for you, but it's a great question to ask.

What do we talk earlier about when we talked on the phone and we were setting this event up, you talked a little bit about some of the data you've gathered internally at Google. Can you share some of that with us? Yeah, so for those of you that are seeking to bring this to organizations, part of the ways that organizations make decisions is based on benefit. And when we go out and we, to find out what's important to the organization, and then how can you articulate the impact of a population that has it.

And we did some research with the caveat that this is self-reported. Some of the things that we care about are overall well-being, and we surveying people who have done our search inside yourself and our G-PAUS programs. Twelve months later, there was a 13% increase in overall well-being, an 11% increase in the ability to detach from work when you want to. We've done some other internal research that really shows the importance of segmenting work from non-work. 11% increase in self-awareness, 19% increase in the ability to manage work-related

stress, 19% decrease in impatience with oneself and others. So who here would like to see that at your place of work? Who here would like to see this in your household? And then a 23% decrease in emotional reactivity. So Google is the nerd factory. For us, the correct way to communicate the benefit back is with statistically valid science. And these are the things that we care about. And so this then really informs some of the decision

making that happens. How did you get into meditation personally? Unwillingly. So if you had come to be, it said, hey, Bill, I think you should really check out mindfulness and meditation. It would have been like, screw off, you hippie. As an engineer, as a scientist, as an atheist, I just assumed this wasn't for me. And one of the things that's amazing about working at Google

and I'll have been there 12 years this summer is doing the impossible over and over again. I really feel like that 20 years from now, I'll look back at this point in my career, and it'll be like being at NASA in the mid 1960s. And the methods I had, so if this is what's possible, and here's where we set our goals, we have a tendency to meet this gap with the tool set evolution gave us for dealing with bear attacks. And for me, like, I was really feeling that. My methods of dealing with stress

were along the ancient wisdom traditions of bourbon and cheeseburgers. And it wasn't working. And on top of that, when you throw in the illness and death of a parent, on top of that, I just thought what I'm doing isn't working. And I went to a lecture, we hold these great lectures, and I went to a lecture on the neuroscience of emotion. And first of all, just the idea that my internal experience was anything other than witchcraft and randomness

to be ignored and suppressed. And they talked about that our internal lives, our emotions, are actually really rational. When you look at them from the point of as humans, emotion is the foundation of how we communicate with each other. So it's absolutely necessary. And they said that neuroplasticity exists,

that you can change the structure and function of your brain by thinking repeatedly different ways, and that meditation was a way to do this. And that you basically, you strengthen prefrontal cortex, the newer parts of the brain, such that when we meet challenge with the freak out fighter flight, that you have the ability to actually queast that on the man So I thought okay, I'm gonna give this a shot and it was a absolutely life-changing

I have a question actually and I'm just curious you must get asked this all the time Google is In some ways part of the problem I don't mean you know I just in the sense that it's part of this massive infrastructure of technology and keeping our eyes on the glued on these screens and more and more functionality with Google as it expands. There must be initiatives within Google about thinking, actually, this is an interesting

thing. We have a unique opportunity to be responsible around this. How might Google solve the fractured attention problem? And is it doing anything along those lines? Yeah, as a matter of fact, right before I started on my phone, there's some settings. And I have my phone set up for who's on my priority list? And then, during what times do I want to be disturbed?

And so, for instance, since I want my full attention to be on here, I said, no one. No one can reach me, not alarms, then anything. Every night, my priority work list, which is people who can fire me, they can send me texts until 10 p.m. And I actually don't have work email shop on my phone at all. I have to go and look at it.

So I think when I think about this, there's this question of how do we have a wise relationship with our tools? And I think part of our struggles with it is it's still early days. And I do think that there's a responsibility that we're getting started on to provide the support structure so people have a wise relationship with their tools. But I think in particular, I saw this picture and it was from, I think, the early 1900s. And it's a New York subway car. Everyone has a newspaper out in front of them, every single person. And at the same time, I think it's important to acknowledge that having a supercomputer with all the world's information in your pocket is especially enticing, or where you can

drop out of the moment and get whatever form of social validation from Instagram or Snapchat that you want. That it's also, it's always something. You know, that desire, think about it, when you're in an elevator, isn't there most like a magnetic pull to your pocket? And going back to the idea about, I think the difficulty practice is actually one of the most rich parts. Why, and I'll take ownership of this.

Why am I, well, what's going on that it seems unbearable to be with myself for 45 seconds in the elevator? But it is, right? Not that intensely, but that's a really beautiful area of inquiry. It has to be like, what's going on, like the person who said, or people who keep the TV on? You're not a bad person for this, but part of mindfulness is actually saying like,

huh, fascinating, what's up with that? I'd love to open it back up for questions for folks. Anything you want to ask, we have a question up here in the third row and then another one in the second row. You doing great. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that.

I don't do a ton of public speaking, so thank you for your time. Oh, you're nailing. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm anxious when I do these things. Hi, I'm Karen. You guys have touched on it a couple times, but you just said something like, deal with the flight

or fright emotions on demand. But that seems like a level up from where I'm at. So every once in a while I accidentally noticed that I dealt with something like my computer crash and I lost everything and I didn't lose my mind. But then I went on Facebook and someone trolled me and I lost my mind. So how can you pull that on demand switch? Practice. Yeah, practice. So to do it in easy circumstances increases your ability to do it when it's much harder. And then the other thing is like, you don't need to be perfect. You did it once.

So an example is after a few years of practice, my father dying was one of the biggest experiences of my life. And I had this idea. I was in the ICU. And Ajahn's tomato has this phrase, like like right now it's like this. And I found that for the most part, certainly all the time, I could say this is the smell of the ICU, these are the sounds, this is the emotion of realizing you're about to lose a parent.

And because I had practiced with like my butt hurts, or all of the little micro annoyances over and over. I really found that I had this surprising reserve to turn towards that which was most difficult. In my ammo in those situations would be to do some sort of self-harming or lashing out of the people around me when having that amount of emotional distress. But I found that working on the small stuff, and it sort of surprised me. Now, I really had this ability to be with things in a compassionate way. It sucked.

It was the worst thing in my life, but it didn't shut me down. As a matter of fact, instead of my heart breaking into pieces, it broke open. Like everything about my dad, all the love, all the mistakes, it was all there even at the moment of losing him. And so, isn't it crazy that that's connected to staying with your breath when you want to check your phone, but there's that relationship, there's that training between the two Yeah, we should have brought you in our tour A gentleman in the second row here. There you go, man

Hey guys, this is a sort of general question for any one of you. So my main concern is I've been using the meditation app 10% happier groundbreaking groundbreaking, thank you Dan. And if anyone has a... Combine, collect your 20 on the way out. But my main concern is, what's the difference between using the app, or it's sort of a solo job, as opposed to other forms of meditation, like Transmental Meditation, Buddhist Meditation,

or going to retreats, or you're kind of in a group process and you can ask questions or you can reflect on how you feel or how it's changing. What do we gain the same results within doing it on our own and kind of just like one outlet, you know? Just, yeah, that's a great question. And I'm gonna let Bill dive in because this is, I don't to cut too much into your time

But I'll give you the short answer which it's about a mix there are lots of ways to practice You can't be on retreat all the time you can't be in a room with a great teacher all the time Although you can apparently be in a bus for 11 days with a great teacher the You know when you're at home and you're living your regular life. It's great to have good books to From which you can draw practice advice and instructions or an app or free video on YouTube. And then I think it's awesome to supplement that with a community, with a relationship with a teacher, if you have access to one and retreats,

if you're up for it. But there are lots of ways to get access to the stuff, and I don't think you need to just focus on one to the exclusion of others if you've got the time. But you wanted to have it on that? Yeah, I'll give a bit of a contradictory answer. I think there's a value of joining a group that's doing this together, right? You get the structure, you get the accountability, you get the community, and there's a little bit of mix and match.

I would caution against getting too crazy with the mix and match. And so for me, I practice outside of work, I practice with the against the stream, tervod and Buddhism, getting ready to do a month-long retreat in a few weeks. And that's the part that really does it for me. And I view my day-to-day practice almost as a maintenance and all sorts of different kinds of practices.

And for those, I think the apps are fantastic. I spend time on public transit, any opportunities. How long is your beard going to be after a month? So let me tell you completely, too. You're going to be drafted at a zizi top. Talking, yeah. Actually, I grew this on retreat, which makes it an official wisdom beard. Now, I'll tell you the story involving a friend of mine that's ultra-orthodox who just got completely annoyed at my beard growth.

I'll tell this story. Okay, that's an overbearing story. One more question. Mack, you want to find somebody with a hand up? All right. Hello, I have quite a bit of physical pain in my body when I'm sitting down and it's like my body is screaming at me. And then I just get really angry and I don't meditate often because I get pissed a lot when I'm meditating. And I'm like, this does not make me feel good at all.

I'm just feeling a lot angrier now. I don't know how to get beyond that. Could you meditate lying down? I could. Yeah, I mean, I fall asleep. You fall asleep? Yeah. Is there a way you can position yourself

where the pain isn't so overwhelming? Well, I feel like I've tried many times and I work here, so I have access to, you know, I go to classes and I try many different things. Even, you know, when I go to Kundalini Yoga and we're doing all these things, I just get angry. Yeah. So, there's the pain and then there's the anger. I don't know if they're connected, but they're both like coming up very loudly.

Yeah. I mean, so you can work with both of them. I mean, you know, you want to be paying attention to what your body's actually telling you. I mean, I'd be giving you legitimate pain signals, but there's also lots of just sort of more low-level discomfort that was in practice that can be very intense. And there are ways of working directly with it, where you really lean into it. You really feel its edges at center. Our teacher Shenzhen is a real expert at actually

at teaching people on managing pain. He wrote a book called Break Through Pain. So there are techniques for that. But you're also getting a secondary reaction. I mean, maybe we look at his more fundamental one, which is that the whole, the anger piece, which is just sort of, there's a whole cause and effect thing that's going on there.

So you can do a practice on really trying to notice, working with that, noticing the moment it comes up, what exactly is triggering it? I mean, the God, I have been through such a rollercoaster over the years in meditation with different motions coming out for different reasons. And as you start to go into the practice, they just, like, you know, they kind of fission out and you start to see where they lead and that these things triggering this and this

thing triggering here. You can start to trace out that whole root system. And I'm not saying it's going to be super easy, but there's a lot, go anything that has that strong reaction. There's probably a lot, anything that has that strong of a reaction, there's probably a lot going on in there. And you may have other thoughts too, but there's also other modalities to work, like within other kind of bodywork modalities

that might be really insightful about exploring that. Did you want to... Yeah, I'd agree with everything, and I'd actually amplify and extend the part of turning towards the anger. When I'm practicing, you have little stories, and you make lines for the other person that you're arguing with, and you always make them

the bad guy. And that really generates anger for me. So anger is a big part of my experience. I think it's crucial to not hold the idea that your practice is good or sufficient or working if you're blissed out, calm, you know, like the time magazine, you know, if you're if you're not a white upper middle class woman and yoga clothes, like you're still meditating, it's not it's not that exalted thing. And not only that but getting

kind curiosity about your anger, that's one of the that's been an amazing journey for me. But the first part was to actually turn towards it. I'm like, what is anger? Like when you feel anger, where do you feel it in your body? It's okay if you don't know that ad, but that's a great way in of actually getting curious. Like for me, when I'm angry, I know it's heat here, tightness here, pressure here,

and me learning the tail of my anger, just even just on that basic level, huge, because when I feel these sensations, I go, oh, I'm angry, perhaps I should not send this email. Like, for it sounds weird, but just even knowing, and then get, so this is, and getting curious about the details of your anger, and for me, it's all tied up into not wanting to feel vulnerable in some way, and I overwrite it with anger. So your meditation is actually, a lot of times these

hindrances are fantastic information. But if we have the idea that we want to be blissed out and happy, then we actually then again turn this beautiful opportunity for for growth into another venue for self-judgment. Bill Duane you're amazing, thank you. Stay right here. I'd like to bring on our last guests of the evening, we got a ringer.

His name is Moby and I know Moby for a little while, but I actually did not know that he was a meditator. And in fact, is a meditation teacher as well. He's thinking, I think you referred to himself as a secret meditation teacher. You may know Moby from his massive hit records. And I also wrote a book last year that I've been listening to, which is really fascinating.

It's called Porcelain. Come on up here, Moomey. Applause I think I might need this one. Unless there's one work? Hello? Hello? There we go. We found the one that works. Hold those work. Now I feel like a big idiot, because I went and bought water. There's a whole little secret...

Oh yeah. A fresh of free water there. The voice in Bobi's head, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, so what do you want to talk about? How long have you been meditating? Why and when and where did that happen? Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday's parenting is unbearable.

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where like she would smoke a lot of pot, pray to Jesus, throw the eaching, do tarot cards, read Christian a mercy, and it all kind of made sense to me. So I think at one point she tried to teach me how to meditate, which involved like sitting like this and saying the word home. So maybe when I was six or seven and then over the years I've tried everything. I mean I tried Zen, I tried Theravada Buddhism. I did TM for a while, largely because David Lynch taught it to me.

And I sort of thought like, oh, this is an opportunity to spend time with David Lynch. So why not do TM? And after decades and decades and decades of being a dilatant meditator, I can't see I'm good at it. Because also, I never want to be good at it. Because the moment I think I'm good at it, like, I'm a good guitar player, because I've practiced it, and I like being good at it, but with meditation, the goal shouldn't be

to be good at it, because then I become smug. And I'm already smug. You know, like I already, like I'm the person, you know, like if I'm against the stream, like I look at the person who like looks too happy and I'm like there, they're either faking it or they're a sociopath. You know, like so I judge everybody. Are you judging me right now? No, you were so I judge everybody. Are you judging me right now? No, you were really funny.

You're great. Oh, thanks, man. I appreciate that. I like your judgment. We, the majority of time that you and I spent together for me, that was pre-sabriety. Yeah, I don't remember that. Yeah.

So I had a question from the audience before Bobby. I had a question from the audience before, Bobby. So yeah, what else should we talk about? You were saying, but when we met each other, it was pretty sobriety. That was pre-your meditation, Jack. No, I was an oddball alcoholic, where one of the ways I justified my alcoholism to me is I thought that life was like a sand painting. That's supposed to be funny.

At least to me, that's funny. Okay, to put it in context, that's me doing bags of drugs that I found in public toilets and drinking bottles of vodka and saying to myself, I don't have a problem, I'm just embracing immaterialism. You know, sobriety would be trying to exert control on an inherently chaotic unstructured system. The truth is, I just loved alcohol and drugs.

So I would drink and do drugs and then eat organic food and meditate. The road to Nirvana. You know, I've been listening to your book, the audio version of your book, Porcelain, available at find bookstores everywhere. And your early life was, I mean, there's some pretty tough stuff there. And I just wonder, has meditation been useful in helping you deal with any residual pain from that? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's one thing because I've been here listening to all the wonderful wise things you guys have been saying, and the questions from the audience, and the one

thing, like if I have some presumptuous advice for anyone, it's don't use meditation as an opportunity to be critical of yourself, because no one is doing it better than you are. Like the Dalai Lama, when he meditates, his experience is the exact same as yours. I say that because I've hung out with the Dalai Lama. He's OK. He's kind of boring to be honest with you.

Talks a lot. So, but I see so many, and I did this for years, and I still do it where it's like, I'm convinced I'm not doing it right, and I'm not doing it enough. And like if only I did the right meditation practice that was invented 5,000 years ago, 8,000 miles away by Brown Monk,

then I'll finally find enlightenment. And you know what enlightenment is? Enlightenment is the awareness that no one has ever transcended the human condition. Enlightenment, I believe, is right you where you are right now. It's just having a different relationship to it. It's based on like kindness and acceptance. At least that's kind of my idea.

Like, I don't think there's a mystical transcendence. Maybe there is, but when I see images of a Buddha laughing, all I think is like he's laughing because he's still human. He's like, yeah, if you show me porn, guess what? I get an erection. I'm the Buddha. So what? So, as it was said in the soup day. Right. I say, is slamming the Dalai Lama and then talking about the Buddha with Priopism were two things I didn't see coming tonight. But I love it.

So, one of the kids, we were talking a little bit about the fear that people that meditation might make you Toothless and a professional environment lack an edge maybe as a career as an artist It might you know if you get too happy you won't be as creative. Do you worry about that? I mean it's definitely It's definitely changed my relationship towards ambition You guys have talked you you've touched on this, this idea that we're always moving towards something. But I think meditation, any spiritual practice

should also be informed by like evidence and empiricism. Like we look at the, and we never do this. We don't ever look at the people who've accomplished what we want to accomplish, because usually they're miserable. You know, like the people who've had the most material success, like I grew up with these people, they're so unhappy. We know that. We've been to the same parties where it's like, I remember- Again, I don't know what, like we know what we want, but we assume

that it's going to create some happiness that's not available to us right now. And that is, I don't say this from a sort of like lofty spiritual perspective, I'm saying from an evidence-based perspective, that is nonsense, because there's just no evidence in the world to support the idea that when we get to where we want to go, we'll have a different perspective than we have now, or a different emotional state than we have now. And so, in terms of ambition, so for years, I thought, okay, and this is like the virus of New York or L.A. or wherever wherever I thought if I have the right career, the right girlfriend, the right other girlfriend, the right other other girlfriend, the right

combination of alcohol drugs, fame, public notoriety, money, etc., etc., then I'll be happy. But then the universe gave all that to me and I was miserable. And it took me years to finally accept, like, oh, I've been given everything I've ever wanted, and even more so, and I'm less happy than I was before I was given it. And I feel like the universe was sort of playing a joke on me. You know, because most people, you chase it, and you chase it, and you never get there, and you die longing. And the universe and said with me, I'm not trying

to anthropomorphize the universe, you know, maybe it's just random, but it felt like I was shown that when we get what we want, it doesn't change anything. What the title of that great John Kabat's in book, wherever you go, there you are. Yeah, or the wonderful Buddhist thing, I, you were talking to someone out there, but all the liquor and drugs, my mind is shot. But the old like, you know, before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water,

and after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water, like nothing changes except your perspective. And I hope, there's another thing that I was noticing as we were talking is, and it's sort of a Western idea. And I'm Western, I'm born in New York, but this idea that our experience is unique, that your struggle is unique, that our frustrations are unique. Every experience we have is shared with everyone.

And one of the most beautiful experiences I've ever had in meditating and out of meditating is not about me, it's about solidarity. Like the fear, the suffering, the anxiety, it's shared every single human being except for Donald Trump has that fear. You know? I mean, maybe clearly Steve Bannon as well, but like the non-reptilian humans, we all have that anxiety and fear.

The views of Movy do not necessarily represent the views of ABC News. I just want to say that. Jeff, you want to weigh in here? I'd like to make a, actually like to put out to the audience, to make a pitch for that there is such a thing as maybe not arriving somewhere, but that there does, there are profound changes that happen in our perspective that are, and that there is some mystery at the heart of this endeavor, and by endeavor I mean more than just the practice, I mean this life. And I'm just curious, other people out there

who have been practitioners in all the ways that that means, in yoga, in meditation, in relationship, in art, in your commitments, whatever they are. What, how would you articulate what deeper things or not deeper things that come into your experience? I mean, how would you describe it? And I'm particularly interested in meditators and anybody. Just what would you, and take a risk, get risk being, you know, spiritual in this second or age? What does that look like?

in this second or age, what does that look like? I'll try to talk in a coherent manner here, but there's a lot of things you said, Bomi. Like I have this teacher who over New Year said, he thinks the word Dharma, and he was told this by a teacher probably in the 70s named Kalu Rinpoche. The word Dharma won't even exist in like a hundred years. And so we talk about, he mentioned looking to those who are successful and seeing that

that doesn't really work, but I think part of it is we're just, we are looking in a direction that's about sort of greed and avarice and there are examples of people that don't live that way. And maybe that could be successful. It's for me, it's very hard to kind of like chase that. And it's for me, it's very hard to kind of like chase that, because it's just not part of the Western way we think. And so I don't know, maybe... And I guess the thing that got me into meditating was being in the military and being in Iraq

and being so present in the moment and having that just be such an amazing experience and then I had to seek that out. So I'm going in different directions here but the thing I'd like to ask you about is if you ever pressed up against the envelope of woe meditation is actually too real. Oh yeah, I mean through meditation, through sobriety, through therapy, through prayer, through physical illness, like confronting who we are at the core of ourselves, like I hope, I mean that's for me, that's, I mean there's also like those moments when there is that sort of transcendent experience when you feel like you have a glimpse

beyond the curtain, whatever that might mean for everyone. So I'm, I fully accept that there are lots of places to get to, it might just not be linear and we're not prevented from being there right now. It's all right in front of us and in us and around us. But I've had, subjectively, lots of those experiences. I've never been in war, so I can't compare our experiences. But what's fascinating is the vulnerability of it, at least for myself, like the years and the decades that I've spent crafting a suit of acceptable cultural armor. So when I deal with other people, when I deal with the media,

and even, secondingly, when I deal with myself, I have this idea of how I should be, how things should be. And one of the most wonderful things in the practice is confronting yourself as you actually are and being able to see it in a compassionate, gentle way. Say, oh, you suffer, you're vulnerable, you're lonely, you struggle, and you have joy and you have strength as well. And then recognizing that the way I just described

my core self applies to everyone. More questions? So we've got some folks in the front here. I was just going to want to offer a disclosure, and I appreciate the comments in the back with the rage and anger, because that was one of my first experiences coming back to breath. And then realizing that I was pushing myself

to be perfect in meditation, and when I let go of that allowing, I had guttural eruptions of sound and rage for months in my meditation practice. And what it led to was a journey of learning to listen, trust, and allow. And I was introduced, not because I was present face to face, but because they called me in to a group of adult non-verbal autistic who are masters in the field of unity consciousness. And they are my teachers.

And they have taught me a very sacred breath meditation to access a remote classroom that we can source solutions from a higher realm. So meditation is powerful and I'm grateful for this dialogue and this discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Pass the mic. Well, you mentioned some things about changing your perspectives and you also talked about how there's no goal perhaps to get to and you also touched on mindfulness and maybe here and there out the day not not necessarily having one, you know, specific moment. I'm just speaking personally, but going through the day with moments of mindfulness and you also mentioned a bunch of emotions, vulnerability, kindness, and things like that.

And for me, one of the things was having a realization that the self that we sometimes think we have back here is kind of an illusion, or very much so, an illusion. And I used to think there was just one eye back there, one me. And there's actually many, many. It feels like there's just many, many me's coming and going. So it felt good to acknowledge and be okay with the fact that, you know, I didn't choose my parents. I didn't choose where I was born. I didn't choose to be one species, his primate on a planet, you know, going around one star. And I think it's Richard Dawkins says, like,

everyone alive won the genetic lottery. It's Richard Dawkins, the host of Match Game PM. Just data, though. Just data, though. So really, there are so many questions I could ask, but the one I wanted to see if you guys could expound on is the sense of the self being an illusion that we all have and how that can be empowering.

You want to take that one more? I mean, I was a philosophy major in college, and the great thing about being a philosophy major is when you tell people you were a philosophy major, they immediately assume you're smarter than you are. But I remember reading Bertrand Russell when I was like taking philosophy 101. And he, in a pretty expert way, deconstructed the entire

material world and the entire world of our perspective and perception. And at the age of 18, I was like, oh, yeah. OK, so not a single thing I perceive is as it really is. And there's something about human consciousness and the subjective nature of it that we're disconnected from objective reality, inherently so. Perhaps, who knows, maybe we're not, but most likely we are. When you think of quantum states, you know, and we're comprised of it, but we have no

knowledge of that. So our idea of self is wonderful and great, but completely shammarical. Like it's just 100% illusion. And this is one of the issues I sometimes take with some Eastern traditions and some meditation traditions they'll say like, oh, you need to like crush your idea of this self. It's like, no, be gentle with yourself.

Because that illusion of self, it's who we are as a species. And unless we don't need to punish ourselves for living in this world of illusion, there needs to be kindness and gentleness. Because that illusion, it's shared as far as we can tell from every creature who's ever held drawn a breath. So I sometimes think like self punishment shouldn't necessarily be a part of a spiritual tradition. We don't need to certainly do it

just to have blanket acceptance, but have kindness and gentleness and non-dogma in our spiritual practices in our lives. And thank you. And realizing that some of those emotions and behaviors that we have were evolved and did help us at some point. But now that monkey brain, like one of you mentioned the fight or flight, it's profound. And we don't always have to, you know, do that nowadays.

You know, it's funny. I was watching, as a sober middle-aged guy, I do watch a lot of documentaries on Netflix. And I was watching some documentary about a watering hole in Africa. And there were these little monkeys running up to the watering hole, scooping filthy, disgusting water into their mouths and running away before they were eaten by crocodiles, hippos, lions or something else. And I was like, no wonder we're so scared.

Because that was us pretty recently. You know. Thank you, Moby. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. I also want to thank you, Bill, doing. Thanks for having me. And before we go, it's been a pleasure

traveling with you for 11 days. You're the man. You're amazing. Thank you, everybody, for coming tonight. Really appreciate it. Have a great night. Thank you. Okay, that does it for another edition of the 10% Happier Podcast. If you liked it, please take a minute to subscribe, rate us. Also, if you want to suggest topics, you think we

should cover or guests that we should bring in, hit me up on Twitter at Dan B. Harris. Importantly, I want to thank the people who produced this podcast, Lauren Efron, Josh Tohen, and the rest of the folks here at ABC, who helped make this thing possible. We have tons of other podcasts. You can check them out at ABCnewspodcasts.com. I'll talk to you next Wednesday.

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