Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Pema Chödrön, Renowned Buddhist Nun, On Her One Non-Negotiable Happiness Strategy

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

Chödrön also talks about how to deal with difficult people, set boundaries, and keep a sense of humor in the face of our human foibles and failings.Pema Chödrön was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in New York City. In her mid-thirties, Ani Pema met and studied with Lama Chime Rinpoche, becoming a novice nun in 1974 in London. She received ordination from His Holiness the Sixteenth Karampa during that time. Pema first met her root guru, the teacher with whom she had the most profound connection, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1972, and she studied closely with him until his death in 1987. In 1984, at the behest of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Ani Pema moved from Boulder, Colorado to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to be the director of Gampo Abbey. She currently teaches throughout the United States and Canada and continues her studies and meditative retreat under the guidance of Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche.In this episode we talk about:How to deal with difficult people and set boundariesHaving a sense of humor about our own foibles and failings Keeping a sense of ok-ness in the face of whatever happens Why coming from a place of love doesn’t preclude us from getting angry or standing up for what we believe inKeeping a sense of humor when we’re setting intentions or taking a vow so we don’t set ourselves up for failureThe actual language of the Bodhisattva vow and why admitting how vast and impossible it is to achieve can actually be empoweringWhy putting others first doesn’t mean leaving yourself out of the equation How healing yourself can affect your relationships with other people and create a virtuous circle Taking a "one person at a time" approach to sufferingRelated Episodes:The Dalai Lama’s Guide To HappinessFull Shownotes:https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/pema-chodron-2024See 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. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, my fellow suffering beings, how are we doing? When my team and I reached out to the legendary Buddhist nun, Pemma children to ask her about her non-negotiables, the practices or principles she cannot live without, she came back with one very radical answer. Fair warning, this challenging stuff, and I'll tell you what it is in a moment, but to make the medicine go down a little bit easier,

let me tell you about the benefits that she says she has derived from making this practice, the center of her life. It's helped her deal with difficult people and set boundaries. It's helped her have a sense of humor about her own foibles and failings. And it has helped her feel a general sense of okeness

in the face of whatever happens. I find that last one extremely appealing as an anxious person. Okay, so here it is. Her non-negotiable is something called the bodhisattva vow. I will let her explain that in more detail, but essentially it is this putting other people ahead of yourself. As I said, this is challenging. Some of you might hear it as a recipe for becoming a dormat, but Pema says it is, but it does not stop you from getting angry

or standing up for what's right. And it doesn't preclude you from advocating for your own interests. But she says this vow can give you a sense of clarity and perspective. And these are my words, not hers. It's a radical way to pull your head out of your ass. Before we dive in here, a little bit more about Pema children.

She was born as Deirdre Blomfield Brown in New York City in 1936. She then became a Buddhist nun and resident teacher at Campo Abbey in Cape Britain, Nova Scotia, which is the first Tibetan monastery in North America established for Westerners. And she's the author of numerous best-selling books, including One Things Fall Apart, and How We Live Is How We Die. This is a great conversation, enjoy. But first time for a little segment we call BSP,

blatant self-promotion. Over on the 10% happier meditation app, the free meditation challenge is live right now. It's called the imperfect meditation challenge hosted by my friend and colleague Matthew Hepburn and featuring some great teachers, Carl I and Don Mauricio, also friends and former guests on this show. It lasts for 14 days.

It's free. Any idea is to help you disentangle from the shame and perfectionism that can derail the meditation. You can join now, download the 10% happier app today wherever you get your apps. My family and I use Airbnb's all the time, especially when we take beach vacations. I love being able to get a spot that is super close to the beach, but way less expensive than staying at a beach front hotel.

Don't get me wrong, I like hotels now and again, but being able to have your own house, especially on a beach vacation where you've got tons of stuff, buggy boards, etc. It's really nice to have a house. You can cook for yourself, have your friends over. We love Airbnb's. Speaking of beaches, maybe you want to go somewhere warm over the winter. While you're away, you could air B&B your home and make some extra money for the trip.

Whether you could use some extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun Your home might be worth more than you think find out how much at Airbnb dot CA slash host This message comes from Viking committed to exploring the world in comfort Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination focused dining and cultural enrichment on board and onshore. And every Viking voyage is all inclusive with no children and no casinos. Discover more at Viking.com. Hey, my children. Welcome back to the show. Thank you. Such a pleasure to have you on, especially at this time of year when people are thinking a lot about their lives and how to improve them.

When we first asked you about this concept of your non-negotiables off-mic, off-camera, your first response was a really interesting one. You said that for you, a non-negotiable is the bodhisattva vow. Could you describe what that is? Well, you know, in essence, it's about putting other people's needs and what people need ahead of your own needs. To go into more detail, you actually take a vow, usually people don't have a clue what they're getting into when they take this vow. It's like you think you know what you're doing because you care about people, you want to help. And people do kind of inform you, you know, but still, mostly we take this vow quite naively initially. So you take the vow that you are going to devote your life to becoming a good

vehicle for benefiting other people and that that will be the most important thing of all is, you know, awakening or waking up so that you can help other people. So in other words, any work I do on myself, if I've taken this vow, is not the main point. It's kind of the vehicle or what allows me to be there for other people without running away, shutting down, turning my back on them, getting triggered, traumatized, or whatever, you know, that's sort of what it is. But it's quite a challenge. You know, you take a vow like that and then you set out to live by it as genuinely as

you can. The first thing you find, right, by it as genuinely as you can. The first thing you find, right, is where you can't do it. Where it's actually pretty difficult to do. Is this a vow that is only taken by nuns and monks? Or is this something the rest of us can or should do? Oh, no, no. You should do it, Dan. You should do it. Do it. You'll do it, Dan. You should do it. Do it, you'll love it. No, no, no. It's...

When you become a Buddhist, you go through a formal ceremony, which is called taking refuge. And then based on that, you can go further and take the bodhisattva about. And it's actually for lay people and monks and nuns. But it's definitely very secular in the sense of whatever your life is, like your life, what you do, that can be the vehicle. Probably that's part of your motivation, or maybe your whole motivation is to help people, you know,

not get so depressed, not get so discouraged, and bring some kind of inspiration or bigger view to people. So, people do it, however they do it, you know. Some people, of course, are just naturally drawn to being activists or to really getting their hands dirty and going into like the doctors without borders, you know, wherever things are the worst we show up, you know. There are a lot of people and you probably know a lot of them, interviewed a lot of them, that's their passion in their life.

That's what draws them. But I've never been able to do that because I've had bad health. Right now, I'm actually the older I get, the better my health gets ironically. But it turns out that my vehicle is teaching, and that's how to help. And then also I do a lot of personal interviews, people coming with questions and stuff, that's a way to help. You know, but there's also all the irritating people in your life.

The people that you don't feel so saintly when you're around them, in fact, it brings up, you know, it just like really pushes everybody and you're totally triggered. But the non-negotiableness is that you don't go down that road. The vow holds you to keep your mind open and as much as possible, keep your heart open to this person that's triggering you. You know, there's a lot of ways to do that. I teach about it a lot actually.

But that's where it kind of really gets interesting, you might say, is where it shows you where you're still far from living in total equanimity at all times and never bothered by anything. It really highlights what really gets to you, what gets under your skin, where your sore points are, but the vow is that you stick with people. You do whatever you can. It's based on seeing the basic goodness of everybody, also called Buddha nature, but basic goodness is a more secular term. So, you know, called Buddha nature, but basic goodness is a more secular term. There's been many a time for me personally, you know, where I look at someone and say,

I can't find their basic goodness. It must be in there somewhere, but they're so mean or cruel or greedy or something like this, you know. You see a lot of it, right, in politics. And yet, here, there's something like, okay, but everybody has this potential. And how can I talk to this person or just be here with this person in a way that maybe helps them connect with that part of themselves? So obviously, I don't go through all that thinking all the time in that way, but that's kind of what's behind it is that the way we interact, the way we communicate, we can help another person or allow the space for another person to connect with the best of themselves.

with somebody who's extraordinarily annoying or somebody who's basic goodness is hard to discern. You might be tempted to say a few unkind words, but in some ways, this vow you've taken to be of service to help everybody is like a backstop that prevents you from losing it? Yeah, that's right. Maybe internally, we might be losing it pretty big time, but you get smarter, you know, about what's really gonna help. And so part of the smartness is knowing that there's a lot that could come out of my mouth or even my body language or something

that is gonna escalate. The tension between us will escalate. And I can speak and act in a way definitely where brings out the worst in them. Maybe in the beginning, I'm just irritated by them, but then with my snappy little remarks or my insults or whatever it is, next thing you know, we're like, we're in a fist bite together practically. You know, maybe more civilized with our elegant language or something, but really, we're bringing out the worst in each other. So somehow, how to stop that chain reaction before you even starts, you know, in my case, I can feel like a keg of dynamite that's just about to go off or something, you know. But then I take responsibility for my side of it.

And so I sit in the middle of that explosive thing and just try to open my ears as well as my heart and really listen to what they're saying. And then maybe some kind of leading questions that come from a place where it sounds like I care about them. And you don't want to really fake it exactly because people can pick that up fast enough. But you do want everybody to be able to connect with the best of themselves. Don't you think so? In my calm, sane moments, I think so.

But when I'm insane or angry, it's easy to forget. Yeah, really. I'm hoping, kind of, making that point, that I think the vow, the non-negotiableness, that really helps a lot. So, for instance, if you were to take bodhisattva vow and you're feeling explosive, you know, someone said something really mean to you, something very insulting. And of course, the absolutely knee jerk reaction

of everybody is to just throw it right back at them, you know? But there's some kind of basic intelligence that you have, you could even call it a kind of basic intelligence that you have. You could even call it a kind of wisdom after a while, where you just know that that's going to make everything worse, and that's going to cause harm not only to them, but also to me, because instead of connecting with what's the best in myself,

I'm just going down to a level, you know, of street fighting. So, in other words, you can escalate hatred, you can escalate prejudice, you can escalate resentment, and all these things really, really easily. Or you can experiment again and again and again until you get smarter and smarter, experiment with what communicates to the heart of another person. And what sure doesn't communicate is lack of genuineness or some kind of condescendence. Oh my God. Condescending. That really, really gets someone going through the roof. You mentioned before that you teach a lot of people about how not to snap in situations

when they're confronted with somebody provocative. I imagine some percentage of the people you teach either directly or through the best-selling books they've written. I imagine some significant percentage of those readers or students have not taken this vow. So for us mere mortals, what are the techniques that you teach for not losing it when the rubber hits the road? Well, mere mortal, let me tell you. Let me tell you, do you see the halo? You're out of my hand. The main thing that I teach is to feel You're out of my head. The main thing that I teach is to feel what I'm feeling. And there's various ways of doing that, but that's the essence of it. So that I kind of become embodied and I'm right there in feeling what is being provoked.

And it's not about conceptual, you know, or being all in the head. So it's more like feeling what I'm feeling and owning that totally, say the rage I'm beginning to feel, you know, you tremble and everything like this, it's like sitting in the middle of it, just sitting in the middle of it, and breath is usually the vehicle for doing that, you know. Sometimes breathing in very deeply sort of sense of owning it completely, oh, and kind of relaxing on the out breath. The person wouldn't really know that I was doing it, you know. And it isn't just that I'm trying to calm myself down. It's more profound than that, actually. There's something

quite transformative about that depth of taking responsibility for your side of it. Feeling what you feel, that's the simplest way to say it, and that breathing in and feeling it fully and then relaxing, giving it some space. But while doing that, what I've found is really important is to just keep, not necessarily eye contact is good, but staying right there with the person, which usually means just looking at them and listening to them. Because when I do that, and I know this from feedback from people, the person

is feeling heard, and feeling heard really starts to change the dynamic right away. You know, so I don't know which comes first, you know, it's kind of interdependent that I'm feeling my side of it. As I say, embodied not in the head. The way that a person receives it is that I'm listening to them that they're being heard. And so it's interdependent in that way. Well, let me see if I can repeat it back to you in my own words, not only so you feel hurt,

but also to maybe add a little bit of some words that might give people a further sense of how they can operationalize your advice in their own lives. And then you can tell me if I'm barking up the right tree. So if I'm here you correctly, for you, when you're face to face with somebody who's, you know, pissing you off, the move is to go sort of south of the neckline instead of getting caught up in the stories. It's to notice how is the emotion manifesting in your body right now. This is a skill that is supercharged through mindfulness meditation where you sit, try to focus on one thing. Usually it's your breath coming in and going out and then

every time you get distracted, you start again and again and again. And a lot of people, when they notice how distractable they are, they fear their failed meditators. But actually, that's the good stuff because what you want is to get familiar with how wild your mind is, how powerful your emotions are, so that when you're bombarded, buffeted by a big wave of anger, judgment, disdain, homicidal urges in the middle of a conversation with somebody difficult, you don't have to act it out blindly. You can tune into it as a step one and as a step two, if I heard you correctly, was to realize that the other person has their own mind and their own feelings and their own story about what's going on. And it takes two to tango.

Very good. That's sad. You know, I'm always looking for the gold star. No, that sounds great. And so one rule of thumb comes from 8th century, I think, Buddhist teacher called Shanti Devah. He talks about all these situations of being on the verge, just being on the verge of biting the hook. Let's just say that.

On the verge of just going crazy and going down the rabbit hole of negativity. So he just says, don't speak, don't act. Just, he says, remain like a log of wood. So a lot of people have interpreted that. Don't speak, don't act. That's very, very good advice. But remain like a log of wood. A lot of people have interpreted that as repression or something along those lines.

But this is not repression. Don't speak. Don't act to allow the room, to allow the space so that you can really connect physically with what's going on with you. And here's a very important point. The attitude towards what's coming up in you is a, I would say, friendly one. It's an attitude of okayness with whatever's coming up. You know, Sony Rinpoche, who's one of my teachers, he always says, you have to be okay with not being okay,

which is a great way to say it. So it isn't just that you're kind of biting your tongue and just holding on to the white knuckling the edge of your seat, you know. There's actually some kind of tenderness or warmth that you're extending towards what's coming up in you. This is actually pretty crucial part of the formula, I guess you could say, or the method or how everyone will say it, this fundamental okness with yourself as you are, some kind of not being critical of yourself for what's going on there. So you know, there's two ways you go down the rabbit hole.

One is to let the other person have it, which I've been discussing. The other is that you beat up on yourself for being, you know, here I've taken the bodhisattva vow or I'm calling myself a good person or something, you know, whether that's religious or not, I think of myself as a decent human being. And then, then along comes whoever it is, Mr. T, and you just start kind of going crazy, but then you could feel very ashamed of yourself, like you failed the test of nobility or something along those lines. So it's really important, this acceptance or warmth, tenderness. I love the word tenderness. Do you get the idea of what I'm trying to say there?

I do. I was a little distracted because when you said Mr. T, I was thinking about the character from the 18 back in the 1980s. And I was thinking about how much I loved Mr. T. But then I realized you were talking about Mr. T who used to be president of the United States. That's right. That's right. I was. Yeah. But right. I'm glad to clarify that. So now that we're talking about somebody that many people find very difficult, it does raise the question. You talked about before, Shanti Davis says, you know, be like a log and you said, like, don't get that confused with repression because that's not what it is. It's a friendly allowing that you can observe your emotion, arise and pass and then respond

wisely instead of reacting blindly. But there's something else that I suspect a lot of people are thinking. They may be thinking, oh, well, Dan brought this Buddhist nun on who's saying I should take this vow to help everybody. That's just going to make me a sucker, a polluca, a chump, somebody who's a doormat. And I want to give you the space to make clear, that is absolutely not what you're proposing. That's absolutely not what I'm proposing. Yeah. So first of all, I don't want to give anybody the impression that I'm wanting everybody to take this vow. You know, you asked me what's non-negotiable for me. Let's say for all the people listening and so forth. It would just be maybe personal vow where you wake up in the morning, aren't you just

say, I'm going to do my best to not cause any harm today and to actually be of help when I can. When I lose it totally, bite the hook and get carried away, I'm not going to beat up on myself. I'm going to say, okay, older but wiser. This is how one learns. Where one's triggers are, for instance, doormat, what does doormat even mean, actually? It means that you're always nice or something like that,

that you, how would you define doormat? I think quite literally, it's letting people walk all over you. I say, okay, that's pretty literal. I guess I could have figured that out. I cue test, what is the definition of joy, man? So anyway, it isn't letting people walk all over you. Because letting people walk all over you usually comes from very low self-esteem, right?

Like lack of confidence. And you feel like you deserve to be walked all over. It's not like just kind of accidental. It's almost something that you carry around a habitual pattern that you have where you let people walk all over you. It's like some kind of identity almost that you have. And so this is quite different. When I said it's kind of transformative, the practice, you grow in a kind of confidence.

And the reason is because you've seen it all, you know, about yourself and you haven't condemned yourself. You see, and you realize that, wow, there's a lot of people just like me. Maybe everybody's just like me. And we just keep doing the wrong things. We just keep biting the hook. We just keep reacting in the same old ways that inflames the situations. And so there's some kind of real confidence that you have that you can hold your seat and be there with the other person. And also, you get pretty smart about boundaries, you know, too. Like, this doesn't preclude that you don't let somebody walk all over you. Because why? Because that's

the worst thing they could be doing to themselves. It's walk all over you, you know? And it wouldn't be so good for you either, but you know, it's like bringing, as I keep using the same language, but bringing out the worst in somebody to let them walk all over you. So you definitely don't let people walk all over you, but it's not because you have a chip on your shoulder, it's because you're actually taking interest in them. Sometimes the emphasis is so much on what I'm going through because it's so tumultuous, you know, that it doesn't seem like the other person's even in the equation. But the fact is this advice that I gave about not necessarily eye contact, but keep looking

at the person's face and really listening to what they're saying so that they feel that there's some kind of genuine communication going on. The result of that is that they don't want to walk over you. It's sort of disarming in a way, you know? A person who is really aggressive, it's part of their method in the world, you know. They know when they're really aggressive with people, they know what their reaction is going to be back. Then somehow they can win the game by getting the other person so enraged that the other

person loses their dignity, the other person loses their intelligence, you know. It's very disarming to actually not retaliate in the same way, but on the other hand, not meek and afraid, like a timid little mouse or something, when the cat appears, but instead, you're sort of very present and very open and very curious even, you know? It's radical, actually. It's pretty radical.

It's a great practice for the world, I would say. Coming up, Pamela Chodren talks about why coming from a place of love does not preclude us from getting pissed once in a while. Why keeping a sense of humor when we're setting our intentions or taking a big vow is so helpful because it doesn't set ourselves up for failure. And we talk about the actual language

of the bodhisattva vow. And why admitting how vast and impossible it is is actually and counter-intuitively empowering. I'm Afwaher. I'm Peter Freikapal. And in our new podcast Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we delve into the life of Pablo Picasso, hugely interesting, important influential

artist, certainly the greatest of the 20th century, perhaps the greatest of all time, but a man with a complicated, difficult, personal side too that makes us look at his art in a different way. The ultimate giant of modern art, and someone who everyone has heard of or seen a Picasso work, or the Picasso brand on something. But who was he as a person, as a husband, as a lover? He was a genius and he was very problematic. Follow Legacy Now, wherever you get your podcasts.

You can binge entire seasons of Legacy Add free on Amazon Music, all by subscribing to Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the W% happier app right now, it features amazing teachers like Carl I, Don Maricio, and Matthew Hepburn. You will discover how embracing imperfection can help you improve your relationship with meditation. It's live. Go check it out. Just to build on this discussion about the capacity that one can develop for for a high degree of compassion alongside the ability to draw boundaries and to take sometimes pretty decisive action in the world. It's bringing to mind a bumper sticker I saw at the Insight Meditation Society

where I do my meditation retreats on one of the Subaru's in the parking lot. I wanna tell you what the bumper sticker said, but I just want to first ask, are you okay with a little bit of foul language? Absolutely. Okay. So the bumper sticker said, I'm all love and light and a little bit of go fuck yourself. And that that seemed to kind of hit the nail on the head, like you can take this vow,

and obviously the bumper sticker is tongue in cheek, but you can take this vow, whether it's the formal bodhisattva vow or just a daily promise you might make to yourself to be helpful and kind. But that doesn't mean you don't take tough action if you disagree with Mr. T. That's right. And there's a lot of pretty profound examples of this in terms of activists. The person I always think of as a really good example of this is a Martin Luther King. I mean, I guess it comes from Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi, but nobody is healed to everybody is healed, the beloved family of notion.

I'd say this is kind of that kind of attitude. There's respect for the other person, even if they're very, very greedy, very, very mean-spirited, very prejudice. Quite a lot of people might think respect was going a little too far, but there's some kind of, well, you know, it could be just, okay, where is the goodness of this person? I want to see it, you know. I want to have this conversation so that I might actually see this in them. So, of course, if I see it, then they're feeling it, right? But I guess to really get down to what your question is there, and the reason I use Martin Luther King as example, is that it leads to action.

It leads to action. You see injustice as injustice, and you may be absolutely agree with everyone who says we have a right to be mad about this, to be angry about this, to see the unfairness of this. But then this approach would say, yeah, but how can we best bring about change, to see the unfairness of this. But then this approach would say, yeah, but how can we best bring about change, if there's a system of oppression for whole groups of people, how could we most effectively bring about change? And then a lot of people would say by storming the Bastille, you know, let's attack. And I guess what I'm saying is that just adds more

aggression to the world. It's a short-term solution that really just creates more pollution. If you talk about emotional aggression and all that is pollution, do you see what I'm saying? I do. And yet, the question that comes up in my mind is, is it never justified to storm a best deal? I mean, I know the Dalai Lama was once asked about, you know, the killing of Osama bin Laden. And, you know, well, obviously the Dalai Lama is not a big fan of assassination.

He did, if memory serves, say that there could be some justification for that. Well, I don't really know. I don't think I have any fixed ideas about right and wrong in this whole area. I think I'm more addressing, like, a pretty down-home, earthy approach of how you, personally, how I, personally, how anybody listening, personally, could de-escalate aggression in their own lives, and the process of that being to really help a person. You know, it gets kind of conceptual to say, oh, well, this is that mean that you can never

can do such and such. Well, I don't know. If you really care about helping, you do things, you know. Maybe what you do is be doctors without borders, you know, you go to the places where there's oppression. Also, you don't expect any applause for any of this. That's a big thing, you know? I mean, you think of how Tiktok Nhan, he took that doctor's without borders approach in Vietnam and he was being helpful to both sides. He and his monks, they didn't choose sides and they were there to help whoever needed help. And they didn't get any applause for that. He had to leave Vietnam.

He couldn't go back until just recently before he died because he was so disliked for doing that. So it's not like you're going to get applause necessarily. And then you don't care about getting applause. That's not the reason. The reason is to, you know, I'll just use that language again, deescalate aggression in the world, you know?

And in the process, help people. And I do want to bring out this point again about bringing out the best in each other, rather than the worst. I think for sure in interpersonal situations, if the person you're talking to has a sense that you are doing your best to hear them and see their best, that can bring out their best.

You know, perhaps it was unhelpful to take us all the way to Osama bin Laden, but I think what put me in mind of that is around this time last year, I was with the Dalai Lama and he was talking to a bunch of activists, young activists, and they were saying, you know, you're talking about the Bodhisattva value, you're talking about infinite compassion, and that's not gonna get us anywhere. We need, you know, we're in these corrupt

entrenched systems around the world that are destroying the planet, holding people down, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We're not going to get there if we don't get our hands in the dirt. What do he say? I don't want to mangle his words, but my memory is that he said, you will be more effective if you're motivated by caring, by compassion, by altruism, than you will if you're motivated by fear and anger and hatred.

Yeah, that's how I look at it. Also, you'll be more effective. Maybe you can't be changed. But if there's any possibility of it being changed, it's not going to be through aggression. It's going to be through caring or coming more from that kind of place. If you want people to hear what you're asking for, you want to be really smart about what closes people's hearts and ears and what allows them to be receptive, you know. And you know that it's not always going to get through. Everybody has those encounters where you just can't get through. You just look like you're talking to a robot or something. But you yourself are a better person

for not having fed your negative mindset. So I one time I heard the Dalai Lama make the distinction between hatred and anger, in which he said anger was appropriate, but hatred never was. What do you think about that statement? Well, I don't want to hold myself up as some sort of expert here, but to me, that makes a lot of sense. It brings to mind something that Jezwood priest, Father Gregory Boyle once said right here on this show, which is that I was asking him about evil. He said, I don't believe in evil.

I believe in bad behavior. And so, yeah, hatred would be a holistic condemnation. And I think given how complex human beings are, that probably doesn't make sense most of the time, if not anytime. But that doesn't preclude getting angry or condemning specific actions with which you disagree. Yeah, exactly. Right. And Father Gregory Boyle is a great example. He's a friend of mine. He's a great example of, he's devoted his life to action, you know, action is what he does. But it's action about really when it comes down to it, he wanted to try to stop gang violence. He ended up creating a situation where many,

like I don't know how many thousands of young people's lives have been turned around and changed by that man, and what he's created with homeboy industries. So he's a good example of somebody who's really puts his money where his mouth is, you know, but it all comes from a place of love, you know. And he's very challenged, of course, when sometimes the attitude of regular citizens or the law enforcement or various things like that are so opposed to what he's doing and think he's so off the wall and that he's aiding and abiding, you know, hardened criminals.

So he has a lot, a lot of hard things he has to work with, but bottom line for him is love and caring and compassion. And he's turned so many lives around. It's just astounding, really. As have you. And since we're talking about turning lives around, if people are listening to this and thinking, okay, yeah, that makes sense. If I can have an attitude of omnidirectional compassion, even if it's merely an aspiration, and I'm willing to fail all the time, but

it is my north star. If I can have that north star, yeah, I hear you. Maybe I'll be more effective, happier, calmer, more quantamous. Maybe that is the best way to reach my goals, whatever they are. I can imagine people who have come to see your point, which is the same point made by the Dalai Lama, and all the Dalai Lamas before him, and the Buddha before them, if that is attractive to people,

how do we go about remembering to keep this as a north star? Because the world is constantly pulling us away, constantly pulling us into our own egos and our own desires. Yeah, yeah, right. Well, I guess it comes back to the original thing, the vow, some kind of vow. But setting an intention and doing it every morning, there's this idea that in the morning you set your attention in the evening and you look back and see how did it go. And if it really went really badly, you know, then you give yourself a break

and there's some kind of self-compassion. Next day you set the intention again and every day you work on it, you know. Next day, you set the intention again and every day you work on it, you know. I'll tell you, can I digress a little bit? Tell a funny story. Please. So there's four days on the Buddhist calendar, at least to Benton Buddhist calendar, where everything is supposed to be multiplied. I think it's 10 million times. That means your positive actions or negative actions for this day are multiplied, right? So I wake up in the morning, I'm staying with my daughter, and of course, I say, I certainly

want positive actions today to be multiplied and not these negative actions. I set this noble intention, you know. So halfway through the day, my daughter and I have the big fight. And so we're going at it in our very habitual family dynamic way that we've been entrenched in for years. And all of a sudden I just start laughing and laughing. And she said, why are you laughing? And I told her, because this is a day where everything multiplies 10 million times. And I think I just blew it badly. So of course that completely changed the dynamic.

She started laughing too. So you never know where the opening's gonna come. But that was a great moment for us. And it was based on me having this intention, but rather than crying because I blew it, it became so funny, you know, it was just like, wow, and she saw the shewer in it greatly too. So I don't know, but you can't be too casual about it

because it's so counter habitual. You know, it goes against habits that we already have well entrenched of biting the hook. Does that language biting the hook communicate? Does to me, you know, the urge comes marching through the mind to say something that's going to, you know, ruin the next 48 hours of your marriage or whatever it is, and you can either let it swim by or you can bite the hook. That's right. Perfect example. So you said an intention and someone told me recently they said, it's not enough for me to set this intention every morning. I have to do it every

hour. So they have a little dang on their watch, you know, that goes off and they reset the intention. So it's like they go into every hour without intention. So, you know, you do what you have to do, right? And I think the story about my daughter and I, what I'm trying to get across there is, it's not like then you lose the virtue contest or something when you blow it. It's just like, okay, you know, let's try again.

It's all these studies about the brain and what's happening in your brain when you do all these things. Every time you bite the hook, you're just making an old pattern stronger and stronger. And it's actually grooves in the brain that gets deeper. I found that so interesting. But every time you don't bite the hook, you're opening up new pathways in the brain, the more you do that, the more you're apt to not bite the hook. So you can do yourself a great favor, you know, by actually how you're working with old habits, by not strengthening them, but by weakening them,

you could say, or you could look at it in a more exciting way that you're actually opening up new pathways in your brain. So you're not such a slave to your old habits. In a world where we're fed so much bad news on social media, on the actual news, what you just said is incredible good news, which is that we're not stuck with our old patterns,

that the brain, and by extension, the mind that they're trainable, and you can change. Yeah, it is really good news. And that's the fact that the brain is very malleable. I'm a little bad with language sometimes, malleable. It is my first language, but nevertheless. Nevertheless. So, you know, Buddhism always taught that. That the mind was very malleable. So, no one is trapped, but on the other hand, one does have to make some kind of intention or commitment to oneself, to not just strengthen the old habit, but to do something different.

I had one teacher who said, just do something different. It doesn't matter what it is. Get up and dance and sing. Just don't bite the hook. Just don't strengthen that old habit. Since we are, as you've often said, programmed for denial, programmed for forgetting, setting these intentions, taking these vows can be really powerful. And I don't know if there's a question in here, but I was just going to relate my own experience with this, which is that when I first started to hear about setting intentions or taking a vow, I, you know, because I can be pretty dismissive as a baseline, I, you know, I wrote it off as a little cheesy, but over time, I've really tried to wake up in the morning to say, my job on the planet is to make awesome content that helps people do their lives better

and to really try to remind myself throughout the day that every activity from meditation to working out to actual work is dedicated to the benefit of other people, to the benefit of all beings. And by the way, I'm one of them. And I've gone so far as to get a little, I don't know if you can see this, but I got a little tattoo right on my wrist that says FTBOAB for the benefit of all beings. Just to remind me. Wow. It's so easy to forget all the time. Hey, no, there's an idea for your listening one. I say, oh, God, get a tattoo.

How about that? You'll become their role model. But I think it's really important because another way you could look at vows and setting intentions like this because I've been praising it, you just praised it. But you could also look at it as setting yourself up for failure, like setting yourself up for disappointment. So you do have to have a sense of humor about this whole thing. You just can't be too serious.

You are serious, like it is non-negotiable for me, for you. But in the end, if you're too serious with no sense of humor, I don't know. You just become gloomy or gloomy or how bad your temper is or how much jealousy you have. You know, it's so you have to have some kind of sense of humor. You know, I feel that so strongly. I couldn't agree more, but I realize I've committed a bit of journalistic malpractice in this interview, which is that I didn't ask you to share with us some of the actual words of the vow because the bodhisattva vow is radical.

I'm not going to ask you to recapitulate the whole thing here, but I wonder if you could share with us some of the words so we could get a sense of it. Well, as the enlightened people of the past gave birth to Bodhicitta, decided that the most important thing for them was to help other people, and in fact put other people in front of themselves, like I won't attain enlightenment until everyone is attained enlightenment, which is like mission impossible. So they say, as the enlightened or awakened people before me have awakened Bodhi Chita, this wish to benefit others and to work on yourself so that you're capable of doing that, I also will take that vow and work for the benefit of people.

So that's kind of how it goes. But it is like until everyone is crossed over, you know, I won't cross over. It's that radical in terms of others first, but not dormat, as what you were saying. And it might be worth dwelling on the mission and possible aspect of this, because not only, and please correct me if I'm wrong here, but not only is the person taking the vow saying, yeah, I'm going to meditate my face off, but I'm not here, but not only is the person taking the vow saying, yeah, I'm gonna meditate my face off, but I'm not gonna cross over to enlightenment until everybody does, which again, is mission impossible.

But there's also passages in the vow that talk about how delusions are numberless and I vow to cure them, you know, suffering is endless and I vow to cure it. It's really an embrace of the impossibility which somehow becomes empowered. Yeah, definitely. I think you know, it's really an embrace of the impossibility which somehow becomes empowered? Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, it's so vast, the wish is so vast, you know, we say mission impossible,

that you can relax a little bit, you know, because it really humbles you that you're going to just do the best you can do in your lifetime. And when you die, you can feel that you did the best and you can feel you didn't waste your life. And so I think that the fact that it's so vast, like everybody until nobody is, you know, everyone is enlightened. Very dubious, you know, that that could actually happen. Nevertheless, you take the vow of that magnitude and it does it humbles you, you know, because you say, wow, I couldn't even get through this Tuesday without fighting the hook, but you could say that human heart by human heart, they can get bigger and bigger, and human mind, by human mind can be more and more open.

That seems so doable to me to dedicate my life to seeing that happen as much as possible, and not getting discouraged when this is not the reality of what actually is happening in your Tuesday. But maybe on Wednesday, some very heartening things happen. You see what I'm saying? It's just like life itself, it goes up and goes, da, it goes up and down. And you know, you can't be in it for your own getting applause and rewards because then you'll definitely jump off the Golden Gate Bridge about your first opportunity. You know what you're saying about how you can relax

into the impossibility of it. It reminds me a little bit of something, I hope I'm not making an inappropriate connection here, but I think I'm on to something. But the Dalai Lama went asked by very altruistic, activist people about the frustration that they, the activists feel in the face of seemingly intractable problems.

He will, I believe, say, you know, like you gotta think about this in terms of multiple lifetimes. And you don't have to believe in reincarnation for this to land. You can just think of the broad sweep of history or the infinity of the universe. Yeah. They were part of a very big story here. And if you can just relax back into that perspective, it can give you some energy. it can give you some energy. Yeah, definitely. I think that's a really good perspective to take. Looking back, let's say looking back in 100 years, looking back in 1000 years, whatever

distance, even looking back in 5 years, what's happened with you personally in terms of your heart and your mind, and how has that impacted other people? How has that inspired other people? Or in some way, you know, made someone's day lighter and keep going back to saying language, because I really like this language about bringing out the best in ourself and others, rather than the worst. Because that's what I'm seeing.

Social media can so harsh. Everyone gives vent, because you're not with an actual person, to escalating aggression. It's just like perfected skill or something, you know? So you wish to sort of begin to infiltrate that a little bit, ventilate that a little bit, in terms of the people you meet anyway, or in my case books, you know, that's just the

kind of what I fell into, you know, and that's how I'm actually trying to walk the talk is by writing books and giving talks and stuff like that, you know. But people do it in so many different ways. There's a lot of ways to be a horse whisperer. Coming up, Pemba talks about why putting others first does not mean leaving yourself out of the equation and how healing yourself has an effect on your relationships with everybody else. I do want to go back to this refrain that you keep going back to, which is bringing out

the best and other people in yourself. The vow, the bodhisattva vow, the notion of bodhicitta, which is putting other people first, it puts the whole idea of self-interest in a different light because on the one hand you are ostensibly putting the interests of others before you, but actually that makes you happier. That's right. And so the Dalai Lama, who you keep quoting, he calls it positive selfishness. In other words, by putting others interest in front of your own, you benefit. So he calls that positive selfishness. You know, that's not your intention, but that's the very wonderful side effect of putting others first is that you benefit so greatly from it. But you know, to the degree that you benefit, then the degree, the people that you meet and talk with, and everything, they benefit. It's completely interdependent between what's going on my side and your side, just totally interdependent. Yeah, absolutely. I would say, my meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein,

I've been working with for a long time. I'm sure you know him. He talks about, this is my terminology, but I'm using my terminology on top of his concept. My terminology, which is tongue and cheek, is the cheesy upward spiral, which is that as you learn to get a sense of humor about your own mischegos, your own inner cacophony, your demons, well, then you're a little bit more understanding and empathetic toward other people. And as your relationships improve, given that relationships are probably the most important variable when it comes to human flourishing, well, that makes you even happier. And then as you get even happier, your relationships improve even further and up you go. And that's the interdependence you're talking about. And that's the wise or positive selfishness

that the Dalai Lama is talking about. Why do you call it cheesy? Because I'm a wiseass who can help himself. Yeah, and actually, it communicates pretty well, too, because it doesn't sound whole ear than that or something like that, right? I'm a great admirer of Joseph's. As am I, he is phenomenal, but I'm a great admirer of yours as well. And I just wanna ask you a few more questions

before I let you go. We talked about self-interest, and I'm just curious, in all of this talk about putting other people first, I could imagine there would be people hearing this, saying to themselves, particularly women. I could imagine there would be people hearing this saying to themselves, particularly women, I don't want to generalize here, but particularly women or people who identify as women that, you know, the whole culture is telling us to put other people first all the time.

We're socialized for this kind of toxic generosity. And I think, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, that there's a kind of subtlety here that you're not left out. You too are part of all beings everywhere that we're dedicating our lives to, and that you do want to cultivate a positive relationship with yourself and care for yourself and have your boundaries as part of all of this. Yeah, you know, the vow actually is I am going to work on myself this. Yeah, you know, the vowel actually is, I am going to work on myself in order to be able to help other people. You know, in other words, to the degree that I'm less reactive, to the degree that I'm less, you know, resentful and critical and so forth, to that degree, I benefit other people. So the vowel actually says, you know, I vowed to work on myself in order

to be there for other people. So do you see how it kind of works together like that? So it's not just, it isn't this usual thing of like a woman being told, you should put everybody in front of you, your children, your husband, you're supposed to take care of everybody and forget about you, you know, husband is supposed to take care of everybody and forget about you, you know, slave away and like that. It's not talking about that. In fact, I think it would be the antidote to that somehow. So you could chew on that as a big question. How is that an antidote? But it is actually glorious diamond would like this. I'm of the generation, you know, where we really reject it all that big time on the 70s. Yes, I mean, I have never met her interviewed Gloria Steinman won't claim to know much about her but she has a book title that I really like which is the truth sets you free but first it pisses you off.

And you know, I think that's what happens in meditation. That's a great tile. The truth sets you free, but first it pisses you off. You have to like her if you have a title like that, right? Yeah, that could be actually a very awful rule of thumb for meditation, you know. Like when you sit down and really get to know yourself, maybe it's setting you free, but what do they say? You have to go through to go get out the other side You said couldn't we couldn't we just you know like getting an airplane fly over all this time It turns out it doesn't work right you have to kind of go through it

But you know, there's something quite radical, but a teaching that means a lot to me Which is the only place you're gonna find a sanity? Let's use that word is to really come to know the only place you're going to find a sanity, let's use that word, is to really come to know the insanity, because it's in there, it's buried in there. The only way you're going to come to know non-aggression is to become very familiar with your aggression. And then from that, the insight dawns about non-aggression. Like you don't find it by getting rid of this stuff, you find it by becoming intimate with this stuff in a very tender-hearted, all-enbracing way.

Yeah, what you're saying, you just reinforces the notion that this isn't some treacle saccharin little vow. I'm going to be nice to people. The vow is I'm going to do some inner work that can be halacious, and it's pretty gnarly. It can be halacious and it's pretty gnarly. It can be halacious and it's pretty gnarly. Interesting language. Yes, absolutely.

That's right. So that's a good way to think about it. I think in much more palatable that way of putting it definitely communicates better than I'm going to just set out to put other people in front of myself. It's too loaded, I guess you could say, in terms of old patterns that weren't very helpful. The other thing I wanted to ask you about before I let you go is, you talked about Martin Luther King saying something to the effect of

no one's free until we're all free. And I'm almost embarrassed, I'm not almost embarrassed to admit this that I like that notion. But on some level, I'm not sure I have, I get it in my molecules because it's easy to for me to be intellectually aware that there are people suffering all over the planet. And as a reporter for many years, I was right there interviewing them, but it's pretty easy to forget about that and just be sucked into your own life. So how is it that somebody being unfree, either in my town or on this planet, affects my degree of freedom?

Well, I'm not sure about the question that you're asking, but my understanding about Gandhi's view and Martin Luther King's view and other people that have modeled after this, he called, as I mentioned before, beloved community, it's that you can't just heal your side of it because things are much more interdependent than that. Things are interdependent. Therefore, to the degree that you heal yourself, when you just described it earlier about how that affects the relationships you have with other people and then how that feeds back and makes you happier, so that the whole thing is completely related

with each other, you know? So his view was, it's not good enough to just be able to ride at the front of the bus. You want to work with the state of mind able to ride at the front of the bus. You want to work with the state of mind that put people in the back of the bus to begin with. Otherwise, it's just a short-term goal that's not really changing the system at all and not changing people's hearts at all and not calling on the goodness of the people that put you in the back of the bus. It's just demonizing.

So they were trained to not retaliate. That was one of the main tools is to not retaliate. I've read the speeches of Martin Luther King's where he says, when you don't retaliate at a certain point, people get embarrassed by their actions because they begin to see that they're being very cruel or heartless. And so that was what he felt in it. I don't know. I think it was proved pretty true.

You do your best to change the system. And you do that in his case, like non-retalliation with a big tool. But on the other hand, you take a stand and you keep marching or you keep boycotting until something has changed in the system. Does that make any sense? It makes complete sense. It's probably my question that didn't make sense.

But I think what I was trying to get at is it's easy for somebody like me who's wired for selfishness I hate to admit. To think, okay, yeah, people are suffering around the world. I've seen it with my own eyes. In person, I've seen it, I see it on my TV, but I'm not sure that means I am unfree. But I think the point that you and MLK and Gandhi are trying to make is that there is a lack of freedom in the hardening of your heart that has to happen to ignore the people at the back of the bus, to ignore the people without food on the other side of the planet. Yeah, that's it exactly. And you know, people on the other side

of planet can just be the people that you come and touch with. Like any city in the United States, you come and touch with such suffering, people living on the streets. And the encampments that people live in, and the conditions that people live in, and so forth. You can just deal with what comes into your life. And then some people, like yourself, when you're as a reporter, you're drawn to really go out into the world and see the suffering on a much bigger scale. Of course, we see it on the news all the time, but what I'm saying is one person at a time kind of approach,

you know? Yes, that makes mission impossible quite a bit more possible. It's such a pleasure to talk to you and I'm sensitive to your time. So before I let you go, let me ask you one big open-ended question, which is... That's a third time use. I know. I know you can't trust me. Forget the tattoo. What I'm trying to get at here is, is there something I should have asked, but I didn't ask. Is there a point you wanted to make that I have not let you make? No, I feel fine. Is there a point you wanted to make that I have not let you make? No, I feel fine. Is there something else you want me to say?

No, I just want to make sure I didn't cut you off in any way. No, you absolutely did not. Not at all. So thank you. Thank you very, very much. Thank you. It's a huge pleasure to talk to you. And even though we're caping this in September, happy new year. Happy new year to you to you and even though we're caping this in September, happy New Year. Happy New Year to you too. 2024. Oh my God, what is it going to be? We don't know, do we? But there's a vow we can take that might fortify us. That's right.

Thanks again to Pemba Children. Always awesome to talk to her. If you want to hear more links from our new years non-negotiable series, check out the show notes. Also, I referenced my time with the Dalai Lama in this episode. If you want to listen to that whole series that we produced with him this time last year, we'll put links to that in the show notes as well. 10% Happier is produced by Gabrielle Zuckerman, Justine Davey Laurence Smith and Tara, DJ Cashmere as our senior producer, Marissa Schneider-Min as our senior editor,

Kevin O'Connell as our director of audio and post-production, and Kimi Regler is our executive producer, Alicia Mackie leads our marketing and Tony Magyar as our director of podcasts, finally Nick Thorburn of the Great Band, Islands, World R Theme. If you like 10% happier, with our feet. Tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wundry.com slash survey.