Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Homicide Prevention Meditation | Bonus Meditation with Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

What is real love, without the trappings? In this reflection, you'll learn how to tap into feelings of love while maintaining clarity.About Sharon Salzberg:A towering figure in the meditation world, Sharon Salzberg is a prominent teacher & New York Times best-selling author. She has played a crucial role bringing mindfulness and lovingkindness practices to the West.Sharon co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield and is the author of nine books, including Lovingkindness, Real Happiness, and the most recent Real Love. Sharon lives in New York City and teaches around the world.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Real Love in Relationships,” or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/content?meditation=e1800e19-afab-43c3-b197-690d74c289d0.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What does it even mean to live a good life? Is it about happiness, purpose, love, health, or wealth? What really matters in the pursuit of a life well lived? These are the questions award-winning author, founder, and interviewer Jonathan Fields asks his guests on the Top Ranked Good Life Project podcast. Every week, Jonathan sits down with world renowned thinkers and doers, people like Glenn and Doyle, Adam Grant,

Young Pueblo, Jonathan Height, and hundreds more. Start listening right now. Look for the Good Life project on your favorite podcast app. This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, my fellow suffering beings. It's Friday, time for your bonus meditation. As you may have heard, or at least I hope you heard, back on Monday we dropped a big

Valentine's Day episode with Julian John Gottman, two of the world's leading experts in the science and skill of relationships. Today we're going to pound some of those learnings into your neurons with a meditation from the great Sharon Salzburg. You may have heard me at times blather on about how I've come to embrace a broader definition of the very loaded and often cliché, laden term of love. Much of my spiel has been lifted directly from Sharon, who's done some incredibly deep and important thinking on this subject, and is one of the leading teachers when it comes to the flavor of meditation that science has shown can build up our capacity for love,

or you might just call it friendliness. In today's meditation, Sharon's going to show us how to apply these skills in all of our relationships, not just romantic ones. How do we surf the various vexations of dealing with other human beings without losing our crap or committing a homicide? Sharon's got your recipe. So here we go now, we share. Hi, this is Sharon Salisburg.

This practice is inspired by the second section of my book, Real Love. As we explore what Real Love can mean with our partners, our children, our parents, our siblings, as well as friends, colleagues, and spiritual teachers, whomever. The very real question arises, like how do we love another skillfully? How do we take what might be our beautiful and pure intentions and find expression for them? How do we deal with loss, with disappointment, with hurt, with fear? How do we stay honest enough, present enough to face those difficulties and transform them into a state of love for ourselves and for others. Not shall we do it one moment at a time.

We do it through developing a different relationship through our assumptions, our own fears, our own prior conclusions, and learn to be more present in a state of interest, curiosity, and wonder. Because this practice is a more reflective practice, again we're going to use the feeling of the breath as the touch point, as the grounding for our awareness. That's where we'll begin with feeling the sensations of the breath. That's what we'll return to periodically.

And at any time, if you feel just confused or lost or overwhelmed, you certainly can just come back to the feeling of the breath. So let's begin. You can sit comfortably. See if you're back and be straight without being strained or overarched. Close your eyes or not, however you feel most of these. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room.

I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. See if you can bring to mind a particular relationship, thinking an image, this person, maybe say their name to yourself, get a feeling for their presence. See what comes to mind as you try to imagine one good thing about them, the most predominant good thing about them. Perhaps it's something you treasure every day anyway. Perhaps it's something you don't think about very often.

What are you grateful for about this person? person. Notice how that makes you feel as you reflect on that. And bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. And with the same person, so you can call to mind something that's difficult for them in their lives, source of conflict or sorrow. Maybe it's something you do think about periodically in a wave of compassion for them. Maybe it's something you try to avoid or you tend to overlook. Whatever it might be, see if you can just sit there even if it's somewhat uncomfortable

and be present with them in this situation. Again you can return your attention to the feeling of the breath. Once again, the same person is there something you feel impatient about with them. You want to see them change. If something comes to mind, you can just reflect on that. How does that make you feel? Again bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. And then, do you feel you really know this person thoroughly? Are there any surprises? Did they show certain talents, certain skills, kind of sensitivity that you didn't think

was there? Or maybe you just acknowledge there's a whole mystery about everybody, including this person. Ponder this for a moment. I'm bringing your attention back to the feeling of the breath. You can close with the extension of loving kindness for this person, all parts of them. Parts you like, the parts you don't like that much, the parts not so clearly known, all of it. Get an image of them, say their name to yourself,

get a sense of their presence. And after you must heartfelt wishes to them, may you be safe, be happy, be healthy, live with ease or whatever those phrases might be. And when you feel ready, you can open your eyes in the session. And see if you encounter people in a different way based on having done this exercise. Thank you for exploring this practice, and I hope you find some benefit in continuing this exploration. Big thanks to Sharon, and before I go, I just want to point out we're going to be back here on Monday with a brand new episode that could be challenging could be a good way to test the skills that we just developed in that meditation.

I don't know this for sure, but I suspect the vast majority of listeners are progressive or at least in the center left or even just the center. far and wide low and high here on the show for many years for conservative advanced practitioners to come on and talk about their views of the practice and how it relates to society, culture, et cetera, et cetera. So we actually, we found one. His name is Christopher Ford and he'll be on the show on Monday and I think there's a lot to learn from sitting tight and listening to somebody whose ideas may not jive with your own. So let's do it together on Monday. Hey, hey, prime members.

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