Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - How Not to Be Owned by Desire | Bonus Meditation with Joseph Goldstein

Episode Date: July 17, 2020

Learn how to become mindful of desire, creating more room for choice instead of automatically reaching for the thirtieth cookie. You can find Joseph's meditation and much more on our app. Visit tenpercent.com to download the Ten Percent Happier app and kickstart your meditation practice. About Joseph: Joseph is one of the most respected meditation teachers in the world -- a key architect of the rise of mindfulness in our modern society -- with a sense of humor to boot. In the 1970's, he co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. Since its founding, thousands of people from around the world have come to IMS to learn mindfulness from leaders in the field. Joseph has been a teacher there since its founding and continues as the resident guiding teacher. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Where did memes come from? And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcast. From ABC, it's the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Happy Friday. Time for a bonus meditation. On Wednesday, we dropped an episode with the meditation teacher, Carl Lai, in which we explored the provocative, well, I guess it's a provocative question and Buddhist circles only, but with the provocative question of whether perhaps the Buddhists have, or some Buddhists have unhelpfully vilified desire that maybe we can

use wanting as a way to wake up as opposed to a hindrance to waking up. So today we're going to explore desire from a bit of a different perspective and a meditation from the great Joseph Goldstein meditation from the great Joseph Goldstein probably needs little to know introduction for this audience, but Joseph co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Central Massachusetts back in the 1970s with Sharon Salzburg and Jack Cornfield and is now one of the founding teachers on the 10% happier app. And this is one of many, many meditations and courses that we have from Joseph up on the app, but we're dropping it here because it rhymes so nicely with the episode we did on Wednesday. So here we go with Joseph Goldstein. One of the deepest aspects of the conditioning in our minds is the force of desire, the force of wanting,

of craving. People often respond to desire in one of two ways. We can either get lost in it, carried away in the enjoyment of it. On the other hand, sometimes people become aware of desire and judge the fact that it's arisen, or even judge oneself for having it. In both ways, we're actually feeding the desire, either by getting lost in it or by judging it. In our practice, we want to become aware of the desire as another object of meditation. We can open to our experience of it, be making a mental note, desire, desire, desire. Seeing how the desire all by itself will arise will be there for some

time and will pass away. This is such an important aspect of our practice because desire arises not only in our meditation, but in our lives as well. And so from our practice of meditation, we've learned some basic skills at being with the desire skillfully. We can become aware of it without judging it or judging ourselves. And in this place of ease, of acceptance, of openness, of inquiry, of exploration, of what desire is, we can then more easily assess, is this something we want to act on? Is this something we want to let go of, and so it provides a greater space of wisdom and freedom in our lives.

You can begin the meditation by settling into a comfortable posture, gently close the Guys, become aware of your body sitting. Sit and know you're sitting. Maybe begin to feel your breathing out. As any other object becomes predominant, sound, a sensation, thought. Use a soft mental note to frame that experience, hearing, pressure, thinking. And in the noting of each of those experiences when they no longer predominant, again return to the breath, with a sitting posture. You might also from time to time become aware of desire arising in the mind. When desires arise, become mindful of this as an object of meditation. Sometimes it may be a desire or wanting for a meditation to be a certain way. Might be desire for different kinds of sense pleasures. Perhaps there are food fantasies.

A thought's about where your next vacation will be. In whatever way you become aware of the wanting mind. Make a mental note of desire, desire, wanting, wanting, being aware of it without getting lost in it and also without judging or condemning it. Simply be aware of it as another arising mind state, another arising emotion. And notice what happens to it as you become mindful of it, as you note it. Does it continue? Does it increase? Does it decrease? Does it simply disappear? When they're no longer predominant, again we turn to the breath. Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw And now you can experiment with interweaving a time of more open awareness into your practice. Simply be open to the flow of experience moment after moment, as each new experience presents itself. 1.5% dextr. If at a certain time you feel a mind is getting too scattered, let's focus.

Getting increasingly lost in thoughts in the wandering mind, return again to a directed awareness. Refocusing on the feeling of the breath, breathing in, knowing you're breathing in, breathing out, knowing you're breathing out. 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

1.5% Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% When you find that the mind is wandered, it is distracted, simply beginning again. Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw As we end the meditation, you can open your eyes and begin to reconnect with the world around you. So, as you re-engage with the world and are in the midst of your daily life experience, see if you can open to it without getting lost in it or carried away, without judging

it, but feeling it in the body, seeing how it arises in the mind, we learn that we don't have to act on every desire in order to be free of it. By itself it will arise, it will pass away, and if we can be with it in a mindful way, we're able to assess more clearly which desire should be act on, which desire should be simply let go of, and so we bring a greater clarity and wisdom to the unfolding of our lives. Big thanks to Joseph Reminder, many many many more meditations from Joseph Goldstein in the 10% happier app and we've done a ton of courses with him where we combine short video clips from him with guided meditations.

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