Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - How To Be Less Judgmental (Of Other People – And Yourself) | La Sarmiento

Episode Date: December 25, 2024

Can mindfulness really pull you out of a spiral of self-judgment? Don’t you need to be judgmental sometimes? What’s the difference between being discerning and judgmental?Description: Meditation and mindfulness doesn’t uproot your capacity to be judgmental, but it can help you see the value in being judgmental by learning how to work with the judging mind. La Sarmiento has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 1998. La is a mentor for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, a teacher with Cloud Sangha, and a contributor to the Happier Meditation app.In this episode we talk about:How mindfulness can help us identify when we’re being judgmentalThe difference between discernment and judgmentHow it can be so delicious to be judgmental of others – but why it’s actually harmful to ourselves and othersThe four questions to ask when we notice ourselves going into judgment mode How to operationalize the phrase “am I suffering right now?” Investigating the motivations behind striving for success Why owning up to being a jerk is sometimes the exact right answerFull Shownotes: www.meditatehappier.com/podcast/tph/la-sarmiento-rerun-2024Where to find La Sarmiento online: Website: www.lasarmiento.comAdditional Resources:Download the Happier Meditation app today. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to 10% happier early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. It's the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, hey, how we doing, everybody? I have this vivid memory of being on a beach vacation with a bunch of friends many years ago when I was first getting interested in meditation. I was lounging and reading a book about Buddhism, and one of my friends spotted it and remarked that he could never do Buddhism or meditation because he was a comedy writer, still is actually, and he needs to retain his capacity to be judgmental.

There's so much to unpack in that comment. I mean, I wish that meditation uprooted my own capacity to be judgmental. I wish the technology was that effective. But anyway, I think the real misunderstanding here is that there's somehow a lot of value to being judgmental. I think that confuses discernment with judgmentalism. If anything, I think mindfulness or clear seeing or self-awareness, that makes you better able to discern the details that might make good comedy or help you make better decisions instead of being judgmental, which I think is a state of mind that is,

in my experience, quite painful. If you're mindful, you might see that judgmentalism carries a valence of ill will, or hatred, or superiority, none of which actually feel good, again, if you're paying attention. Of course, many, if not most of us, spend most of our judgmental energy,

not on other people, but on ourselves, nitpicking every decision, second guessing compulsively. As a friend of mine once joked, if anybody said to him the kinds of things his inner narrator said to him, he would punch that other person in the face. And yet many of us deeply believe that we need to liberally apply the inner cattle prod

in order to get anything done. I am still working on this myself. So today we're going to talk about how to work with the judging mind. And my guest is La Sarmiento, who's been practicing Vipassana meditation since 1998. La is a mentor for the mindfulness meditation teacher certification program and a teacher with cloud sangha. In this conversation, we talk about how mindfulness can help us identify when we're being judgmental, the difference between discernment and judgment, how it could be so delicious to be judgmental of other people, but why it's actually quite harmful.

The four questions to ask when we notice ourselves slipping into judgment mode, operationalizing the phrase, am I suffering right now as a life hack, investigating the motivations behind our striving for success and why owning up to it when we're being a jerk is sometimes exactly the right answer. Just to say we originally aired this episode in 2022, we're bringing it back while our team takes a little break over the holidays.

La Sarmento coming up right after this. But first, before we get started, I want to let you know about what we're planning Sarmento coming up right after this. But first, before we get started, I want to let you know about what we're planning for the first few weeks of 2025. We've got a big series called Do Life Better. It kicks off in January to get your year off to the best start possible. On New Year's Day, we have a very special episode with the Dharma teacher Vinny Ferraro. The last episode we did with him, which was actually the first time he was ever on the show. I got more comments for that episode than anything I've ever done on the show.

So we thought bringing it back for the first day of the year would be a good move. And then we're gonna follow up with a huge month long pod series where we combine world-class scientists with Dharma teachers to help you actually do your resolutions. Meanwhile, over on danharris.com, we're offering a ton of resources and support, including a free seven-day New Year's challenge.

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Doing well, thank you Dan. Good to be here again. Great to have you back on the show. Thanks for doing it. So, judgment, being judgmental. This is a problem for other people because I've never had this problem, but you've in the past publicly told a quite moving story.

I'm wondering whether you'd be willing to tell it here about your history with this particular quality of mind, which is of course universal, which if memory serves, you really first encountered in your childhood. Yeah, thank you, Dan. So as a very young child when I was about five years old, I recognized or realized that I was queer, I was non-binary, and of course didn't have any vocabulary for that at that age in 1969. So basically I felt there was just something

innately wrong with me. And so the concept of judgment came up from this fear of being less than other people and doubtful and insecure of myself. So being judgmental of others was really a way for me to feel better about myself. And so it really kind of stemmed from this place of deep insecurity, doubt, lack of belonging, acceptance in a world that I

intuited at a very young age didn't accept someone like me. What form did this judgmentalism take? How did it express itself? Yeah, so it could express itself like being competitive. I would compare myself to others and try to beat people out, whether it be academically or athletically, just trying to be better than everybody else is how it showed up for me. And thinking that people that didn't meet the standard that I had set for myself

were less than adequate or less than who I was at the time. And it created a lot of a sense of superiority, a false sense of superiority, I would say, and to a certain extent a way of further isolating myself. And that's something that I later in life recognized was that that was happening. I wasn't creating more connection. I was actually creating separation by comparing myself and judging others for being less than who I had myself be in the world.

Just to say, I think it's really useful to talk about this and I appreciate your candor. So you talked about it in a childhood context, did it play out through your adult years as well? context, did it play out through your adult years as well? Yeah, I would definitely say it played out a lot in my relationships and it became actually more internalized. I started judging myself more in this comparison to others. And so I furthered the story that I was less than others. For example, when I started teaching the Dharma in mindfulness, I would compare myself with my colleagues thinking that, oh, I went on way less retreats than they did. I'm not like a very naturally inclined sitting meditation person.

I try to integrate mindfulness and the Dharma into my everyday life. And so going on long retreats wasn't something that interested me at all. And so when I was dubbed a teacher, I began to doubt, like, oh, am I actually really qualified for this? And why are people inviting me to teach when I definitely don't have the same credentials or qualifications as many of my colleagues? And I even put the story on, well, how many immigrant non-binary people of color are there in the Dharma when I was there? And I was just there to like check off a bunch of diversity boxes. I mean, that's how kind of low I got with myself. And so I would judge people that believe different

political beliefs as I did, who weren't spiritual like I was, all in the name of trying to feel some sense of superiority or some sense of, yeah, like I was someone and not nothing. You mentioned the fact that you come from an immigrant family. I believe you've also talked about this kind of, my term not yours and maybe it's going to work, maybe it won't, but this kind of compensatory judgmentalism that your parents adopted as well upon arrival in this strange new country.

Yeah, exactly. And it was really interesting because as people of color immigrated from the Philippines, they became actually more judgmental of other people of color than the dominant culture. And so we were taught to, if we were going to survive in this country, it really was about assimilating into the dominant culture versus being proud of where we came from, our own heritage. And so that was another mixed message I got, that I wasn't

acceptable or good enough or okay in this country. And so I feel in a lot of ways my parents' judgment of others also stemmed from feeling inferior and hoping mechanism to feel more superior within themselves. Now that you're a grown up and you have, at least in my mind, unimpeachable bona fides as a meditation teacher, do you still notice judgment coming up in your mind directed at other people or yourself? I definitely notice when it arises.

Like even this morning, I woke up and I was feeling really anxious. And I'm usually like pretty easygoing and peaceful. And I'm like, why am I feeling anxious? Then I thought to myself, oh, because I'm going to be on this podcast with Dan this afternoon. And like, who am I to be on this podcast with someone like you and in a podcast like this? And I just recognize like, oh, yeah, that's my younger self,

my inner five-year-old who got a needs improvement in show and tell, really not wanting to show up and be in front of however many people will be listening to this. What if I mess up? What if I don't say the right things? All these things started coming up and I just had to pause and just use the practice in this way of like, oh yeah buddy, you're struggling right now. Like you're scared, you're insecure, you're doubtful. And just really acknowledging like that was

what was happening and just taking some breaths and reminding myself that I've been on this podcast with you before, I will do the best I can and if that's not good enough, I'm just happy I showed up. For the record, I have no doubts about whether you deserve to be here. So just to say that, and if you mess up, we'll edit it out. But I want to put a pin on something you did with yourself or to yourself in that moment of anxiety, which is you very specifically talked to yourself.

You used the word buddy. We've done episodes on this, and I find this to be incredibly compelling. The idea that we can counter program against these ancient neurotic programs we've got by very deliberately talking to ourselves. I'll just shout out Ethan Cross, who's been on the show before, has done quite a bit of research. We'll put a link to his episode in the show notes.

He wrote a book called Chatter, and he's done a lot of research at the University of Michigan, and into our now proven capacity to talk ourselves down from whatever ledge we've talked ourselves up onto. So can you say more about how you operationalize this insight? Yeah, thank you, Dan. So for me, it's usually the part of me that gets scared or stressed out or feels doubtfully insecure

is actually a younger version of myself that got the needs improvement in show and tell or stressed out or feels doubtfully insecure, is actually a younger version of myself that got the needs improvement in show and tell that had that story haunt me for most of my life that really has hindered me, but at the same time has been this blessing in a way to face into like, this is not who I am. This is the story that I've carried

ever since I was a little kid who didn't know how to deal with this. And so now, through the practice of mindfulness, I've been able to, oh, recognize, it's okay to have these feelings. And really being kinder and gentler with myself around my perfectionism, which was one of my other survival mechanisms, to not let anybody see that I was flawed or insecure or doubtful or fearful of things. And so I think that's what has really helped me in my teaching is that I'm just very honest about what's going on for me. So it really is about humanizing our experience. And so if someone who is labeled a teacher or a leader can own like, oh yeah, I do feel scared or I do

feel insecure, then it hopefully makes everyone else feel like, oh,, I do feel scared or I do feel insecure, then it hopefully makes everyone else feel like, oh, well, maybe it's okay to feel those things. We all have sort of this tendency in this culture to hide behind some facade. That's not really who we are. And I just basically got tired. It takes a lot of effort to keep trying to present in a way that's inauthentic. Yes, you're doing the opposite of the curated Instagram feed. And I think it's extremely healthy. I've heard this term, I don't know who came up with it, cathartic normalization. Now, it's possible, as Brene Brown,

the great sociologist and researcher, has pointed out to overdo that, but you're not. And it's very helpful to talk about what's happening in the mind. And then of course, what you add is how to deal with it. You talked about mindfulness there, but one of the old cliches about Buddhism is that there are two wings of the Dharma.

There's wisdom, which you can define as seeing clearly, and compassion. And in your morning routine, talking yourself off the ledge of anxiety this morning, I heard both wings. You had to have the mindfulness, the seeing clearly, the wisdom to notice that this was happening, that you were having this inner dialogue. And then the compassion or warmth or friendliness, you might even say love, to give a shit and try to give yourself some first aid. Right. Exactly. And, you know, it's been this process of kind

of reparenting myself because, you know, as much as my dear parents tried to raise us well, everything was about hiding all those aspects of myself. Like, just suck it up and just keep moving on. You know, we're immigrants, we can't, like, dwell on our feelings or disagreeing with something. We just have to keep moving forward. And so, for me, it really was a way of accepting,

like, this is who I am. And these are feelings that are very human, that I'm, as an adult, like really allowing myself to feel and allowing myself to take care of those feelings and not putting that on anybody else, whether it be my parents, my partner, my friends, that it's my responsibility to take care of them in that way. And so sort of the litmus test for me is always noticing when I'm suffering. One of my dear teachers, Eric Holvig, said at the end

of one of the retreats, and this stuck with me for probably 20 years now, if there's anything you're going to take from this retreat, let it be these two things, to practice every day and to notice when you're suffering. And when I can notice at any point in time during the day when I'm suffering, whether it be physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, then I tell myself to just slow down, slow down, take some breaths, acknowledge, honor, nurture, whatever is going on for you, and it'll be okay. The more I push it away or try to suppress it, it just keeps coming back at me. So if I can process these emotions and feelings as they come up, then I'm not harboring a lot of that stuff in me all the time, which I think many of us in this culture do.

And then we explode or we make unskillful choices or decisions or actions or speech because we're just constantly in reaction to whatever is right in front of us. I've said this before, but your story about what was said to you at the end of the retreat reminds me of this mini realization I had when I was on a retreat once, which is that if I'm suffering, there's something I'm not mindful of. Yeah, exactly.

And in noticing that suffering, then we become more mindful and there's something we can actually do about it if we choose to, if we remember to. And that's the other part is remembering that we have a choice in how we proceed once we get that we're suffering. Sometimes I'll be suffering and then I'll just like sling another arrow or two in there or three or four and it's like, wow, I'm really shooting myself up here. And so I think as I get older, as I get more mindful, I'm much more sensitive to the fact like, yeah, I don't want to suffer. Like, I'm totally open to

experiencing pain in this life. It's just a given. But I don't have to add to that pain by the stories I tell myself or internalizing stories society says about someone like me or what somebody else may be projecting on who I am. Yeah, so it's more of this discernment. And I think the more I discern, the less I judge. You've said that when you notice judgment in your mind, there are four questions you ask yourself. Can you run through those?

Yeah. So usually, is my heart open or closed? Am I suffering or am I free? Am I feeling empowered or disempowered? And am I feeling connected or disconnected? Why those questions? I think for me, they in particular just kind of go to the root of it because if we're feeling disconnected,

our hearts shut down, I'm not feeling empowered. And if I'm suffering, it's painful. It's physically painful. It's emotionally draining. It's mentally exhaustive. And then especially around feeling disempowered. It's like, oh, I've given away my power again. Oh, I've appeased or I've allowed someone to step all over me again.

And it's something, it just helps me remember like what's most important to me, and that's to keep an open heart, to not suffer, to be free, and to feel empowered. And so it really is this way of just checking myself. Like where am I right now in this moment around those four particular aspects? Open heart is a term that gets thrown out a lot, but I think maybe for some of us, it

can be hard to access through all of the cultural baggage. So very specifically, what do you mean by it? Yeah. So, you know, our culture tends to be like you're either as hard as like wide open or closed. So it's like it's off and on switch. And my dear teacher, Joe Weston, often talks about what if we upgrade to a dimmer switch. So rather than it be totally open 100% or

totally closed 100%, depending on the situation, we use our dimmer switch to be like, oh, when I listen to the news, my heart is about 20% open. But when I'm playing with my dogs, it's like 95% open. And so there's this continuum of open heartedness so that it's not 95% open. And so there's this continuum of openheartedness so that it's not making one self totally vulnerable and at the same time it's not totally shutting ourselves off from life altogether. But it's like depending on the situation, how do I discern how open I feel is safe enough for my heart to be in this situation or with this person. And again, very specifically, when you say your heart is open or closed, what does that

actually mean? It's just your openness to the information, your openness to processing other people's emotions. What do you mean specifically? I would say it's like my capacity to be willing to engage, to be willing to cultivate patience and understanding and respect and love and compassion. So it's having that capacity to be present with life, no matter how it's unfolding, whether it's something joyful

or something that's really challenging and painful, but to be there with it is what I mean by my heart being open. It's kind of the opposite of being judgmental. Yeah, exactly. Judgment creates separation, creates pain, it creates a sense of isolation, not belonging. And it's all the ways that we as humans are not wired to be. We are wired to actually be social on a continuum as well. And so we're all different and what that means for us can vary.

And to me, like judgment, I think has gotten a really negative connotation around it. And so for me, I tend to use the word discernment because it's not like shooting from the hip. It's more thoughtful. It's like, okay, let me just pause for a moment and see what's all here and take it in and from my own sense of integrity and discernment figure out like what's the best thing. And I don't do that all the time, you can ask my partner. Like last week she said, you know you're being a jerk right now. It's like, yes, I'm very mindful that I'm being a jerk right now and I'm very aware that it feels really good to be a jerk in this moment. And eventually I'll apologize to you for the impact that's having,

but that's what's present for me right now. So yeah, so I'm not always open-hearted. Sometimes I lose it and can go into my old habit energies as well. You talked about the difference between being judgmental and being discerning. And I think some people will have the thought in their head, You talked about the difference between being judgmental and being discerning. And I think some people will have the thought in their head, well, shouldn't I be judgmental sometimes? I mean, if I lose my capacity to be judgmental, I'm not going to be able to tell who's right and wrong or make the choice between chocolate and vanilla at the ice cream store, whatever.

So how do you respond when you get that question? Yeah, so when I hear the word judgmental, I automatically go to this place of like, okay, there's this judging aspect that's not necessarily informed in a way. It's more of like a gut reaction to something. And so there's just something about the word judgmental that just doesn't sit with me well.

And so I use discerning instead, because for me, it just kind of slows down the process and has me kind of take inventory of all that's present and that's happening, and then choosing to act or speak from that place. It's like, oh, because people will say like, oh, you're being judgmental. Automatically you get defensive.

It's like, no, I'm not. But if we discern, for me, that's more like I'm speaking from my own experience, I'm speaking from my own discernment of what's happening, and this is mine. It's not a projection of judgment onto something else. Well, we're very good at self-deception though. So I can imagine telling myself a whole story about how,

no, no, no, in this moment I'm being discerning, not judgmental, when in fact I am being judgmental. That's why we practice mindfulness, Dan. It's because we're aware. It's like I'm trying to pull the wool over my own eyes or somebody else's eyes. The other skeptical question I could imagine arising in the minds of listeners on this topic would be something along the lines of isn't there some deliciousness to being judgmental at times isn't that the basis of comedy isn't gossip fun I'm having trouble formulating the question exactly

but you do you understand what I'm pointing at? Yeah. So I think it's really around context. And there's a lot in comedy that folks get away with that you wouldn't necessarily get away with in a everyday conversation, per se. When I first watched this one comedian, Russell Peters, and he was making fun of all different kinds of mostly Asian accents and stuff. It was like, I noticed myself like, oh, I'm like laughing at that because in certain ways, especially when he did accents from the Philippines, it was like, oh yeah, that definitely sounds like my parents. But I've seen Dharma teachers do this where they will imitate their like say Indian guru and that's just not cool.

So it to me, it like really depends on the context of which we're doing this. And there are definitely comedians that get called on some of their comedy, like Dave Chappelle, et cetera. So it really is a fine line, depending on who's receiving the entertainment and whether they think it's appropriate or not. How can I judge that for anybody but myself? Where do you stand on the good gossip sesh?

There's definitely a little, especially like if it's somebody that I'm not very fond of or I don't respect, etc. And then I'll feel into that a little bit and then I'll pause and remember like, would I want anyone else to be talking about me this way? And it usually is I'll get into a conversation with someone, we'll go off on somebody and then I notice like, would I want anyone else to be talking about me this way? And it usually is, I'll get into a conversation with someone, we'll go off on somebody, and then I notice, like, oh, it just doesn't feel good. It doesn't land well in my heart, my body starts to get a little tense, and especially being immersed in the Dharma

and mindful speech for 23 years, it's like, yeah, it's like not ethical. Yeah, it's definitely something a lot of people do, almost everybody does, and it's also not ethical. Yeah, it's definitely something a lot of people do, almost everybody does, and it's also hurtful. And so, so much of our practice is about not causing harm. And, and I've definitely caused my share of harm through gossip and try to watch that as much as I can. But there are definitely times when I'm just like dishing and totally participate. But in the end, later I'll have a lot of regret or remorse around it. Coming up, Law talks about the concept of eating ice cream while also serving the world,

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in themselves. Visit meditatehappier.com slash gift to share the gift of mindfulness this season. Let me go back to the four questions you ask. Is my heart open or closed? Do I feel connected or disconnected? Do I feel free or am I suffering? Am I feeling empowered or disempowered? You've talked about that from a first person perspective. Those are the four questions you ask yourself

when you have sufficient mindfulness to notice that you've gone into a mode of being judgmental. Can you put your teacher hat on and advise us on how we might operationalize these four questions? It's quite a bit to remember, so I'm wondering how you would advise us to work with this. Yeah. So one of the first things we learn when we learn to meditate is mindfulness of the body.

And so it's the first foundation of mindfulness according to the Buddhist teachings. And so it really is the more we're aware of how our bodies feel whenever we're feeling some form of stress, whether it be something joyful or something difficult and challenging. That's the first clue. And so you can negate whether you're feeling open-hearted, connected, empowered, whether you're free, etc. So it's like, oh, can I just get like right now, jaws clenched, my shoulders are up to my ears, Right now, jaw is clenched, my shoulders are up to my ears, my hands want to form fists, etc. There's like something going on.

And in that moment, can we recognize that we're in pain or we're suffering? We suffer if we're adding a story about like, oh, I shouldn't be feeling this way because I should know better or whatever it happens to be. And that tends to be the counter to us having feelings, is that I shouldn't be feeling this way. So to make this, the four questions, just really easy is like what my teacher Eric Kolhick said, it's like, just notice when you're suffering. But also, Dan, we live in a culture where the baseline of our existence tends to be

suffering because we're all pretty stressed out. And so the practice helps us to get like, oh, there's another way we can be. And the more you practice, the more the thoughts tend to quiet down, the more we're able to be with our emotions more fully, the more we're able to even create more ease and spaciousness in our bodies so that we can be with life as it is. And so when we suffer, we'll notice when we're not at that different baseline of calm and ease and spaciousness and peace. And so it becomes more acute or more present for us to get like, oh, I'm suffering right now.

So what do I want to do about it? So you don't need to remember all four questions, although they're great questions and could be very useful But if you don't have access to them in your working memory at this moment You can just notice am I suffering right now and that's a pretty useful feedback And it may be that you're caught in a snarl of judgment for other people yourself Yeah, exactly so it's like am I feeling stressed in some sort of way and suffering in some sort of way? If I just pause long enough to get like what's going on with my body? What

emotions am I feeling right now? What thoughts are going through my head? Stories are going through my head. So it's like the acronym RAIN that's been spread all over now through Tara Brock and Michelle McDonald. I'm like just recognizing like what's happening, you know, can I hang out with this right now, and then investigating it, checking it out. How is it affecting my body? Like what emotions are arising within me? What thoughts or stories are going through my head right now? Am I suffering? Even if you just carry that phrase around with you like, am I suffering right now? That would be enough. Because the Buddha taught two things, suffering and the alleviation of suffering.

And that's what all this practice really is about, is how to be with our suffering so that we can actually live our lives fully. I think it's quite a beautiful whittling down of the ultimate and most profound life hack. Are you suffering at any given moment? And if you are, can you stop and investigate and be cool with yourself in that moment? That is, I think, the life hack par excellence. Yeah. I'm a very simple teacher. I don't need to expound, expound, expound. Just like how my parents were with me, it's like this. Your father has this really great phrase like,

think about it. Just stop and just think about it. Like what's happening right now? That's another question I ask myself throughout the day. It's like, all right buddy, what's happening right now? Just randomly throughout the day. What's going, all right, buddy, what's what's happening right now? Just randomly throughout the day, like what's going on? Because oftentimes we're just caught up, caught up in our Zoom meetings, caught up with work, caught up with our relationships, but to pause long enough to

to get like, oh yeah, what's present right now? Does anything need to be tended to in this moment? Let me ask you another question that often comes up in this context. And this, this pertains to judging ourselves. I hear this a lot and I can, I can even hear it a lot of my own inner dialogue. I will achieve nothing if I don't. Liberally apply the internal cattle prod. How do you respond to that? don't liberally apply the internal cattle prod. How do you respond to that? Because I'm sure I'm not the first person

to articulate that concern to you. Yeah, well, it's interesting, right? Because some people need that kind of push to get motivated and maybe that could be a skillful means. But if it gets to the point where it's harmful or painful or we push ourselves way too hard, we overwork, we overcommit, we don't have time for anything or anyone or ourselves,

then that's not really living. It's like, well, what are you trying to achieve anyway? Would be my question. What is it that you want from this life? Fame, fortune, or just happiness, like ease. I mean, I used to push myself. I used to be a very much more of a striving kind of person. And a lot of that came from my doubt and insecurities about myself and that I needed to prove that I was worthy of existence, you know.

And I had to do all those things to prove that I was worthy of existence, you know, and I had to do all those things to prove that worth. And when I finally realized, like, I'm already worthy just because it's my birthright. It's just I'm a human being, I deserve to exist, and I'll do what I need to do, but I don't have to prove my worth to anyone anymore. And for somebody, you know, who has social identities like myself, that's quite liberating because so much of my life was making up for the fact that I was an immigrant, non-binary person of color, which I often will say, all my identities are trending right now.

And so, yeah, once I got like, wow, there's nowhere to get, but just be here, accept yourself, love yourself. If other people don't love or accept you, it's not about you. And so it was really about decolonizing my heart, mind, body in so many ways from those internalized messages that I got from the culture. I'm going to keep pressing you, not because I disagree it in any way, but just because I suspect there might be people listening

who are as yet unsold. So let me invoke my dad, not an immigrant, but second generation American Jewish. And he had a little motto, which was, the price of security is insecurity. And I remember he was a quite a renowned academic physician at Harvard and I remember him once when I was starting to get into meditation telling me that he had had

some colleagues who got into meditation and it made them and I'm quoting here, like totally ineffective. And I can hear my dad saying, okay, so you're gonna rest in your inherent worthiness, but does that lead to total complacency? Do you then sit and eat ice cream forever? I do eat ice cream, but then I still serve in the world.

It's like I can have both. So it really is a really, I totally hear where you're coming from, Dan. It's a really strong story that many of us carry in this particular capitalist, patriarchal, racist culture of, yeah, you got to push, you got to work hard, you got to earn. If that all makes you happy,

then more power to you. But if it doesn't, then my invitation is to examine what is it that you really want from your life. And for me, it's like I want a deep sense of peace so that whatever is happening, and a deep sense of equanimity so that no matter what is happening out there in the world, it's not going to knock me over. And so it really is this trust, belief in myself that I've worked, like done that whole like,

oh, I'm going to work really hard. And it's like, yeah, I'll make more money or even in the Dharma world. It's like, I'll do all these different retreats and stuff. But then I just end up tired and cranky and irritable and disconnected and I'm not happy. You know, so I've actually been switching gears and I'm no longer teaching week-long meditation retreats. I'm more into small group mentoring and individual mentoring because I really love being in relationship with my students.

I don't need to teach masses of people, 100, 200, 500 people at a time. That doesn't appeal to me. I care about people individually and want to support them in whatever way, whether it be collectively in a small group or individually on their own. I feel like I'm a pretty happy, grounded, peaceful person because of it. That's enough for me. That's another thing is like for a long time, nothing was going to ever be enough.

I get to determine what that is for me at this point in my life. And this is enough, no matter what anyone else thinks I should be doing or how I should be doing it. Well, as somebody who quit two lucrative anchor jobs in network television to dedicate himself to meditation, I respect your professional decisions. And let me see if I can kind of recapitulate at least two of the messages I'm hearing from you on this subject of judging oneself harshly

as a motivational tool. One, if you're carrying around the story that you need to kick your own ass in order to achieve anything, maybe investigate whether that strategy is actually making you happy. What are you getting out of it?

Two, maybe investigate an assumption that might be fueling this story that you need to kick your own ass in order to get anything done. And that assumption might be that you can't be effective if you're motivated by anything other than fear and self-laceration. Yeah, there was a bumper sticker I used to have on my car that was from Ben and Jerry's that basically said, like, do what you love, love what you do. I don't know how many people can actually say

that they do that. And I'm also, I'm going to acknowledge that I'm speaking from a privileged place where I don't have to worry so much about money. I've got a partner that makes good money as well. And for some people, whatever job they have is what they have. I totally honor and respect that. And not everyone has that ability to make those choices.

So yeah, I think it just really depends. Absolutely. We all have varying levels of luck and we're dealt different hands and much of that is out of our control. Yet, I just do want to hone back in on this question of motivation and effectiveness, because you said earlier, I can eat the ice cream, ice cream keeps coming up, but I can eat the ice cream and still serve in the world, I cream keeps coming up, but I can eat the ice cream and still serve in

the world, I believe was your terminology, but you could rephrase that to just sort of being effective generally. I can have a sense of my own worthiness and I can be really active. And what I hear from that is that the activity can be motivated not by insufficiency, fear, lack, whatever, but it can be motivated by, I'm going to use a big word here, it's not a long word, but it's a big concept, love. And I don't mean that in the most string music swelling, white light type of way. I mean, just sort of the basic human capacity to give a shit. You can be acting out of love for your family to provide for them, love for yourself to provide for yourself,

love for your customers or clients or colleagues or listeners, in my case. And so can you get out of one motivation into a more cleaner burning fuel that involves less self-judgment. Yeah, beautiful, Dan. It really is that what is underneath that drive that's driving that push? Is it ego? Is it fame? Is it money? It's all the worldly wins as they call it in the Buddhist teachings, like gain and loss, fame and disrepute,

like all these different things where, you know, in our culture that's what success has meant. And so for me, if I can help one person just breathe a little easier, love themselves just a little bit more a day, then I'm good. But we don't live in a culture anymore that really takes the time to do that because it's so fast, there's so much going on, it's overwhelming to even just engage in life. So much for me around mindfulness practice is really about slowing down enough so I can actually get like how I'm choosing to engage in this life.

Life is going to just do its thing, but how I relate to it is the only thing I have control and power over. Along those lines of how we're relating to whatever's happening in life, in our mind, in the world, in the universe at any given moment, in preparing for this discussion, you shared with my colleague Gabrielle some thoughts from another Dharma teacher, Philip Moffat, who asks people to ask themselves in any given moment which mode they're in, judging, comparing, or fixing. Can you hold forth on that idea? So these are just like, to me, just three different ways

we just try to survive in the world. And so, as we were talking about earlier, just like the judgment, it's just a way of sometimes feeling superior to someone else. And comparing, it's like, okay, where am I in comparison to someone in this situation? Am I doing this better than they are? Are they doing it better than me? And there's always this sense of competition and this comparing.

And then fixing is like, I just don't want to deal with it. I'm just going to just take care of it and not mess with all this other stuff. And so it really is this way of, yeah, I don't like what's happening right now, so I'm just going to fix it. I'm just going to make it be

a certain way so that I can be okay with it. So in many ways, it's just judging, comparing, fixing just ways that prevent us from actually just being with life as it is. How do you find yourself using this tool? How would you recommend we do it on a moment-to-moment basis? It goes back to that suffering. It's noticing like, oh, I'm feeling insecure or inadequate or unsure of myself.

And so my habit energy is to either judge that person or compare myself to that person or want to fix myself so that I can be better at whatever is going on. And so to notice that that's happening, it is to bring compassion to the fact that in this moment, I'm suffering right now. I'm judging myself for someone else. I'm comparing myself to someone else. I'm wanting to fix myself because I'm not enough. And so it just comes down to, okay, noticing that that's what's happening, noticing the habit energy of any of these three

qualities and pausing long enough just to have compassion for the fact that I'm just suffering noticing that that's what's happening, noticing the habit energy of any of these three qualities, and pausing long enough just to have compassion for the fact that I'm just suffering right now. And can I take care of that suffering? And what I'll tend to notice is that my need for things to be different will lessen when I tend to acknowledging that that's what's happening, that the suffering is what's happening. That research that's been done that says the lifespan of an emotion is 90 seconds, but we carry so many of these emotions from childhood for decades because we never tended to it,

we never acknowledged it. And so to notice when judgment, comparing mind, fixing mentality occurs, it's like, oh, I'm really not wanting to be with life as it is right now. So what do I need to do to take care of myself in this moment? I noticed that a lot in my own meditation. I heard a teacher, and I can't remember who it was,

maybe it was Eckhart Tolle, say, and maybe many teachers have said this, but like one interesting question to ask yourself is, what is standing between you and being present right now? And I see a lot in my meditation that, what is it? Why are we uncomfortable being awake right now? Because we're constantly living in the past and living in the future.

That's how we're conditioned. We're either trapped in memories and stories or regrets of the past, or if that doesn't work, then like, okay, well, maybe it'll be better sometime down the road or anticipating, oh, I'm going to go on vacation or I'm going to be doing this really great activity, but I can't be here right now. And so it really is pausing long enough. And I think that that being present is so hard because we're just not taught how to be present unless we at some point in our lives run up against mindfulness or meditation

or the Dharma and really get like the only truth that there is in this life is the present moment. The past is already gone, the future is not even here, and there's no guarantees that we'll even have a tomorrow. And so to me, that's what makes the present so much more precious and valuable is like, it's all there is. But we're not conditioned in that way. We're so conditioned quite the opposite. What the hell is here? Nothing's going on right now. Well, that's good because when you thought about the future, you were that's good because when you thought about the future you were getting anxious and when you thought about the past you were

feeling regretful. So in this present moment, like I think Eckhart Tolle even said in this present moment, there's nothing wrong. It's right now. There's like nothing wrong. Coming Up Law talks about how to celebrate rather than beat yourself up when you recognize that you've drifted off in meditation. They also talk about using our powers of discernment to separate who someone is from their behavior. That's coming up right after this. Hello, ladies and germs, boys and girls. The Grinch is back again to ruin your Christmas

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NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial today. This discussion is bringing to mind one of my principal arenas for self judgment, which is meditation. And this kind of judgment that I see come up in my own mind when I'm not awake, when I wake up from some long jag where I'm planning a homicide or whatever, and just to train myself over time to not get caught by that judgment, just to make a mental note of, oh, that's what's happening right

now. I've woken up and now I'm being judgmental about the fact that I woke up, but I can just fall back and include that in my awareness too. Am I making any sense? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, totally, Dan. And that's the thing is that we don't give enough credit to that moment where we wake up. We automatically go to the fact that we judge that we fact that we weren't awake, like you were saying. And so to me, it's like I invite all my students to like when you acknowledge that you've gone,

your attention has been drifting and it's been drifting for the last 45 minutes, and you're aware of that, like celebrate that. Like that's great. Over time, the more you do this, that window of time between when you go off and when you come back will get shorter and shorter. Or you'll be aware of like, oh, I've gone off. Okay. I recognize that. That's great. Let me just come back. Let's just begin again. And so rather than judging, it's like if we can just say we can

just begin again. Just like we start all over again. It's not a problem, but there's just so much conditioning to judge when we think we've done something wrong. There's nothing wrong with drifting off. We all do it, but it's how you come back is really the practice. And that's where that compassion, that kindness, that gentleness that often maybe we didn't get. It's like, oh, you drifted off, what's the matter with you?

You suck or like you're an awful person, like you can't ever do this. It just is painful. So we can remember like there's no really any place to really get. It's just to be aware of what's happening and to come back, drifted away. I'm always telling people that moment when you wake up from distraction is often a moment for self judgment or self laceration, but actually it should be a moment for self congratulation because you've woken up and you're seeing something about the mind. Whatever distraction you've noticed is teaching you or familiarizing you with your habits of minds

so that they don't own you as much. Now I say that to people all the time and yet I fall into self-judgment when I meditate too and then I have to kind of give myself the same talk. Increasingly what I've noticed is when I get carried away, usually it's by one of two principal inner demons, anger or self-centeredness. And I've really trained myself to say the following when I wake up to that. Thank you. Thank you to my inner rage monster or my inner self promoter, because even

though they're doing it unskillfully, they are trying to help me. And so just blow it a kiss and then go back to whatever I'm trying to focus on. Exactly. Because they're always going to be there. It's just habit energy. It's just a habit that we have. And so when we get that this habit is hurtful or painful, I mean, why would you want to

engage in a practice where you're just constantly berating yourself and judging yourself? I wouldn't even want to meditate anymore. It's not a great motivation. But if the result of me being kinder and gentler with myself and more compassionate, it's like, oh, that actually feels good. It allows me to accept my humanity. It allows me to accept that I'm not allows me to like accept that I'm not perfect, that I do have flaws or I don't do everything really well. And can that be okay? And only I can like say that that's okay or not okay. But I've gotten to this point, Dan, where you know, I don't necessarily like judge myself, make these feelings like come up, but it's

not like, oh, lie, you're awful or or you don't know anything, or any of that. But it's gotten to the point where I feel so far away from those voices that it sometimes makes it hard for me to relate to people that still are stuck in that place. I'd love to be in your place. Judging the other people who were caught up in self-judgment.

Yeah. Because it's like, oh my gosh, it's like it's so painful. It's like, stop doing that to yourself. Like you're just, yeah, you don't deserve that. Nobody deserves that. Amen. As we wing toward the end of our time together, I want to see if you'd be open to telling another personal story. This one has to do with not self-judgment, but judgment of others, and in particular,

your tendency to be judgmental of your own family, including your mom. Would you be open to telling that story? Sure. Yeah. So, my mom and I had a very contentious relationship for a lot of our lives. Both my parents are very controlling and sometimes manipulative, but all out of a place of really wanting the best for us and loving us, but not really knowing how to do that in a way that felt good to me.

So, like what you're talking about that, a person that drives us to strive or to motivate us, not necessarily saying the best things. And so it was just really painful for me growing up to hear a lot of critical messages about how I looked, how I acted, how I live my life, et cetera. And when it came down to my mom's last year of life, she had a terminal brain tumor, I vowed that I would take that time, that limited time to heal my relationship with my mother. And so much of that literally was, is it possible for me

to just accept her for who she is? And that at 78 years old, that she's not going to change, no matter how much I try to explain myself or do good in the world or whatever, she's going to have her judgments or feelings about that. And what happened was that the more I focused on accepting her for who she was, it helped me just accept myself for who I am and that I didn't need that external sense of approval from her anymore to validate my existence. And so my judgments of her political beliefs or her religious beliefs or criticisms of me or my sister, it was just like that's all her stuff.

I don't have to internalize this anymore. And so that judgment transformed into acceptance of who she was. And then just trust and faith that in this lifetime, like she did the best that she could with what she knew, with what she had, what she experienced, the traumas that she lived through. There's so much that I don't know about my mom and still don't know about my mom that informed how she did show up in this life and in our lives. And so it was really very healing ultimately for me to just get she is the way

she is and she was and how I related to that was really what was going to determine my healing and my freedom in my relationship with her. And just to be clear, your acceptance of her does not equal endorsing her views that you find unacceptable. It's just accepting that this is the way she is. I can love her anyway, but I don't have to agree with her. Exactly. So for me, a big thing is being able to discern, going back to that word, between who someone is and their behavior.

So if I believe that, like the Dalai Lama says, we all have innate goodness, Buddha nature in terms of Buddhist practice, then that's inherent in every single person, even the most, who we think are the most despicable of us in this world. So that's separate and distinct from one's behavior, how one chooses to show up, or not even chooses sometimes, it's just conditioned to show up in this world. And so when I can make that distinction, that's where I can have a sliver of compassion

or a sliver of understanding for someone and not throw them out of my heart. I can set a boundary and say like, no, you're not gonna do that behavior around me anymore. I still love you, but you know, you can't be in my life right now. That's where that distinction comes into play. I guess the only last question that comes into my mind

and you made a nod in this direction earlier, but it does seem like our society would function way better at an interpersonal level, but also at a macro level, if we could move from judgment to discernment. Yeah, I think a lot of it is around the connotation that the word judgment, judgmental, judging has. People always say like, don't judge me. There's like that saying.

And so to me, the word judgment really creates this separation between all of us. And I feel like discernment really creates a bit more thoughtfulness, a bit more openness, a bit more willingness to engage. La Sarmiento, always a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you very much for coming out. Thank you, Dan, for having me.

Thanks again to La Sarmiento. This episode is based on a Dharma talk that La gave at Spirit Rock Meditation Center a few years ago. That recording can be found at Dharma Seed, which is a great website where they compile all sorts of Dharma talks. We'll put a link in the show notes. And if you want to keep up with La and her teaching schedule, etc., she has a website, laasarmianto.com. One last thing to say before I go, I just want to thank everybody who worked so hard

to make this show a reality. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. This holiday season, give your loved ones only the best from L.L. Bean. For 80 years, L.L. Bean has been making their Scotch plaid flannel shirts the same way, better than everyone else's. Their Scotch plaid is brushed on each side to create a smooth and cozy feel. And at just $79, this long-lasting

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