Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 93: Ethan Nichtern, 'The Dharma of The Princess Bride'

Episode Date: August 16, 2017

"I don’t claim that ['The Princess Bride'] is a Buddhist story, but I do think it has some Buddhist elements," Ethan Nichtern said. "It's a deconstructed fairytale that's... really about trying to navigate relationships from this space of compassionately not knowing." Nichtern, a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, uses moments from the cult-classic movie in his upcoming book, "The Dharma of The Princess Bride," out Sept. 12, to illustrate his personal life -- he says his father's best friend is actor Christopher Guest, who plays the notorious "six-fingered man" -- and to discuss having compassion when figuring out relationships. 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. Hey there, the guest this week is awesome Ethan Nick turn. He is a long time meditation teacher. All those pretty young guy, but he was as you'll hear. And he's very interesting on this front. He was raised in a Buddhist community, a very interesting one, and controversial one.

And so he'll talk about that. And he's got a book which is gonna sound lighthearted to you when I tell you what the title is, but actually it is much deeper than you might expect. The book is called The Dharma of the Princess Bride, and he talks about how the Princess Bride, which is a cult favorite movie, which I love, and I think you're hard pressed to find somebody who doesn't love if they haven't seen it. He talks about the Buddhist themes, and especially as it pertains to relationships in this movie, in his book about the movie.

So before we get to that in the discussion, we talk a lot about his personal history which has some very interesting twists and turns. So here he is, Ethan Nickter. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. So you got a lot going on? Yeah. Yeah.

Book and baby simultaneously. How long before this moment did you, did your wife give birth? One week. One week. As he is, one week. Isabella Atlas is one week old as we record this that's huge yeah huge it's really pretty small but she's small she's small only in stature right but not in terms of I'm sure her vocal capacity gravitational pull yes gravitational pull

so is that everybody's healthy and happy? Everybody's very healthy. Marissa, my wife gave it like kind of the everybody in the delivery room was kind of very inspired by the way she handled the whole situation. And everybody's healthy and Izzy was three weeks early, which was surprised, but happens. And so it was nice to get used to spontaneous, spontaneously arising phenomenon, we might say. You're putting it in a Buddhist context already. So, I mean, let's dive right into it.

I want to talk about your book, but I'd love some background on you. How did you start, how did you come to meditation? You came by it as I know, very honestly, but tell the listeners yeah so I I think there's a term for us which maybe you're already pretty familiar with Dharma Brat Dharma Brat when your parents are Western Buddhist people I don't think they call you a Dharma Brat if you're you know from Tibet and your parents were Buddhist I think

they just call you a Buddhist person. But in the West, especially in the United States, if your parents were Buddhists, my parents were both students of Choyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who was the founder of the Shambhala tradition, one of the big voices of Buddhism coming to North America, especially Tibetan Buddhism. And we've had previous guests who grew up in that lineage including your friend, Lord your Rinsler. Yes. Choyam, Trunkpa, Rinpoche, fascinating guy, controversial dude. For sure. For sure. We can talk about him at some point if you want, but anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt, but just filling out the picture.

Yeah. So, let's see. A few of these things are noted in my book, but I grew up here in New York City. I lived the first two years of my life. My parents moved from Los Angeles then to a meditation center in Vermont. So that's where I was a baby to toddler. And then moved back to New York City

where my father was from. And so group here in Manhattan as a Buddhist kid. So I took my first class in meditation around fourth or fifth grade, which was really boring. It was led by one of the senior teachers, Acharya's in the Shambhala tradition, Eric Speagle. So I give him quite a lot of props for putting up with a group of small group of kids.

I remember the girl in front of me complained that I was breathing too loudly, which made me feel bad because I had asthma. Um, and, you know, didn't really get into it because I was a kid and it was boring, but there was a sort of awareness of being from a tradition that was really interested in the mind. And in high school, I started meditating.

Did a few weekend meditation retreats, but really started doing it kind of on my own. Like I would after school go into my room and like say, I was taking a nap, but then meditate for like 15 minutes. And then as I say in this book, it was, you know, really when the first time I got dumped after my freshman year in college, that's when I decided I was a Buddhist.

So you got a big taste of groundlessness and said, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna latch onto this thing. Yeah, yeah, it was really, I mean, it was, I think college was in very interesting time for relationship to this just because, you know, you're studying all these ideas about the way the world works. In my case, also studying some ideas about the way the world can be deconstructed, how much our views and solid views determine narrative of reality, so kind of studying Western ideas of how that can be undercut.

And also just realizing that most of us were depressed or angry or coming into our own, and trying to figure out how to be humans. Even going to an Ivy League school like Brown University, you realize, well, we are not, I mean, I think it's changing now. My high school actually has multiple meditation classes now, but you realize that we're not always taught how to just deal with our own minds.

And so it was very powerful to develop my own relationship. And my parents, who had a lot of issues with each other, they were both really good at letting me find it on my own. So presenting it, offering possibilities to study or to, you know, go to the Shambhala Center or other places like that. But just really letting me come to practice and study on my own. And I think they were both kind of surprised when I got so into it in college. It's interesting because I'm interested in that.

A couple of things about that. One is, you know, as a parent myself, and now you're a new parent, I've wondered about how or whether I should introduce this practice to my son, because if I force it, or if you or I force it too hard, or force it at all, frankly, it's likely to get rejected. Yeah, that's true. But you also wanna share this thing that's useful.

So it's a tricky, you're raising a dharma brat. So it's a question of like, how do you handle that? Yeah, yeah, it's, I don't know what the third generation is called. We have to come up with that name. Dharma legacy. Dharma brat squared, maybe. Yeah, exactly.

But yeah, I mean, I think the, you know, so my first real introduction to meditation was when I was about nine probably. And I do remember the notion that the mind is kind of like its own arena. So I don't know when is the right age for a kid to start meditating. Maybe just, I think they're doing a lot of studies about regulating a parasympathetic nervous system and things like that that probably apply to children pretty young. But I remember just the awareness that the world of thoughts and emotions was related to but separate from the outside world that one didn't necessarily describe the other.

Like, I mean, it's a very simple realization, but just the realization that you can think something, and it's not the event that's occurring, is felt very powerful to actually realize that there's some play with a world of perception, cognition, emotion that needs to be understood and experienced in its own right. So I Think I mean, I wonder what age you could just introduce a child to the idea that they're thinking and they can actually just watch their thoughts You know, there's one meditation That one of my teachers Dr. Gail and Ferguson introduced called the thought party Where you just imagine that a thought coming in is like a guest at a dinner party or a guest at a party and notice how they're dressed

or what their behavior is and just kind of observe them in a more playful space just to realize that thoughts are something that come and then reside for a while and then go away. So those kinds of more playful exercises I bet can be really helpful. For sure. There's lots to this.

I just know nothing about it, but it's coming down the pike for both of us. It is, for sure. So, but the other thing you said about your parents is interesting, is they had trouble dealing with one another, and I know that around the time you saw the princess bride, which is what we're going to get to soon, it was shortly after their divorce. And that's just interesting to me that you can do the amount of meditation that I assumed They had done in Buddhist practice and study and all that and yet you can have real problems in relationship Oh, yeah, I mean, I think that like any other world the Buddhist world is full of examples of people who

as I say less pleasantly You know suck at relationships, which is really all of us from a certain point of view. So yeah, 1987, 1988, that was fourth grade and that was kind of a crazy year in my world and one of the things that happened was my Buddhist parents breaking up. It was actually after the first time I saw the Princess Pride because it was the next summer. But yeah, it's really interesting to realize that I think there's a lot of myth-making about relationships, which is why I wanted to write a book about relationships that also had a playful kind of pop culture and personal experience or memoir edge.

You know, and I think from the Western side of things, there's this myth of like a rom-com myth, like you're gonna find your partner, and then credits roll and you're cool, you know? And on the Eastern side of things, I think there's this myth that these people who maybe have been in monasteries or been in caves or been in forests, meditating for most of their lives,

that they must know a lot about intimate relationships, friendship or romance or family. And really when you are a modern practitioner, these are a lot of times the things that people are struggling with the most. And there's an assumption that somebody else, somebody more spiritual, somebody maybe more Buddhist or more mindful, at least, knows how to deal with relationships better, like that there's a master of relationships, you know, like a Yoda or something of relationships, and I think that can be a really harmful assumption, because that's the first premise in my book is that there's no such thing as a relationship expert, which is not to say that there aren't great relationship therapists.

I'm just pointing that the notion of expertise is sort of this notion of having mastered something. And relationship is at least two people. So an expert is one person. So literally the term is an oxymoron. And so I was explaining this to my father, who's a really wonderful person and Buddhist teacher and musician. And he said, so what you is what you're trying to say that a relationship is relinquishing your expertise. And I said,

yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to say. A relationship is the relinquishing of your own expertise. Well, it reminds me of the whole Zen thing about not knowing. Yes, yeah, so beginner's mind. Beginner's mind exactly. And so it's interesting in the Western times. Just explain, sorry, I think that term out there, but can you, because it's your the guy who actually knows

what he's talking about, like me. He's explained what I allegedly meant by that. I've heard you use that trick before, Dan, where you're the one who doesn't know anything, even though you've kind of dedicated your whole life to this stuff now, and you're a well-known journalist. Yeah, but I forget knowing. Pretty easily.

So, my understanding of where not knowing is coming from is there's a term in Sanskrit prajna, P-A-R-J-N-A, is usually the way it's transliterated. And that term, and sometimes in the Tibetan system they say it means the highest knowing, but that a more literal translation could be like pre-knowing, like before knowing or before certainty. And it refers to kind of a space of perceptive curiosity that hasn't made assumptions yet. That's clear that knows what it might be looking for, but is open. It is really open.

I mean, from a certain standpoint, I think this is kind of a true journalist's mind. It's really like, I know what it might be, but I haven't made jump to a conclusion yet. And so before knowing or not knowing, or and I believe Suzuki Rochi, that was his term beginner's mind, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, curious, but willing to not know. How does that play out in relationships?

I mean, it's so interesting, I think, the assumptions we make about any space of relationships, friendship, parenting now, romance, which is the big second section of the book, the search for Buttercup, The Search for Your Buttercup, or Studmuffin to even out the genders. And I think it actually starts before we even get into relationship with other people, the thing that meditation is so good at is taking a not knowing approach to relationship with yourself, like to actually acknowledge, and I think sometimes this is hard because we feel like we have to move through the world, being so certain about who we are,

what our profile is, what our brand is, what our identity is, what our resume is, to just say, who is this person? What is it like to have a body and thoughts and emotions? And so I think it's referring to a not knowing that's strong rather than weak, but it's really hard to sell this in Western culture because I think knowing is so much our, you know, I think we've seen this recently that the person who claims to know,

even if what they're saying is a hundred percent false. I have no idea who you're referring to That that claim to know something and be strong about knowing seems to carry a lot of weight in our world So so I have a few more questions just on the on the biographical tip Before we get into the book, which I know I keep postponing, but you're an interesting dude, so I'd like to just run this down. Let's talk about Trump for a second. Yeah. Trump, I appreciate that the teacher in whose lineage you grew up.

I just want to say for now, it's that I'm by no means an expert. I've read a little a little bit of his writing i watched that movie about him uh... what's that called crazy wisdom uh... and uh... i think i hope i'm saying this accurately you'll just correct me if i say anything if i step outside of the lines of accuracy here but uh... i think the source of

of his his being controversial is that on the one hand, I think widely recognized as a brilliant teacher and somebody who achieved a lot in meditation. I don't know how you can measure that, but just who is an a meditative adept. But also arguably drank himself to death and had some dalliances with his followers, including, you know, wives of followers and outside of his own, romantic, outside of his own marriage, and also could say and do some pretty outrageous

things that hurt people's feelings. So what is all of the foregoing accurate and what is your view of the man now? Well, after that non-expertise talk, I'm definitely not an expert on him. Did you know him? He was nine when I died. You were nine when he was, yeah. But he was pretty young. He was in his 40s. He was 47 or 48. Wow. Yeah. All right. Yeah. He, I consider that young now that I'm 46. Yeah. Yeah. I just turned 39. So yeah, it's, it's nice to, it's nice to be the age of your heroes, isn't he? He'll always something like that.

I could suddenly be the other worst. It's not so nice. But yeah, I mean mean a very interesting figure. He was the memories I have of him. He was very kind. I was supposedly around him a lot as a baby, because my father was the director for two years of Carmen Chilling, the retreat center in Northern Vermont, that he founded.

And so I don't have any memories other than like this kind, kind of high-pitched voice Tibetan man who sort of looked like an Middle-aged or old British man with this oxonian accent and sort of a feminine voice Very stable, very deep eyes It's important to note I am not his student. I'm a student of his son, Sakagami Pumse, who's the head of the Shimalistry. And he's apparently very, very, very, very different. Energetically, very different.

You know, the way I think of Chugin Trinpa energetically, I've always related to him as like a great artist. I mean, I think when I read his books, there are some things that um, really uh, blow my mind and some things that I'm like, and I don't really understand what you're saying here. I mean, a lot of his books are taken from lectures, which as an as an author, that's a weird way to publish books, I have to say, because as somebody who also gives a lot of lectures, it's a different style of orating or presentation. I mean, you probably know this as well. And so it's sometimes his language can come across as brilliant,

sometimes it comes across as opaque. In terms of the controversy, I mean, I think my parents might be better people to talk to. He definitely, and this is the difference between him and his son, longevity was definitely not his priority. So, it wasn't just my understanding alcohol. It was also just that he dedicated from 1970 to 1987. I don't think he slept very much.

He was really, he was working on so many different projects. And one thing I find really interesting about him is that compared to some other meditation teachers, the range of societal aspects that he was interested in from Dharma art to flower arranging to poetry, to creating a non-violent military meditation. That's in the movie Crazy Wisdom, which I recommend people watch. So he's doing something very different from other teachers. Would I study with him personally? I really don't know.

I do remember it, you know, and this relates to my book, that that year, 1987, when he died, there was definitely a feeling of among my parent and my parents' friends of him leaving too soon. And he also, one thing I really respect is he has some of the most loyal students I've ever seen. I mean, let's be honest for a moment, my generation doesn't commit to much unless you can do it on Facebook, which is not true of everyone, but to generate a small group of students who just really have tried to practice what he taught and really connect with him feels very powerful.

But what about the ethical lapses? Yeah. Well, again, what some would view as ethical lapses? Yeah, I mean, I think the main thing that I would consider an ethical laps in my rule book, and just so you know, there are very clear ethical guidelines now for teachers in the Shambhala tradition in terms of relating with our personal students, et cetera. But you know, there's always different views on ethics, right? So my understanding of what an ethical laps is is when you're either causing harm to somebody,

obviously, but if you're saying you're doing one thing and doing another thing. So I don't know that much about him not being transparent with what he said he was doing and I don't know much about him forcing people to do anything. I don't think I've heard that. Yeah. So again, I think, you know, what I would say is if you read one book that's important to read to understand him is the book born in Tibet, which is actually one of the ones I think he wrote. It was one of his first books. And it was about him fleeing the Chinese Communist's full invasion in 1959 and being 19 or 20 years

old. Because he was the incarnate llama, he led this party of like 300 people out of Tibet over the Himalayas. It was a 10 month journey. Most of them were either died or were captured. At a certain point, they were boiling their boots to, because the leather in the boots had a little bit

of nutrition that they could have a thin soup and maybe get some nourishment and survive. And I think only 15 or 20 people from the party made it to India to refuge. So, like just think about what we know psychologically about the trauma that that would cause. And I just find it powerful that that's the person who became this bad leader of several thousand Western people. And spend the rest of his life claiming that a wake in mind and basic goodness were the nature of humanity.

So I don't think this happens a lot in Shambhala, but being a trauma survivor has to play into his story, and some kind of transformation of trauma into crazy wisdom is the way I make sense of it. But I don't think you have to be able to make sense of everything that somebody you respect did, you know. But it would be good to talk to somebody who knew him better. But yeah, there is a powerful presence and absence dichotomy in his energy in my life.

Like he definitely is, I always like to say it this way in terms of lineage. He's definitely, you know, at the end of return of the Jedi when all the dead Jedi are holographically there and the fourth. He's definitely a Jedi in the forest for me. Yeah. Am I one of the Ewoks? I'm seeing. Yeah. I'm like a furry little entertaining character. I think you're a little more Han Solo than you give us. Okay. Cool. I like that. Thank you. So, so you just to pick up in your chronology here, you left us in college where you had gotten into meditation, your parents were surprised.

Now you are an established writer and a teacher with your own organization, the interdependence project. How did you get from there, college, to here now full-time meditation? So let'stime meditation teacher. Yeah, so college really solidified my identity as a Buddhist and I did a lot of the later stages of the Shambhala path becoming a Vajrayana practitioner right after college.

And I was at that point. Just a defined Vajrayana that is basically the term that the technical term to describe Tibetan practice. Yeah, it's not the only place, but yet Tibet is the main and Tibetan lineages. You know, the main thing that defines Vajrayana practice is it's the last sort of body of teachings. And what's sometimes talked about in more stages, but is usually talked about in a three bodies of practice group of teachings and what's sometimes talked about in more stages, but is usually talked about in a three bodies of practice group of teachings that you kind of move into sequentially. And the Vajrayana is the one that has different practices where you directly go to the nature of awakened mind or different ceremonies. It means that you view awakened mind as something that's already happening rather than like when I get less neurotic after 10 more years of retreat, I will be able to maybe glimpse what the great masters.

So you take the view, Vajrayana is usually described as taking the fruition as the path. The fruit is the path. Yes. In other words, if you start to believe that you do actually have awakened nature, which is like in more, I guess, to use the academic term exoteric Mahayana traditions, awakened nature is like viewed as a seed or a potential. And then Vajrayana says, well, if you have a seed, it means the fruit must have already sprouted because the only thing that leaves seeds is fruit.

So what if you could actually be introduced to a way of a group of ceremonies or visualizations that actually takes the view that you are already awake and then work with playing with that? And these ceremonies of visualizations are sometimes referred to as tantra. Yes. So if I just, again, correct me, I'm always ginger when talking about Buddhist doctrine and dogma, because I know a little, but enough to be dangerous.

So the three schools generally are described as teravata, which is the old school, maayana, which developed later, and then Vajrayana, which comes out of Mahayana. And one of the criticisms of Terevada, the old school, which is the one in which I've sort of come up, although my teacher, Joseph Goldstein, mixes in Vajrayana stuff into his teaching. One of the criticisms of this Terevada way

is that enlightenment is as you can kind of think of it as like this hill. And the enlightenment's at the One of the criticisms of this teravada way is that enlightenment is as you can kind of think of it as like this hill. And the enlightenment is at the top of the hill and you are hopelessly at the bottom, you got to get all this concentration together and really be able to see so clearly into your moment-to-moment experience that eventually you have this experience of Nirvana a couple of times and then maybe you're enlightened. Whereas if you get all the way to the Vajrayana school in which you've studied, it's like no, no actually it's right here right now. You can get right to it through these special practices and traditions and rituals. Yeah. And that doesn't

mean it's stable or that doesn't mean there isn't work to do. It's just that the ideas that you actually work with flickering in and out of that style of small moments many times. Yeah. Just taste it and then try to re-up that taste. Yeah. So one of the terms that's used in Vajrayana practice from the Tibetan term is Rigpa, which means something like primordial or uncreated awareness. And so it's that notion that you can actually work with,

rather than like how am I confused, or how am I screwed up, or neurotic, you work with what knows that I'm confused. This is a basic phrase that actually, I believe this is a paraphrase of a Chogium Trunca quote that's often misquoted or misatt-attributed to another llama is he said that which knows confusion cannot be confused. So if you work with the knower rather than the to use my half Yiddish lineage the schmutz, if you work with what sees the schmutz rather than the schmutz itself, then you can actually gain confidence that you are fundamentally okay.

So many of these tonnetic practices are secret, but this one is not secret, and Joseph Goldstein talks about this a lot. So we do the basic teravada practice of just kind of watching the breath coming in and going out. Then I'll mix in this thing where we're just taking from Vajrayana from a school of Vajrayana known as Zogchen. D-Z-O-G-C-H-E-N, if you want to look it up. And it's a really simple practice actually.

That will help people understand what it is you're talking about, which is kind of close your your eyes and listen to whatever sounds are coming up. So it might be some sort of hiss in the background of the audio here. It just may be my voice. It might be your dog barking, your kid crying, graphic, whatever. And then the next move is just to look for what's hearing. What's hearing? And in that sometimes, you took me a long time

for me to get a taste of the rigpa that I think you were talking about, and maybe I'm diluting myself that I even got the taste. But just a little, and it's nothing complicated. It's actually, the harder you look, actually, the more you're getting in your own way. It's actually right there on the surface, and they're like, oh yeah.

There's nothing to find. Right? There is no little Dan Hummunculus in there that's actually hearing all these sounds. It's like, I have no idea. It's a huge mystery. What is hearing this? You're like brushing up against the mystery of human consciousness or actually just consciousness. So anyway, I just said a lot, but you think I'm on my own point. Yeah.

So the Zogch head and tradition is one of two sort of bodies of teachings on what's called the nature of mind. The other is Mahamudra. I don't know why in the West, but Mahamudra is a Sanskrit word. It's Chagchen and Tibetan and Zogchen is a Tibetan word. So why one is called by, it's Tibetan name, the other by Sanskrit. I don't know why. In Shambhalla, we have a cycle of teachings

called windhorse meditation, which I could say could also be a kind of nature of mind meditation. The reason it gets confusing is that a lot of the Vajrayar and teachings are secret in the sense that there's sort of a context and a curriculum for introduction into them, but the ways that the public mindfulness practices that you could learn if you go to the Shambhala Center or something like that are taught are drawn from the nature of mind meditation. So it's like you can practice what we call shamata meditation, which is mindfulness of breath, noticing thoughts, noticing emotions, noticing awareness.

And a lot of the instructions are actually drawn from the Mahamudra and Zogchim traditions. So some of the teachings are hidden in plain sight. And then some of the ceremonies for embodying what's called sacred world are more initiated, but it's not meant to be some like, you know, some club with it. It's more that there's kind of a sequence of context and that there's also a commitment to compassion, a commitment to benefiting both oneself and others that one has sort of deepened with before, because, you know, once you start playing, as I talked about in this book, like, once you start playing with the idea that the mind really is like

a movie theater, and once you realize that you're kind of both the director and the projection, you're both projector and projection, if you don't have a really good intention for working with that, you could screw up yourself and others. So there's a commitment to liberation from confusion, to kind of a basic path of self-honesty, and there's a commitment to a kind of path of working to benefit both self and others, and then there's a commitment to working with a specific teacher. And in the, this is a word that's often overused in our westernization of these eastern concepts. But in Vajrayana or Tantra, the word guru refers not just to any teacher, but the teacher you're specifically working with on the nature of mind meditations

and the visualization and mantra ceremonies. So I'm a Buddhist teacher, but I'm not a guru because I'm not the main person people work with on that kind of practice. So in our lexicon and the west guru just means you're good at something right? Exactly. The original intention. All right, so we've talked a lot about your your personal story and I've been delaying for no real reason other than that I'm just curious about you.

Although I knew some of this because we know each other for a minute, but let's talk about the Dharma of the Princess Bride, what the coolest fairy tale of our time can teach us about Buddhism and relationships. Why the Princess Bride? It's a great question. 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 Brownalder, 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 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. A lot of people hear the title of the book and they're just like, I get it. First of all, I mean, just from the pop culture standpoint, this is one of the biggest narratives of our time. This sort of notion of a deconstructed postmodern, hilarious, but incredibly poignant fairy tale. But, you know, the last book that I wrote with the same publisher, F.S FSG. The Road Home was really kind of my, hopefully, 21st century, personally

relevant sort of overview of the Buddhist teachings, especially from the modern Shambhala perspective. And the next book I wanted to write was something a little bit more creative about relationships. And I definitely didn't want to write a dogmatic book about relationships because there's no such thing as a relationship expert. I wanted to share this notion that we really do have to work with these myths that can be pretty painful. One that we're supposed to know everything about relationships and it's supposed to be a story book or that some other master knows about relationships. And I wanted to write something that also honored, you know, that spiritual teachings

happen within a cultural context. So I think that part came from my publisher, my first book, One City, was a small publisher wisdom. And they had recently published a book called The Darm of Star Wars. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I interviewed that guy once. Which was more kind of like, you know,

analyzing the Jedi code from a Buddhist perspective a little bit more like a manual rather than sort of a personal take on something. So I remember saying if I ever did something like this, it would be about the Princess Bride, which is one of my favorite movies. And I think the Princess Bride, I don't claim that it is a Buddhist story, but I do think it has some Buddhist elements.

And it's really more about trying to learn about relationships over 30 years, because the 30th anniversary is September 25th, and just sort of loving a piece of pop culture over that time. But the reason I do think the Princess Bride is sort of Buddhist is that it's a deconstructed fairytale, right? So a lot of the work we do in Buddhist thought is about taking a narrative that feels solid that we might not even notice that we're living within a narrative, right? You might not even notice being at ABC News that like a lot of the stories we tell fit a certain structure of the way a story is supposed to be told. So there's a classic fairytale story and a certain structure of the way a story is supposed to be told. So there's a classic fairy tale story, and the Princess Bride kind of demolishes that story, but is still

like a completely coherent fairy tale at the same time, which is why it's so brilliant. And it's a deconstruction unlike other deconstructed fairy tales. Like I'd argue that Game of Thrones is also deconstructed fairy tale like there's no real heroes Everybody's just killing everybody. It's a very nihilistic I would argue that Game of Thrones is a very Trump era deconstructed fairy tale. I love Game of Thrones so much It's it's so cool. It's I think I I read, and this might just be some shard of faulty memory,

but I thought I read that actually, he based that on worrying European civilizations and just kind of put it in a cooler context. Yeah, yeah. And maybe, I mean, maybe it'll come back to, you know, it seems like, I mean, I think season 7 is just getting started as we record this.

Might come back to the future as female. There are heroes who believe in something and life is preserved and people like each other. But for the first six seasons, it's anytime you're rooting for somebody to have some values that are of, they just get slaughtered you know so it's it's kind of a nihilistic deconstruction whereas I would say that um because one thing about this because one thing they do brilliantly from storytelling to what they do a million things really but the person who actually ends up having some values is the person who starts off by trying to kill a child in the first episode, right? So the King Slayer, who they morph him from a pure bad guy, it's just something close to a pure

good guy over the course of the first six seasons. That is a narrative toward a force. A null shut up. Okay, no, I think it's beautiful, but I don't, you know, the Princess bride, and I think the reason, you know, it's really interesting how it's grown in popularity from being a movie that didn't actually really do that well, to being like, probably one of the biggest movies of the late 20th century. Huge cultural touchstone for sure.

I would say that it's an optimistic deconstruction. And for sort of the postmodern and contemporary era that we're living in, where people don't believe in fixed narratives quite as much or wouldn't like to say we believe. The notion of a deconstruction that leads you towards true love, you know, and that's what Rob Reiner said that that's the whole point is it's about a grandfather in the movie version, at least a grandfather coming to convince his grandson through just dealing with his bratty-ness, talk about a non-Dharma brat, the grandson in that movie, that true love is what life is all about. So it gives you all the poignant sarcastic twists and turns, but you know only there's two deaths in the movie, that's true. My father's best friend being one of the people who died.

The Six Fingered Man. Christopher Guest. Christopher Guest. One of your reveals on the first page of the book is that your dad was really close with Christopher Guest. So, well, I always thought it was British because I saw a spinal tab too many times. His family's British.

Okay. Yeah, his father was British. But, and he was actually a member of Parliament for he inherited his his father's seat in Parliament, which on top of his other pretty amazing resume of of mockumentaries and other great comedic brilliances. But yeah, so I I just there's something very poetic about the movie and also poetic about realizing that like no matter what happens it happens in the popular culture of this time and I think Sometimes, you know studying for example the life of the Buddha You know who is not the only awakened being who's ever existed. It's so determined by his own personal makeup and the world that he lived in that it's

really hard to figure out like what would that story look like if it happened to another place in time. So what about the Princess Bride is most, what are the biggest Buddhist slash relationship lessons to take out of this film? Yeah. So, well, first of all, it's sort of where it fits into my personal narrative, which is that it, the reason I got into it was because my father's best friend growing, he also grew up in New York City and his best friend since early childhood was, and still one of

his very best friends was the actor Christopher Guest. So that's, you know, the idea that my dad's friend played a bad guy was kind of amazing and hilarious. And that year was this year that Cholgim Trunk would died, that my parents got divorced, that my grandparents, my grandfather and his wife committed suicide together. So that, I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah. They committed suicide together. What was going on there? My grandfather had fairly advanced Parkinson's, and he was a pediatrician turned psychiatrist, and I think he just decided he had had enough,

and the interesting part was that his wife, my step-grandmother, went with him, and yeah, it was just a very powerful kind of decision. So, traumatic year for a nine-year-old? Yeah, for anybody year for a nine-year-old? Yeah. For anybody, especially a nine-year-old. Yeah. And you also had some social issues at school?

Yeah. Was social issues at a very hippie civil rights era school founded on Martin Luther King's beliefs, I was, as I say, in the first, in the introduction, the second least popular kid in my class. And in a very unbutus moment, I told my friend that year who was the least popular kid in the class that we couldn't hang out anymore.

So, you know, I'm very interested in in terms of my parallel narrative along loving this movie, which I'll get back to the Buddhist moments. One is allowed long digressions on this podcast, so just go. That's cool. This is like a four hour episode. Yeah, yeah, take a time. I'm very interested in this space where people are trying to be good, mindful, spiritual, compassionate people, and we don't always know what to do. And there aren't actually teachings in the realm of psychology or the realm of Eastern spirituality or Western spirituality about like how to handle, like how should

one be a Buddhist kid or how should two Buddhist parents who realize that their relationships not working like my parents break up skillfully or should they stay together because they made a commitment or something like that? How would one commit suicide skillfully? What are the responsibilities of a Buddhist teacher to students, et cetera, as you brought up with Joe Guim Trinclah?

And then, I think later, talking about a Buddhist view of friendship, romance, and family, and using moments from the movie to kind of illustrate my own path with that. And I think the basic premise of the book is the Princess Bride comes in as kind of this playful, cultural narrative that's meant a lot to me and meant a lot to a lot of other people. But it's really about trying to navigate relationships from this space of compassionately not knowing. So if you just want me to give the spoiler, sometimes people think that the most Buddhist line in the movie is when Wesley, who's the

man in black or the dread pirate, Robert said that moment, says to his beloved buttercup who he's angry at. Life is pain-hinus, anyone who says different is selling something. But I think it's not quite the most Buddhist line because life is not just pain, but life includes pain. But the most Buddhist line in the movie I think is Fezic, Andre the Giants character, when the man in black is coming up the cliffs of insanity and Inigo, Montoya has agreed to to duel him and Fesec says to his best friend Inigo, you be careful, people in masks cannot be trusted.

That I think is the most Buddhist line of the movie. But tell me why. Because I think for me the path of mindfulness is about becoming more and more transparent with ourselves and who we are, and that's where actual presence and compassion and confidence in oneself. You're taking back the term on masking. Yeah, I mean, I do think that's what I think a lot of times people give up on meditation because they're like, okay, now I get to go through the world. I have this stressful life in the world.

And I get to give myself a better mask. Like I get to give myself a better defense system. Let it take a breath. Let it take a breath. And to realize, and this is where I actually love the teachings of Chokim Trunkpa, this notion of becoming more and more tender and more available to the world through practice and more authentic. You know, that's really one of the words that in the Shambhala tradition we talk about most often is authentic presence.

That's almost synonymous with this often misunderstood term, anata or anatman egolessness. How do you just be authentically you? And so that was, it was really important to share a lot of my personal struggles with friendship, romance, and family in the book, because I do think sometimes with both psychological and spiritual masters, the practices, the role of the teacher or the therapist is the master teacher or the therapist is the master or the master is like non-disclosure and

There's a there's a reason for not disclosing your own process because it might take the the focus off of the student or the client, but I actually think a lot of times we try to come across as a mirror for other people and we just end up looking like a brick wall. And I think for me, you know, with my teacher, when he talks about his own personal process, you know, when I've worked in therapy, actually hearing what the process is like for someone else, especially when you have all these myths about, like, there's this notion that the Dalai Lama must be great in relationships.

Well, I mean, I think the Dalai Lama is a great human being, a great teacher, but I'm hoping he would be the first to admit he's not that good at romantic relationships by, he's a monk, you know? So, and then you have this sort of Western romcom, which that's the other beautiful thing about the Princess Bride, is it totally kind of annihilates a romcom scenario by naming the Object of Afection Buttercup, which is just hilarious.

It's in a very male-dominated film, that's like the ultimate kind of undercutting of the Objectification of women of just making the whole thing ridiculous. I think we really have to work with like how do we become more and more vulnerable, authentic, and present with not knowing rather than like let's use mindfulness to create a new mask or a new defense mechanism because people who try it realize that doesn't work pretty quickly and they either blame the practice or blame themselves. And I think that's why people quit, to be honest. What's the Buddhist take on, have fun storming the castle?

That's the title of the conclusion of the book. I think it's a notion of joy, and just like actually the joy of direct experience and actually Experiencing things directly and I'm looking at life as more of Game than or as Chogun Trunk. I like to call it a cosmic joke rather than like Something that's so intensely serious. That's a great take on it. Yeah, I was asking the question as a joke But no, that's a great answer that it. I was asking the question as a joke, but you gave a great answer. That is the title of the conclusion of this book. That is how I would say one should approach

the issue of striving and ambition in our lives. All right, just see it as like your storm in the castle, Billy Crystal's exhorting you to have fun while doing it and realize that it's kind of a game and not a game at the same time. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

So there's a lot. If you pull a lot of, I mean, that's the thing about this movie. And it's just meme central, right? I mean, it's just, that's always my experience is like that when you even mention the movie, I mean, some people haven't seen it. And it's interesting. That's embarrassing. Some people haven't seen it and it's interesting that's embarrassing some people haven't seen it they know and they are in person like i know i should have been you didn't like the movie

uh... actually uh... my friend donken trussle uh... said he wrote a blurb for the uh... for the book and he said that if you read my book before getting into uh... horrible relationship with someone who loved the princess bride he probably would like the movie. So I took that as like super high price. Tainted circumstances. I think, well, I think the things we like

dislike our contextual to our own experiences, right? So that's the interplay of the memoir aspect of the book too. Have you met someone who didn't like it? No, and I have to say, in preparing for this interview to the extent that we're prepared, which is embarrassing. I realized that I actually attended, it was in part, I was part of the orchestration of a for Good Morning America of a reunion of the cast.

The Princess, right, a couple of years ago that I had completely forgotten I had done. I would say it was back in like 2009 or 10 or something like that. So Billy Crystal was there. Was it for the 25th anniversary? I have no idea. Probably. I don't know if you remember, but many minutes ago in some other conversation, part of some other tangent we were on, I said, I have a terrible memory.

I really have a terrible memory. So I don't know why. I don't even remember the other actors who were there. It was the woman who's now in House of Cards. Robin Wright. Yes, she was there. And also in Wonder Woman. Yes, she was a great Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman is a great movie, by the way. I have not seen it yet. Oh, it's really good. You've been a little busy. But I have to say, my wife and I are big getaways as we go see movies together. And we both really liked Wonder Woman. It's really good.

So they're cool. And they handle the, now we're really off in detention, but they handled the feminism part of it in such a really cool, subversive and often funny way. Anyway, Robin Wright was there and a few of the other actors were there and it was really cool to sit with them. And Billy Crystal, like, totally goes for it.

He'll say all of his lines, and he's as awesome as he might suspect. Wonderful. Yeah, I did get a chance to talk to Christopher Guest about the movie. I got a chance to talk to another friend to many Patanken for a really. He didn't show up at this reunion. He's a is he what's he like? I think he's amazing.

He was he was super kind. I mean, he does he have a Buddhist practice? So he's a he's a meditator. Yeah. He refers to himself as a jubu. Yeah. And, uh, get him on this podcast. All right. I would love to have many been hanging on his back. I will. I will. I'm a huge admirer of his. Yeah. I'm a big, I'm a, I'm a big, uh, homeland. My wife loves, loves him. Great. Sure. And, uh, yeah. I mean, I, I think it's kind of, he actually said, I told him the first line of my book, you know,

the famous line that Inigo says, hello to the six-finger man, hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die. So the first line of the Dharma, the Princess Bride, is hello, my name is Ethan Nickturn, the six-finger man was my father's best friend, prepare to read.

And I said that to him, and he said, well, I'm getting a little bit choked up because he is apparently a fairly intensive method actor. And he said that he was, I can't remember how old he said he was when he was filming, but the Prince has cried. But he said he spent a few months before convincing himself that the six-finger man had actually killed his father. Not Amigo's father, Mandy Patengen's father. And so the reason I talked to Mandy Patengen

is because he had written this op-ed piece for time, because, you know, who wanted the biggest, this is one of the funniest sort of interconnected interdependent aspects of this movie to me. One of the biggest fans of the Princess Bride is. Senator Ted Cruz, you can look this up on YouTube or anything. Does amazing impressions of pretty much all the characters. I really liked his Miracle Max impression.

He's like wowing the Oklahoma City newspaper board with his Princess bride impressions and Mandy Patenghen who's a more New York progressive person as a my. I think what he wrote was it irritated him and but he really used it as a commentary on how the movie's not really about revenge, even though his character is seeking revenge against my father's best friend, which is another interesting interconnection, and how he really realized that revenge doesn't work through reflecting on the on the movie. And you know I took a playful swipe at Ted Cruz impersonating Miracle Max because you know when Miracle

Max's heart is touched by true love in the movie and this very clearly happens he does offer accessible health care to the poor. Ted Cruz not so much. So you know I think there's a, it's interesting how the narratives that we love allow and they sort of mask a lot of like, cognitive dissonance, that's the other thing is you can love something and realize like, oh wow, that's interesting.

Like, I don't know that Atlas shrugged, you know, as a kid reading that, would know that that's a huge libertarian. Bob Red, Atlas Shrugged as a kid. Or as a college kid. College kid. Still tough to get through it. Yeah.

It was tough to get through. Yeah. In closing, I just want to point out that, well, you believe, and I agree with you, that Romcoms can sometimes set up faulty expectations about romance, you know as you said before you find your Perfect match and then the credits roll For a guy who's struggled quite openly with relationships things are working out reasonably well for you I mean seven days ago. You had a baby. You got this book coming out. You're happy marriage. It's like You know, I'm not bad. I know it's you know, it not like credit's rolling or anything like that, but you know, muzzle.

Yeah, no, and so it's, it's thank you so much. Yeah, Marissa, I refer to her as the real Buttercup, which is, you know, because Buttercup is, it's a myth, the notion that you're going to, and I think that's what the title Buttercup refers to is this notion of objectification, of sort of the deification of romance, which Buddhism is a non-theistic religion,

religion really, or tradition, I don't really consider it a religion, refers to this notion that we're not gonna find an external savior, like we are gonna find support, we might find support from the cosmos, who knows the rules that really govern the cosmos But nothing's really gonna save us from dealing with our own heart and mind and that's a central premise to to Buddhist thought and every Buddhist practice and so

Really the romcom myth is played against this notion of how we actually you know Even though we live in an increasingly agnostic atheistic society there, that a lot of people think like, I mean, a lot of people think the new iPhone is going to save them, you know, and that's the way that the press conference that unveils the new iPhone often goes down, like it's actually looks like a church gathering. But we often feel like if I find the right person, I won't have to deal with myself anymore. And so I love Buttercup, and I talk about the quest for Buttercup in interesting late 20th or early 21st century Buddhist context. I love the way that it kind of undercuts that quest for salvation. So then I do refer to my wife, who I've been with for the last four wonderful years,

Marissa as the real Buttercup, just to bring another layer of irony to the whole thing. And she does have eyes like the sea after a storm. But things are going well. Yeah, she's and I'm very I'm incredibly she's a meditator and I identify as a Buddhist as well. You know we have in some ways very similar spiritual paths I think in some ways, very similar spiritual paths, I think in some ways, very distinct, but I'm super impressed. And, you know, she's a very creative person. She works full time.

I do have to say I am super impressed by what working mothers actually do. That is completely uncredited. Just the notion that you are a completely equal person in this world And then all of a sudden it's almost like a transformer your body just turns into this factory and You know sort of regulator for another human experience and she's just she's handled that process like kind of Kind of like are you just showing off? You know? so

You know and we often don't understand each other, you know, she's a Libra, she likes her world very well organized, I'm a cancer, so I get my feelings hurt sometimes, and but I think we have really good, I think that is the key to mastering a relationship is finding the mode of communication that works for you and developing the trust to actually want to commit to it. So we've been married for a little over a year and Sharon Salzburg officiated our wedding. I call her the impressive clergywoman. She must pronounce marriage.

But it's been really wonderful. And I think a lot of my struggles with just sort of learning who I am and learning how to be, communicate and really looking at the beauty of relationships has really, yeah, led to a really workable, if not awakened, then at least, awakening relationship relationship. So yeah, I feel very lucky. Congrats on everything. Thank you for being such a great guest, even though you're seven days out from having a baby and I'm sure sleep deprived and my best too,

is he and your wife? Thank you so much. It's great to be here. Okay, that does it for another edition of the 10% Happier Podcast. If you liked it, please take a minute to subscribe, 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 Cohan, 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 abcnewspodcast.com. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. 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 add 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.