Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - A Radical Strategy for Dealing With Difficult People | Father Gregory Boyle

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

We deal with difficult people over holiday meals, at work, and online. This guest says there is only one answer.Father Gregory Boyle is an American Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in the world. He has received the California Peace Prize and been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. In 2014, the White House named Boyle a Champion of Change. He received the University of Notre Dame’s 2017 Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics. He is the author of The Whole Language, Tattoos on the Heart, and Barking to the Choir. In this episode we talk about:How Homeboy Industries began 34 years agoBoyle’s practices for working with stress What he means when he says you have to put death in its placeMotivating people through joy rather than admonitionHow to catch ourselves when we’re about to demonize or be judgmental How to set boundariesHow to dole out consequences without closing the doors to anybodyAnd, Father Boyle’s expansive and inclusive notion of GodSign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter hereFollow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTokTen Percent Happier online bookstoreSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelOur favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular EpisodesFull Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/gregory-boyle-rerunSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's the 10% happier podcast on your host, Dan Harris. Hello everybody, when I first heard about today's guest, I was, and this is not unusual for me, I was a little bit skeptical and dismissive, but his work has had a genuinely profound impact on my life, and that was only reinforced by this interview, which you're about to hear. A book by Father Gregory Boyle, who's my guest today, was first recommended to me by Joseph Goldstein, the great meditation teacher who's been on the show many, many times. And if I'm honest, my initial reaction to that book suggestion was negative because,

as you can tell by his name, Father Boyle is a priest. To be clear, it's not that I'm, you know, incurably hostile to religion. It's more of that as a skeptic who was raised by atheist scientists and the people's Republic of Massachusetts. I generally don't think of organized religion as a source of practical answers to my problems. My resistance to Father Boyle was exacerbated by the fact that the argument that he was advancing in his book was the idea of loving people no matter what, no matter how obnoxious or unacceptable their behavior. To me, that sounded simultaneously treakly and downright impossible. But Father Boyle has been testing this notion in some of the most extreme circumstances imaginable.

For decades, he's been working with gang members in Los Angeles. He is a Jesuit priest who founded a remarkable organization called Homeboy Industries, which is the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation and reentry program in the world. The book that Joseph recommended to me and that I ended up really enjoying is called Tattoos on the Heart, but Father Boyle's latest book is called The Whole Language. This episode is

part of a series called Deep Cuts, where we rerun popular interviews from our vast archive heads up before we dive in here that the audio quality right at the beginning of this conversation is a bit uneven, but it does smooth out as we progress. Time for BSP, blatant self-promotion. I want to remind you, I just started a new newsletter. This is kind of an experiment and admittedly a many years late to the newsletter game, but I would love if you would sign up, we've put a link in the show notes. Also over on the 10% happier app, a reminder that we've got more than 500 guided meditations

and courses from some of the best teachers in the world if you want to navigate the holiday season with a little bit more sanity, this week you can take advantage of our lowest price of the year. Subscriptions at a 40% discount until December 1st. Get this deal before it ends by going to 10% dot com slash 40. That's 10% one word all spelled out.com slash 4-0. When you find something you love, you stick with it. Like this podcast. And like working out with Peloton.

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All access membership separate. Terms apply. Hello listeners, this is Mike Corey of Against the Odds. You might know that I adventure around the world while recording this podcast. And over the years, I've learned that where I stay when I travel can make all the difference. Airbnb has been my go-to place for finding the perfect accommodations. Because with hotels, you often don't have the luxury of extra space or privacy. Recently, I had a bunch of friends come down to visit in Mexico. We found this large house and the place had a pool, a barbecue, a kitchen,

and a great big living room to play cards. Watch movies and just chill out. It honestly made all the difference in the trip. It felt like we were all roommates again. The next time you're planning a trip, whether it's with friends, family or yourself, check out Airbnb. To find something you won't forget. I'm Rob Briden and welcome to my podcast, Briden and we are now in our third series. Among those still to come is some Michael Paling, the comedy duo Egg and Robbie Williams. The list goes on. So do sit back and enjoy. Bryden and on Amazon Music, Wondery Plus or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a long time fan. As is my long time meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein who introduced me to your work and

talks about you quite a bit. You've been quite influential for him and so by extension for me. So again, long way of saying, I'm really happy to meet you. Thank you. I thought maybe it would make sense for listeners who don't know much about you to start with a little bit of history of homeboy industries. Can you tell me how it got started and what it's doing today? Yeah, homeboy started in 1988 when it was pastor of the poorest parish in Los Angeles

and it was nestled in the middle of two very large public housing projects, Peaco Gardens and Eliso Village. And at the time, it was the largest grouping of public housing west of the Mississippi. So we had eight gangs at war with each other, which is unheard of in public housing. And so consequently, I started to bury kids first in 1988. And four weeks ago, I buried a kid named Jacob. And he was my 255th kid that I buried who was killed because of gang violence. So we just started a school because there were so many junior high-age gang members who had been given the boot from their homeschool.

Nobody wanted them. And so the school led it to a jobs program where we tried to find felony-friendly employers. And then we couldn't find that many of those. So we started a maintenance crew, a landscaping crew, a graffiti removal crew, a crew to build our childcare center at the church, all made up of members of the eight rival gangs. And then after the unrest, long story short, a movie producer bought an old bakery

that had ovens that didn't work. And so we started at Homeboy Bakery. So now we're the largest gang intervention rehab reentry program on the planet. So about 15,000 folks a year wander through our doors in our headquarters in Chinatown. But now we have 10 social enterprises, restaurants, recycling, silk screening. But it's kind of a full service thing. Healing is probably the center piece of it. There's 18-month training program, which is more healing centric than anything else.

So we've been doing that for 34 years. It's incredible what you've done. You and your team and everybody who's participated. It has to be a stressful job to put it extremely mildly. And you've been doing it for more than three decades. How do you live with the stress and sadness and all the other emotions that must accompany this work? I don't want to say there are tricks that They're more your practice, you know, which is to stay anchored in the present moment and to somehow delight in the people who are in front of you.

We had a stressful week last week. People are just, they're kind of in afraid and their nerves are kind of jostled and jagged edges. And so it takes just about anything to get people to be triggered and to start fights or arguments or you're having to separate people. So we had kind of some moments last week that were quite stressful. There's that. And then there's bearing kids which continues. And you know, you just have to kind of put death in its place, which is always important as part of your practice, so that it doesn't have power over you. It doesn't mean you don't feel grief. I mean, you allow it in and make room for it, but you're not toppled by it.

Can you say more about putting death in its place? What do you mean by that specifically? Well, you know, I remember there was a homie named Moreno, whose brother was gunned down and died in his arms. And the guys who shot him came back to make sure that they both were dead. And so he pretended that he was dead. And when he came back to work, he worked at homeboy and I called him into my office. We were talking about the death and He said death is a punk

And that's really not different from Jesus in scripture death Where is your staying and death has no power of us over us and death couldn't hold them was another passage So when one in or himself maybe five years later was gunned down in the street, he was playing football with a bunch of neighborhood kids and someone came in and saw him and killed him. And he was much beloved and people were just sobbing. And we had our

morning meeting and I quoted him and said, death is a punk. You have to kind of decide what are the things that are more powerful than death. And what are the fates worse than death? And those are two very important lists for every human being to compile. And there are plenty of obviously plenty of things more powerful than death. And there are plenty of fates worse than death. And so putting death in its place is somewhere low, low on the list.

So that death has no power, no sting. So, I mean, you're always trying to kind of have a practice that leads you to an internal freedom, you know, like the Dalai Lama, when he was asked about his own personal death, he said, change of clothing. And that's where you want to be. I'll have what he's having.

So that's kind of an important piece, I think. What's on your list of the things that are more powerful than death and the fates that are worse than death? Well, I mean, the most powerful thing in the world is discovering your true self in loving. And nobody can touch you then. Death is a punk truly then. So that's the whole thing is to be able to find your true self in loving. Once you find that, you know, you're sturdy. And of course, the world is going to throw at you what it will, but You won't ever be toppled if you're that sturdy if you're that resilient born of

I know my true self and it is in loving and That's hugely more powerful Of course not knowing that is a fate worse than death and so you know at home boy It's like the Buddhist thing, you know, oh, nobly born, remember who you really are. So, we're always trying to remind people of the truth of who they are so that they will inhabit that truth and they will become that truth. And no bullet can pierce that and no four prison walls can keep that out.

And death has no power over that because it's that huge. So that's the goal, you know. At home boy, the idea is you create a safe place where people can be seen and then they can be cherished. And so systems change when people change and people change when they're cherished. So I think neuroscience has taught us that human beings are, you know, they're inclined to believe the worst about themselves and the worst about each other. And you can actually change that hardwiring.

You know, if people are cherished, they can come to see oh, nobly born. They can remember who they really are. You do this mutually, you do this with each other and people inhabit their common dignity and nobility in each other's presence. It's utterly reliable. Okay. Well, you've said about 75 things that I need to follow up on. Raise yourself.

Let's go back to discovering your true self in loving because I can hear two potential thoughts arising in the minds of listeners in response. One is, what does that actually mean? How do I grok that beyond the grand phraseology? And second is, if I understand it, how do I actually do that? How do I discover my true self in loving? Well, you know, I'd hopefully were allergic

to the idea of hold the bar up and ask people to measure up. We're completely allergic to it. And part of that is for me, that's sort of based on a God who doesn't ask you to measure up. We're completely allergic to it. And part of that is for me, that's sort of based on a God who doesn't ask you to measure up, just to show up to your truth. And once you know that love never stops loving, then you know that's where the joy is.

Everything is always an invitation to joy. It's not about, gee, I wish you were a better person today than you were yesterday. People talk that way. Homies will text me and they'll say, A.G. help me to become a better man. And I always say the same thing. I said, you could not be one bit better. So how do we get people to a place where they see who they are, where they acknowledge that truth? They will eventually, if they're cherished enough. And so that's the hope, is that somehow we'll be able to hold the mirror up and return people to themselves.

And the soul feels its worth, as the song says. And so you want people to know that they are unshakably good, and that they belong in this community of beloved belonging. So you're taking these people who've had just the worst possible beginnings to their life, just not given what we all need to thrive in terms of emotional and material educational support and you're loving them into loving themselves and others. we all need to thrive in terms of emotional and material educational support. And you're loving them into loving themselves and others. That's right. And the promise isn't to do good and avoid evil.

What you really want to assure them is this is where the joy is. And so the hope is that people will gravitate where the joy is. You're not asking them to engage in some grim duty. It's really, it's about my joy yours, your joy complete, as Jesus said. And so it's always invitation. It's not invention. It's always getting them to a place where they see themselves as God does and then consequently see each other in the same way, with an open-hearted, expansive, spacious, loving heart. And then they stop caring about, will anybody return that love? Then you go, oh no, it's not even about that. That the truth is it's about love that never stops loving. And love never stops loving comes from

the one Corinthians where it says love never fails and I read a translation recently that said love never stops loving and I like that way better because it's not about failure or success. It's about constancy. It's about never stopping. That's your practice. Your practice is to never stop doing that. I wanna pick up on that in a second, but just you keep doing this to me where you say so many interesting things that I don't wanna lose any threads. But when you talk about not holding up a bar

and requesting that the people you work with, vault it, it just reminded me, I mean, I know a lot more about Buddhism than I do about Christianity. But the Buddha, one of the things I like about him is that he is pretty consistently speaking to the pleasure centers of the brain, just the way you're talking about motivating people through joy rather than admonition.

Yeah, and that's why it's a kind of invitation, as opposed to wagging our finger at people. Again, I come from kind of a Christian and then a kind of specific Jesuit and then with a side order of Buddhism. But I feel like, you know, I remember years ago I was at a conference and I was speaking at the conference, but I was also a participant. So I was sitting down and listening to the other speakers. And some guy got up and he just pounded the podium about some gang intervention program

somewhere in the country and he was just berating the audience. And he pounced on the podium and he says, listen people, this works. And I remember writing in my program, yeah, but I bet it doesn't help. And I went back and I looked at that and I thought, why did I write that? And I think part of the deal is, like, discovery over, you know, almost 40 years working with gang members,

is not everything that works helps. But everything that helps works. So, I mean, speaking from a Christian perspective, we backed this unfortunate horse, which was the sin horse, and Catholics only went to mass every Sunday, because they were afraid they'd go to hell if they didn't. So, did it work? Yes. Did it help? No. And I think that's an important thing because you're talking about the Buddha, basically, the stance is invitation.

Hey, come on in, the water's fine, sort of. As opposed to, you know, you better watch out. You better not pout. You know, I mean, it's like, get your act together. Otherwise, this will be consequential and bad. I just feel like if we just as a society did the things that help, but we don't get it. Wherever you start is where you're going to end up. If you think there's such a thing as good people and bad people, well, that tells you exactly where you're going to end up. bad people. Well, that tells you exactly where you're going to end up. If you think some people belong and some people don't, well, then you're equally doomed. Mother Teresa used

to say, the problem in the world is we've forgotten that we belong to each other. So there are no exceptions to the belonging, none zero. And everybody is unshakably good, and there's no exceptions to that. Sometimes my Buddhist friends will say, you know, essential goodness or basic goodness. But I never say that. I always say unshakably good, because you want people to know that that's the anchor and returning to that truth is what the human journey is about. It's not about achieving goodness. You're already good,

but if you lived from that goodness, no, that would be a different story. So it's an invitation, which is helpful, as opposed to wagging our fingers, which may work in the short term, but it's never helpful. I love that distinction between what works and what helps. But you've talked a lot about our unshakable goodness, and that is one of the assertions that you hear from many Buddhists as well, Buddha nature, et cetera, et cetera. But how do you actually know where essentially good, especially given the fact that one needs given the fact that one needs do no more than turn on the news to see our capacity for bad or evil or whatever it is you want to call it. Yeah, I believe in horrible. I just don't believe in evil. And part of that is gang members

have helped me see that. So, you know, 40 years, I know lots of gang members, I know lots of people who have done lots of things. I've never met anybody evil. I've met people disfondant. I've met traumatized, broken, wounded, and I've met, you know, deeply profoundly mentally ill people. But I've never met anybody evil. And I've seen a lot of horrible things. There's no question about that. But, you know, nobody healthy shoots up a subway train in Brooklyn and nobody healthy invades Ukraine. I mean, it's about health and none of us are well until all of us are well. And so, like Ram Das talks about, we're all just walking each other home.

And we're loving each other into wholeness. And the wholeness is there. How do we help people in community to feel more and more cherished? I mean, that just alters the hardwiring and people's brain, it's like brain health. And you can really change this thing. I mean, I've seen it happen only all the time.

I remember a probation officer many years ago talking about a kid named Fernie and she said, don't even try to help that kid. I said, why? And I liked this woman. She was a friend. She said, don't even try to help him. I said, why?

And she said, because he's pure evil. And I remember I was young in those days and I had hair and I didn't fully grasp the whole thing, but I knew she was completely wrong. And that if you think there's such a thing as good guys and bad guys, yikes. And now I look at this kid and he's not a kid anymore. He's got two sons, both of them are severely autistic. He's hardworking, he loves his wife. He's just one of the most gentle, heroic souls I've ever known. And this is what we do to each other

and wow, is it unfortunate? It's just a crazy way to see the world and to see each other. And so I do believe in horrible. Like you say, just turn on the news and you're going to see horrible. But what if we saw it as God does or what if we recognize Buddha nature in everybody? And you go, well, I think morality has never kept us moral.

It's only kept us from each other. And so how do we tame that, the high moral distance that we create between us and them? Well, it's the very distance of the us and them that's really contrary to what we would hope for. How do we bridge the distance? How do we ensure there is no daylight that separates us? And certainly Buddhism would assert that separation is an illusion. And indeed it is. And so you want to get to a place where it's exquisitely mutual and people are really adjoined. It's just us. We had our huge homeboy family picnic, which has many, many, many hundreds of people. And again, it's black and brown, and it's just chock full of enemies. And they all brought their kids

and everybody wore this t-shirt, and it just says, just us, but it's just the word just and the J and the T are black, but the us is red. And so it says, just us, all contained in this one word. And anyway, it's a powerful symbol every year when we gather, because these are all people who shot at each other one time or another, and now they're playing with each other's kids. Coming up, Father Gregory Boyle talks about whether he's ever had to cut somebody loose. He talks about the most spacious and expansive notion of God and how he thinks about boundaries. Everyone leaves the legacy. I like Mr Gorbachev. We can do business together.

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But to varying degrees, that's true for the rest of us. It could be an obnoxious brother-in-law. for the rest of us. It could be an obnoxious brother-in-law. It could be a difficult colleague, it could be people we see on the news. And so I'm just wondering, what do you say to the rest of us who are struggling with finding ourselves in loving in the midst of a world that seems to be designed

for hatred and division? of a world that seems to be designed for hatred and division. My friend, Pema, Jojran, talks about you catch yourself. And so part of the invitation is to catch yourself. Our hired wiring would direct us to demonizing. Well demonizing is always the opposite of the truth. So catch yourself. And at no point are you co-signing on bad behavior, you're just saying two certain things. Everybody's unshakably good and we belong to each other.

Now, let's roll up our sleeves. How do we help people? How do we pay attention? How do we notice people before they're buying high-powered weapons. And how do we include people? How do we move people out of the isolation that depletes their sense of hope? How do we infuse people with hope for whom hope is foreign? Suddenly, it changes how you do it. Otherwise, I guess I get frustrated with it. You know, it's like a man assaults an aged Asian woman

on the streets of San Francisco and we talk about hate, but, and this is why we don't make progress because it's self-congratulatory. I'm against hate and I'm in favor of what? Love, congratulations. But if this guy belongs to us, then it's about health. It's not about evil. It's not about winning the argument. It's not about denouncing hate, because then

it's about me. How do we help each other? How do we walk each other home? How do we love each other into wholeness? And it's kind of why we don't make progress. You know, I was reading a book the other day, Matthew Doubt, and he asserts that the reason it took 100 years from the end of reconstruction to Emmett Till, he says because one third of the American people did not believe that all men and women are created equal. And then he said, why did it take whatever, 60 years from Martin Luther King to Donald Trump?

He says, because one third of the American people still don't believe that all men and women are created equal. Well, I think he's pointing out the right thing. Now point the way. You know, are they bad, evil, stupid, jerks, or do they belong to us and they are unshakably good? Well, then that's where I'm going to vote. Nobody well or whole or healthy has ever believed that not all men and women are created

equal. So it's about health and not about hate. It's not about morality. It's not about morality. It's about wholeness and how do you help people find the joy there is in being well? I think it's not about hate. I think it's about health. And some people are strangers to themselves.

And that's obviously problematic. And that's the whole point of, as we were saying earlier, finding your true self in loving. Does that make any sense? I mean, I think it's beautiful. I want to unpack it even further. Just to say Matthew Dowd is a friend. He used to be a political consultant worked for George W. Bush,

probably most famously and then was an ABC News analyst, where I met him because I worked there for 20 years. And Matthew and I had spent a lot of time together on and off the air. Yeah, no, he's great. And I see him all the time on a variety of shows. And I thought that was an interesting point. It is. And so that gets me to where I wanted to go. And maybe this wings us back to Pemetrodren, who has been on the show before too, and I'm like you, I'm a fan of hers. I believe you said she's got a phrase, check yourself or something along those lines. No, it's catch yourself. I mean, in a lot of other contexts, she says it. It's

when you're inclined to kind of do things or go somewhere or to demonize or you know the list is long. It's part of your practice is to catch yourself before your judgmental. How do you stand in awe at what people have to carry rather than in judgment at how they carry it? So you're catching yourself all the time. It's hard to do. I wouldn't want to suggest that this is in any way simple, but it's really hard to catch yourself and to be attentive to that all the time. People in recovery will say one day at a time and I always think, well, that's way too long. You know, and I think even a minute, it's just one minute at a time.

Well, even that. So I've kind of reduced it to one minute at a time. Well, even that. So I've kind of reduced it to one breath at a time. With every breath you take, you're catching yourself. It's hard at home, boy, because people will color outside the lines. And you have to catch yourself and say, OK, what language is that behavior speaking to me? And that's hard, because you want to say, well, he knows

what he's doing. And he's just trying you know you want to say, well, he knows what he's doing and he's just trying to pull the wool over my eyes and he's violent because he's a jerk and catch yourself. And of course, always just presume that the answer to every question is compassion, but you can't do that once and for all. You can't do that as you pray and you sit in the morning, whatever your practice is, and you're good to go for the day. No, it's not one day at a time. It really is every breath you take, you cherish, which keeps you from judging.

Do you ever mess this up? Only all the time. I mean, my God. That's why I think, you know, it's frustrating for us because we think we arrive at some answer and we're good to go. But that's why they call it a practice. You really have to work at it. And you constantly have to. I'm kind of a man of mantras. Mantras always returned me to the present moment and I try to fill the space that way with a variety of things that will, you know, kind of mantras that will kind of remind me

to delight in the person in front of me, to listen, to notice, to be the notice of God in the world. All easier said than done. Well, I mentioned Joseph Goldstein before, who you may or may not know, an incredible meditation teacher. He too is a man of mantras, just for anybody who doesn't know what a mantra is, but it's a word that can have a lot of meanings, but one of them is just a sort of a useful phrase

that you return to as a North Star, a pole star for your own behavior and thinking and actions. And one of Joseph's mantras is from you, which is love no matter what. Now the first time I heard that, I thought, okay, well, that just sounds a little, I don't know, trickle or impossible or both. But I find it very useful when I'm confronted with somebody who I am very tempted to demonize,

either for silly reasons having to do with interpersonal whatever or for big ideological political reasons because I'm seeing them on the news and I find them obnoxious or harmful. So I just, I'd love to hear you say more about love no matter what and how what your thoughts are about. I know you like to don't like to hold up bars for us to vault over, but how we can use this as a way not to beat ourselves up for failing to vault over, but how we can use this as a way not to beat ourselves up for failing to vault over the bar, but as a way to direct ourselves toward joy.

Yeah, more of my expression is with a no matter whatness. And I think I use it when I talk about the one false move, God, or the no matter whatness of God. There's a kind of a no matter whatness, but it shouldn't be that hard for people to kind of connect to because, and I don't really recall ever saying that it's to love no matter what, it's with a no matter whatness because parents and grandparents, there's a decided no matter whatness. So then pretty soon disappointment and discouragement is not part of your vocabulary because everything's with a no matter whatness. No matter what, you know, I'm always there. Gangbubbers have an expression till the wheels fall off and they love that.

They'll say, I'm in your corner till the wheels fall off. But even beyond that, because we've all owned Joloppies in our days where wheels actually have fallen off. But even beyond that, no matter what, I'm gonna be there. And it's tough. Like the other day I mentioned, we had a hard week. And then there was a kid came in having a bad day and he just bombed on this guy. They just, big ol' brawl, leaving each other with big ol' black eyes. And then I already

know how this goes. They separated him. He was just blind with rage. So I had to kind of grab him and push him up against the car and I had to say, cut this shit out and he calmed down and a car came to retrieve him and he got in the car. Well, I already know how he's going to feel that worse than the black eye and the bruises is will I cut him loose? And so I'm immediately texting him and you're trying to convey a no matter whatness. Not wow. Did you ever disappoint me today? He doesn't need that.

He already knows that that's the expected response So then two days later You know, we asked to see me and so I set up a time when nobody else was around because he's in a moment in his life where he doesn't play well with others So he came to my office on Sunday and it was just so beautiful because you want to be able to say that the day won't ever come when I won't be proud to call you my son. The day won't ever come when I cut you loose. The day is simply won't ever happen where I say, well, that's it for me. And that's not such a big deal. Parents do it only every day.

So anyway, it was very healing and I don't feel like that's one I have to manufacture. You know, I've never felt like they were just words. And it's an easy thing to do because if you see people who they are and you know, they're pain and they know, you know what they carry. This kid has just been so banged up and so abused and so neglected and violated. And that's the whole point is if enough cherishing happens, then it really alters the brain chemistry. Have you ever had to cut anybody loose? Do you ever feel like people are taking advantage of your no matter what?

No, I never feel that. I remember once I was interviewed by Anderson Cooper. And he asked me a question about he says the cops say that gang members take advantage of you. And so I said, well, how can they take my advantage if I'm giving my advantage? So years later, he came back and we were in the whole boy bakery. And before we started the film, he says, you know, all my friends always say that people are taking advantage of me. And I always quote you. He said, and I say, well, do I get any residuals for this quote?

But again, it's like, no, I never happened. That's never happened where now we let people go. But we always say, oh my God, we love you. Come back when you're ready. It's a little bit like rehab. Everybody's met people who've gone to 20 rehabs. And it takes not because the rehab is finally good. It takes because somebody has finally surrendered.

And the gang members who run homeboy industries, all of them took them three, four tries before they settled into Not resisting their own goodness and coming to terms with what was done to them and coming to terms with what they've done And now they have the courage of their own tenderness They've chosen to walk in their own footsteps and it's quite remarkable to watch because they've chosen to walk in their own footsteps. And it's quite remarkable to watch. But then you want to be a sturdy, rock solid place that they can return to when they are ready.

None of it has anything to do with goodness or morality. It just has to do with ready, and that's kind of neutral. From your perspective, though, and from the perspective of anybody who aspires to a no matter whatness, that does not, if I'm here, you correctly, preclude wise boundaries. You may at times have to send people away. Exactly.

So people are always kind of nervous about responsibility, personal responsibility, accountability, boundaries. And I think it's less of an issue than people really insist that it needs to be. And we do battle internally at home, boy, all the time. Give them his last check, you know. So people are inclined to do that, but I think it's always a measure of, you know, if the people have done the work, if they've welcomed their own wound, they will not be tempted to despise the wounded.

And so that's what you want to foster in your leadership, people who can recognize wound and pain. And rather than this guy said, jerk, let's give him his last check. Years ago, I can remember we have homeboy silk screen and embroidery and it's a factory that's kind of off campus but it's been around for, I don't know, 30 years or something. So the guy who runs it, he called me one day and he says, you know that guy, hector.

The guy you sent me and I said, yeah. And he goes, well, he doesn't wanna be here. I said, well, where is he right now? Well be here. I said, well, where is he right now? Well, here. I said, well, trust me, if he didn't want to be there, he wouldn't be there. Now, how is he there? He's hard-headed and belligerent and attitudinal.

Yeah. But he's there. The world operates differently. And I always reject the notion where people say, shouldn't you be preparing them for the real world? And my response is, who says the real world got this right? I'd much rather be a counter space to the world. Homeboy is trying to be the front porch of the house everybody wants to live in.

How do you propose a different way of belonging and a community of tenderness and a community of beloved belonging where people receive the tender glance and then they choose to become that tender glance in the world. And I just think how that's how the world changes. You know, you stole from the tip jar. I mean, whatever it is, you do, I suppose, have consequences, but you never close the door to anybody. And we've had people do kind of horrendous things, but it's part of our DNA at home boy.

Well, no matter what this is, part of our DNA. Yeah, come back when you're ready because we think you're just amazing. And one day they'll believe it and they'll come back. Coming up, Father Boyle talks about the story behind the title of his latest book, why we burn out when we make our actions all about heroically saving the day, and why he does not focus on outcomes. What a life these celebrities lead. Imagine walking the red carpet,

the cameras in your face, the designer clothes, the worst dress list, big house, the world constantly peering in, the bursting bank account, the people trying to get the grubby mitts on it. What's he all about? I'm just saying, being really, really famous.

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Hey everybody it's Dan on 10% happier I like to teach listeners how to do life better. I want to try. Oh hello Mr. Grinch What would make you happier? Ah, let's see. And out of business sign at the North Pole, or a nationwide ban on caroling and noise, noise, noise. What would really make me happy is if I didn't have to host a podcast. That's right, I got a podcast too. Hi, it's me, the Grand Puba of Bahambad, the OG Green Grump, the Grinch. From Wondery, Tis the Grinch Holiday Talk Show is a pathetic attempt by the people of

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You've used the word God a couple of times. And I think this will be no surprise to you. You know this, but a lot of people in this audience, my audience, will find that word a little triggering. And you write about in your most recent book, you write about some of your conversations with the aforementioned Pema Children, a legendary Buddhist nun who said, and I'm going to quote you here,

you write, my friend Pema Children, one evening at UCLA said the quiet part out loud. While you were speaking, Greg, I kept thinking I wish he'd stopped talking so much about God. And she has said, and this is quoting her here, that what was appealing to her about Buddhist teachings is that these are her words, our basic nature of mind and heart is open. The Bodhisattva, which is the ideal of somebody who is committed to alleviating the suffering of all beings. The Bodhisattva wants to remove the greatest level of suffering,

which is what gives rise to deep hatred. But why do you have to attribute this work to something like God or something seemingly outside? So I just wonder, how do you respond when she and others say things like this to you? Well, I mean, that night it was an evening with Pembroke children and Greg Boyle, and so there were people in the audience like myself who believed in God. So I said, obviously, I don't think it's preposterous to believe in God. I'm just trying to get people to stop believing in a preposterous God. And I think that's different.

And part of the thing as she got to the very end of the evening was she acknowledges as her own woundedness and as a Catholic. And I get it. Some of it is just tradition. Mysticism is an important thing to me. And of the mystical view of the world. I like people like Julian of Norwich and Ignatius of Loyola and Jonathan Cross and And so I like all this eclectic stuff like my friend Mirabai star Who says once you know the God of love you fire all the other gods

I like the activity of firing gods And I think it's a healthy thing to do but you know I come from my own tradition I don't feel threatened by anybody else's tradition. In fact, I always feel enriched. You know, we're all called to be bodhisattva. It's all the same. Language is important because it's kind of how we shape the road we're walking on. But unfortunately, people are so saddled by horrific notions. Richard Roar always says, it's true that you're created in the image and likeness of God, but it's equally true that our image of God creates us.

And so I'm kind of more interested in that is finding the most spacious, expansive notion so that it can create you. But people are triggered by their Neanderthal prehistoric notions or their third grade notions that keep holding them back. My spiritual director is the gang member named Sergio. In every morning we email, we both get up extremely early. He's married, has three daughters. He runs a program called God's Pantry,

which addresses food insecurity in Pomona, California. He used to work at homeboy a long time ago, drug addict gang member. So we just look at the readings from the day for mass. And whoever gets up earlier will write a kind of a reflection, a brief sentence, a couple sentences. And then he writes back and then I write back. Anyway, it's very enriching, but we're always encountering a God we don't believe in, the wrathful God, because they'll have

something from the Hebrew Bible or even stuff from the New Testament where you go, no. And he always says, you need to have the mystical filter. You know, you need to read all this stuff. It's kind of with a grain of salt and you read it and you go, yeah, I don't believe that. Oh, I do believe that. It's an acknowledgement that scripture is inspired, but it's also imperfect. It's human beings trying to do the best they can. How do they make sense of horrific things that have happened? Oh, well, God must be pissed off.

And you go, okay, nice try, not true. And it's never been true. It feels like a healthy exercise that gets you beyond your third grade God that still torments and keeps you in line. Maybe it worked, but it never helped. Right. So that's the preposterous God, the wrathful God, but how would you describe the not preposterous God? I mean, you've used the phrase, no matter whatness, but maybe you could put a few more words on what I imagine is the ineffable in terms of building out how you conceive of God.

The point is image is why you tell stories. You know, I had a friend who took care of his dad who was dying and he was quite old. And towards the end of his life, you know, he would read him to sleep in the way that his father had done so when he was a kid. But his father would just lie there and stare at his son with this smile. And the son was quite tired. It's like I've been taking care of you all there. I want to go to bed and please fall asleep. And the father would close his eyes, but then he couldn't help himself. He'd pop one eye open. And then after he died, my friend said, I realized that he just couldn't take his eyes off his kid. And so there you have an image. It's an image of God. Or a homey the other day was talking about how his father, and

fathers are always quite problematic for gang members, almost always. For this one kid, his father wasn't. He said he would show up every Sunday at visiting at Juneau Hall. And when he'd get up to leave, he had big tears in his eyes. And he would say, I'm never going to leave your side. And then these things become kind of the image of the God we actually have, rather than settling for some partial God. Or a homey who was just going through a horrendous time, and he can retrieve an image of his mom kind of rocking him while he's sobbing when he was little. And all she kept saying because it was

abusive father, drug addict, and quite abusive. And she would just say to him, I'm sorry, you have to go through this. Well again, then that becomes translated to, this is the God we actually have. I mean, I have a million images that come by way of people trying to put words to what it looks like. And, you know, the God who can't take her eyes off of you is a pretty good one. Behold the one, beholding you and smiling. Anyway, you know, because I think poetry, words, stories, it's the only thing we have. And you kind of say, it's like that.

But to any nation of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, used to say, you always said, the God who's always greater, which is to say always greater than whatever notion we land upon. And that's an important caveat, even when you land on it. No, it's even greater than that, which is always heartening, because then it sets you off on a scavenger hunt to find the even greater image. How do you know that there is a God and that if there is a God that he or she or they is the God that you think is not reposterous?

Is this just a matter of faith or where can you derive confidence? I don't need to have more confidence than I have. That's the other thing. People talk about, well, that moment kind of shook my faith. I don't need to have more confidence than I have. That's the other thing. People talk about, well, that moment kind of shook my face. I don't even get that. Everything is shaping your faith. So it's the thing that's shaped. It's never shaken.

And then talk about preposterous people. I can't believe it in the God because of this horrific thing that happened in it. And that's always a head scratcher for me. The poet Rumi says that love is God's religion. And that's what I believe in. It's an important kind of way to stay anchored in joy and in a mystical vision of seeing things in the most expansive way. And we've been saddled with a puny God for a long time. way and we've been saddled with a puny God for a long time and it's not very helpful. I don't know if I have to know. I remember a homegirl named Nelly. She had suffered more things. Anything that could be fall a human being had to be fallen or in prison all her kids taking away drug addict,

raped, engaged in sex trafficking, drug selling, gang banging. Anyway, she was in my office and there are two images here. One was she said, she needs some help, so I was writing her check for a pair of light bill or something. And then she leaned into me on the front of my desk, and she had big tears in her eyes, and she said, I wish you were God. And I laughed.

I said, why? She said, I wish you were God. And I laughed. I said, why? She said, I think you'd let me into heaven, which just broke my heart completely into, and it made me cry. And I leaned forward with big tears in my eyes. I said, Nelly, if I get to heaven and you're not there, I'm not staying. And I remember thinking there's a kind of sense that everybody has that whatever that means that you have a certainty that's unchakable that, you know, I don't want

to spend the rest of my life in a place that didn't allow Nelly. You know, of that, I'm utterly certain. The other image, she came to me when she was doing well and not getting high. And she had a dream that she was at a big old party, kind of a quinceignata, kind of party in a big hall. And she was dancing with God, which I just loved the image of it. And she said, all these other people, and then she goes out of her way to say, more important people than me, kept trying to cut in. And again, she got very emotional and she said, and God wouldn't let them. That the least people are trying to cut in and dance. And there's an

insistence that God wanted to keep dancing with her of all people. Anyway, it's an image. And then you kind of connect to it and you go, well, that's true. I know that that's true. And there are little things you land on where you want to get to a place where you say, that's what I believe. I couldn't quote the verse or something, but that's what I believe. And no one's going to dissuade me from the God who wants to dance with melly of all people. Coming up, Father Boyle, on the story behind the title of his latest book, why we burn

out when we make it all about saving the day and why he does not focus on outcomes. After this. I've done a terrible job in this interview of getting you to talk about your new book, which is called the whole language. What do you mean by the whole language? Well, Simon and Schuster hates my titles. God love them. And so every single one of my three books, they walked at my titles.

And all my titles come from things homies said. So tattoos on the heart comes from a homie. I had said something to him and we were on the phone and he was silent and he said, damn, I'm going to tattoo that on my heart. And so that was the title of the first one. The second book was called Barking to the Choir. And that was a homie who was one of our bakers who was kind of coloring outside the line. So I had to have the talk with him. And as I was having the talk about his attitude, he stopped me, he says, relax, you're barking to the choir. Which I loved. And I remember I wrote down, I said, title of my next book. And then the whole

language comes from a homey who was talking about one of his homies from his gang from his neighborhood who had come to this country at seven with his mother from Uzbekistan. And they were wanting to deport him. He had done a 10-year stretch in prison. He joined a Latino gang in Lincoln Heights. It's a long story, but I asked this guy, Louis, I said, hey, do you know this guy, David? He goes, oh, yeah, we call him Russian boy. And I was in jail with him. And he was my cellan. Every night, he would go out to the pay phone. And he would talk to his mom in Russian and he was very impressed with that. And then he said, damn, he spoke the whole language, which cracked me up because that was his way of saying,

fluent. And I thought, what is the thing we want to be fluent in? You know, what would be the whole language? So the subtitle is the power of extravagant tenderness So that's the thing we want to be fluent and we want to be Just anchored and loving kindness knowing that kindness is the only non-delusional response to everything which is to say All the other responses are delusional, rage, anger, self-righteousness,

high-horaciness, everything else is delusional, but kindness isn't. So that's kind of the whole language and it's a way of seeing, it's mystical, it's how do you find the thorn underneath? What are people carrying? Can you see the pain rather than judge behavior? So anyway, that's kind of the whole language. How do terms like loving kindness love, kindness tenderness? A word you used a lot in this conversation and as you referenced the part of the subtitle of your new book, how do these words go over with homies? You know, they get it.

It's not so much about words. The odd thing is, can't remember who was talking about this the other day, how startled they were. Somebody was visiting a Jesuit priest from Argentina. And he was just, he was being led around by a guy named Joseph and getting a tour and he was being led around by a guy named Joseph and getting a tour and he was showing him tattoo removal and where they do therapy and the classes and the bakery

and the homegirl cafe. He was walking him around, but every time he left a place where he had just shown this guy, he would hug somebody there, you know, in the tattoo removal. And these are big old gang members have been to prison. And he was telling me this, which we kind of take it for granted. But everybody was hugging each other. And as they left each other's presence, they would say, I love you. And it's kind of extraordinary. I come from a big Irish family where we didn't really do that. But everybody does it at home.

Boy, only all the time. It's just everybody's hugging each other and everybody's telling each other how much they love them. And it's just a constant thing. And this Jesuit in Spanish was telling me, it goes, by gosh, I never, this was so foreign. And I said, yeah, I guess it is, but it is a thing that absolutely happens only all the time.

So, I mean, the homies are quite comfortable with the fact of tenderness, and not sure they give speeches about tenderness, but they live as though that truth was true. And they put first things recognizably first, and they received the tender glance and then they move to offer that tender glance to somebody who could probably use it. So it's kind of second nature there. People notice it when they come in, you know, I'm not so sure we notice it all the

time because it's so natural. As reference to the subtitle, the power of extravagant tenderness. What exactly do you think its power is? Well, I think people soften each other into a corner where they don't resist stuff anymore. Like I was in Boston recently with a homie and I had to do, I think, a zoom or something and I sent these two homies out to see Boston and they'd never been on a plane, they'd never been anywhere. So this one guy saw wool was by himself at one point in front of a kind of an old courthouse or something. So he's taking a selfie and he's holding the phone out but right in front of him on a

park bench are two older guys kind of homeless guys. And one of the guys start screaming at him, don't take my picture. And the guy next to him, he goes, relax, he's taking the selfie. Well, Saul walks towards this hostility. And he just says to the two of them, my name Saul, I'm from Los Angeles. And he's covered in tattoos and he's scary looking big guy. And the guy kind of is screaming at him saying, I don't care where you're from. And this is my park. And I don't know what the calmer guy says, don't mind us. We're crazy. And Saul looks at him and he says, that's okay, I'm crazy too. And the three of them had this conversation

that was so tender and so cherishing of each other. That the moment came that he had to leave, he shook their hands, and the more hostile guy says to him, in a very soft voice, look, I've lived in Boston all my life. Do you need direction somewhere? And for me, that's what it looks like when you soften people into some corner where they are free to live from their true self in loving.

Now, where did he get this from? Well, I think Saul got it from being cherished and it's a thing he experienced every single day at homeboy. And again, it's utterly reliable. And he began like everybody did, you know, with their backup against the wall and not trusting anybody. But once he found the place to be safe, and once he knew that he was no longer being watched, but he was being seen, he was freed to be cherished and softened into this corner. And now he can do it.

And now there he was, so he didn't walk away from the hostility oddly. He walked right towards it. And when he told me that story, I thought, yeah, that's how it works. That's how it's supposed to evolve, where you receive it, and then you offer it. And it's funny when we flew home and he had given many talks and he had never done this before,

told his story in front of thousands of people and got standing ovation. We were flying and the other guy with us was sound asleep, but he leaned over to him and he says, you know, I think I want to learn how to talk fancy. Yeah, I said, talk fancy. He goes, yeah, what's that language? They'd be speaking when the guy is going off to work

and he looks back at his wife and kids on the front porch and he waves at them and he says, Tata. I said, I don't know, English, British, but I knew exactly what he meant. That talk fancy meant a more full inhabiting of his truth that he had had an experience of telling it in front of audiences. He had an experience of walking right toward hostility and being tender in the face of it. He had this palpable experience of the power of cherishing another human being with every breath you take.

You know, let's all talk fancy and it's like the whole language. It's like being articulate in your own tenderness and dang anchored in the courage of that. Last question from me earlier in this interview, you said something about that's the way the world changes. I just curious, how optimistic are you that the world is going to change via love, tenderness, no matter whatness? Brock Obama at the end of his term said, if people don't think that we've made progress, then I don't think you've been paying attention. And I

agree with him. And a lot of it is the work is sort of long haul. So if you want short-term whatever goals accomplished tomorrow, yeah I'm not that interested in that. I've been doing this for a long time. I just notice how lots of things change. Even policing as much as people can say all sorts of things about it, I just remember the truly, truly horrific battle days. And that little by little you make progress. You start to put a human face on people. And then all of a sudden people don't want to be tough on crime. They want to be smart.

We're at a different place right now because people are peddling fear and loathing, but we make progress. So, I just feel like, you know, you go to the margins not to make a difference. You go to the margins so that the folks there make you different. And if you go to the margins to save the day and rescue people, fix people, or even make a difference, it's, then it's about you and it can't be about you. But also, you burn out, not because you're so extremely compassionate. You burn out because you've allowed it to become about you. You've depleted yourself because it's about you saving the day. But once you kind of say, we're not called to be successful,

we're called to be faithful. I want to be faithful to a love that never stops loving, that love is God's religion. Okay, count me in. And I just want to delight in the person who's in my path and cherish with every breath. So then you stop caring about outcomes. You only want to be faithful to being faithful to that. And that makes sense to me. So I'm always hopeful because I know how incrementally

things change, but systems change when people change and people change when they are cherished. And so it's not one day at a time. It's one cherishing breath at a time. You know, that kind of cuts your meetup for you. They're bite-sized moments to be able to reflect back to people, the truth of who they are, and then you watch them become that truth and they extend that tender truth to other people. Really, it's true if once people are cherished, they can't wait to cherish. And that's how things have always changed. This is how I would phrase it, I don't know if you endorse it, but even if you don't get results right away, in other words, the whole world doesn't become

which you hope it will be immediately from living your life this way. Your life and the lives of the people around you will be way better. So why not just do it with that in mind? Yeah, you know, it's hard in a nonprofit world where funders are saying evidence-based outcomes, and I don't really care so much about that because if it's about success or outcomes, then I'm only gonna work with people who will give me good ones. Right. And I'm not interested in that. So you hope funders will fund you because they get it. But that's a tough sell, but you have to stay faithful to an approach you believe in.

And we're always planting seeds. We may not see the full fruition of your tilling the soil. Before we go, there are probably people out listening to this who want to learn more about you, balloon more about your organization. Can I gently prod you to just plug a little bit? Yeah, you can go to HomeboyIndustries.org and then you can see all sorts of things. And we have a thing called the Global Homeboy Network, which has been around for 10 years or so. And so we have 300 programs loosely vaguely modeled on Homeboy in the United States and 50 outside. We gather every August for three days. And so it's a way to kind of connect rather than airlift Homeboy into Wichita, and rather than become the McDonald's

of gang intervention programs. There's kind of a methodology that we believe in. So people across the country and in the world have kind of adopted it to address lots of vaccine complex social dilemma, and it's a way to be reverent of the complexity of it all. You know, if love is the answer, community is the context, but tenderness is sort of the methodology. But you can go to our website and see all sorts of things and order cookies and get your t-shirts. And don't forget the books, the whole language, barking at the choir, and tattoos on the heart. Father Gregory Boyle, thank you so much for doing this real pleasure. Sir, my honor, thank you. Thanks again to Father Boyle, thank you for listening

and thanks most of all to everybody who worked so hard on this show. 10% happier is produced by Gabrielle Zuckerman, Justin David Lauren Smith and Tara Anderson. DJ Cashmere is our senior producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior editor, Kevin O'Connell is our director of audio and post production and Kimmy regular is our executive producer, Alicia Mackie leads our marketing and Tony Maggar is our director of podcasts, Nick Thorburn of Islands wrote our theme. If you like 10% happier, I hope you do. You can listen early and add free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

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