Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Jack Kornfield & Yung Pueblo On: How To Meditate When You’re Freaking Out, the Limits of the Thinking Mind, & Balancing Self-Interest with Compassion

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

One's a legend, the other's a phenom. Together, they offer practical wisdom for maintaining your daily meditation practice, handling conflict, connecting with community, and understanding the limits of the mind.Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, India, and Burma. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is a founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts and Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. He is the author of 16 books which have sold 2 million copies, and the co-founder of Cloud Sangha.Diego Perez is a #1 New York Times bestselling author who is widely known on Instagram and various social media networks through his pen name, Yung Pueblo. Online he has an audience of over 3 million people. Diego’s books are Inward, Clarity & Connection, Lighter, and The Way Forward.In this episode we talk about:How and why to maintain a daily meditation practiceThe importance of communityThe limits of the thinking mindHow to handle conflictHow to love without being attachedRelated Episodes:Jack Kornfield talking about forgiveness and uncertainty on the podYung Pueblo’s past appearance on the podDan Clurman and Mudita Nisker on effective communicationSign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter hereFollow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTokTen Percent Happier online bookstoreSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelOur favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular EpisodesFurther resources:Diego's latest book: The Way Forward Diego’s NewsletterDiego’s InstagramWisdom Ventures A note on Cloud Sangha: Jack Kornfield is a co-founder of Cloud Sangha, where you can turn your challenges into compost for growth and change. Come use your real-life experiences to rehearse living mindfully so you can be the best version of yourself, more often. Join us online to navigate the ups and downs of life together, and find inner freedom along the way. Use the code "TENPERCENTHAPPIER" to receive 30% off.Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jack-kornfield-and-yung-puebloSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's the 10% happier podcast on your host, Dan Harris. Hello, my fellow suffering beings, how we doing? As somebody who contend toward selfishness, I have long wrestled with how to balance my desire for self gratification with my feeling that if I'm a good person, I ought to have compassion for other people. In other words, how do I balance my own self interest with other people's interests? So we're going to talk about that today. And we're actually going to talk about much more with two great Dharma teachers. Jack Cornfield does a legendary old school Buddhist heavyweight and young Pueblo aka Diego Perez is a relative newcomer with a massive following on Instagram. We're going to talk to these guys about

how and why to maintain a daily meditation practice, the importance of community, the limits of our thinking minds, how to handle conflict, and how to love without being attached, which is a perennial question. Before we dive in, a little bit more about these two guests, Jack Cornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in Asia, Thailand, Indian, Burma, specifically. He holds a PhD in clinical psychology and is a founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society

in Massachusetts and Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. He's also the author of 16 books, which have sold more than two million copies. Diego Perez is a number one New York Times bestselling author who's widely known on Instagram through his pen name, Young Pueblo online. He has an audience of over three million people.

His books are inward clarity and connection lighter and the new one the way forward. Heads up a little bit of suboptimal audio quality on jacks side here. Stick with it though. This was a great conversation. Okay time for a feature we're now calling BSP, blatant self promotion. Here we go. Over on the 10% happier app, we are releasing two brand new meditation collections on some of your most requested topics. Those include meditations about coping with chronic pain from Sharon Salzberg, as well as meditations for people with ADHD or other flavors of neurodivergence from Jeff Warren. Download the 10% happier app today wherever you get your apps and tap on the

singles tab. Are you looking for a note of sanity in the morass of social media? Follow me on Instagram, TikTok, X, LinkedIn. I'm all over the place now. I'm dropping quick videos on everything from meditation to dealing with difficult people. Of course, a lot of cat photos, links to my social accounts, or right there in the show notes. Hello listeners, this is Mike Corey of Against the Odds. You might know that I adventure around the world

while recording this podcast. And over the years, I've learned that where I stay when I travel can make all the difference. Airbnb has been my go-to place for finding the perfect accommodations. Because with hotels, you often don't have the luxury of extra space or privacy. Recently, I had a bunch of friends come down to visit in Mexico. We found this large house and the place had a pool, a barbecue, a kitchen, and a great

big living room to play cards. Watch movies and just chill out. It honestly made all the difference in the trip. It felt like we were all roommates again. The next time you're planning a trip, whether it's with friends, family, or yourself, check out Airbnb. To find something you won't forget. When you find something you love, you stick with it, like this podcast.

And like working out with Peloton, and with up to $950 off Peloton purchases this holiday, bring home a Peloton bike, bike plus or tread, and work out like nobody's watching. Unleash yourself, ride, run, box, or freak the hit out. It's your workout, your rules. I always find myself looking forward to my next ride with Peloton. For Peloton's best offers of the season, now extended through December 5th, head to www.1peloton.ca-offers. All access membership separate.

Terms apply. podcast, Brydon and. We are now in our third series. Among those still to come is some Michael Pailin, the comedy duo Egg and Robbie Williams. The list goes on. So do sit back and enjoy Brydon and on Amazon Music, Wondery Plus or wherever you get your podcasts. you get your podcasts. Jack Cornfield and Diego Perez, a K.A. young Pueblo. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having us. I'd be curious just to start with a little background on how you two

even know each other. It seems like a fascinating May, December, Dharma romance. Of romance, I like it. I've gotten to know Diego primarily through a collaboration that we've started a couple of years ago, called Wisdom Ventures, which is a venture capital fund with a few other fantastic people where we decided technology is happening. Can we get people to invest in technology that fosters mindfulness and compassion and well-being? And so we've gotten a number of very cool people until a convali-interested and investing in great things. And Diego and I have been part of that dance.

And when I was in the monastery, I would never have thought that I'd be doing venture capitalists well. But it turns out that in fact, some of the things that we're finding and investing in are really great for people. So that's part of our connection. And of course, I read his books and have listened to them. So that's how I got to know you Diego. Yeah, I think it's been a wonderful ride with Wiz and Ventures. We've been

doing it for two years. And we gave ourselves a big goal. We wanted to prove that compassion is good business. And it may sound a little weird and a little different, but we're trying it out. We want to see if we can apply right livelihood to this investing world and hopefully inspire companies who are building their products to just do it in a more compassionate way, so that whatever they're putting out into the world, it's not increasing loneliness, it's not increasing depression, but it's actually helping people serving them in some manner. And so far, I mean, I've been pretty inspired by what we found out there and have a little more hope for the future than I did before this project. When you use the term right livelihood, some listeners might not know that Buddhist term

of art. Can you explain what it is? Yeah, just part of the Afold Noble Path, and it's being able to sort of exist in the world and make a living for yourself and your family in a way that is as harmless as possible, in a way that helps keep the mind steady and while you can be a household

or simultaneously, make a living and also practice and take steps forward on the path of liberation. Jack, you probably have a ton more to add. Yeah, well, it just says that our lives really can become a place of evolution. And we spend so much time at work and involved in livelihood. And can we do it in a way that's both conscious

that develops a sense of mindfulness and presence and care for one another and that it actually leads us to an inner well-being and an inner sense of freedom. There are myriad livelihoods. What's the attention we bring and also what's the intention to get a little bit quiet and reflect and say, what's my best intention? How can I use this in the best way to benefit myself and others? And it's been fun working with this group too, because we're all like a bunch of meditators.

We all come from different traditions, different backgrounds, and everybody has a good amount of meditation experience, but we're like the quote, unquote, like public figures, but the rest of them have like the investing experience, you know, the corporate experience, and the things that are needed to create a strong fund.

I'm curious for the two of you, Jack, you talked about attention and intention. How did the two of you who are engaged in many worldly activities, you write books and hope for them to be best sellers, you make Instagram posts and hope for lots of likes, you invest in companies and hope for lots of likes, you invest in companies and hope for profit. How do you engage in these worldly activities without letting your intention get out of whack, like personal remuneration, fame, et cetera, et cetera? I'm not saying that's bad.

I like both of those things, but how do you hold that in some sort of dynamic tension with trying to help people? It's a beautiful question because the point of meditation practices and to withdraw from the world or become a monastic, although that's a beautiful choice some people make. But it's the possibility actually to live and take the activities of our life and bring them alive through loving kindness and compassion and care for yourself and others. People sometimes think that, okay, if I'm supposed to serve, I have to take care of everybody else, but the circle of compassion is only complete when it also includes yourself. So part of practice or reliability or spiritual path is not only how do you care for your family community,

but how do you do it in a way that also nourishes your own heart or supports you and those actually can come together in a beneficial way. I think the reality is too, and I forget this exact suit, but the Buddha talks to, you know, in one of his addresses to Householders, how when you make money, you know, giving us

percentage as Donna, as gifts to the song or helping people, and then other percentages for maintaining your household and other percentages for maintaining the future of your household. I think the reality for me personally is like, I come from an extremely poor background. So I have responsibilities, you know, I have to be good to my wife. I have to make sure to take care of my mother and father and help other family members who are struggling back in Ecuador. So the reality is that I know in every pursuit that I take that I have to do it fairly, right? So the people that I'm working with are also gaining in some way and that I'm gaining in a way that's not like excessive where I'm not like just there for greed and power and money, that I'm gaining in a way that's not like excessive, where I'm not like just there for greed and power and money, but I'm there to act in a good way and then receive

in a good way. And then with what I receive, I try to hold that as compassionately as possible and give. I understand fully what you're talking about. There are a couple of points there to amplify. Jack, when you said the circle of compassion is incomplete without compassion toward yourself and that can fit into right livelihood because it's okay to make money for yourself. And we are gregarious animals as one psychologist has said. And we like to be viewed through the eyes of others. And it's okay to like a little positive attention. And Diego, I understand from what you said that, you know, part of how

you keep this in check is by being generous and that goes all the way back to the Buddha. And yet the mind, desire, greed, mara to put it in Buddhist terms is a sneaky son of a bitch. So I'm just wanting, like for me, I notice how sneaky it is, how easy it is for me to get caught up in my own ego as I do all the various things I do. I actually, I mentioned this on a recent podcast. I got a tattoo recently right here from my birthday. F-T-B-O-A-B for the benefit of all beings to be able to remember everything I'm doing should be not just, you know, with my head, my ass. Anyway, so I'm just curious, you know, I don't know saying people need to go so far as to get a tattoo, but what else do you recommend to try to keep the self gratification in its right place? I remember decades ago when I

first became friends with this teacher Ramdas, a few years ago. And one of his great gifts was that he was very self-revealing in this teaching and everyone go, oh, I'm like that too. So he said, I would come into a hall and here he's wearing white robes and beads and sort of, at that time, Baba Ramdas the grew up figure. He said, in the first thing I would do would be to count the house. See, how many people have come to admire me?

The thing that mattered as he described it is that he was amused. He had a sense of you were about it because the idea isn't to get rid of desire or okay, I should never have desire. Good luck. You know, I should never get irritated. But to see that that's not who you are. That's a part of the psyche that we're built in as human beings and say, oh, yeah, there's a ego. Thank you. Thank you for trying to make me prominent

and take care of me. I appreciate that. I'm actually good now just doing what I care about. And this capacity that we have to step back with a mindful, loving attention liberates us and not by getting rid of things, but by remembering that we can rest in really what matters to us. I was thinking too, like on a really sort of practical level, you got to meditate every day. Even if you're meditating a few minutes or an hour,

I think that's how I personally keep my feet on the ground. If I'm every day reconnecting with the truth of impermanence that's happening in the body, then that helps me whenever chunks of ego are developing and helps just burn them away. And it still have a lot more to understand, to develop, to let go of as an individual, but being able to sit in practice. And for you yourself to have confidence in the practice, for those who taught you to have confidence in the way that you're practicing, then that keeps you safe. The morality that you take, not killing, not stealing, and that in combination with your practice, it helps you just continue that slow patient walk to total liberation. And I feel like

with the people that I work with and even with my audience, I'm like, hey, if I ever stop meditating, do not read what I write, it is not good anymore. You know, so it's like holding myself publicly accountable. You use the word practice and listeners, just so you know, right before we started recording, we drew up a little mini agenda of things we wanted to talk about, and one of them was how to keep it up, how to have a practice of mindfulness and compassion

and actually implement it with some regularity. Diego, let me just start with you on that front. You made a reference to meditating every day. I think a lot of people will say, shit, I can't do that. What do you say to those people? I say, you have to think about what got me to practice every day was that I saw a little bit of the benefits when I would go to retreats

10 days or three days or one day courses and I would see okay, I'm gaining benefit from this So let me double down on this investment. It feels like the biggest investment that I'm making my life is the time that I put on the cushion and the returns from it are absurd. There's such big returns, like not only are you more peaceful, more aware, more conscious of the way that you act in your relationships, but your capacity expands. So if you're a person who likes being productive in the world, then your productivity is going to just grow and develop and your capacity of what you're able to do, what you're able to see, your creativity expands.

So to me, it's like not only is this making my relationship between me and myself better, but between me and my wife, me and my parents, and all of my work. And on top of that, I'm getting wisdom into how this universe functions and what causes me suffering. So I can't really give all that up. You know, I need to put time on the cushion so that I can continue developing. So I think about what you gain from it. And that helps me sit down every day because I don't want to meditate every day. But I do it because I know it helps the best version of me come forward. And I'll add to that. There's a passage I read in Scientific Americans,

so I more or less believe that it's accurate, where Albert Einstein said, if you can drive safely while kissing a girl, you're simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves, right? And one of the things that's true as us as human beings we can split our attention in the modern world, it's really divided.

You've got your phone and you've got, you know, you're connected and all of these things. And one of my teachers in the forest monastery said, modern world looks like it's lost in salt. It's lost its connection with one another, with body, with heart. So one of the first benefits of meditation practice is that you come more in touch with your own body and feelings and what matters to you. You find a way to quiet the mind a bit and open the heart. And so it's not like a grim duty.

Oh, I have to meditate. I go to the gym, I diet, I workout, I got therapy, you know, and now the next day I've got to meditate, like it's going to make you some super whatever. It's actually not a group duty. It's meant to be an active care. And we live in a culture that's forgotten how we can take care of ourselves. And one part of that care, even though at first it feels unfamiliar, is just to be quiet for a little bit.

And listen, and then there are things in us that we know intuitions and understandings that come about and navigate our life or what really matters. That only come when we slow down. It takes some time to really listen more deeply. And that mindful loving attention or loving awareness is what allows us to do it. I think the through line in both of those answers was that it's beneficial, it can feel good and tune into that as a way to keep moving. That it's this thing that can create this cascade, this waterfall of benefits in your life.

That should be the onward leading aspect of it. Am I rephrasing that with some degree of accuracy? Yeah. aspect of it. Am I rephrasing that with some degree of accuracy? Yeah, and at the same time, of course, when you sit quietly, you sit with all your stuff. So if you're in the middle of being worried or you're angry or you're upset or those things, they also show themself. But what's powerful about it is that you're able to learn how to be with them with kindness without kind of judge yourself or push them away, which is not mindfulness. Instead, mindfulness is a loving awareness. And then you're somewhat free from that. You're not lost in it in some way. I remember my teacher, Ajahn Chow, was leading a group of

monks in the morning with our arms pulled to get our food for the day. And across the field, there was a great big boulder, a big rock. And he turned back and he said, monks, is that boulder heavy? And of course, being, you know, I really educated as I was, I said, yes, it is. And he smiled and he said, not if you don't pick it up. And there was something in this answer that talked about a kind of freedom that we have where we can see the way things are. But there's a greater freedom with this mindful, loving awareness where then we can choose. Do we follow this and get lost on that rabbit hole or do we rest in a place that's much more spacious and gracious?

So I just finished meditating for 20 days and one thing that kept coming up was like, this field of thought that we exist in, it's an infinite space. Like there are countless perceptions that you can make. Right, you can just keep looking at things from different perspectives, considering them coming up with new ideas

and it's just this massive space, but there's no freedom in it. And to be able to sit on the cushion and cultivate your ability to observe, to just feel, to just be with what is, that's a whole different capacity that is built into the mind, but it's not empowered, right? It doesn't have that muscle that it should be to be able to balance out that space of thought that we have in the mind. And it's not empowered, right? It doesn't have that muscle that it should be to be able to balance out that space of thought that we have in the mind. And it's interesting because it's really through that ability to observe, that ability to feel,

that's what can ultimately take you to greater and greater freedom. Because the space of thought, it's useful. We've used it to build this world that we live in, but this world is very out of balance. Let me just see if I can get in there and understand a little bit what you just said there, a Diego. There are an infinite number of things you could think about. Right. An infinite number of ways you could look at anything from the tree in your yard to

climate change. And yet if you're just stuck in that band of human awareness or consciousness, you will never actually have true perspective or freedom. It's the capacity to drop out of thinking to view things mindfully just the way you might be aware without interfering of an itch or of your body moving through space when you walk. It's that ability to view things non-judgmentally from as Jack Cornfield talks about, like from behind the waterfall. That's where freedom lies. I think that's what you were saying.

Totally. Yeah, you hit on the dot. I think you can do a lot of beautiful things with thinking, and also thinking can go to an extreme where you can just Build tons of stress tons of attachment tons of anxiety through it if you just only exist in that space But if you find like you know your ability to love your ability to feel compassion a lot of these things are Felt and they happen in the present moment whereas thinking is something that's like felt and they happen in the present moment, whereas thinking is something that's like mostly pulls you into the future, into the past, and kind of pulls you out from what's happening right in front of you. So I think if you really want to do a lot of healing, a lot of letting go, it has to be

done through direct experience, which ultimately means enhancing your ability to feel. You've both said quite a bit now about the benefits of meditation, but I want to go back to the practicalities of booting up a habit because I was texting with a friend of mine the other day, she's a yoga teacher and she's very good at continuing to practice yoga and do lots of other healthy things, but she was bemoaning to me via text that she would get a month of meditation under her belt and then fall off the wagon. And then another month and then fall off the wagon. And she just can't really get the habit up and running in a sustainable fashion.

And I'm just wondering whether all the things that both of you have said about the benefits of meditation and how if you tune into them in the right way, they can help you establish an abiding habit. I'm just wondering on her behalf whether whether that's gonna do the trick. So, Jack, let me just kick it back to you. What else could we say to my friend Natasha, who's like many other people struggling to actually meditate? So, it's a great question,

because there are two really important things that we're talking about. The first is that the mind and heart can be trained. We don't learn that in our education. We learn reading and writing and mathematics and, you know, I had an Ivy League education and nobody taught me about forgiveness or how to deal with biceer or anger or how to make a loving relationship. That was all not part of the curriculum. I learned that when I started to meditate and when I lived and trained in that way.

So we can learn that and it serves in every circumstance, the great ones of building your life, business, and the ones I've worked this week with somebody who is in the last couple of weeks of their life. And the fact that they learned to meditate meant that they knew how to be with pain in their body or the fearful stories and be a loving witness of it, not be so caught in it, so they could be a lot more peaceful. So that's the first part. The second part is that we can't do it alone. That in fact, part of the answer to your friend is that we need community. That's why people gather together to meditate, whether it's in a class

or a retreat or online. That in some way we really need to support to meditate, whether it's in a class or a retreat or online, that in some way we really need to support one another. And that's been built into, certainly in the Buddhist practice, but it's there everywhere in the Christian, whenever two or more gather in his name and the Jewish minion and the Sufi so bad and all of these things, we support each other,

especially when, as you say, it's hard to keep it going and sustain it. And one of the things I've been involved in the last couple of years also is an online community called cloudsunga.co cloudSungaSanGaJ, which is a Sanskrit word that meets community. And people meet in small groups of six people

once a week and talk about their practice. What's helping them, not talk about their meditation, but this week my daughter, my teenage daughter got really angry at me or this week, I have two toddlers and I got overwhelmed here as I work with, or this week I wrote these new poems and I realized I wanna do art and my meditation, let me get quiet and do it, you know, and people share what fosters well-being or how they

navigate what's difficult. And because we care about each other, deep down, the fact that you're going to meet once a week with somebody and talk about it means, oh, I guess I really have to do it. Maybe it's just a little inner shaming in there, whatever, but an inspiration. But we help each other. And I know when I sit in front of a group on a retreat, there'll be some days where certain people are really squirming and restless. And the fact that there are other people sitting quietly around them gives them a sense of,

we can do this And all I can we do it but we can open to a space of well-being that we support each other in So I encourage people if you're interested go to cloud songa dot CO slash open house if you want to get a taste of these small groups I think you know It's been funny too because I I really could not agree with Jack Moore. I think that the times where I've struggled with my own practice and feel like a dullness in the practice, I know that I need to go meditate with my friends. I have to go meditate with a bigger group of people.

And I don't know the physics of meditation or what is actually technically happening. But when you're sitting by yourself, it's a wonderful thing. When you're sitting with two, three, four, five, 10, 120 people, it is wildly different. And you can feel it and they can feel it too. We have my wife and I here in Western mass, we will have dinners and invite, you know, a bunch of our meditator friends over and we'll sit together in our meditation room and there will be eight of us squeezing into this tiny little room and we come out of that room and we're like, wow, like that was intense. And that's just kind of how it is for all of us because we're doing it

as a group. And I don't know why, I mean, I don't know if you know more Y Jack or a Dano, why it is like that, but there's something to it. Well, we're connected. You know, if you put a violin on the table and pick up another violin and play it, the strings of the violin on the table are going to resonate and the whole notion that we're separate is one of the problems in Western culture.

We have to respect individuality, but the fact is we're woven in with the rainforest. We breathe each other's breath, and as you get quiet, you feel that sense of connection open in a way that is very different than our sense of separate self and isolation. And it's a blessing to feel it. Yeah, that reminds me of a quote by Judo Christian Emir today, right, a few years ago, and he kind of like pokes fun in everybody, and he's like, you all think you're different, but you're the same. Like, you know, we all feel sadness, and then he just starts listing out all the emotions,

and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right. It's like the same mechanism happening for all of us. On this community tip, I mean, I completely agree with you. I have this little, I don't think I'm alone in this, but I'm probably not in the majority, but at this little quirk where I don't like sitting in a meditation hall when I go on retreat because I get self-conscious

and get like performance anxiety or I start swallowing a lot. I get like all this extra saliva in my mouth and I feel like I'm bugging everybody around me. So I tend to sit alone and yet the benefit I get like all this extra saliva in my mouth and I feel like I'm bugging everybody around me. So I tend to sit alone and yet the benefit I get from having friends who also meditate is immense. I mean, I just got off and I were in a half a zoom with a friend of mine who got off a month-long retreat and just talking to him about it and seeing like all of the

learnings kind of Not only come out of his mouth as he's explaining to them, but kind of like come off of his person as he's explaining them to. It's obvious that he's kind of got some wisdom in his molecules. And that is really, it's like the most positive kind of peer pressure. You could also just call it love that it's really the support that we're there for one another. And in it, when you, I notice when you talk about your friend that there's this sense of warmth, and that's what we share with one another. Let's, let's do this together. Let's support each other. Much more from Jack Cornfield and Diego Perez, aka Young Pueblo after this. Diego Perez, aka Young Pablo after this.

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Download the 10% happier app today, wherever you get your apps and get started for free. So that kind of brings us to another thing that was on our little agenda. We were talking about how how if you meditate, you're gonna see lots of tough stuff, it's inevitable, it actually means you're doing it right. And there's lots of great stuff too, and it's easy to overlook that given that we have this evolutionarily wired negativity bias.

So Jack, this was your suggestion, I'll hand you the mic. Why did you wanna talk about joy and well-being? Because meditation can get confused with either a grim duty, as I said, or in some way, a self-improvement project that's more about how I look and how I am. And it really is more tuning into something that's much deeper and more innate. So there's a couple of things that I actually want to read and sort of make part of this. This is an instruction from, you know, 2,600 years ago from the Buddha saying,

live and joy and love, even among those who hate. So this is an invitation. Yes, there's hate in the world, but that's not the only thing that's happening. There isn't just war and conflict. There's people making breakfast for one another and moving aside so you can go through the door. There's a billion acts of kindness. And so the suggestion is tune into the positive nature of human interaction. Even though the others there let it lift you up and then let you bring it back to others. It says, live joy and health, even among those who are afflicted or in peace, even among the trouble. You can find a different way and we know it. What we have friends who have either a peaceful heart, you know, they're not really upset by everything.

And it doesn't mean you don't care. You can actually care better or more when you're not reactive to everything. When instead they're there in a caring way. And then the deeper part that happens which we talked about was a friend in New York who was dying of cancer. And she writes, my days are short, tomorrow, Angle. And as I grow weaker, it was in her last weeks,

I experienced so much gratitude for my meditation, not only the joy and ease it brought, which it does, but as you said, Dan, for the heart parts, for every board and restless sitting, and every pain and ache I sat through, and every fearful fantasy, which you can imagine if you have cancer and you're facing it. And every inch I didn't scratch was a training for kindness, a training for the muscle for bearing witness, for the trusting spirit,

for the gracious heart that carries me now even as I face my death. And so that's sort of an extreme situation, if you will. But it tells you, as you said, yes, you sit, and sometimes it's joyful, and there's a lot of luck. And sometimes you face these other things, but you can do it with a loving awareness. And then you realize that I'm not that limited person who gets caught, that I actually can rest in mindfulness and compassion itself. And then you realize that I'm not that limited person who gets caught that I actually can rest in mindfulness and compassion itself And then you tend the world you get up that they say and then there are only two things you sit and You sweep the garden and it doesn't matter how big the garden is you quiet the mind and

Connect with what really matters and then you go out in the garden of the world and you offer your gifts, your care. That was beautiful. He left me really speechless and I'm grateful for that because I think that's something that we forget. Like a lot of these practices, when they're initially taught, you know, when they're taught in Vermont, they're taught in India, taught in Thailand,

like the aspect of death is a big part of them, right? Like in some traditions, they tell you straight up, you know, you're learning how to live so that you learn how to die. I hear all these stories. There's a little book called The Art of Dying that was written by a Vipassana teacher and the Guanka tradition, and it's a set of these tremendously beautiful stories of all these people who are

on the verge of passing away and what their death was like, and being able to hear of all of these stories of essentially of peace and of awareness of being able to accept the truth of passing away, right? Everything arises and ultimately passes away. And I think after reading that book, that was one of the things that really inspired me to start meditating every day because yeah, I'm impermanent just like everything else. So I might as well learn to be aware and as much as I can be throughout this life and as it ends. To go back to the Buddha quote from you, Jack, about living, joy, even though there may be haters or the unhealthy or

the uneasy around you. Just to be clear, as I understand it, the Buddha is not saying, live in denial. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. To see things clearly and show up, to sweep the garden. But, you know, I know if I go to a refugee camp, they don't want me to come in, angry at all the wrong things people have done and depressed and so forth, they don't read that. They actually want somebody to come and say, there's possibilities, even in the difficult situations. Here's what you can do. Here's how you can at least sustain your well-being.

And that's an extreme circumstance. But in fact, the idea is that through our inner practice, we can actually move through the world, not withdraw from it at all, but care for it. And as we care for it, in some way, we sustain our well-being and we sustain the well-being of others. Again, in the Buddhist tradition that's talked about as a Bodhisattva, as a being who's committed to the welfare of themselves and everybody else, to eliminate

suffering, so it's not withdrawing. That's kind of a misconception that equanimity is kind of withdrawal from the world or peaceful heart. But in fact, some of the most glorious beings I've met are both peaceful and joyful. And they're very much engaged in the world, but they do it with the spirit that uplifts everybody around them. Gago, you have a new book. Congratulations. Thank you. It's called The Way Forward. What do you mean by that, The Way Forward? You know, I gave that book that title

because it's basically the culmination of a trilogy that I started with inward. My first book, that was a little book of short poetry and short prose. And then I wrote a second follow-up called Clarity in Connection. That was about continuing personal transformation and more so about relationships. But I wrote the way forward with the understanding that this world that we live in is just constantly

changing, right? The conditions are changing. There's always tremendous ups and downs, especially in this century that we live in. It's just like, we have these huge problems ahead of us. So I wanted to create a book that was something that you can ground yourself in. And I find that in my personal life, the most reliable things that I have are my intuitions

and my values, right? So if I listen to my intuition and it's leading me into a place where it's good for me and good for others, that I know I'm going in the right direction. And if I maintain my values of trying to be good to myself, being kind to others, remaining in service in my daily life, and in the different jobs I hold, then hopefully I'll be helping people

as I keep taking steps forward. And I think the way forward is just like, hopefully it becomes a friend for people like something that they can lean on because our world is not going to stop changing. It's not going to stop having ups and downs. So hopefully it can be a resource for reflection and hopefully a little bit of peace

as people live their days. Diego, when you talk about concepts like values and intuition, and I think it's easy for those to lapse into kind of empty bromides or cliches that people don't understand. So on a very practical level, what do you mean by that? How do you figure out what your values are? How do you learn how to tune into your intuition?

And once you've done that, how does it actually help you? Yeah, that's a really good question. I think as I started meditating, my intuition became clear and clear. As I started the process of deconditioning the mind, that sort of sense of knowing that directionality that was coming from within, I always felt like it was coming from the body, from my stomach, and this may be different for other people, right? I'm just explaining it for myself. It felt like a calm compass, right? There wasn't the stress of the thoughts of craving, the reactiveness of the

mind that like give it to me now, type energy. It wasn't quite like that. It was this like calm, like in more so focused on the bigger things. Like I remember the one of the first times I really heard my intuition was like, oh, you should start writing, you know, you should start writing. And I felt that and ignored it for like a year, but it would come up occasionally. But not with stress, but just felt like with direction. The same thing when I felt like it was time to move from Boston to New York City. It was like, how you know, you should move to New York City, move to New York City. And what I learned about intuition is that, one, it's never going to ask you to do something that will hurt you, but it will ask you to do things

that will challenge you deeply. So it will ask you to step outside your comfort zone. I will ask you to reveal your weak points so that you can strengthen them. And I think it's generally just something that will just push you to keep elevating, to keep growing. And I think in terms of value, like I really hold them, you know, with the idea of Sheila of morality, right?

Like the simple aspects of it, you know, like don't kill, don't steal, don't lie. These things that are sort of make the foundation of being kind, right? Being kind to other beings, being kind to yourself and others. And it feels so critical, because like at the same time that you're trying to be kind on the individual level, on the collective level,

there's also the reality that we've been hitting at is like, this world is rough and there are times where we have to take strong action, but we can do it with a loving mind. We can do it with a mind of not like, oh, I hate this person, I hate this politician and we have to stop him. It's like, no, I have love for this person and I completely disagree with what they're talking about. And we're going to do our best to curb their influence so that they don't hurt other people. And I think this is a much wiser place to come from. I think for so much of history, a lot of our movements, a lot of our art have come from a place of reactiveness, of tension, of stress. And I think this moment in time that we're in where meditation is exploding

around the world. There are so many more people meditating than ever before, probably in comparison to the time of the Buddha, where there's just millions and millions of people meditating. I think it's going to create for a very different type of changemaker, because I found that meditation does not make people step out of the world that actually makes them much more active than before, but they're acting from a clear mind, which I think creates the potential for skillful action. There's also, along with that great question, USDA, go about intuition. Another way to understand or go at it is to tune into your intention.

An intention has a really great power. And I know, for example, if it just happened that I would get in conflict with my beloved wife, Trudy, just could happen. But anyway, before I blur out what irritated me or what I'm upset about, you know, or try to be defensive, basically, if I take one or two breaths and get quiet,

and ask myself, what's my best intention? And the minute that I pause and ask, what's my best intention in that conversation or in the things that I'm struggling with in the world, almost immediately, a good answer will come, well, I want this to work out or I want us to feel connected or more than that. I love her. I want us to be able to be connected in love. And all of a sudden in that little moment of best intention, the tone of my voice changes from being defensive or aggressive to care. Not just in that conversation, but if I'm in a meeting or if I'm dealing with something out in the world that's frustrating or difficult, this is the hard part, what's my best intention? It changes the whole current of it and better things come about because of it.

And then as the A.O. is saying, then you can do that in a broader way and say, what do I care about for the community around me? What's my best intention? And then what can I offer? Because we each have a particular gift to offer. We don't have to change the whole world. But we each have a piece that we can reach out and man or support.

We'll be right back with Jack and Diego after this quick break. What are life these celebrities this quick break. the first thing Bank account, the people trying to get the grubby mitts on it. What's he all about? I'm just saying, being really, really famous. It's not always easy. I'm Emily Loitany, and I'm Anna Leon Brophy, and we're the hosts of Terribly Famous from Wondery, the podcast which tells the stories of our favorite celebrities

from their perspective. Each season, we show you what it's really like being famous by taking you inside the life of a British icon. We walk you through their glittering highs and eyebrow raising lows and ask, is fame and fortune really worth it? Follow terribly famous now wherever you get your podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Wondry Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app.

Now streaming on Leon Freevey. plus on Apple Podcasts or the one we have. You want a bed? Starring Layton, Mr. Rent, Robbie Amel. You're God. We're God. X-Mess, now streaming, only on FreeV. Jack you talked about these highly hypothetical conflicts you might have with your amazing wife, Trudy, and I've met her, and she is indeed amazing. But that does bring us to the topic of relationships in Diego. I know you've written about relationships quite a bit. Let me just read something you've written and then ask you to hold forth on it after I've finished reading it. Love you right is interrupted by the pain we carry.

It's easy to blame love itself for the hurt we feel, but all love does is open us up. The hurt itself comes from the heavy conditioning and ill-fated patterns that stop us from showing up in a compassionate manner. Yeah, I think just to reiterate that first line, love is interrupted by the pain we carry. I think a lot of what we, you know, as individuals across the world, there's this mechanism of the mind that whenever you are feeling something so strongly, you know, when you're reacting with a particular emotion, it leaves an imprint on the mind.

And it predisposes you to seeing things in a certain way, in a way that you did in the past, reacting to the present in a way that you used to and not really fully engaging with what's happening right in front of you. So when you take that idea, bring it into relationships. You may have deep love for someone, but if the heart remains unhealed, if the mind remains unaware, then it's going to be so easy for you to just drag the past back into the present. And I think that's what my wife and I found in the beginning of our relationship because the love was definitely there.

We loved each other, but we did not know how to hold that love, right? There was zero emotional maturity between the two of us. And we just didn't know ourselves. We were young. And it wasn't until we started meditating where we were both dealing with the past pain

that we carried from our childhood, from teenage years, from the time and college, from the way that we were not able to treat each other well, that as that pain, as those unaware patterns started deconditioning, unbinding, we started letting them go. We found that it was so much easier to connect with each other, so much easier to have conversations more peacefully and just sort of exist And you know and move through the day with that bit of awareness where we were turning that lens inward So that I could see you know within myself like oh these are the way my emotions are moving and even though for some reason

I'm feeling this tension inside and I want to make it my wife's fault has nothing to do with her Right and sometimes surely you know, I'll say something that I should apologize for, she'll say something, but we found that a lot of the time, maybe like 80% of the time, it's like, we will just try to take these tense emotions and make them into some type of argument that isn't really there, that's like baseless, and being aware of that has helped tremendously

with just building harmony between the two of us. Let me just go back to the beginning of the quote, love is interrupted by the pain we carry. There's a classic rock song by a band called Nazareth, the song is called Love Hurtz. And I think what you're saying is it's not the love that hurts. The shit that hurts is the shit we're carrying around with us that's interrupting the actual love.

Right. It's the attachments. Yeah, it's what we cling on to, you know, the parts of the story, the imprints of feeling that we carry in the body, the things that we've really felt that are dense, they clog up the mind, they clog up our ability to be able to see someone as they are, as opposed to just throwing different valuations and judgments on top of them.

Like the space between me and my wife was initially clogged with our perceptions of the past. And we had to work on that and remove that and clean that up so that I could actually see her with loving eyes. I was really appreciating this Diego and it made me smile with the loving eyes. It just changes my face.

I want to connect this with the question you've been asking also a long down about, all right, this is the individual work, but what about the collective work of this society? And there's this passage from James Baldwin where he writes, I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hate and prejudice so stubbornly is that they

sense that once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own fear and pain. And we do this collectively, not just within an intimate relationship, but we do this as a society. When there are things that are too scary to deal with, we tend to project them and blame we have the enemy Dhear and it can be the immigrants or it can be the liberals or the conservatives or the people that are somehow different than us. And we project that on them because the truth is that human life is uncertain, as Diego is saying, impermanent. My teacher called it the wisdom of uncertainty. And in meditations,

you learn to sit not by trying to make something you hold on to, but to sit in a more receptive place that can respond to what comes instead of to react. And then you're not so caught in those fears. But if we don't feel that we're afraid economically, we're afraid of homelessness, we're afraid of blame, we're afraid of the divisiveness, and we get angry about it, it makes it all worse. But if we can tolerate, okay, this is uncertain, but that's how our human life is. Can I respond with love? Can I be the source of centeredness in the society and for the people around me?

It changes the whole game. You know, it's funny because when I'm listening to you and thinking about it back in in regards to my own relationship, even collectively, it calls for better communication. And to be able to communicate well, you have to know yourself through a certain degree, and there has to be this aspect of giving each other space so that we can listen selflessly. And what I mean by listening selflessly is like, I'm going to try to take in your perspective as best as possible without placing judgments onto it because I want to see what is happening

from your direction. And then we can take turns and then I can tell you my perspective. As my wife and I were realizing how silly the mind will be and trying to place blame on the other, even though there's no real logical pathway to create the actual blame point. I mean, she was just telling the story to a group of friends yesterday

where we were both working in separate rooms. I was working on my laptop in the kitchen and she was in the living room. And she came in laughing because she She told me she was like I just spent the last three hours trying to figure out How this feeling I have inside of me is your fault and it's not and all I ended up doing was trying to go back in time Further further back in time trying to figure out how this is your fault until I realize that my mind is just playing with me. From there, I would do the same thing.

I would catch the same mechanism in the mind. What we do now is that we're in constant contact about where we are in our emotional spectrum. If I wake up and I'm like, oh, I feel like crap. This is, if I feel down in my emotions,, oh, I feel like crap. Like this is, you know, and if I feel down in my emotions feel heavy, I know there's the potential there for like the mind or the mar or whatever you want to call it, to play games with my mind and try to make havoc. So if I name it and I'm like, oh, I feel down in this thing's passing, but this is how I feel right now, I'm aware of it. She's aware of it. And then it makes it easier for us to sort of

shape the day and give each other support and not fall into the trap as we used to. And being in that type of contact on that one-on-one level, I think makes me wonder, is there a way for us to set society up better so we can be like that on a more collective level to figure out how people can share their truth than where they are in a way that everyone's perspective feels seen. I mean, I think communication skills are incredibly important. And we've done quite a few episodes on that subject. And we'll put some links to those older episodes in particular.

I'm thinking of an episode with some people that I suspect Jack knows Dan Cleerman and Moodie Tednisker who are who distant, flecked at communication coaches, who have had an incalculably positive impact on my marriage. And I'm the only person they're treating, so it has nothing to do with my wife's communication skills to be clear. So yes, double click on communication skills being incredibly important and I direct our listeners to those previous episodes. But let me just get back to this frayed word we've thrown around a bunch today, which is love. I like to ask this question to people sometimes. So I'll put it to you, Jack. How do you define love?

First of all, it's not something that is immedible to a simple description. It's something that we know in ourselves. And it's kind of like gravity, nobody, even the best of the physicists. They can write an equation, but it's part of the mystery of the universe that things attract one another. David Love is just gravity in another less physical form, but it's the deep connection that we have. And I remember hearing Archbishop Tutu talk about the way people communicate in Africa and somebody will

say, how are you? Are you well or not? And you always answer in his culture in the plural. You would say, we are well or we are not well. And the we is literally said, because my mother is sick or my daughter is having a hard time or my uncle, then we are not well. And so there's something about feeling that we are actually not only in this together, we are together. And it's that openness. Now it also connects with the other piece that I was saying, Dan, about the way in the world how much we project the enemy or someone different, or the opposite. But when there's so much fear and divisiveness underneath all that is because we care. If you didn't care, you wouldn't get riled up or you wouldn't be afraid for the fear.

You wouldn't be angry and so forth. And under that anger or under that fear and so forth, is the fact that it matters to you, that there's a place of care. And this care comes, you don't have to think about, if your hand touches the hot stone, you just pull it away. Well, it's our hand,

and it's our bodies and it's our society in some way. And if we can hold that, even the things that rile us up to use Diego's words, underneath we can feel instead of focusing on that, focus on how much we actually do care. And when we communicate that, maybe that is what love is. That's beautiful. I've been thinking about this too. And it's funny that the mind seems to initially work from a place of self, right? It's very sort of self-oriented.

And when you put the mind through a deconditioning process and you start meditating and you build awareness, you build wisdom, you gain insight to the truth of impermanence, of misery, of no self. What ends up happening on a pretty wide level is that the ego gets thinner and automatically love starts developing. There's something about this inverse relationship between ego and, where the ego gets smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, and the love in your mind gets brighter and brighter and brighter. And that

love comes with a quality of selflessness. Where we were able to look at others and then look at them and think, you know, how can I help you without necessarily wanting something in return? And now I'm not talking about going into extremes, right? Like, I think the human mind likes to sway from extreme to extreme. So I'm not saying like, oh,, right? Like, I think the human mind likes to sway from extreme to extreme. So I'm not saying like, oh, you become a martyr and you're just like constantly helping people and then you exhaust yourselves and burn out. And now I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that there's more space for love in the mind as the ego decreases. And I think love just like carries this lightness, this selflessness, like what Jack said, this care.

And it puts it all into action. It's not just a feeling. It's literally an inner movement that will help you act skillfully and compassionately in the world. And I think when people wonder, like, what happens? What happens with people who make so much progress and have meditated for so much time and have reached the high levels of development. Yeah, they're not living from a place of ego, but the mind sits on compassion, right? It is thinking from a space of compassion

and I think that's beautiful. One thing that's tricky about talking about love within a Buddhist context is that the Buddhists also talk about non-attachment. And so how do you hold love, which a lot of us think about as non-negotiably, definitionally, including some attachment I'm attached to my son, I'm attached to my wife? How can I love them and yet be non-attached like a good Buddhist should be? I mean, it's a great question.

And it's, you can experiment with it. With your children, if you want them to be a certain way, I want them to behave this way, I want them to not do this and to do that. And you attach to how they should be or how they are, they feel it. And they feel it as a pressure. And it doesn't feel that great in a way. It sort of sets you a little bit on to be each other. Another way of being with that child,

instead of how they're supposed to be, is the love that says, I want you to be the best you can be. I want you to blossom. I, because I love you, I want you to grow in these ways. And so the love has really tuned into the well-being of that person, rather than how we think things

should be. And when you notice that, you start to see, oh, the more attachment, the more struggle and suffering, without the attachment, there's still his profound care. But the care is there without the holding on and your ideas and you're trying to manipulate. And I mean, try it in your marriage and your family. Children feel it, you know, if you're trying to make it a certain way rather than loving them as they are and saying, here's how I can support you. What do you need or whatever? It's a very, very different channel. And then more deeply, who you are,

the ego points to this, when you're born, who you are is awareness, is consciousness, is loving awareness. When a baby comes out most of the time, they're held with love. This is an amazing thing. Here's a whole lot of you in being. And when someone dies and you have the privilege of being with them as they dive their conscious, you hold their hand and all that's left is that field of love. I love you and so forth How about in between we go through all these things but underneath we actually are human beings with consciousness And we know from the very beginning this connection and love and then we navigate as we do the more attachment the more fear and confusion and holding the more we suffer.

And the less the more instead it becomes care, the more gracious we become. I couldn't agree more with you, Jack. I think you just hit it on the dot. Because I asked myself, like, how do we hold the relationship if there are no attachments? Like, how do we hold it? How do we take care of it? And if attachments are constraints and control, then the way that we hold our love for each other is commitments, right? And we're talking especially between two adults. It's like if we're starting a relationship, and you're honest and open and vocal about, these are the things that I would like in the relationship. And if I can commit to them, I will voluntarily commit. There's no coercion.

There's no, like, you have to do this or there's like an ultimatum. It's more so like, yes, I can commit to XYZ. This feels good for me and it's coming from, you know, I'm hearing you and I feel that within my capacity, I can do this for you. And I think coming from a place where these commitments are voluntary and you find that sort of middle ground for the both of you that really feels genuinely good, then I think that's like a beautiful place

to exist within a relationship because then everybody feels heard and safe as opposed to coerced. Another way I've heard this discussed and this address is a bit of a different issue than what you guys have been dwelling on, but some people will, I've heard them say to Buddhist teachers or to me, well, you're telling me I should be non-attached, but it does that mean I shouldn't love my wife or my child. And one of the ways I've heard this described, and both of you probably heard this many

times, is it's like the difference between if you're holding something in your hand with a clenched fist or holding it with an open hand and it's resting on your palm, you're still connected to the thing in your hand. You're just not grasping. Absolutely. You also can't receive with a closed hand, right? So like if you're just gripping on and trying to hang on to everything, you yourself are missing so much.

So if you're really trying to love to give and to receive, you have to have an open hand. This has been a pleasure, gentlemen. Is there something I should have asked, but didn't there places you wanted to go that I didn't bring us? I have a question for you. Is that okay? Sure. I'm curious.

What did it do to your mind when you, you know, chose to step away from TV? I have a question for you. Is that okay? Sure. I'm curious. What did to your mind when you, you know, chose to step away from TV? Like did that affect your meditation and how did that, you know, when you were meditating was the point of ego. Was it just looking for other things to grab onto or, yeah, like I'm curious about that because I remember when I, when you and I met, I think in like 2018 and we did our, our first podcast together, you seem different in a good way. Not that you were bad before, you were great before, but I'm like, oh, this is like a slightly different guy. So that's interesting. So you're wondering if like between 2018 and now if these changes, whatever it is you're

perceiving might be linked first and foremost to stepping away from TV news. Yeah, and also how that impacted your meditation, you know, not being seen by so many people all the time. Well, I actually think two things there. I'll try to answer economically. One is that in 2018, the year you met me, I had a major event in my life, which was I got a 360 review that I have probably mentioned on this show before, definitely mentioned on this show before. It's the kicking off point for the next book I'm writing, which was where I did an anonymous survey of the people in my life,

about my strengths and weaknesses. I don't remember any of the strengths, but I sure as shit, remember the weaknesses and there were many. And that really had a huge impact on me and got me more into loving kindness meditation, specifically, which has had a huge, and I did a little bit of it, but it was kind of like a contemplative side dish. But for a long time, for many years,

I moved into doing it as my primary practice and now it's still central, but not the only thing I do. And I think that's how the huge impact on me. And yeah, I think stepping away from the news has been good for my life and for my meditation practice because I'm less exhausted, less pulled in so many directions.

But in terms of what's happening in my mind, vis-a-vis, you know, looking for affirmation and attention, that's still there. That is definitely still there. I mean, that's the thing I really have to work on. I mean, that's partly why I got the tattoo we talked about. It's just like to, you know, even if I'm washing my hands or I'm on an exercise bike, or on my phone, I can look down and see this reminder,

hey, asshole, stop thinking about yourself only. That's never, that's not, don't think about yourself ever, but let's get some perspective here. And by the way, don't call yourself asshole because that's too dismissive and mean. And so all of that will come up in my mind because I'm looking at the tattoo. Yeah, I don't know if that fully answered your question,

but that's what came to mind. Oh, totally. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for being vulnerable and honest. That's really cool. Happy for you. Yeah, and you can always say, okay, DRS, all you can make all of your life. You know, one more thing. A lot of appreciation for the 10% happier. The name of the podcast and your work and your book and so forth, that you actually emphasize happiness, whatever percentage it is. I don't know how we measure that. The great poet, Jack Gilbert said, if we deny our happiness, we also lessen the importance and the availability to the people who are suffering in the world. You know, people don't realize that it's okay to be happy. And in fact, it infuses you with the care and the love and so forth to take care of others.

And there was an interview that my dear friend, Wes Skoopnisk, or a radio journalist for years, who died this week, had with Gary Snider, one of our greatest environmentalists and poets, Pulitzer Prize in the decades ago for Earth household, talking to Gary, not that long ago, is that Gary climate change is getting worse. The environment is getting destroyed.

We're losing species. The oceans are rising. What do you have to say to us after 50, 60 years as an environmentalist to help us? And Gary looked back and he said, don't feel guilty. He said, if you try to save it out of guilt or blame or anger, those are the very forces

that have put us in this predicament to start with. He said, if you wanna save it, save it because you love it. You know, because that's the power that has mothers' cars off their children. It's the only power that we have that really is a match for those other destructive forces. And so in 10% happier, you're actually inviting us to have a different kind of power and a different way of relating to the world from an inner sense of care and well-being. And I just will appreciate that.

Well, thank you. And I did it all by ripping people like you off. Hey, we're all thieves in that way. We're always from the boot of who took it from the previous bootest. We put in the chat, CloudSonga.co slash open house and wisdom ventures for people who are interested. Can they take a look at that? Yes, I was that you preempted what I was just going to ask you, which is just to remind people of your latest projects. And so for Jack, we'll put in the show notes cloud sangha and also wisdom ventures, which of course, Diego's involved in and Diego, please just remind us of the name of your most recent book and anything else you want us to go

check out. Yeah, the way forward is my newest book, my fourth one. And I'm really having a lot of fun on substacks. So youngplayoflow.substack.com, if you want to read my new longer writings that I'm sharing there. And of course, let's not forget your Instagram. Yes, Instagram. Still plugging away. So fun to talk to both of you.

Thank you very much. Great pleasure. Thank both of you. Thank you very much. Great pleasure. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Dan. Good to see you. Yeah, this is so much fun. Thank you, both.

Take care, everybody. Ciao. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Thanks again to Jack and Diego. Always great to talk to those guys. If you want to hear more from them, we've put links to some of their past appearances in the show notes, as well as a link to the episode

I mentioned from Dan Clemer and Mudita Nisker. Thank you very much for listening, by the way, really appreciate that. We could not and would not do this without you. Thanks most of all, though, to the folks who work so hard on the show. 10% happier is produced by Gabrielle Zuckerman, Justin Davy Lauren Smith, and Tara Anderson,

DJ Cashmere is our senior producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior editor. Kevin O'Connell is our director of audio and post-production. Kimi Regler is our executive producer, Alicia Mackie leads our marketing and Tony Magyar is our director of podcasts, Nick Thorburn of the band, Islands, World Art Theme. guests Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. and add free on Amazon music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondry.com slash survey. Hey everybody, it's Dan on 10% happier.

I like to teach listeners how to do life better. I want to try. Oh, hello, Mr. Grinch. What would make you happier? Ah, let's see. And out of business sign at the North Pole. Or a nationwide ban on caroling and noise, noise, noise. What would really make me happy is if I didn't have to host a podcast.

That's right, I got a podcast too. Hi, it's me, the Grand Puba of Bahambad, the OG Green Grump, the Grinch. From Wondery, it is the Grinch Holiday Talk Show Show is a pathetic attempt by the people of O'Vill to use my situation as a teachable moment. So join me, The Grinch! Listen as I launch a campaign against Christmas cheer, grilling celebrity guests, like chestnuts

on an open fire. Your family will love the show! As you know, I'm famously great with kids. Follow Tis the Grinch Holiday Talk Show on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Your family will love the show! As you know, I'm famously great with kids. Follow Tiz the Grinch Holiday Talk Show on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.