Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Four Ways to Boost Your Mindfulness Muscle | Joseph Goldstein

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

These days, the word mindfulness has become a buzz phrase but very often people don’t know what the word actually means, much less how to practice it. One simple definition of mindfulness is the ability to see what’s happening in your mind without getting carried away by it. The benefits of doing so are vast and profound— from decreased emotional reactivity to being more awake to what’s actually happening in your life.Today's guest Joseph Goldstein talks about a classic Buddhist list called the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, which lays out various techniques for developing mindfulness within your practice.Goldstein is one of the premier western proponents of Mindfulness. He co-founded the legendary Insight Meditation Society alongside Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. He also wrote a book called Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening.In this episode we talk about:The historical context for the four foundations of mindfulness Why he thinks the Buddha loved listsWhy the Buddha placed mindfulness of the body first on the listThe steps to mastering mindfulness of the bodyThe meaning of the word embodied and how that’s different from our usual mode of being in the worldHow and why to do walking meditationsWhat are feeling tones and why are they importantPractices for cultivating mindfulness of mindThe mantras that Joseph uses when teaching Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/joseph-goldstein-483-rerunSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, everybody. Loyal listeners have heard Joseph Goldstein on this show before, or they've heard me shamelessly drop his name or quote him or tell stories about him on many many episodes despite or maybe because of the fact that I am an incurable wise ask Joseph has for years advised me taught me and dropped all sorts of transformative wisdom bombs into my life and today he's gonna do that for you. formative wisdom bombs into my life. And today he's going to do that for you. As you'll hear, if we more or less decided on the fly to focus in this episode on a classic Buddhist list called the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, where the Buddha lays out many different techniques for developing mindfulness. The Four Foundations are just that, the Foundations upon which you can build

your meditation practice, whether you're a newbie or a seasoned practitioner. Basically, it's four ways to wake up. Joseph is one of the premier Western proponents of mindfulness. He co-founded the legendary retreat center, the Insight Meditation Society alongside Sharon Salisberg and Jack Cornfield back in the 1970s. Joseph also wrote a whole book, which I hardly recommend called Mindfulness. He's written many books, but that's an especially good one. I will say that while mindfulness has become something of a buzz phrase these days,

I fear that very often people don't actually know what the word really means, much less how to practice it. One simple, serviceable definition of mindfulness is the ability to see what's happening in your mind right now without getting carried away by it. There are so many benefits from mindfulness and there's so much science to back that up. So in this episode, we talk about the historical context of the four foundations of mindfulness, why he, Joseph, thinks the Buddha loved lists so much, why the Buddha placed mindfulness of the body first on this particular list, the steps to getting better at mindfulness of the body, first on this particular list, the steps to getting better at mindfulness of the body,

the meeting of the word embodied and how that's different from our usual mode of moving through the world, how and why to do walking meditation, what feeling tones are and why they're really important in your meditation practice, practices for cultivating mindfulness of mind, Joseph will explain what that actually means.

And we talk about some of Joseph's mantras, these little phrases that he uses in his teaching This is for cultivating mindfulness of mind. Joseph will explain what that actually means. And we talk about some of Joseph's mantras, these little phrases that he uses in his teaching that have been incredibly helpful to me and many other people. I should say this is episode one of two best of Joseph G episodes that we're running this week. Stay tuned for episode two coming up on Wednesday. Have you been considering starting or restarting your meditation practice? Well, in the words of highway billboards across America, if you're looking for a sign, this is it.

To help you get started, we're offering subscriptions at a 40% discount until September 3rd. Of course, nothing is permanent. So get this deal before it ends by going to 10% dot com slash 40. That's 10% one word all spelled out dot com slash 40 for 40% off your subscription Joseph Goldstein welcome back to the show. Well, thanks good to be with you So we're talking about the four foundations of mindfulness. I Think it makes sense if you're up for it, maybe to give us a little bit of historical context on where this comes from in terms of the Buddhist scriptures,

et cetera, et cetera. I believe it comes from a lecture the Buddha was said to have given that's now called the Satipatana Suta. Very good, Dan. I'm proud of you. I was going for the gold star Patana Sutta. Very good, Dan. I'm proud of you. I was going for the Gold Star. Always like that. Yeah, so that's exactly right. There is this one discourse, you know, in the collection of the Buddhist teachings called the Sati Patana Sutta, which is often translated as the four

foundations of mindfulness, and it really lays out in quite a comprehensive way, many different techniques for developing mindfulness. And it really covers, it's quite amazing actually, you know, a very limited number of pages. It really covers all the different aspects of our experience and how we can be mindful of it all. So it's quite a powerful discourse. And it's one that's used in Buddhist countries. It's extremely popular, especially in the tradition of Terevada Buddhism, which is in Burma and Thailand and Sri Lanka.

It's a revered discourse. Often people learn it by heart and chant it. So it has a very important place in the whole Buddhist canon. It is interesting because mindfulness, as you know, very well, has become this buzz word over the last decade. You know, there's books on mindful parenting, mindful, loyering, mindful sex on and on. And often, I think the word is used in ways that reflect the users utter lack of understanding of what mindfulness actually isn't how to do it. But here we have this several page long guide, 2600 years old, that actually breaks it all

down and teaches you how to do it. Exactly. There is a lot of both subtlety to it. And as I said, a wide range of application. We're going to go through the four foundations. And we've done this a lot on the show where we tackle a Buddhist list. Why was the Buddha so into lists? Was this some, you know, undiagnosed OCD?

What was going on with all these lists? Well, my sense is that it's because it was an oral tradition. None of this was written down for hundreds of years. And so just as a mnemonic device, as a way of teaching and then having the monks and nuns and laypeople who are listening as a way of easily remembering, through repetition and committing to memory

becomes easier if there's a structured list. And I find that myself. It's a nice little list. And I find that myself, this is a nice little list. It's easy to remember it all. Editors at digital news outlets have taken this to heart because they're constantly doing, you know, the five sexiest Tom Cruise scenes and, you know, whatever. Have you made that list? I have not. I don't know where that came from. I'm going to change the subject now to the

actual list at hand. Number one, the first foundation of mindfulness, if memory serves, because I don't have in front of me, but this will be a good test of whether I'm a good student of yours, but if memory serves, the first foundation of mindfulness is the body. Yes. And the more I practice and the more I reflect on these teachings, I really have a growing appreciation of why the Buddha placed this first, because it's such an accessible field of our awareness.

You know, it's not something that's so subtle or we have to go looking for it. The body is a very apparent, lived experience. And what I found is that by practicing mindfulness of the body, until it becomes almost second nature, through the repetition of more formal practice, it then becomes much easier to carry mindfulness throughout the day. Because if we're well-practiced in in it and the body is always with us, we can actually apply the teachings not only in formal meditation sessions, but through all the activities of our lives each day. It just feels like a very easy way and an accessible way to

actually be cultivating mindfulness in In a way that is profound, the Buddha talked about how mindfulness of the body leads to nibana, leads to enlightenment. So just this, if we really mastered just this one foundation of mindfulness, it has far reaching and profound consequences. How would one go about this mastery? What are the initial steps one can take to be more mindful of the body? In the discourse, he lays out quite a few different arenas of bodily activity that we can pay attention to. And as I mentioned a few of them,

it'll become obvious that throughout the day we can go from one to another. So for example, the first thing that's mentioned is mindfulness of breathing, which is kind of a core practice informal meditation. It's very often the starting place, the starting place and the way the ending place as well. It's it can take us a long way. And so we learn how to be mindful breathing in. We know we're breathing in,

breathing out, know we're breathing out. Of course, as my first teacher, Munejiji, said, it's simple but not easy as anybody who has undertaken the practice knows because even though it's a very simple exercise, just feel the breath coming in going out. But what people find very commonly is that after one or two or three breaths, the mind starts to wander, you know, and then it's becoming aware of that and coming back to the breath. And we do that repeatedly. Until over time, know the mind begins to settle, and we can have a greater continuity of mindfulness with the breath. And everything begins to relax,

begins to settle in that increased concentration. Some people, as you well know, find that trying to focus on the breath or feel the breath can produce anxiety. So there are other techniques, other arrows in this particular quiver. Before we go to the other arrows, I'd like to highlight basically two different ways of being with the breath, because one of them, I think, for many people alleviates that anxiety or that efforting or getting a little too tight when we attend to the breath. And this other way of being with it actually comes out of a line in this discourse, a little later on in the discourse where the Buddha says, be mindful, and then in the equivalent of quotes, there is a body

then to the extent necessary for clear knowing and continuous mindfulness. So it's that phrase, there is a body which we may have spoken about before and I've been using a lot in my teaching to use it almost like a mental note or a reminder. So we might be repeating that phrase, intermittently, there is a body simply

as a way of helping us to settle into the awareness of the whole body posture. So rather than narrowing the attention, like to the tip of the nose or even to the movement of the abdomen, instead of narrowing it, we're keeping a larger framework that is a body. And then within that larger framework, becoming aware of the sensations of the body breathing, but not necessarily narrowing the focus on it. We're keeping the larger frame of the whole body

and simply feeling the sensations of the body breathing within the larger frame. And what I found in many students in keeping the larger frame, it seems to allow for the breath just to continue in a more natural way because we're not zeroing in on it. You know, we have another reference point of stability. That is the whole body. And then staying grounded in that, the body is breathing by itself. So it doesn't need our effort to breathe. And by giving the larger

framework, we're allowing for this natural function of the body to take place. Just aware of the body breathing. And that's why in the instructions, and this may be a subtlety, I don't know if people are picking up on or not. But when I give the instructions, I try to frame it this way. Okay, there's a body, settling into the awareness of the whole body. Then I say, you may become aware of the body breathing. And then as the body breathes in, know you're breathing in. As the body breathes out, know you're breathing out. Instead of saying, when you breathe in, know you're breathing in, because just in a very subtle way, again, it takes the eye, it takes the self out of it, and it's just acknowledging,

yeah, the body is breathing. Simple, it's been breathing our whole lives, we don't have to do anything, we don't have to interfere with it. So that's the point of this larger framework. But as you say, there are other areas of attention for us to be mindful of with respect to the body. Another one that's mentioned in the discourse is just to be aware of our body pastures. You know, when we're walking to know we're walking, when we're sitting to know we're sitting, when we're lying down to know we're lying down, standing, no we're standing. when we're lying down to know we're lying down, standing, no we're standing. And this also is a very useful instruction because it's a reminder that we can be meditating in any posture. You know, sometimes people have the idea, oh, meditation means sitting in some formal way, which of course includes that, but we can be mindful in

any posture. And I think integrating that understanding is very helpful as we're trying to bring this practice into our lives. Part of this particular aspect is the walking meditation, which is its own, and both formal practice and also applies just to every time we take a step. So that's another activity of mindfulness. And then the Buddha talks about just mindfulness of general activities. You know, whatever we're doing, brushing your teeth, be mindful of brushing your teeth, opening doors. I can't remember the exact phraseology in the sutra, but when going forward, when going back, when bending, when reaching, when you're just all the normal activities

of our lives, can we be mindful of it? And again, because the body is so apparent, it's not difficult to do. It's difficult to remember to do. So that's the key point really. You know, mindfulness is not hard. It's remembering to be mindful. That is the challenge. You said a bunch of things in there that I want to go back on. First of all, did they brush their teeth in the Buddha's air? Or did they have your brushes? Well, his oral bee named after the Buddha, what? So brushing the teeth is not in the Suta, but when I was practicing in India and this is something that probably was used back in the Buddha's time many people Don't use toothbrushes. They use a neem stick a neem is a kind of tree It's a branch that has I don't know whether it has some additional qualities or not But they actually use

Just a thin neem stick or something to brush the teeth So that might well have been used in the time of the Buddha and is still used today So you so you think you're being a wise guy, but still The boot is right on top. I'm not going to get away with anything today. So the other thing you mentioned was walking meditation. I don't want to let that slip by because there may be listeners who are new to meditation and don't know walking meditation.

So perhaps you could describe that. Yeah, so this is really important. This has been such a meaningful part of my own practice in a couple of ways. One that the formal times of walking meditation, which I'll describe, there's just a lot of insight that comes from it. You know, and people often think that, oh, the sitting is the real meditation, and walking is just to give yourself a break between

sittings, but that is really a misunderstanding. The walking is powerful and leads to really, can lead to deep understandings in and of itself. There's one thing I learned. It took me quite a while to learn it in my own practice, but it made a huge difference in the walking meditation. It was probably a couple of years in my practice until I realized this. You know, as you know, very often, when we're talking about meditation, we're using watching language. Watch, notice, note, observe.

You know, so it's all a language of looking at something, not necessarily looking with the eyes, but it's that sense of being outside of it and observing it. And for many years, I would be walking in that way, kind of observing the movement, you know, in the touch of each step. And then at a certain point, I realized that a more skillful language rather than observing or noticing was feeling the movement rather than observing it. Because observing is from the outside, it's almost like we're tracking it, whereas feeling it is from the inside and it just became so much more effortless. So for those people who are listening and are interested, just maybe we could do one five second

experiment. If you just move your arm and feel the movement. You know, you're just moving your arm in any way you want, and you feel it. So I think that you will have the sense of how easeful that is. It doesn't take any major effort. You know, because we're on the inside feeling it rather on the outside trying to track it. So when we take a step, if we just feel the movement of the feet or the legs, you know, and we can feel it going at a more or less normal pace, just feeling it stepping, stepping, stepping. If we continue in the walking practice for a while, we can slow down a bit

so we can feel more subtleties in the movement. And it really is feeling the sensations of the movement. And this is a progression, you know, at first for people who are just beginning, maybe it's just feeling the movement itself, the feeling of lifting the foot and placing it. And that's where we're aware of. But as we settle into that, then we begin to feel the actual sensations in the movement, you know, the lightness, the heaviness, the vibration, the stiffness, the pressure.

All of those sensations, which let us know that we're moving. So that's dropping in in a slightly deeper way. So that's dropping in a slightly deeper way. And that's really where we want to head. To be feeling the sensations of each movement, each touch. And this is one of the things I call my rapassana mantras. You know, just these little reminders. It's like an inner coach. So in walking and a very helpful inner coach is simply each step. Each step. Because if we have the idea, okay, I'm going to be mindful and feel the movement of the next 10 steps. That's probably too much for our tension span. We'll culturally have a tension deficit disorder. So we have to work within our

capacity. I think everyone has the capacity to feel the movement and sensations of one step. Just moving and touching. And then again, moving and touching, moving and touching. So just to have that in my each step. So then it becomes quite effortless and peaceful and enjoyable because we're really in our bodies, we're embodied. And that's very different than our usual mode of being in the world. One little literary reference here, it's aligned by James Joyce describing one of his characters, he says, Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body. But in some way we are all Mr. Duffy, you know, we're so into our heads about what we're doing and what we need to be doing. And this gets translated a lot into the experience and the feeling of rushing. Now how often through the day, we're rushing and we can rush at any speed. You know, we can rush moving

quickly. We can have that feeling of rushing moving slowly, but it's that toppling forward we're ahead of ourselves. That's one of the reasons I love this foundation of mindfulness. The mindfulness of the body just brings us back into the body instead of that toppling forward or leaning forward. Yeah, so that's brief description of the walking practice. It's not complicated. It's helpful for people for the formal practice

to find a path maybe 10 or 20 steps in length. You know, someone is going back and forth, but the more we practice in that way, what I found is that mindfulness of the walking in the movement, really over time becomes the default setting. And so now, whenever I'm walking anyplace, it just feels so natural to feel the movement,

to feel the touch. And without effort, it's just, it's something that happens when it's well practiced. You get better at remembering. Exactly. And until it's well practiced. You get better at remembering. Exactly. And until it's just there. Yeah. It's like riding a bike, you know,

once you have the skill, you don't have to keep relearning. Of course, it can take a while to really develop the skill to that extent, but it definitely happens. I've seen it in my own experience. Just to put a fine point on it for people who've never done walking meditation before, you can find a patch of land or a real estate within your abode.

Maybe it's whatever you've got, but it doesn't need to be much. It can be 10, 20 feet, as you said. And I believe you said. And then you can walk in my experience and opinion, there are at least two ways to do this, but probably way more. You can walk very slowly and maybe even make a little note of lift, move, place, lift, move, place or not. Maybe you don't need the mental note, maybe you don't like that, but you're just walking very slowly. It can be extremely slow, painfully slow,

comically slow. If you go to a meditation retreat, which some listeners probably haven't, but it looks, and I believe I've said this publicly before, when you look at a bunch of people doing walking meditation, it looks like the population of some sort of asylum have been disproaged out of a bus onto the property of the retreat center. And it's very strange. Zombies, yes, whatever unflattering metaphor you want to use. And yet, it's very powerful.

I would also say that I personally have never liked that. Very slow walking. I actually like to walk something closer to a gentle stroll. It doesn't resonate so much for me to get super focused on the lift move place. It's more just letting the mindfulness wash through the body as it's moving along. I don't know if that makes me a bad meditator, but that works for me. So let me just refine that a little bit.

This is the opposite of a gold star if everybody's listening closer, just pointing that out. So within a walking session, it's possible actually to combine it all. And it's often very helpful for people to start out at a more normal pace, you know, just stepping, stepping or left, right, you know, just stepping, stepping or left, right? Whether one uses the note or not. And then there can be a gradual slowing down so it feels less forced. Because as we're becoming more mindful at just a normal pace,

then at a certain point, just to become aware of it in two parts, just the lifting and placing and lifting and placing. And then maybe just for the last 10 minutes or so of a session, to experiment to see what is like, okay, kind of drop back even further into what you described, you know, the very slow of lift, move, place. And then for people who really want to explore that, there's also six part walking. So I would suggest that people really experiment and find what works.

And at different times, different speeds will both feel natural and be helpful. So I think it's worth exploring all the different speeds. So then one has all of them in the toolbox. The important part is the mindfulness. It's not about the speed. Coming up, Joseph talks about the second and third foundations of mindfulness. Plus we talk about one way to counteract the very common tendency to judge ourselves in meditation after this. After this. Okay, so speaking of mindfulness, perhaps let's move on to the second foundation of mindfulness.

Yes. So do you remember what it is? That's why I'm at Paul's. Yeah, I like it. The second foundation, which is really an important part of the whole teaching in understanding how it leads to liberation, how it leads to freedom, is mindfulness of feelings. Now, this takes a little clarification because in English, we use the word feeling to mean a lot of different things. Feelings can be emotions, it can be just, you know, I feel hot, I feel cold. So we use that word in a lot of different ways.

It has a very specific meaning in the context of Buddhism. And just for those who are interested, the poly word that's used for this very specific kind of feeling is Veyda-na. But one doesn't need to remember that. Generally in teaching, we generally try to translate Veyda-na as feeling tone to differentiate it from emotions, which is another in English, another word meaning of feelings. So feeling tone of Aidena refers to the quality in each moment's experience of it being either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. So this is a really interesting thing. I think mostly I'm we're all aware of Experiencing pleasant or unpleasant things in our lives, but we probably haven't really noticed

When noticed very often that this feeling tone is arising in every moment of experience A sound a sigh a smell a taste a touch a sensation different mind states each one arises with a feeling tone. Now, becoming mindful of this is so critically important because it's these feeling tones when we're not being mindful of them. Condition unhulsome mind states. Pleasant, when we're not mindful of the pleasant, it very often conditions, grasping or clinging or wanting or greed or lust, right, depending on what the object is. If it's unpleasant and we're not mindful, and I'm sure we're all very familiar with this,

it conditions aversion in the mind. Something painful arises, something unpleasant, we don't like it. You know, we try to push it away. And neutral feeling tone, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, very often just conditions delusion ignorance, because there's nothing much impactful happening in terms of feeling tone. We space out. We're not even paying attention to it. So unless we begin to be mindful of

these feeling tones, we're just continually reconditioning these unwholesome mind states, you know, of greed, hatred and delusion. Mindfulness of them. And this gets very interesting in the practice. You know, when something pleasant arises, and we're focusing on this second foundation, we might note a pleasant pleasant, we're open to it. We're not pushing away. We're not denying it. We have the full experience of the pleasantness of it, but in being mindful of it, we're not grasping, we're not clinging, we're not attached to it. The same thing with unpleasant, when we are just, oh unpleasant, unpleasant, we experience it, but we're not upset by it, you know, it's not conditioning aversion to it or hating it or wanting to get rid of

it. And then on the more subtle level, becoming mindful of the neutral tone, this has such broad implications. First, that these unholds the mind states of themselves a source of suffering. What does it feel like when we're caught in the grip of desire and wanting and clinging. It doesn't feel good. One way of testing this out for people is this a very simple way of confirming for oneself the suffering of grasping, the suffering of lusting. Even though especially with pleasant things, pleasant v vaidina, there is a certain pleasure associated with it, which is why we're lusting after it.

But a very interesting exercise is the next time the mind is caught up in some lustful fantasy and it could be lustful for any of the send stores, right? It could be sexual desire and a whole sexual fantasy, which can be very strong, but it could be for anything, it could be for a good meal, or for the next vacation, or whatever. So the next time the mind is caught up in that, we're really lost in whatever the fantasy is, and then to notice the moment when it passes away, which it always will, because everything is impermanent. So at a certain point, it's going to pass away. And right in that moment, if one can remember, notice the difference in the quality of your experience of when you were lost in the

fantasy and when the fantasy is gone and the mind has come back to awareness, for me it always feels like I've just been let out of the grip of something. So even though in the midst of it I thought it was all pleasant but in the release from it the sense of openness and spaciousness and freedom is so apparent. So it's just a very immediate way of testing all this for oneself. And this is so crucial to the whole teaching of the Buddha. He never said you have to believe this. He always, with all of his teachings, said, check it out. See for yourself whether this is true, whether it's helpful, whether it leads to less suffering. And so with everything we're talking about today, again, the suggestion is just try it,

try it for yourself and see it. So this is the basic framework of mindfulness of feeling. It goes into other more subtleties. And for those who are interested, I'm gonna give a little plug for my book now. Yeah, I'm glad you are because you go very deep on this in the book. Yeah, several times. And so this last book, Mindfulness, a practical guide to awakening, it's an in-depth discussion of this whole discourse. And it goes into a lot of detail on each of the foundations.

So we're kind of skimming the surface in a certain way, but people who find some interest might look at the book and you'll see many more subtleties involved. It's a great book and like I said, I've read it many, many times and so I left many, many notes all over the various pages. So I'm glad you gave that plug. Let me just stay with Vaden for just a second. If people are interested in doing a specific meditation practice, a formal meditation practice, where they learn to get better at seeing pleasant unpleasant and neutral. Do you have any recommendations there? There are two ways that come to mind. One is simply to wait four times when the pleasantness or unpleasantness is particularly strong.

You know, if you're feeling some pain in the body, so the sensation itself is mind-fulness of the body, but the unpleasantness of it, the painfulness of it, that's Vedna, that's the feeling tone. So at that time, it's just very obvious. And at those times to really focus or to have the intention to take interest and be exploring, what is the actual experience of unpleasantness? And so we bring kind of inquiry to this experience of, oh, this pain, painfulness or unpleasantness feels like we're really sensitizing ourselves to what it means, what the Vain is referring to. And at those times

when it's strong, it's not hard to do. We can feel like quality of it being painful. And likewise, with pleasant, so just give you an example of actually, this is leading to a whole story story which elaborates on kind of some of the subtleties of being mindful of feeling tone. So this goes back quite a few years. I had gone on a week vacation to the Caribbean and I was just on this beautiful Caribbean island. It was really beautiful. And it's like everything was pleasant. Pleasant sight and pleasant sound and the soft breezes. And it's like, it was just pleasant. It was so noticeable to me for a little time.

Oh, pleasant, pleasant, pleasant. So there are times when the pleasantness is just so obvious that it's worth paying attention to its quality at that time. Okay, so then this is the rest of the story. So I was down there in January, spent my week in this pleasure realm, and then came back to Barry, Massachusetts. In January, it was freezing. We went a cold spell. I don't know, it was like 20 below zero or something. You know, with icy wind and painful painful painful. You know, the contrast was so obvious. But then I discovered something so interesting about my mind. As I was being mindful, both of the pleasant and

the unpleasant, I realized that in a very fundamental way, when it was being mindful, the awareness didn't care. Pleasant, unpleasant, the function of awareness is simply to know. Oh, knowing pleasant, knowing unpleasant. I know it's so interesting to realize that the pleasure or to realize that the pleasure or discomfort need not have an impact on our sense of well-being. As it usually does, we feel good when things are pleasant, we don't feel so good when things are unpleasant, but this mindfulness, being mindful of these range of feeling-tongue, and then realizing, yeah, awareness just knows. So that was really liberating to me. And, you know, sometimes one forget and gets caught up in a reactivity, or I like this, I don't like that, but the more we practice it, I think the more we abide in that sense of ease, regardless, you know, pleasant,

unpleasant, because for all of us in our lives, these are these are part of what the Buddha called the vicissitudes, just the worldly winds of change, pleasant, unpleasant, we all experience both in our lives. And how do you want to go through it, caught up or with some access to a place where you can experience it all with some equanimity, aka mindfulness? Yes. So, the second foundation of mindfulness is just a very powerful part of the whole unfolding. And as I say, a key element in liberating the mind, liberating the mind from suffering. Close listeners, I have heard these loaded phrases that Joseph has used a couple

of times about liberation and freedom, et cetera, et cetera. I'm going to come back to that. We'll get to it. But let's keep plowing through the list of the four foundations and mindfulness. Let's do number three, which of course I've forgotten. Dan, there are only four. I know. Don't worry about it. That's okay.

Until I started teaching, you know, when I first was getting interested in Buddhism, I was still in the Peace Corps. This goes back 50 years. And I was reading about the eightfold path. I couldn't remember all those eight steps. I had to give talks on it before I could actually remember them also. Right. I empathize. Okay. So the third one is mindfulness of the mind. And again, there are different aspects to it, but the most basic one, the Buddha

is saying be mindful when the mind is filled with lust and when it's not filled with lust. And what concepts are agreed for lust, but in the text it's often translated as lust. Be mindful when anger is present and when it's not present. Be mindful when delusion is present, when we're just spaced out or dull. Be mindful when it's not. So there's a lot to this because first the Buddha is pointing out the importance of discerning those mind states that in Buddhist jargon are called skillful or wholesome or beneficial, and those mine states which are not.

So this is a fundamental aspect of wisdom. We have to begin to understand what in our minds, what's arising that becomes the cause of suffering both in the present and in the future, and what mind states lead to greater happiness and greater freedom. And so this foundation of mindfulness is the beginning, mindfulness of the mind. We begin to discern the difference between the beneficial and harmful in terms of our own mind states.

There's a subtle point here which I think is worth mentioning. Sometimes people as they are particularly in the beginning, as they're first beginning the practice, and we become aware of the craziness of our minds. They're just all over the place with lots of different haltsamen, unholtsamen, all mixed together. But we first begin to see the different unholtsamen, unskilful patterns in the mind, like we or anger, hatred, delusion. It's an easy step to go from recognizing, oh, this is an unholsom state, to then thinking, I'm such a bad person for having it or for a to arise. And I don't know that's a particular Western psychology or not, but it's pretty common. And so unless we're aware of that tendency, it can easily lead to self-judgment.

You know, and very commonly, as people are reporting their meditative experience, very commonly people will talk about the endless self-judgments that are arising. You know, I can't do this, it's too hard, I'm such a terrible person. And I went through this myself in my early years of practice. I would be going to speak with my teacher, I'm an injury and I was seeing all these unholds and parts of my mind, telling him what a bad person I was. And basically he just left. Not in a demeaning way, but just why are you taking this so seriously? It's not personal. Right.

So we just want to be careful. Mindfulness does not mean judging. Mindfulness means just the awareness something is present, or it's not present. And with that balance of mindfulness without self-judgment, then it allows us to just make wise choices with the wholesome beneficial qualities. Oh, these are worth cultivating.

With the unwholesome, and the ones that cause suffering was, oh no, these I can practice letting go of or abandoning. So this mindfulness of the mind, when we're being mindful rather than self-judgmental, it really is the whole basis for the cultivation of wholesome states, which that's really another way of saying those qualities of mind, which bring happiness, which bring peace. So this is all part of mindfulness of the mind. A way of practicing it would be either just to wait until they become obvious,

you know, when we're really caught up in lost or greed or caught up in aversion, and then, you know, we're feeling that reactivity in the mind. And so when we are aware that it's predominant, we focus our attention on settling back and noting, slash, noticing, oh, greed is present, my anger is present. At other times, when something may not be predominant, there's one Burmese teacher who is named a side-outageneer who has a very, I think, useful inner coaching

phrase for just this. He'll suggest people just to intermittently ask, well right now what's the attitude in my mind. So even if it's not so predominant and to be unavoidable, but just even in more ordinary mind states to ask that question, it begins to train us in paying attention to the quality of our minds. What's the attitude? I'll give an example of just how effective that can be. So one time I was just sitting and meditating and feeling my breath. And though it was just very simple, very ordinary nothing special was happening. And then I remembered this question, okay, I'm just feeling the, what's the attitude in my mind? And it was so interesting just by asking the question, I felt my mind relaxed back from a wanting that I didn't even know was there.

As I was feeling the breath, unbeknownst to me at the time, there was just some subtle wanting of more concentration or more calm or something, you know, that leaning into. What's the attitude? And I felt my mind relax back. So one less aspect of mindfulness of the mind It's not only noticing When greed or anger hatred delusion a present. It's also noticing when they're not present What's the mind like when it's free of desire free anger, free of delusion. And this is something that often people pass over. We tend to emphasize what we might call the negative aspects or the painful

aspects. And then we forget to really be mindful when the mind isn't a good place. You know, with wholesome qualities, they have to be tended to as well. You need to become mindful of them as well. And by being mindful of the positive mind states, you're reinforcing them. Yes, you're strengthening them. And again, mindfulness means being aware of them and really experiencing them without attachment. So feelings like love or generosity or calm or concentration or all of the skillful states of mind, we want to be mindful, include them in our field of mindfulness so that we are

also learning that they too are impermanent. They're wholesome, but we don't want to be attached to them because they also are rising and passing away. Coming up, we hit the fourth foundation of mindfulness, plus Joseph talks about the rather grandiose sounding word liberation and how we can all get a taste of it right after this. ["The End of the World"] You invoke the name of Saida Utejiania that Burmese meditation teacher, as you know, because you're my teacher. Tejiania has been quite influential for me.

I don't never met him, but via our mutual friend Alexis Santos, another meditation teacher who teaches in the Tejiania style here in the US and Alexis and I are buds. And he's also taught a few retreats that I've sat. And Taisanilla uses a series of questions and phrases that students drop into their mind while they're practicing, including what's the attitude in the mind. But there's another one that strikes me as very much relevant to this third foundation of mindfulness, the mindfulness of mind, which is, and this is the little phrase that Tajini uses is, this is nature. You described very eloquently earlier this common thing that happens in the mind, at least

in the west, of, we notice a thought might be maybe just like a quick little burst of bigotry, we go right to a story about what kind of person we are. Often mindlessly, I mean always mindlessly, but it's very nature these stories are mindless and it's reinforcing this idea that there is somebody here at all and in the worst possible way. this idea that there is somebody here at all, and in the worst possible way, and just to say to yourself, once in a while, this is nature, it cuts right through that.

This isn't you, this isn't your little creation. This is the universe that happening right here in your mind, and that's actually, it's an awe-inspiring thing to contemplate, and it's very practical because it gets you out of the stories that can basically ruin your life. Yes, yes. Now, if I'm glad you brought that point up because in a way that phrase, this is nature,

is a friendlier expression than saying, it's all impersonal. It means the same thing, right? But often people hear, oh, it's all impersonal, and they think it implies some kind of withdrawal or detachment or, you know, it may not inspire people so much. But to say this is nature, which is really the same thing. But I think that phrase is very revealing and appealing and helpful.

I'm just good to know I'm back in Gold Star territory. Let's go to the fourth foundation of mindfulness, which I think I might remember is this mindfulness of the Dhammas? Yeah, good. You actually did. You have so many gold stars, you're going to need a whole wall for them. Well, now you're reinforcing a whole story. So, yes, so this is a very interesting category, this fourth

foundation. So it's all often, it's not even translated usually in English. It's just called mindfulness of dharma. So it's all often, it's not even translated usually in English. It's just called mindfulness of dharma's. So the definition of that, somebody translated it as categories of experience. And so I'll explain it a little bit. This foundation of mindfulness just includes a lot of different aspects of the teachings. For example, it includes being mindful of the hindrances, being mindful of the factors of enlightenment, being mindful of the four noble truths. So it's just taking these broad categories

and gives instruction for being with each one of them. Now it's interesting because, you know, instead be mindful of the hindrances. Didn't we do that with the third foundation? You know, mindfulness of greed, mindfulness of anger. Well, in the fourth foundation, it's just understanding how these minds state's function. So it's not only being mindful of them,

but understanding of a function as hindering concentration. That's why they're called hindrances or the factors of enlightenment, you know, or the wholesome factors of mind, which also we experienced in the third foundation, mindfulness of mind, but we're understanding, yes, they function as the vehicle for awakening, a liberation. And then of course, all of this is laid out very clearly in all the teachings about the four noble truths, which is also included in this fourth foundation. So it's quite comprehensive this aspect of the discourse. So it's kind of a list of lists. Yeah, yes. But again, just to remind people, the purpose of it is not simply to memorize lists. The purpose is to actually

take each one and see how they apply to our own experience. Because each one is pointing to something, right? They're pointing to something crucial in understanding ourselves. So we don't want to just know, oh, the 500's, I know what they are. You know, and we'd rather lower off the list of five. And then forget about it. It's really to take the list and to explore full oneself what they're pointing to in our own experience. And this is what just reveals so much about our lives and the nature of our experience

and what creates suffering and what leads to happiness. So the list is just a convenient way of systematizing all this. I'm still not quite confident that I fully understand this. And obviously there's so much to the fourth foundation of mindfulness because all of these lists contained within it are huge areas of study in and of themselves, the four noble truths, the seven factors of enlightenment, the five entrances, et cetera, et cetera. So let's maybe like take a small bite here and what's a practice that those of us

who are in the shallow end of the pool could take out of the fourth foundation of mindfulness and do in our lives? Okay, so a couple of things come to mind. Let's just take, for example, the list of the seven factors of awakening. So in this the Buddha is describing seven mental qualities which when well cultivated and matured result in liberation, result in enlightenment. Right, so that these are important qualities to know. Things like mindfulness and energy and investigation and rapture and calm concentration, and equanimity. So what's interesting about applying this is first just to begin to recognize each of these in ourselves. And then we can begin to see which ones are stronger in us,

which one needs really more development, And of course, they'll all need development, to some extent, but, you know, we may find ourselves more into him with one or the other. And so then we could just really explore those that are less familiar to us. Just as an example, so calm is one of the factors of enlightenment. And it's one of the ones that I think is often overlooked. It's not as jazzy as rapture, you know, or concentration or wisdom. You know, calm is kind of prosaic, but it actually is not the feeling of calm, which actually many people never experience. You know, we live in such a speedy culture, and we're so caught up in our lives.

It's quite remarkable through the practice of mindfulness. There are times when we really experience what calm means, calm in the mind, calm in the body, and it is delightfully restful. So we're learning, we learn about, oh, what this is, and then learn how to practice, you know, developing and not only in meditation, but in our lives. So one aspect is just learning about what each of these seven qualities are, even getting just the first taste of them. Then one of the interesting things here is that these seven have to be in balance because three of them are energy arousing and three of them are energy tranquilizing. And so as we learn about them, then we see, okay, what's needed now?

You know, is there too much excitement? So then we need to emphasize the calm, the concentration, the equanimity. If we're too much on that side, if we're too calm, you know, going to dullness, then we need to arouse the other factors of investigation and energy and rapture. Now what's interesting is that the factor which does bring all of these interbalans is mindfulness. So that's why mindfulness is the key to so much. Not only does it bring forth all these qualities, but it also over time brings them into balance. Just one other very quick teaching in this fourth foundation in terms of the four noble truths of the truth of Dukar,

which is sometimes translated as suffering, but unreliability, unsatisfactoryness, the cause of it, the end of it, and the noble eightfold path, which is the way to the end. So I just want to highlight one little aspect of that, which in a way is so obvious when we think about it, but we rarely think about it. So one aspect of what causes suffering is attachment to anything because all experiences are arising and passing. Everything is impermanent, everything is in flow. When we're attached to that which in its nature changes, we suffer. Somebody once called it rope burned. If you're holding on tightly to a rope and somebody's pulling the rope through your hands, you get rope-burned. Well, the somebody pulling it through your hands is the truth of impermanence.

It's not staying stable, it's not lasting. But if we're holding on tight to what is impermanent, we suffer. And this doesn't take so much to understand it, certainly conceptually, but we really want to see this for ourselves and how the letting go then brings us to a place of ease. So that's a very quick summary of the four-nouble truths, but I think it points to the essential element of what causes suffering and how we can be free. Okay, so you just use that word again free and you've talked to throughout about

liberation, freedom, enlightenment. In the remaining time, we're not going to be able to do a comprehensive discourse on the subject, but I've been torturing you on this issue for a long time, which is so much of Buddhism is just so natural and it's common sense. I've heard it referred to as advanced common sense, you know. And then upended on top of all of these incredibly practical, so incisive, mental exercises and ways to live and ways to view the world, appended to it is this notion of you can have freedom, liberation, awakening, enlightenment, so many words. So how are those of us who are new to this or not new to it, but haven't tasted what's

apparently on offer as dessert here? What are we to make of that claim? Yeah, so it actually is pretty simple. And I think people can have a taste of it even before the full realization of it, because the Buddha talked of liberation in one really simple way, the mind that is free of greed and hatred and delusion, where these qualities have been uprooted from the mind. Enlightenment really refers to the uprooting of these qualities of mind that cause a suffer, but even before they're uprooted, we have many moments of the mind

that is free of, you know, moments free of greed and free of anger, free of hatred, which we talked about earlier, you know, in terms of mindfulness of the mind. And so this gives us a taste of what liberation is about. So it's not just some metaphysical abstraction. We're actually, we're actually tasting the mind that is free, even for a short period of time, of those qualities that cause suffering. And the Buddha described all of his teachings condensed it into one very simple phrase. He said, all that he teaches is suffering in the end of suffering. That encapsulates the whole nature of the teachings

and what it's about. And so we could say enlightenment is really the complete end of suffering. But even before that, we have many moments when the mind is free of suffering because the suffering is all connected to the unholstened states of mind. So help point us to how we would know if we're in a moment where there is no greed or lust or hatred or aversion or delusion or ignorance about what's happening right now. Well, I think just what we talked about before in asking that question, just whether it's

in formal meditation session or just throughout the day, just asking that probing question, just whether it's in formal meditation session or just throughout the day, just asking that probing question, well, what's the attitude in my mind right now? Somebody described it as the unholds some states as pulling in, which is greed, pushing away, which is aversion, and running around in circles, which is division. So when we're asking the question, what's the attitude in the mind like I did when I was just watching the breath, I realized that I was trying to pull something in. You know, there was greed for more calm. Or, you know, if we're working with some pain and we ask the question, what's the attitude? And we notice, oh, it's pushing away. I don't like this. I want it to go away. So then we know there's a version

present. If we're just going running around in circles in our minds, we know it's delusion. And when those are not there, like in that moment, when I let go of that leaning in and just not there, like in that moment when I let go of that leaning in and just settled back in just a moment of breathing, not wanting anything. So that's a moment free of that. And we can feel that for ourselves. It's the same going back to an earlier suggestion about noticing times when the mind is caught up in some lustful fantasy for anything, and then noticing the moment when it ends. So right there is a very powerful way of seeing the difference, mind filled with lust, free of lust, and the difference in the experience is so vivid and so apparent. And I love that because it makes all of this practical.

This is not theoretical. You know, we can test it for ourselves in our own experience. There's one other exercise. This is one that I find very interesting, which highlights when there's delusion in the moment or non-delusion. Because that's the one that's perhaps the hardest to distinguish, you know, a greed or anger whether it's present or not, with a little practice we can get pretty good at noticing that. So one practice which I started doing, which I found so revealing and so interesting was to take a short period of time and not even

in formal meditation. I was doing this when I was just going for a walk and I set the intention to really watch out for the very quickly passing thoughts that went through my mind. So they weren't big, they weren't dramatic, they weren't problematic. They were just these ordinary quick thoughts, maybe less than 10 seconds or 15 seconds. And what I saw was, first, how frequent they are, and mostly there are noticed because they don't stand out in any particular way. You know, they're just this ordinary mundane kind of thoughts. So the first thing I noticed was there are a lot of them, you know, that normally I'm not even paying attention to. And then the second thing I noticed was for the time that I was lost in them, which might be very brief, you know,

maybe 10 seconds or 15 seconds, for that time, it was like being in a dream state, right? I was not aware in that moment that I was thinking, and I was not aware of anything else. I was just submerged in the mundane content of whatever the thought was. So it's like just dropping into a dream state and then 15 seconds later waking up from it and watching this difference between being in a dream state and then 15 seconds later waking up from it and watching this difference between Being in a dream state and being awake

Right, it was like a clear recognition of going from delusion to wisdom From being asleep to being awake So that can give a very meaningful experience of what delusion and wakefulness mean, right? In this very ordinary activity of our minds, I have found this really interesting to observe. And it points to one more thing that I think would be a helpful reminder for people, particularly in their formal meditation practice, because we get lost and thought a lot, and then we come back to the breath or whatever we're attending to.

And very often, there will be a judgment, and maybe a quick loss to gain. And then we either be just held up for it or not, but there's a kind of self-judgment there. So instead of emphasizing the having been lost, every time we're lost and then come out from being lost, why not emphasize, oh, awake again, and emphasize the experience of the wakefulness, rather than the judgment about having been lost. So then we're really inspiring ourselves over and over. Oh, God, awake again, awake again, awake again.

And so it's really keying us into what wakefulness is about and what it feels like and the value of it. So that's just I think it could be a really helpful exercise to do. Yeah, you said this to me. And the last retreat I was on and I've been doing it ever since it's extremely helpful and it does counteract this tendency that we've discussed several times during the course of this discussion to judge ourselves and criticize ourselves. Just in closing just to say thank you for coming on. It's always so fun and it's always great to have you on even when you mock me, which I know is straight out of the Dharma. Listen, now I talked about your wall of gold stars, Dan.

Yeah, but I think there were some sarcasm. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Genuinely, genuinely. That's been a pleasure. It's always fun to talk about the Dharma with you. Likewise. Thanks again to Joseph. Thanks as well to you for listening. As I often say, if you have the time or the inclination to do us a solid, leave us a rating or a review, wherever you listen to your podcast, because that actually really helps us with the algorithm

so we can reach and help more people. Thanks finally to everybody who works so hard on this show. Gabrielle Zuckerman, Justine, David Lawrence Smith, and Tara Anderson are the producers, DJ Cashmere is our senior producer, Marissa Schneidermann is our senior editor and Kimmy Regler is the boss, our executive producer, scoring and mixing by Peter Bonaventure of ultraviolet audio, Nick Thorburn of Islands, a great indie rock band delivered our theme.

We'll see you all on Wednesday for a second helping of Joseph, in which we talk about some strategies for getting over yourself. Specifically, we're going to talk about Kapancha, which is a technical and ancient term, which I will let Joseph define and elaborate upon on Wednesday. Well, I should also say, since I'm teasing forward here, next week, we're going to talk about sleep. We've got two great episodes from the archives on sleep, and I know that's a huge issue for many of us myself,

included, so Diane, Misedo, and Dr. Don Posner, on the show next week. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add 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.

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