Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Joseph Goldstein + Mark Epstein On: How To Handle Unwanted Experiences, How Not To Waste Your Suffering & The Overlap Between Buddhism + Therapy

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Buddhist megastars in conversation.Today, we’re dropping a recording of a live event we held earlier this year, during which Joseph Goldstein and Dr. Mark Epstein came on stage for a fascinating set of conversations. We did this event to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Dan’s first book, also called 10% Happier. The night was structured like a late night show, so there was a monologue, and live music with the band Mates of State. Dr. Mark Epstein is a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City, and is the author of a number of books about the interface of Buddhism and psychotherapy, including Thoughts without a Thinker, Going to Pieces without Falling Apart, Going on Being, Open to Desire, Psychotherapy without the Self, The Trauma of Everyday Life and Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself, and The Zen of Therapy: Uncovering a Hidden Kindness in Life. He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard University. He has been a student of vipassana meditation since 1974.Joseph Goldstein is a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society and the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, both in Barre, Massachusetts. He is the author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, A Heart Full of Peace, One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism, Insight Meditation and The Experience of Insight: A Simple and Direct Guide to Buddhist Meditation. Joseph has studied and practiced meditation since 1967 under the guidance of eminent teachers from India, Burma, and Tibet and he leads Insight Meditation retreats around the world.In this episode we talk about:The three month solo silent meditation retreat Joseph had just finishedHow to not suffer in the face of unwanted experiences Three exercises for slowing downPragmatic applications of retreat practice for life in the real world How to see outside yourselfHow Mark came to Buddhism 50 years agoThe relationship between Buddhism and psychotherapy The Buddhist concept of the two levels of reality And a guided meditation from a surprise guestRelated Episodes:Nirvana | Joseph GoldsteinDr. Mark Epstein On: How To Transform Your Neuroses Into “Little Shmoos”I Just Did A 10-Day Silent Meditation Retreat With Joseph Goldstein. Here’s What I LearnedSign up for Dan’s newsletter hereFollow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTokTen Percent Happier online bookstoreSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelOur favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular EpisodesFull Shownotes: https://happierapp.com/podcast/tph/joseph-mark-liveAdditional Resources:The New York Insight Meditation Centerhttp://markepsteinmd.com/Going to Pieces without Falling Apart: A Buddhist Perspective on WholenessThe Trauma of Everyday LifeMates of StateDownload the Happier app today: https://my.happierapp.com/link/downloadSee 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, gang, have you ever had an experience where simply reframing an issue or a problem puts the whole thing into an entirely different and much more helpful light? For example, reframing anxiety as excitement or reframing failure as experimentation and opportunity to learn. Here's one of my favorites, and it comes from the great meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein, don't waste your suffering.

We all suffer. We all have shitty things that happen to us. There's no getting around that. But can we use these moments to be mindful, to be curious, to wake up? I love this because it's reframing suffering as an opportunity to practice. This is just one of many, many wisdom bombs that you're about to hear from Joseph

in this very special episode of the 10% Happier podcast. Today, we're dropping a recording of a live event that we held a few months back, during which Joseph and another huge teacher in my life, Dr. Mark Epstein, the Buddhist psychotherapist, came on stage for a fascinating set of conversations. We did this event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of my first book, also called 10% Happier, and we are bringing you the recording now. It was a great night. We structured it like a late night show. I've always wanted to be a late night host. So there was a monologue and a band, my old friends, mates of state, who's members, Jason Hamill and Corey Gardner.

You will hear participate in some of the banter with the guests. Although we are not playing much of their music because we wanted to make sure that the episode really was about the conversation. There's also a surprise guest at the end who comes out and leads a little guided meditation. A little bit more about my guests. Before we dive in, Joseph Goldstein is a legendary meditation teacher who co-founded the Insight Meditation Society, or IMS, alongside Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. He's the author of numerous books on meditation and he's been my main teacher since I got started

15 years ago. Dr. Mark Epstein is a psychiatrist and the author of a number of books about the intersection between Buddhism and psychotherapy. Those books include Thoughts Without a Thinker, Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart, Advice Not Given, and The Zen of Therapy. In these conversations, we talk about the three-month solo silent meditation retreat Joseph had just come out of right before the event, how not to suffer in the face of unwanted experiences, three exercises for slowing down, pragmatic applications of retreat practice for everyday life, how to see outside of yourself, the relationship between Buddhism and psychotherapy, and the Buddhist concept of the two levels of reality,

which may sound esoteric, but is actually quite practical. Keep in mind, of course, that this was a live event, so the audio quality is a little bit different than usual, but you can handle it. We'll get started with Joseph Goldstein and Dr. Mark Epstein right after this. Before we get started, though, real quick, I want to let you know about something that's happening

over at danharris.com. Guest Cody Delestrotti will be in the subscriber chat, and he has a couple of specific questions he wants to ask you related to my conversation with him about grief, which dropped in the podcast feed today. Here are the questions. What kind of rituals have you found most helpful when you've experienced grief?

And second, what do you think it will take to bring grief out of the shadows in contemporary life? Why aren't we talking more openly about this and what would help? Just a couple of light conversation starters. So if you wanna chop it up with Cody today, head over to danharris.com. We're doing lots of cool stuff over there.

This is just one example. Come check it out and join the party. Meanwhile, over at the Happier Meditation app, they've created something called the Holiday Giving and Receiving Collection. It's a set of guided meditations to help you navigate the holidays, which includes practices such as self-compassion, gratitude, and fostering deep connections. Download the Happier Meditation app today wherever you get your apps.

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or on the app at your kid's game, you can squeeze in what you need wherever you need it. Whether you need 10, 20, or 45 minutes of you time to sweat and get grounded, Peloton provides flexibility with daily on-demand and live classes that fit your busy schedule and your everyday life. I am a power user of Peloton. I have one of the bikes. I use it all the time.

I do some of the short rides but if I have more time I like to get in a 45 minute ride. It really calms my nervous system and helps me sleep at night. And when I'm on the road, like in a hotel, I'll often use the Peloton app on my phone to do a high intensity interval training class. I love those. So long way of saying I'm a huge fan of Peloton. Find your push, find your power with Peloton at One of Peloton. Find your push, find your power with Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Maybe you're dreaming of taking a big ski trip

with friends and family this year. While you're away, you could Airbnb your home and make some extra money that you could put toward the trip. If you wanna find out how much you can bank on Airbnb, just go to airbnb.ca slash host and keep listening to hear more about why I love Airbnb later in the show. Thank you.

Makes it state ladies and gentlemen. I want to start by saying some thank yous. I am genuinely grateful to all of you for coming out tonight, especially on a rainy night in New York City where the Bidens, Clintons and Obamas are fucking up traffic. I mean it. I'm really grateful to all of you for coming out. I also want to thank our sponsors from Audible. They've been huge supporters of the 10% Happier Podcast.

Go listen to their books. And our nonprofit partner for the evening, the New York Insight Meditation Center. I'll have more to say about that. All right. The people clapping for NYIMC are clearly not silent meditators. I will admit right from the jump here that, generally speaking, to my knowledge,

people don't celebrate the 10th anniversary of books. I am just using this as an excuse to throw a party. The back story here is that my wife, Bianca, and I were out to dinner with our old friends, Cory and Jason, a few months ago, and somebody had the idea of us doing a show together. Cory, you were saying you think it's Bianca who had the idea? It was either Bianca or myself, so it was the women.

Just saying. Right. Although that could be your attempt at plausible deniability if this thing goes down the tubes. Right, she's covering her bases. So the idea was that we do it like a late-night show. I would be the host. This would be the band. I've always wanted to host a late night show, although tonight might drive a stake

through the heart of that dream. It is totally an experiment. I have no idea how it's gonna go, but I appreciate you buckling up and taking the ride with us. You can think of it as a late night show with a little bit of a deeper mission. I think most of us, if we do any personal growth,

self-development, spiritual work, we do it by ourselves. You know, we meditate in silence alone, we go to the shrink alone and talk about ourselves. And actually, I think all of that is great, but it is to overlook a key part of the Buddhist platform. And this is also a key part of many spiritual traditions, which is that all of this work can be supercharged by doing it with other people.

And so we wanted to put together an event that was a little noisier and more communal than your average meditation sesh. As I said before, I know that this whole 10th anniversary thing is a concoction, a confection, but now that I'm in it, it has caused me to reflect a little bit on the last 10 years, what a weird trip this has been. If you had told me 15, 20 years ago

that I was gonna become what I am now, which is a traveling evangelist for meditation, I would have coughed my beer up through my nose. This was not in the plan. I was a very hard-charging, super ambitious, super skeptical network newsman. I was raised in the People's Republic of Massachusetts by two atheist scientists. The only entry on my spiritual resume was bar mitzvah, but I did that for the money, so... Two things came along and changed my attitude and really changed my life.

The first insight was that we all have a voice in our heads by which I'm not referring to schizophrenia or hearing voices. I'm talking about your inner narrator that chases you out of bed in the morning and is yammering at you all day long and has you constantly wanting stuff, not wanting stuff, judging people, comparing yourself to other people,

thinking about the past or thinking about the future to the detriment of whatever's happening right now. And when you're unaware of this nonstop conversation that you are having with yourself, and which, by the way, if we broadcast aloud, you would be with yourself, and which, by the way, if we broadcast aloud, you would be locked up. When you're unaware of this nonstop nattering, it owns you.

There's a reason, the first line of my book, there's a reason why it is, the voice in my head is an asshole, because the results are often not pretty. The second insight, though, is that there is good news, that this situation, the human situation, is workable, it's tractable, it's manageable. Meditation is an ancient, time-tested, and now scientifically validated way to create a new relationship with the voice in your head, so that you're not owned by every neurotic obsession that flits through your head, and so that you can respond wisely to stuff instead of reacting blindly. I am definitely not a meditation fundamentalist.

I mean, on the 10% Happier podcast, we talk about all kinds of modalities, therapy, medication, vacation, napping, exercise. There are many ways to go at this, but the punchline is that happiness is not an unalterable factory setting. It's actually a skill. To be clear, perfection is not an unalterable factory setting, it's actually a skill. To be clear, perfection is not on offer.

If my wife were here, she would, well she is here but she doesn't have the mic, but if she did have the mic, she would give you her 90% still a moron speech. My little brother has argued that the real title of my book should be from deeply flawed to merely flawed. So perfection is not on offer, but change is doable and it is more fun when you do it with other people. So that is our thesis tonight. We have a great show for you tonight.

We've got great guests for you. Dr. Mark Epstein, the Buddhist psychiatrist is here. Yes. A guy named Joseph Goldstein is here. We also have a very special surprise guest coming at the end. And of course, my old friends, mates of state. coming at the end, and of course, my old friends, mates of state. Time for our first guest.

Let me get up and bring that screen back down, because I want to show you a little video to tee up our first guest, who is Joseph Goldstein. Joseph Goldstein, for those of you who are unfamiliar with him, he is the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society, which is in Barrie, Massachusetts, which was founded by Joseph and two other hippies in the 1970s and has become this legendary place where many, if not most, of the great meditation teachers operating today, at least in the Theravada

tradition, were trained. Joseph has also written many books, including a book called One Dharma and another book called Mindfulness. He is a huge figure in my own life. He's been a great friend and teacher, and we have made a lot of content together over on the 10% Happier app and also on the 10% Happier podcast. And one of the things we have in common is, if we like somebody, we like to make fun of them a lot.

In that spirit, I have a clip here of a little moment that was captured while Joseph and I were filming a course. Let's take a look. Okay. I just have one professional question. Just from your perspective, from my perception when Dan talks, you sit a lot stiller than I do.

I feel like I'm kind of moving around a lot. Do you even notice it or does it matter? Story you're telling yourself. What? I call that moment when the student becomes the master. Ladies and gentlemen, Joseph Goldstein. Ladies and gentlemen, Joseph Goldstein. -♪ Yeah! -♪ Ha-ha-ha! -♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, so I did bring you earplugs for the band, if you want them.

They're right here for you, buddy. So you just finished a three-month solo, silent meditation retreat. I want to go back. Is there something about this moment that is making you want to go back? Because I think a lot of people would hear that and think that sounds like torture.

I mean, literally solitary confinement is torture. So why is it something that you do every year and that even as we sit here now, it's something you want to go back to? You know, these these retreats, these silent retreats for whatever length. It's like being in the laboratory of your mind, you know, and it's just a chance to explore and see every part of yourself. I think it was a Japanese poet, a woman named Izumi, don't remember the whole poem, but the last line,

I knew myself completely, no part left out. And that's what happens on a retreat. Especially in solitude or in a group, but in silence, you get to see every part of your mind. You know, the great parts and the difficult parts, and to use a Dan phrase, in that process, you get to be behind the waterfall. So instead of the water coming down on top of your head, you have enough perspective, enough space to really see what's going on and to see what patterns cause suffering

in our lives and what patterns bring about happiness. And on retreat you see everything. So often people come up and ask me, well, how was your retreat? Every year the answer is the same. It's everything. But you just get to see no part left out. And that's what's so fascinating. As you said, I've been doing this for so many years.

And equally fascinating now as I was in the beginning of just watching my mind and seeing where I get caught and seeing how to unhook. A lot of the practice, there are kind of a few tracks to it. So one track is just developing some basic stillness, some basic concentration, which you need so you're not simply caught up all the time. And then you can get into the flow of things

changing very rapidly. And that helps the mind really let go. But in some way, and I find this on retreat a lot, the aspect that, for me, in a way, and I find this on retreat a lot, the aspect that for me in a way is the most interesting is when on retreat and off, but on retreat it's very vivid, is when there is some kind of suffering in the mind. Something's going on either just internally or because of some thing that's happening in my life outside.

There's some kind of suffering or heaviness or being caught. And I actually love that. There's a phrase that I've been using in teaching lately, don't waste your suffering. Because we all, I'll share with you, most of you probably know, somewhat familiar with the Buddhist teachings and the first noble truth is the truth, the Pali word is dukkha, and it's usually translated as suffering, but it can be any difficulty or challenge.

So I came across, this was, I was actually online, online I read someplace and I can't remember who said it but it was a definition of Duka Which I completely resonated with and I think Each one of you will resonate with this because it seems to me universally true the inevitability of unwanted experiences. I mean, is there anybody that goes through life

free of unwanted experiences? I don't think so. So these come up, you know, on retreat it becomes very vivid. So for me, when unwanted experiences are coming up, I get so interested in understanding what's going on in my own mind that's creating suffering around it. So that investigation, it's tremendous. It's tremendously interesting and in a very practical way, we learn how to free ourselves

from that difficulty in the mind. So don't waste your suffering means these are moments where you can learn about what your habitual patterns are and start to untangle. Absolutely, yeah. Because often, when we're suffering in one way or another, often we either feel sorry for ourselves or kind of drowning in it, obsessing about it, or blaming others for it or the

situation for it. But it takes a special kind of interest to realize that we're responsible, we're 100% responsible for whether our mind is suffering in the face of unwanted experiences. So unwanted experiences are going to happen. The body gets old, it gets sick. There's all kinds of situations in our lives, relationships, and in the world. So these unwanted experiences are going to happen, but whether we suffer as that's happening, that's totally up to us. So on a very basic level, for those of us who are not going to do three-month retreats,

why not? Then? I have brought this up before, and it was not warmly received. For those of us who are not yet going to do three-month retreats, how does one not suffer in the face of unwanted experience? Okay, so I'll give you an example just from this last retreat. At the beginning of the retreat, I was dealing with a complicated health issue, which is all fine now.

So it's all resolved. But at that time, it was very confusing. I didn't quite know what the way forward was, and I was thinking about the consequences and how it was gonna affect my life. So I really was beginning to weigh my mind down. You know, it was heavy. And then it was almost miraculous,

but quite spontaneously, at a certain point of feeling really down and heavy with it all, my mind just Changed switch channels So instead of kind of obsessing about what was going on in my body and what I need to do about it It switched to the gratitude channel. Hmm, and I just thought I said Joseph You have so many great things happening in your life. There are so many blessings in your life and so I started focusing on

all of that and It was amazing just in that simple switch you know from fear and distress and confusion to just gratitude. And sometimes I wonder in sharing that or talking about it with people, because it's something I think we've all heard

and it can almost sound like a hallmark card, you know, be grateful for what you have, but the real feeling of it is really profound because it takes us out of a self-obsession. So as you know, and probably many of you also, when we do the loving-kindness meditation, the cause or the condition for loving-kindness to arise is when we emphasize the good qualities in other people rather than focus on their faults, which makes a lot of sense. So when we think of the good qualities, we have loving feelings. Well this is kind of having met the for oneself.

Instead of focusing on what was wrong or difficult, to all of a sudden focus on what was good. It just enlarged the perspective. It's like my mind got bigger and more expansive, and then it extended so naturally to meta and compassion for other people. When I started thinking about other people in similar situations. So it just led to these wonderfully beautiful and wholesome and expansive mind states. So that's what's possible. Like when we're really investigating and interested, okay, what's going on in my mind and how am I caught and what, how can I open?

Is that a move you think the rest of us in our non-retreat lives can make? Absolutely, without any doubt at all. Well, why not? So I'll just share with you, I mean, something that comes up for me a lot just in my ordinary life, and sometimes just spontaneously,

I'll just express, may sound a little strange, but I'll just express to the universe, thank you for the blessings of my life. That's all something so simple, you know, but it's meaningful, you know and when we can appreciate the many blessings in our lives and it's uplifting, and then it gets, that uplifting feeling gets transferred to how we're relating to other people. So it's all good, and you don't have to be on retreat to do that.

It's just remembering to do it. Yes, remembering is the hardest part. Yep, yep. That's the purpose of evenings like this. Yes, and also the hardest part. Yep. That's the purpose of evenings like this. Yes. And also the purpose of retreat, because... He's always trying to get out of it. I have ten days coming up with you.

I'm already dreading it. But then, you know, you go, for me, I have so much resistance to the slowing down. The analogy I use is like it's a plane that has lost its landing gear hitting a foamed runway. It's just like I'm going fast, fast, fast, fast, and just, whoo, and it's three or four days of completely being befogged.

But then amazing things can happen. And it's three or four days of completely being befogged. But then amazing things can happen. Okay, I have a solution for the first few days. I have a solution for almost anything. They don't always work. And this kind of relates to being on retreat, off retreat also. And those of you who have been on retreat, I think will recognize this. Generally we put our, you know, there's sitting meditation, there's walking meditation,

and then there's paying attention to everything else. And generally people put a hierarchy on that. You know, the sitting's the real deal. Yeah, walking is good, but it's kind of a recess between cities and then everything else we try to do as best we can. What I found, I found the walking to be almost more insightful in the sitting. And generally on retreat, as you know, you know, we in the past particularly have emphasized this really slow walking. So that can be jarring.

I mean, if you're coming from a fast-paced life and then lift, move, place, you know, the zombie walk, that's challenging. But I was playing with a few different ways of walking in this retreat, that's really fun. You see what I'm dealing with. So first, it's not necessarily slow walking. It's just walking at a normal speed. And so the first frame, instead of focusing, you know, on the feet or the legs moving, the frame becomes just being aware of walking through space. And so one's mind actually becomes a space, you know, and so you're just walking in space and That's very opening and relaxing and easeful. You know that there's no trying

You're just walking at a more or less normal pace but with that frame So that's the first of three exercises the second one actually came from my very unsuccessful attempts to learn about lucid dreaming, which always interested me, but no success.

However, I read a few books. And one of the exercises was to go through the day and just ask, am I dreaming? So I started doing that in the walking. So first it's walking through space, and then you're walking back and forth, walking in a dream. It's really interesting what happens. It changes the perspective because it takes us out of being so identified with the body and

trying to narrow our focus on the body. The focus becomes the dream that the body is walking through. It's a really interesting space. And then the third one follows on that. It's just walking back and forth. And to have the frame, I'm walking through the mind. And so the mind or awareness becomes the main focus, in a way. And it's just the body walking through the field of awareness.

It really kind of gives a sense or a doorway to understanding selflessness because we're no longer so contracted in the identification with the body. And these are really simple things. We could, you don't have to be on retreat to do this. So just one last thing. Everything becomes an hour Dharma talk, but there's more to the program. So... Get it in now.

One of the reasons that I think practicing formal walking meditation in whatever way one does it. And I've just seen this so clearly in my own life, just from doing it so much, being aware of the body in movement, you know, in walking, just becomes the default. It becomes the habit of mind, from having done the formal walking meditation practice. So even now, being in New York, you know, busy, lots of things going on, we can be walking down the street being aware, being open to all the sounds, insights, whatever, but being

grounded in the movement of the body naturally, not with any particular effort, which comes from having done the walking practice. So I think there are lots of very pragmatic applications of retreat practice to life in the world. Yes, just to clear up the behind the waterfall thing is actually Jon Kabat-Zinn's. But the the idea is that say if you're walking through the streets of Manhattan or you're just doing formal walking meditation where you're trying to bring your full attention to some sensation in the body,

and then every time you get distracted, you start again and again and again. The seeing of the distraction, which a lot of people think is the moment of failure, actually the moment of success, because you get familiar with the way the mind works, and that familiarity where you're dropping out of the stories and seeing them

with some non-judgmental remove, that is to watch a waterfall from the rock face, from the crevice in the rock face behind all of the water, so you're not so caught up in it. And what you're saying is, we could do that walking down the street in Manhattan, tuning into the sensations of our body, no three month retreat required,

and then every time we get distracted. Suggested, but not required. Exactly. Suggested more strongly to some people. Every time we get distracted, pat ourselves on the back. Oh wow, I'm noticing the distraction, and gradually over time, the swirling stories have less power over us.

Okay, so let me ask you a very practical question before I move on to the next segment here, which is after nearly 60 years of meditation, how worked up do you get by things like, I'm thinking specifically of politics tonight. We have four, one current president and three ex-presidents in town, three Democrats doing a fundraiser for Biden

and then Trump dealing with some criminal lawsuit or something like that out on Long Island. We're heading into or in the midst of what is going to be an increasingly difficult year with all this stuff. How does all of this scan for you, given your years of practice? Are you unbothered, unruffled?

No. But I have playing with different ways of coming back to a place of ease with it. One is easier and one is harder. The easier way really is not so much from the meditation, except in terms of a kind of reflection in the mind. So I like to read a lot of history. So I read a lot of all different kinds. And I just find that putting a historical

perspective that this stuff has been going on for thousands of years, you know, worse, and is still going on. And just having a larger perspective really helps me not get so caught up into thinking, oh, this particular moment is disaster because it's just the waves of historical cycles. And it just helps. And in the same vein, I don't know if you're familiar with Carl Sagan, his famous blue dot essay, where he talks about seeing the Earth from space just as this tiny blue dot. He describes it just beautifully.

And everything that we're so worked up about from that perspective, it doesn't mean much. So it's enlarging perspective. In the same way that I was talking about gratitude. It enlarges the perspective. The thing that's more difficult, but I remind myself to do it with certain of the candidates, I can really go to a place of compassion at times. And I think of the suffering that's in his mind and the consequences, the karmic consequences of all the unskillful things that he does out of ignorance.

It's total delusion and ignorance behind everything that's being done. So when I focus on what he's doing, I can get really upset. This is a being in a lot of suffering, creating a lot of suffering future for himself, and he's completely unaware. And so when I get that frame, I can actually feel some compassion for him because it's like walking blindly over a cliff. So I think there are ways of dealing with it. We will all find our own ways, but those are some of the things that have helped me.

Mine is all caps Twitter rants. Corey, you're listening to this and are you thinking I'm going to go on a three-month retreat? What's your take? No, but I was wondering if you could spend a weekend with my 19-year-old daughter. I mean, I don't know if I could do even a 10 day retreat, but I totally resonate with the, I mean, really the first thing you were talking about is gratitude, right? I feel like as a mom,

I feel like that's one of the lessons I like wanna teach my kids throughout their life. But I don't think they hear me. So maybe they just need to meditate and go on a three month retreat and they'll get it too. Well, first, I have a feeling it's less about what you say. Maybe they just need to meditate and go on a three-month retreat and we'll get it to well First I have a feeling it's less about what you say and More about how you are. I need to have more gratitude probably no or appreciate that you do

Yeah, the other kids pick up how we are. Yeah It's a good point. We often miss their moments of gratitude too, because we're looking to correct, you know? We're always like, oh, you know, you should be gratitude here. And sometimes they are, and we're just missing it because we're looking for the correction. Jace, when you and I have been meditating for roughly the same period of time, when you hear about a three-month retreat,

is any part of you like thinking, that sounds baller, I want to do it? Yeah, it does actually. Yeah, he's not going. I feel like you're also speaking for another blonde backstage right now. She's back there like, I got you. Like, don't let him convince us. Can I say one more thing to I want to say, I really liked what you're talking

about, the walking part of it, because one conversation we've been having a lot about meditation is that I don't really have a meditation practice, but I feel I meditate when I'm making art, making like playing music. And for you to say the walking thing, I feel like that's how I feel about, you know, when I'm lost in this, you know, I'm just with my thoughts, not really thinking about what I'm playing sometimes, you know, how do you feel? Is that is that meditation? Meditation is a word that covers a wide range of practices.

So I would say it's meditative, but it can be a very meditative space. So in recent years, I've started writing poetry, just in the last few years, and I love it. The space out of which that comes feels very meditative. Well, this may motivate you to do a retreat. But what I found is that the deepest, in my experience, the deepest creative expression comes out of a silence of mind, not out of the thinking mind. And so the quiet of the mind is, so sometimes, for example, I will do a writing retreat where

I'll sit and then write. And sit and then write. I would like that. Yeah. And it's beautiful. It's a beautiful, so that could be a way. And it does nothing. So you can write on the silent retreat?

Well, I'm the boss. If that's the intention, I mean generally in the retreats that we teach, we discourage people from writing because that's not what that retreat is about. But one could set up a writing retreat like that. And it's, I love it. So there are lots of ways of entering into this. I would like that. Yeah, okay, let's do a writing retreat together. Yeah.

I'll do it. Is that okay, J.J.? Do you want to say it? Yeah. I'll do it. Is that okay, J.J.? Do you want to say it? Yeah.

I'll do it. Coming up, we welcome Dr. Mark Epstein to the stage. We talk about how he came to Buddhism 50 years ago, the relationship between Buddhism and psychotherapy, and we talk about the two levels of reality. Listening to Audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love. You can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, new ways of thinking. Listening can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits, and ultimately your overall

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And in our latest series, we're heading to the 80s. And yes, we'll be talking about perms, shell suits, and enormous mobile phones. But that's alongside a scandal that is guaranteed to blow your mind. Yes, get ready for gold, greed and betrayal. We are telling the story of one of the biggest heists in this country's history. And how what started as a slick operation spiralled into absolute chaos. We're going to be unraveling the true story behind the Brinks Mat heist, the double crosses, murders and the global hunt for the missing gold.

And the romancing. Oh, always the romancing, murders and the global hunt for the missing gold. And the romancing. Oh, always the romancing, Matt. Turns out there's quite a lot in London, Shady Underworld. To find out the full story and why it'll make you take a long hard look at your gold jewellery, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad free on Wondery+, on Apple Podcasts, or the Wondery app. Music Over at the Happier Meditation app, they've created something called the Holiday Giving and Receiving Collection. It's a set of guided meditations to help you navigate the holidays, which includes practices such as self-compassion, gratitude, and fostering deep connections. Download the Happier Meditation app today wherever you get your apps.

few words about him before I bring him out here. His name is Dr. Mark Epstein. He is a psychiatrist who lives and works in the New York City area and sometimes works from slightly north of here. He has written a whole series of beautiful books about the overlap between psychotherapy and Buddhism. And one of the books is called The Trauma of Everyday Life. Another is called Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart. And that second book was given to me in 2008 by my wife, Bianca,

who had heard me yammer on, often with very low levels of cogency, about stuff I was hearing in the self-help world. I was frustrated by it, but also interested in it. She said it reminded me of a book I read many years ago, here's the book. And when I read that book, it was really my first exposure to Buddhism and I was fascinated and I called Mark

and basically begged him to be my friend and for some reason he agreed. And we are still very close to this day. So ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Mark, Dan. So, you've written these beautiful books that wrestle with these two great traditions, psychotherapy and Buddhism. Just from a very basic level for those who might be new to your work, why do you think these two modalities work so well together? Well, they were the only two modalities that were available to me.

That's not a ringing endorsement. Well, we once had a conference early, like 20 years ago or so, Buddhism and psychotherapy conference that R.D. Lang came to and so on. And my friend was there and he said, what's the similarity between Buddhism and psychoanalysis? Two things that don't work. But for me, they both have really helped me. I found Buddhism first. This might be the 10-year anniversary of your book, but it's the 50-year anniversary of when I first met Joseph. And... So whenever he sees me, he thinks I'm still 20 years old.

And he was like an old guy, you know. So I found Buddhism first after, you know, some sort of aborted attempts to get some psychotherapy help at the health services at the college and so on that I remember the guy said, oh, you're suffering from an oedipus complex. And, but I didn't really, I knew, I didn't really know what that meant. So, okay, my condition had a name, but then I met Joseph and Jack and Sharon and Ram Dass

all in one sort of lump. And they gave me an experience, you know, like an experience of my uncomfortable self, which made me slightly less uncomfortable. I have always felt very grateful that I got the Buddhism first, because then when I, some years later, when I was trying to figure out what to do with myself and decided to become a therapist, a psychiatrist, everything I learned Western I was processing through the Buddhist lens, you know? And they're both, to try to really answer your question,

they're both about working with the untrained mind, you know, with the shame, with the a mind, with the shame, with the aversion, with the embarrassment, what you call the monkey mind and the neurotic mind. They're both attempts to work with the neurotic mind. And they both have something to offer. And they've never really been in contact before, before our time. So I was just lucky enough to come up at this moment

and to try to make sense of it for myself. All those books came out of me trying to figure out, you know, is the ego good or bad? Is emptiness the right thing or the wrong thing? You know, I needed to puzzle it all out for myself. What is the, on a very basic level, what would you say the mechanism is by which these two modalities supercharge one another?

Maybe that's overstating it, but I'm just guessing here in my amateurish language, but meditation helps us generate mindfulness, which is a kind of self-awareness, so we're not so caught up in our thoughts. In therapy, we're actually dealing with the substance of the stories, but the self-awareness so we're not so caught up in our thoughts. In therapy, we're actually dealing with the substance of the stories, but the self-awareness might help us see more clearly what the stories are and not take them more seriously, so seriously.

I don't think about it so much as the process versus story. I think about it as meditation is something, is intrapersonal, something that you're doing with your own mind, as Joseph was talking earlier, I was listening in. And psychotherapy is intrapersonal. So I think it's much more about the relationship than it is about processing whatever it is that we're doing in psychotherapy.

I think it's more the relationship than the content of the individual story. And I think it's an opportunity to apply in a relational way what we learn intrasychically in meditation. So how to apply that same kind of awareness to a conversation. You know, that involves emotional material. So I think the emotional is more, maybe more in the forefront in the psychotherapy world, although there's a lot of emotion in a three-month retreat.

Or in a three-minute sit. Yeah, yeah. Are you saying, and I apologize if I'm being obtuse here, but are you saying that the value of therapy isn't so much what you might come to understand about your emotions or stories, but in the relationship you develop with the therapist? I think that must be what I'm saying. I think it's like a playground, the way Joseph was talking about the playground of the mind

in meditation, psychotherapy is really a playground of the relationship. Because it's such a weird thing that it even exists in our culture, that two people would sit together with no idea of what's going to happen between them or what they're going to talk about. But that what comes up and what gets enacted in the relationship is informational. So you get to see your own patterns in action. And if the therapist is decent, then he or she can point out stuff that you might not be aware of even while you're doing it.

So there's another, it's not just your own knowing mind watching yourself, there's another knowing mind watching yourself. One of my two main therapists used to pay very, very close attention to the language that his patients would use. So me in particular, if I would say something like, talking about a friend or whatever, I really like her. He would say, what don't you like about her? Or he would say, say that again but drop the word really. Putting in that qualifier that I wasn't really aware that I was using was signaling to him some ambivalence in my presumed story.

And I would do that really thing a lot. In the book you read, I told that story, I think, of in talking with him, I would sometimes stare at him to sort of drive home the contact that I so value that I think I had learned from being with Ram Dass, who Ram Dass would do this thing when you came in to see him where he would just sit, sit meditatively and stare at you

and wouldn't say anything until you couldn't stand it anymore. So I think I was doing some sort of pseudo spiritual staring at my therapist who's smoking a little cigar, you know, and finally he would say, blink. And in doing that, he was making me aware of a kind of clinging that I could do to the closeness that I so value, but I'm overdoing it. And thereby, you know, if you stare at someone,

you actually lose contact with them. Real intimacy involves being together and then coming apart, you know, if you stare at someone, you actually lose contact with them. Real intimacy involves being together and then coming apart, you know, and I would be more uncomfortable with the coming apart part. Just a different laboratory, the therapy one. It seems like the common denominator is in meditation, in those brief moments where you can see

whatever's happening in your head or your body without clinging to it, that is a very healing posture and what you're saying is you can summon that for yourself and it could be summoned externally by your therapist and both can help you live with a little bit more suppleness. Well I think what I'm saying is the main thing that we're looking for in meditation is the clinging. It's only by finding the clinging that you can release the clinging. Otherwise, it's happening unconsciously. This is don't waste your suffering. Or, yeah. And in therapy, the main thing I'm looking for is where's the clinging in whoever it is?

I'm talking to because we don't once we're made aware of the clinging It feels better to release it even if it's only for an instant and you can make that palpable in therapy for somebody Sometimes you know so the other way to talk about it is not just that we're looking for the clinging But we're looking for the clinging, but we're looking for the self. Because you can't really understand selflessness until you've found the self as it actually appears in your own experience. So people in therapy make very clear who they think their self is. You know, the, she hurt my feelings, he hurt my feelings, you know, I'm hurt, there's the self. Okay, show me that self.

Joseph used the term selflessness earlier and I gave him a pass on it and now you're using it. And so I suspect some people here are like, what does that mean? I only use the term self. No, you said selflessness. You look for the self in order to understand selflessness. There you go again. Yeah.

Yeah. The self doesn't exist in the way we imagine it. That's selflessness. Or, like, Ram Dass used to say, you're not who you think you are, which I always found very helpful. Yes. Another quote you like to use a lot is something that an elderly Mongolian monk said to Robert Thurman, another great local Buddhist guy, you think you're real.

You are real. It's not that you're not real. Yeah, it's not that you're not real. Of course you're real. But you think you're really real. It's in the really real. That's what we're trying to catch. Joseph, what's your view on therapy?

Well, as Mark was describing it, I really, it's very similar to what we do in meditation interviews. Yeah. You know, people, it's just a shorter session. Yeah, like five minutes. Yeah, but rem minutes here, but but Remuneration is is prorated But but it is is people come in and really what I'm

Trying to tune into okay. Where is the clinging is exactly? so I Think of these meditation interviews on retreats and this suits me perfectly as ten-minute marriages. So it's perfect. Ten minutes really intimate getting right to the essence. So long. But it sounded very similar to me in what you said. You're who I learned from. Joseph's referencing meditation interviews. So if you go on a retreat, you get a tiny sliver of time

with the teacher to complain about your practice, and they're supposed to help you with it. And I remember one time where I was complaining about something to Joseph, and you very compassionately said, that's just you being stupid. And if you deny it, I actually have audio tape. I think that was one of my final moments. What about therapy for your is this something you've gone and done? OK, I have spent in my 40s.

I did a few years of Jungian therapy and there was a lot of dream work it was really interesting and I ended it Not that everything was resolved but I came to the place in my mind where I Really came to an acceptance of all my neurosis. And as soon as I stopped fighting with it, and then I felt done.

I don't know if I was really done. If he was your patient, would you have considered him done? I have a great deal of trouble letting people go. Wait, I'm finding the clinging. Yeah, the clinging. Yeah, put the link. So I would have wanted to keep him coming, just because I'm more into marriage than he is. So is there a view in Buddhist circles

that some folks deep in the Dharma look down on therapy, because it is really engaging often with the stories of the mind rather than looking at the process of how the mind works. I'll go out on a limb here a bit. I think it all depends on the therapist. You know, if it's a really skilled therapist, I think they're really in alignment. But not every therapist is a good therapist,

and not necessarily disentangling from the perspective Mark was talking about. So it just really depends. But as a modality, I think it has tremendous usefulness. In the early years of my practice, a few sort of prominent Dharma teachers came to me for therapy sort of secretly because I think there was a kind of feeling in their communities anyway that the Dharma was supposed to cure everything.

And they knew they had either childhood stuff or depression or they just knew they needed a different angle on it and that was very moving for me and also affirming of what I was trying to do. Let me see if I can say a few hopefully cogent words about the selflessness thing and you guys just correct me if I can say a few hopefully cogent words about the selflessness thing, and you guys just correct me if I'm wrong. I don't want people to leave here too confused, although maybe I'm just going to make it worse.

In Buddhism, there's a lot of talk of two levels of reality. So there's relative reality or the relative truth and the ultimate truth. So on a relative level, we're all here at Symphony Space. This desk is a desk. You're you, I'm me. We all have to put our pants on in the morning, make dentist appointments, et cetera, et cetera. On an ultimate level, if you were to take a high-powered

microscope to this desk, you would see it's mostly spinning subatomic particles in empty space. And so both of these truths are true at the same time. And so they can see ultimately that if you close your eyes and look for Dan or Joseph, you won't find it, can help you not take all of your thoughts and urges and emotions so personally. Am I hunting in the right? He's not, but you're looking at- He always agrees with that when you say that. I think that the thing about...

Joseph knows better than I do about it, but I think the thing about Buddhism is that it holds out the possibility that you can have both of those relative and ultimate views at once. It doesn't have to be one or the other. No. Yeah. Right? I think that's what Dan was saying.

My attorney Goldstein. If it wasn't what I was saying, it's what I'm saying now. This is so fun. Corey, when you listen to this, what comes up for you? I need to get to work. That's what I was just thinking. Get to work. Myself, yeah. Have you not done much therapy?

I haven't done much. I have done some and I also deemed myself fine to go. I got what I needed, but you know, I'm sure there's more work to be done. So interesting, your process was do no work, declare yourself done. No, I mean, I went to therapy for a little while and then I was like, I don't need this anymore.

I figured it out. I'm good. Sh a little while. Oh, OK. Got it. And then I was like, I don't need this anymore. I figured it out. I'm good. Shoo at once? Shoo at once. No, I did not go at once. It was one phase. Like, I'm good.

I'm better. I did feel like I didn't need it. I don't know. I mean, I guess someone makes a difference. I'm saying now maybe I need to get to work. Can I tell you one thing thing Dan? When I went to therapy, I had one long therapy and then my therapist supervisor, he sent me to his teacher, you know, and I went again. But the most, the thing that stayed with me from that second therapy was that he saw me until he died.

was that he saw me until he died. While I was seeing him, he got bladder cancer. But he let me still come. And he told me everything that was happening. And I saw him right up until, I think the summer came, and we were up in the country, and I was working on one of the early books, and he died. But that, him trusting me enough, or letting me into that very intimate personal process,

and talking about it openly, what was really special. I'm eternally grateful to him for that. And so that goes back to what you were saying before about the relationship aspect of this, rather than just hunting for the key to unlock all of your neuroses. Well, and it also goes back to how it's hard for me to let go. So you had to die. I think there's just one other point about the relationship of the two.

So I remember when I first started practicing. I was in India. I was young, first started practicing. I was in India, I was young, I was 23 years old. And at first, especially at first, although I can continue, you just see all the negativities in the mind and all the garbage in the mind. And I'd be running to my teacher, I didn't, I don't think I used these words, but basically expressing I'm such a terrible person because I'm seeing all this stuff.

And of course he just smiled and said, just continue. But it was that quality of the teacher not judging what was going on in my mind as I was judging it. And I think a therapist serves that same purpose. We just pour out whatever, and somebody's holding it without judgment. So that's very healing. Yes.

Notwithstanding the fact that you have called me stupid, I think is one of the greatest aspects of getting to have a relationship with you, is that I will tell you all of this embarrassing stuff, and I never feel judged. I remember calling you once. You asked me a question about something that was difficult. I said, I don't want to talk about it.

I'm just going to get angry. You said, no, I like it. Just anger away. Bring it on. And yeah, that is a very healing posture, whether you summon it internally or it's given to you externally. What's the most important thing about being a guest? Coming up, a very special guest healing posture, whether you summon it internally or it's given to you externally. Coming up, a very special guest who comes on and does a guided meditation.

I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peterua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankopan. And in our podcast Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we're looking at the life of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. For many people in the UK, he's a national hero. For others, he's a symbol of racist imperialism. It's fair to say he is a complex and controversial character.

So almost exactly 150 years since his birth, we are exploring parts of his story you might not be so familiar with. How does his legacy hold up today? What do you think, Afewher? He is worshipped, provokes anger. I actually think it's going to be a really challenging and stimulating discussion for us to have. I can't think of a figure who had more of a front row seat at so many different chapters of the making of the 20th century. So it's going to be fantastic. Follow Legacy now wherever you get your podcasts.

Or binge entire seasons early and ad free on Wondery Plus. Three, two, one, liftoff! With an entirely new way to play. Plus. and uncovered dynamite dinosaurs. For the first time ever, be wowed with exclusive, engaging companion audio that comes with each STEM toy. And as you play, Guy Raz and I, co-hosts of Wow in the World, bring you and your family bonkerball facts about the natural world, like how crystals and rainbows are related. And each STEM toy includes a bonus science tool and three months of Wondery Plus free,

so the whole family can listen to their favorite podcasts like Wow in the World early and ad free. Shop Wow in the World toy collection today at amazon.com slash Wondery Kids. That's amazon.com slash W-O-N-D-E-R-Y Kids. Bye, kids. We have one final guest tonight, a surprise guest. He's gonna come on and do a very brief meditation. I mentioned earlier that every guest tonight appeared in the book 10% Happier,

with one exception, because he wasn't born yet. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, Alexander Robert Harris. ["Alexander Robert Harris"] Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Son, how are we doing? Good. One word answer is perfect. Decent. Decent.

Okay, so we're going to do loving kindness meditation. I got to say one of the coolest surprises of my life was that I have made the decision, Bianca and I made the decision jointly not to press meditation too hard on Alexander. Although we did have a moment, you and I, couple weeks ago where you came to me and said, Daddy, I'm bored. And I said, how does that feel in your body?

And you said, is this a meditation thing? Because if it is, I don't want to hear it. That was like last year. Okay, that was last year. So we made the decision not to be annoying parents pushing the meditation thing, but... We're still annoying parents. I don't know if you heard what he said, we're still annoying parents. So we travel a lot together, Alexander and I.

I'm his emotional support animal. He's my emotional support animal on... on planes and when I'm giving speeches he emotional support animal. He's my emotional support animal on planes. And when I'm giving speeches, he travels with me. And it's great. I said to some of the folks here earlier that it's a little bit like that movie, There Will Be Blood, where the guy travels around

with his little kid doing business deals. This is like a benign version of that. And he must have picked up somewhere along the way how to teach meditation because I heard from the principal at his school that he was teaching other kids how to do this and then the high school heard about it and asked him to come teach it at the high school and I went and it was awesome. So loving-kindness meditation, I have to be honest. When I first heard about it, I was not a fan.

I have joked that it... Me neither. Yeah, well, a lot of skeptical people don't respond well to it because it feels a little bit like Valentine's Day with a gun to your head. However, there is a ton of science that shows that this practice can have many physiological, psychological, and even behavioral benefits. In fact, our mutual friend Richard Davidson, who's a neuroscientist from the University of Wisconsin, has done work to show that this practice can make preschoolers more likely

to give their stickers away to kids they do not like. So am I going to teach it or are you going to teach it, sweetie? I'll do it. You want to do it? Okay. All right, so let me start us out by having you sit comfortably. Maybe you don't have to get up tight about your posture, but you can have your spine reasonably straight.

Close your eyes. If you're uncomfortable closing your eyes, you can just kind of gaze softly at a neutral spot on the ground in front of you. And the way this practice works is that we envision a series of beings. People are animals and we send them a series of phrases. So who's the first being here, buddy? Someone that's easy to love. Okay, so this can be a kid, one of your pets if you have them. And so see if you can sum in the visual image or a felt sense in your body of somebody easy to love.

And what are the, let's do slowly the four phrases. What's the first one? May you be happy. May you be happy. May you be happy. See if you can make a connection between the words and the image or the felt sense in your body. Crucially, you do not have to feel any certain way. Just do the exercise and see what happens.

What's the second phrase? May you be healthy. May you be healthy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. Oh and may you live with these. You're doing great buddy. Okay so the next category, bring to mind an image of yourself maybe as a little kid or you can just feel yourself sitting in the chair. Okay, what's that first phrase, buddy? May you be happy. May you be happy.

Let it connect, the phrase and the image. What's the next one? May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you live with hope. May be safe. May you live with hope. May you be safe. And what's the next one? May you live with ease.

Okay, only a few more categories. The next one is a mentor, a benefactor. Somebody's helped you out in your life, so it could be a teacher, a parent. If you don't have somebody that you know like this, you can think of somebody on the world stage you admire, so like the Dalai Lama. For you it would be a teacher, a parent. If you don't have somebody that you know like this, you can think of somebody on the world stage you admire. So like the Dalai Lama. For you it would be Joseph. For me it would be Joseph and Mark.

Okay, so let's do the phrases. What's the first one? May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. And may you live with ease. Good job, buddy. Okay, only three more categories.

The next one is a neutral person. So this is somebody you probably overlook in your daily life. It could be a barista, somebody at the office about whom you don't have any particular feelings. Let's bring the image to mind. Sometimes it can be hard with a neutral person, so just do your best. What's the first phrase?

May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. And may you live with ease. Okay, two more characters here. The next one is... A mildly annoying person? Mildly annoying person.

I chose you for the... Oh my god. I chose you for two. Someone that's easy to love in this one. Okay. That's very sweet. I don't know exactly how to feel about it. It's a compliment. It's a compliment. So, we have an image in our minds now of somebody who's a little bit tricky for us. Sssss... What's the first phrase?

May you be happy. And I just want to point out here that happy people tend not to be super annoying. So you're not condoning their behavior. Just hoping that they'll be happy. May you be healthy. may you be safe, may you live with ease. Final category is all beings everywhere. So this you can have a mental image of the pale blue dot that Joseph talked about earlier from Carl Sagan. Just picture some big blue marble.

Yeah, floating in space. You can, or just feel it in your body, a sense of omnidirectionality. So once you've got that feeling, let's go with one more time with the phrases. May you be happy. May we all be happy. No, may we all be safe.

May we all be healthy. May we all be healthy. And may we all live with ease. All right, when you're ready, you can open your eyes and blink back into the room. Ladies and gentlemen, Alexander Harris. Okay, just a few things to say I want to say in closing here. Humor me, because I want to say a few thank yous. First of all, Jason and Corey, proud to know you. In fact, I just want to say, of all of you guys on the stage tonight, this isn't really

the language I would normally use, but just to harken back to what Joseph said earlier, I consider you all to be great blessings from the universe. So thank you. Thank you. I'm going to put earmuffs on you for one minute because I'm going to say a bad word. Interpeace motherfuckers. Good night.

Good night. Good night. Thanks again to Joseph and Mark. Thank you as well to my friends Jason and Corey from the band Mates of State. I should say they just put out a new song called Somewhere, available wherever you get your music. And of course, thanks to my little man, Alexander. Oh, and I should also thank the long list of people

who worked so hard to make this live show a reality. Caroline Keenan and Tony Magyar, most especially. Those guys worked incredibly hard on this thing. Also, Liz Levin, my wife Bianca, Amy Breckenridge, the folks at Symphony Space, the New York Insight Meditation Center, and our sponsors at Audible. We love those guys. As always

we'll be doing a cheat sheet for subscribers over at danharris.com where we sum up the key takeaways and give a full transcript so if you're a subscriber you'll be getting that or you will have already received that in your inbox. Also at danharris.com you get the chance to chat with me in the text and also many of our guests pop into the chats as well which is super cool and I'm doing monthly live AMA sessions and much much more. I personally would love your support and feedback if you care to take the time to sign up. Final thing to say I want to thank everybody who worked so hard to make

this show. 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. If you like 10% happier, and I hope you do, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. Hello, ladies and germs, boys and girls.

The Grinch is back again to ruin your Christmas season with his The Grinch holiday podcast. After last year, he's learned a thing or two about hosting and he's ready to rant against Christmas cheer and roast his celebrity guests like chestnuts on an open fire. You can listen with the whole family as guest stars like Jon Hamm, Brittany Broski, and Danny DeVito try to persuade the mean old Grinch that there's a lot to love about the insufferable holiday season. But that's not all.

Somebody stole all the children of Whoville's letters to Santa, and everybody thinks the Grinch is responsible. It's a real Whoville whodunit. Can Cindy Lou and Max help clear the Grinch's name? Grab your hot cocoa and cozy slippers to find out. Follow Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Unlock weekly Christmas Mystery Bonus content and listen to every episode ad free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.