Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Stop Being Hijacked By Anxiety, Grief, and Anger — A Buddhist Approach | Sebene Selassie & Jeff Warren

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

On regulating emotions, ending the war with reality, and feeling more alive. Sebene Selassie is an author and meditation teacher. She writes the popular newsletter remind me to love and her first book is called, You Belong.  Jeff Warren is an author and meditation teacher. He writes the popular newsletter Home Base and is the coauthor, along with Dan, of a book called Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. And he is the co-host of the mind/bod adventure pod. Join Dan, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18. Grab your in-person spot here, or sign up to livestream here! In this episode we talk about: The 5 hindrances (a classic Buddhist list of everything that goes wrong when you sit down to meditate) Why your brain keeps wandering, numbing out, or picking fights with reality The difference between being tired… and just not wanting to deal How to catch yourself before you go full autopilot The "five recollections" of aging, sickness and death, and why they're actually grounding The comparing mind  How to step back and watch your thoughts instead of immediately buying into them Why the people in your life might be confused by the new, slightly calmer you Join Dan, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18. Grab your in-person spot here, or sign up to livestream here! Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube Channel This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent — LLC formation, registered agent service, and free business resources at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/Happierfree BetterHelp — Online therapy, matched to your needs. Get 10% off your first month at https://www.betterhelp.com/happier Wix — Build a fully functional website with AI in minutes at https://www.wix.com/harmony Warby Parker — Prescription glasses with virtual try-on. Buy one prescription pair and get 20% off additional prescription pairs at https://www.warbyparker.com/happier To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, everybody. Today we're going to talk about how to tame some of the more unruly aspects of your mind, your tendency to live on autopilot, to constantly distract yourself and to make yourself miserable by comparing yourself to other people. And more, why are you so often at war with reality, wanting to be elsewhere or otherwise? In essence, my guests are going to talk to, today about how to develop a different relationship to your mind with all of its skittering thoughts and unhelpful patterns. Said guests are the great meditation teachers and great friends, Seb and A. Salasi and Jeff Warren. Seb is the author of an awesome book called You Belong.

She's based in Brooklyn, New York. Seb and I recently co-authored and co-recorded an audio book, an audible original called Even You Can Meditate. Jeff and I also, co-authored a book called Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. Jeff is based in Canada, and he's got his own podcast called the Mind Bod Adventure Pot. The conversation you're about to hear was recorded live at our annual meditation party retreat. Jeff Seb and I co-host this retreat every year. We've got another one coming up, October 16th through 18th at the Omega Institute in Upstate, New York. You should come.

It's super fun. Over the course of the weekend, we teach a bunch of different meditation. practices so you can go deeper in your own practice. We also take your questions. There's plenty of time to relax. However, it's not super intense. You can go take hikes, get massages, play pickleball, whatever you like to do. But the crucial thing really is social support. That's the technical term that researchers use. So many of us struggle to maintain a meditation habit. And the science is very clear that one of the best ways to keep the thing going is to do it in the carpool lane. And that's what meditation party is all about. You get to meet a bunch of people who also take this weird practice seriously. And by the way,

if you're an introvert, you don't have to talk to anybody. You can just get a contact high from being in the environment. And I think you'll get a contact high from just listening to this conversation. I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to come to a meditation party this October. If you can't be there in person, you can also sign up virtually. All right. We'll get started with Seven A. Selassie and Jeff Warren right after this. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and a reminder that whatever you're dealing with, you do not have to deal with it alone. I actually just came through a little bit of a depressive episode in my life was super difficult, but I got a ton of help from my therapist, also my family and friends, but my therapist in particular was just super available, really helpful with insights and recommendations and medication tweaks. Really, that's what you need, I think.

For me, as somebody who's been in therapy since I was a child, it's just a must have when it comes to personal flourishing. So if you're in the market for a therapist, you might want to check out BetterHelp. BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and they're fully licensed in the U.S. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps you identify your needs and preferences and then their 12-plus years of experience and industry-leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get. Get it right the first time. You don't have to be on this journey alone.

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Ready to create your website, go to wicks.com slash harmony. That's wicks.com slash harmony. We're talking about problems that emerge in meditation. Let's talk about this is kind of. up a little bit, but you sit to meditate and often there are all these problems you have. And so the Buddha, who is a compulsive list maker, made a list of five of them. It's not exhaustive. We can add to the list at any time, but these are just broad categories of issues that emerge when we try to meditate. So the first is desire. I don't know if I'm going to do this in the right

order. But the first is desire, which is, you know, wanting. Often it's wanting to be in a better place in your meditation, or it could be wanting food, or it could be having some sort of other fantasy. So that's one of the principal hindrance's desire. The second is aversion, just like kind of the flip side of that coin, not wanting, not wanting whatever is here to be here, some pain in the I told her about how you were making inappropriate jokes during her juggling. Seb feels aversion when we make inappropriate jokes. So that's another of the principal hindrances. The third would be boredom or restlessness.

I'm not sure exactly and sure Seb could correct me, but I'm not sure or educate me. I'm sure exactly why are these are lumped together? because they, for me, experience them quite in quite different ways, but boredom is a kind of numbing out or a delusion, restlessness. It's also something I'm very familiar with because I apparently have restless leg syndrome, the dumbest syndrome.

Why can't I get a dignified syndrome? So restlessness I often experience, I don't know if you ever saw, since we're making Gen X references, the Princess Bride, where they have this torture device that just makes you feel like gross, that for me is restlessness, this ants in the pants,

or as my Jewish grandmother would have said, Spilkes. That's another problem that can emerge in meditation. Another is doubt. It's often described as kind of the most insidious. And now doubt is not to be confused with a healthy skepticism. Oh, let's not take everything the teachers say as a commandment or inarguably true.

That's just healthy skepticism, which I would encourage as a journalist and one of the reasons why I like the Buddha as he encouraged skepticism. Doubt is more paralytic, a kind of analysis paralysis. Am I, I'm so wrapped up in questioning whether I'm doing this right that I am befogged

and stuck. And I know there's a fifth, hindrance that I've missed? Sloth and torpor, sleepiness, which again is a huge, has historically been a huge problem for me. I think there are many ways to work with this. Jeff listed before, you know, standing up. It's totally fine if during this or any other meditation

you're overcome with fatigue, stand up. Or one of my favorite techniques, for sloth and torpor is don't fight it it's okay fall asleep what no lightning is not going to strike you fall asleep and somehow for me the giving myself permission to fall asleep ultimately is a source of kind of liberation from the fatigue so let's do a little bit of meditation I'll say there are lots of ways to work with each of these hindrances and we don't have enough time to go into all of them. I'm going to just give you my general orientation to dealing with all problems, both on the cushion and off, which is to develop a kind of what Joseph calls an inner Dharma coach or what Kristen Neff,

who I think is a historically amazing figure and the progenitor of something called self-compassion, and she just talks about talking to yourself the way you would talk to a good friend. I just want to check in again. I'll start with you, Seth. What's up with you? You know, it came up for me with the hindrance practice is first of all, you can have like multiple hindrance attack.

It's not like it's so clear that it's like, oh, now I am experiencing desire. Now I'm experiencing. That all could be a soup. And so really slowing the mind down and being with, okay, what's happening right? now can be really helpful. The other thing is, you know, I think sometimes we can have this idea that we're just

trying to become these like neutral objects in space without any choice making. And we're always going to be making choices. So, you know, we turn towards things. We turn away from things. We can have discernment. You know, each of these hindrances have a positive quality to them as well. So there, you know, so desire can be turning. towards and aversion can be turning away from things that are good for us or bad for us.

Doubt can be discernment and knowing what's right or wrong for us. Restlessness can be energy, right? And sleepiness can be relaxation. So we don't want to make any of these general qualities bad. It's when we are doing it unconsciously. So so much of this practice is really shining light on what we don't usually see, making it. Make it a lot. the unconscious, conscious, seeing our reactive patterns. Years ago, I was journaling, and I've realized that creative and reactive are the same word. And the sea just moves. So I was like, oh, what's the sea?

So it's, you know, I think it's curiosity, it's consciousness. It's also compassion, connection. Clarity. Clarity. There are a lot of good sea words. I don't want to hear any of the bad sea words right now. I was not even thinking that. Don't do it.

Jeff was thinking he's the problem. Canada. The senior to remember. But yeah, so there is this way of making things really conscious so that we're creative in our response. You know, we're not reactive, we're really responsive to life. And so working with the hindrances in that way is really such a good training.

because we're usually lost in these reactive patterns of the hindrances, not just in meditation, just in our lives. Yes. Yeah, I was thinking about what a deep practice it is, actually. It's such a profound insight practice, the hindrance practice. And it reminded me of, like, early on in my meditation career, I remembered having this kind of set of Eureka revelations, particularly around the kind of sloth and tiredness.

And I've now heard other teachers talk about, about this a little bit. So when you're getting tired, there's kind of two kinds of tiredness. You could say there's a kind of tiredness. There's just the body is tired. You need an act. You know, you've been working too hard. You haven't been getting enough sleep. There's something very, and that's the part that you're trying to be very empowering of and let people do that. But there's also a kind of tiredness that's almost more in the mind. It's like my way of dealing with things when it's hard is to just check out. Like, I'm done with this. I can't be in this body anymore. It's too hard. I can't be in my experience. I'm going to go and just check out. And your

body's not actually tired. Your mind is just like, I've made a decision that I, and that is where you were saying, like, all of these hindrances are kind of mixed up because there can be this subtle, and this is what I noticed, it's like a subtle aversion just staying here. I don't want to be here. And then the flip side is that there's a sudden, there's a subtle attraction to spacing out, to or going into thought. And your mind will trick you here. It's like, yeah, you could go into thought. And there's like, it's nice just to think about your problems or whatever, but there can also be very nice to think about the insight you just had. You know, anyone have that?

They're like, oh, wow, that's really cool. Oh, really interesting. I'm going to go. It's like, it's a subtle way in which you're actually don't want to be in your experience. You want to go or you want, you're used to this kind of particular form of almost like dissociating from what's happening right here. Not to vilify creativity and the generative nature of thinking, but that's a very productive inquiry. You know, because what you realize is, what I realize is, well, that's happening all the time, actually. But as I'm walking around, I'm, like, constantly just checking out.

Like, I, yeah, I'm done. I'm just going to go to this place. Or I'm in a social situation. I'm going to just, my safe place is to be off over here, like, not dealing with the intensity of what I'm feeling right here. Whereas if I could actually come back and stay inside my discomfort a little bit, I can find out that, you know, it's like you said, or Joe said, the emperor has no clothes. This thing, this, this, this conviction on my part that I absolutely cannot be here,

this is intolerable, is totally driven by my own mental conviction around that. And if I can stay with the discomfort for a little bit, it's like you're riding the urge and you can get to the other side and realize that, oh, that wasn't fate after all. That wasn't even, I could have, all this time I could have been here. If I just stayed with the discomfort, I can get to this place on the other side. That's much more open and clear. So, I mean, that to me was, that partly came out of working with hindrances, like noticing how those come up in meditation.

That's the kind of classic insight process, you know. So we're going to switch gears a little bit now and explore different teaching. You know, I think every year we've sort of offered a different practice or different teaching. Because there are so many within the classical Buddhist teachings, and they're so rich and deep and profound. And so I was just kind of talking to Jeff about this one. I was like, why did we choose this one? It was my suggestion. Because it is, it is an intense one.

but I feel like it's a very powerful teaching for these times. So we're going to go for it and leave lots of space for conversation afterwards and maybe we can do a little check-in about it together first. It's called the five subjects for frequent recollection, or the five recollections, or the five remembrances. And many people chanted every day. I chanted it every day for years. I know Dan has been practicing, you've been practicing with it daily for a while now too.

And it's really a teaching on equanimity. And equanimity is often used interchangeably with awakening or nirvana. So Upeka, equanimity, and nabana are often seen as synonyms. Because there is this capacity of equanimity to hold our experience. in this way that has an awakened quality. And these teachings really bring us into that. So the five subjects for recollection are aging, sickness, death,

impermanence, and karma. This is what I'm called meditation. Karma. Yeah! Death! Bring it on. And what these recollections help us to be is more at peace with our reality, the realities of life, which is so countercultural.

Sometimes these teachings are described as against the stream. I like to say in today's society, they're against the tsunami. You know, we live in a culture that's telling us that we can stay young forever, that we can live forever, that we can avoid all sickness, that we can hold on to everything. We can accumulate just massive amounts of stuff and that's okay for ourselves and the planet and that there are no consequences to our actions, right? But these teachings are the exact opposite. And they're not just bad news. They're really allowing us to be with things as they are with some measure of happiness. But over lunch, we were talking about whether we

would want other people's karma or other people's reality. And almost everyone at the table I think said, no, you know, I wouldn't change my experience, even though I've had really rough time of it. I love my life. And it's that equanimity. It's that practice to recognize, you know, not why me? Why not me? There's plenty of suffering in the world. But I can also place my attention on the gifts of my life and the gratitude I can have for all the blessings in my life. So these teachings sound like downers, but they're not. They're the exact opposite. They really allow us to say, this is the reality of what it is to be human. And we can find our joy, not in spite of that, but within that.

We don't have to push away the truth of pain, and we can not live in suffering. Sometimes the modern equation is pain times resistance equals suffering. Or pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. And this, again, these teachings do not promise no pain. They invite us into letting go of the suffering that we add to it. So they're a chant that is chanted in Polly, but I'm going to chant it in a little bit in English with kind of the Polly intonation.

And they basically take us through these subjects. So they invite us to remember, I will grow old. I will sicken. You know, I will grow old if I'm lucky. Right? That's a really important one. And I will sicken. Maybe some of us will, you know, hopefully none of you will get cancer,

but all of us experience some kind of unwellness in the body at some point, even if only at the point of death, right? So we're all of the nature. to sicken. The one thing we all have in common is being born and dying. Everything in between we have differences. So we will all die, even though there's some billionaires that think that they won't, that we will lose the things we love. You know, material objects will fade, people will leave, the material realities around us will change. And then the trickiest one is the karma one to understand The saying is, I am heir to my karma or karma.

Kama just means action. And it's really pointing to the fact that there are causes and conditions for all reality. So I was born into a particular body with a particular ancestry. And so it came with some genetic information, including epigenetic, intergenerational trauma. And then for whatever actions, you know, as a child that I couldn't control, but were a part of my life. And then everything beyond that I did have some volition over, that has a consequence. So causes and conditions or causes and consequences. So maybe, you know, someone smoked a pack of cigarettes every day for 20 years and then gets lung cancer,

although I've heard of many cases of lung cancer of someone who's never smoked. Right. So one, one thing the Buddha said is that we can never understand the multitude, the innumerable causes and conditions that led to a certain reality. So it's not about I did something good, something good will happen, I did something bad, something bad happened. It's so much more complex than that. It's like the chaos theory of the butterfly who flaps its wings in South America and a tornado happens in Texas. You know, we don't know the exact karma, but we know that there are causes and conditions for every reality,

and this is opening us to just the immense unfathomability of that. And so this is chanted in monasteries and Buddhist communities all over the world every day as a reminder of this. And again, not as a downer. One of the things I love about the chant about It says, whatever comma I shall do for good or for ill, of that I will be the heir. Because sometimes we think karma and we only think bad karma, like my bad karma that I have these two. My very, very good, fortunate karma that I have them in my life, right?

So we are not looking at this only as a negative or looking at this is really understanding the reality of life, that this practice is really. a reality check, this whole practice, not just these chantings, and not to be in contention with reality. And sometimes I say that's the crux of my practice, is to not be in contention with what is, to meet what is with some measure of ease or at least presence so that I can respond accordingly. And my hope and my goal is that I'm responding with some measure of freedom and joy and love. So I hope that's a good enough framing of these teachings that they're not going to bring us down,

but really buoy us so that we can be in our lives with more presence. I don't mean to let ourselves feel what we feel. Yeah, and let ourselves feel what we feel, exactly. I'm going to do a sort of shortened version so that you can absorb each one. and just kind of reflect on what comes up for you and just bringing all of this mindfulness,

this awareness to that experience and just notice what sensations, what thoughts, what emotions arise with each reflection. Okay. I am of the nature to age. Second recollection. I am of the nature to sicken. This third recollection.

I am of the nature. to die. This fourth recollection, I will lose what I love. The fifth and final recollection, I am the heir of my actions. The truth that there are causes and conditions to all things. There's comma in the past, in the present, and the future. And this is where we have any agency.

Thus, we should frequently recollect. The Buddhists know how to have a good time. I used to do a lot of chanting, and I should say there are a lot of really beautiful, buoyant chants as well that are about the positive qualities and ourselves and the world, and so it's not all a downer. You just didn't want to bring those here. Yeah. You know, I think that it comes back to that perspective of equitable. anonymity that, you know, I am missed no news before noon, so I'm all about guarding the

send stores. And it's not about hiding or burying our heads in the sand, not paying attention to what's happening. And so these teachings are so much about really being with things as they are. Yeah, I mean, the joy and the enjoyment of life emerges directly from the clear seeing of what the truth is. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It's like, I found, I didn't find them a down at raw. I mean, I found it sobering, but the soberness of it, where does it land you? Boom, right here, because what the fuck else is there you're going to do? But just then, live right here, live now. I mean, it's like, you're sad to see your picture of my boys and the impermanence of it, but it's like, well, it's only one thing to do. Just love

like crazy and be grateful for what's here. You know, you're just such a reminder of that, but you need that sobering because you see how much you've been in your fantasy about, something. And how much we're running away from it, running away from the reality of aging, of sickness, of death. Big time. I sometimes think about like, what is the logic of boredom in the face of these remembrances? Like, what a waste of time to be bored? You know, or to feed, just to be running on the lie, like, that this is going to go forever. Yeah. And, you know, there's, there's strategic checking out. Self-protective checking out. Yeah. For sure.

That is a kind of skillful use of distraction or boredom that I think is part of the way we regulate. You know, our Netflix shows or are certain habits or proclivities that harm no one else but allow us to just soothe. And then there's the sobering part of, you know, what do we do? How do we respond? Yeah, I wasn't saying that the logic is that we recall these and then never allow ourselves to relax again because we need to maximize every waking moment. And I think I like Netflix. It's just that the logic of especially boredom or disaffection.

or, you know, blazainess kind of goes out the window a little bit. My experience, when you're starting to view the world through this lens. Coming up, we answer some audience questions, including a really interesting and thorny question about how you hold two things in your mind at the same time. One, everything's impermanent, everything's changing all the time, and also you still care deeply about the people you love. Glasses can be a nightmare, especially online. It can feel complicated and extremely expensive,

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Visit Northwest Registeredagent.com slash happier free and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registeredagent.com slash happier free. So should we open it up? Yeah, we would love to hear your responses to working with thoughts and emotions, also working with the recollections. Hi, I'm Hannah. Hi, Hannah. How do you reconcile the five remembrances with loving kindness meditation? Kind of the letting go of the five remembrances with the hopefulness of the loving kindness.

May my family be safe and healthy, but they won't always be. Oops. Forget that. No. For now. Great question. Yeah. Those are the two sides of the coin, right? I mean, that's that's the cultivation. To me, practice is two-sided. You know, you're cultivating kind of radical acceptance of how life really is a true nature. What is exactly true in this moment? And there's a kind of there's a sobriety and embracing quality. That's the kind of equanimity training of like really being here for what is. And then you open up, you empty out and like, well, what do you want to have catch you? How about the best of what you? you have to give this world, your love, your caring, your buoyancy, whatever it is.

So you practice that too. You practice coming apart and then you practice coming back together better than ever. You know, that's like, so bam. All said. We have anybody over here? I's got a question. Hi, I'm Katie. Okay.

I have a question about how to be present with somebody in the, very advanced stages of dementia. How are you, and Dan, I've heard you talk about looking for the sweetness. But I haven't been able to get sweetness because I get stuck in the anticipatory grief. Yeah. So how do you be present with somebody but be with very painful feelings? Yeah. Well, unfortunately, this is an area where I have some experience.

I mean, what is grief, if not love? right? So I think that's what my friend Josh, who in his 20s nursed his mother while she died of a brain tumor, when my parents got sick and he said to me, see if you can find the sweetness in it, that wasn't a toxic positivity that was, look, there's going to be, there will be diapers, there will be like, the shattering of your sense of security in this world because of my, I had good parents. And so the fact that they were so diminished is, you know, it's paradigm shifting, tectonic plate shifting in a really, in a way that leaves me feeling unmoored often.

So try to find the sweetness in it wasn't like, it's going to be awesome, dude. It was like what in there is sweet that you can focus on. and the fact that I feel so much grief about watching my parents fade and knowing where this is headed, like what's under that is that I love my parents. Also, for me, just, and again, this might be a little gendered. I don't think men, certainly not men, and my generation and older are really raised with a big emphasis on caregiving.

So just seeing that that is a capacity that I have and developing it and seeing that it feels good. Even with all of the stuff, just being in the hospital with my dad, if he has to go and seeing them do procedures on him and holding his hand, and it can be pretty gnarly. But you are tapping into this fundamental design feature in the human operating system, which is that when you do good, it feels good. And so it's back to what I was saying the other day about the news.

It's like two things can be true at the same time. It can be unremitting horror show to be around someone with dementia. And also it's like there is sweetness in it, not only in seeing your own capacity to rise to the occasion, but also in tuning into why you feel sad in the first place is because you love this person. Beautiful. Good luck with your continuing work.

It's not easy. The other thing I've learned about dementia is don't argue with them. When I was volunteering in a hospice, people would ask me for 20 bucks for a cab, and it'd be like, yeah, here you go, dude. You just don't argue with them. Let them have their reality. Thank you.

Who else has a question? Hi, I'm Lillian. In one of Joseph's recent podcasts, he spoke about not only training the mind, but also training the heart. So I just wanted to put that out to you, the three of you, and say, how have you experienced that process? I, as the tin man, will defer to... As the what? Tin man. Tin man.

I think you... You're a perfect person to talk about it. And I think it's the stuff we, I do want to hear what you both have to say, but in my experience, it's the, you know, the, the Dharma has these practices like loving, kindness, meditation. I suspect many of you are familiar with it, but if you're not, it really is, as I said earlier, about envisioning a series of beings and starting with an easy person, moving to yourself, mentor, neutral person, difficult person, everybody, everywhere.

And systematically, it's the systematic cultivation of sap. You know, it's like, I sometimes joke it's Valentine's Day with a gun to your head. It's like really. And, like, as I also often say, if you were an alien and you landed on this planet and went to a gym, it would look really weird that people are running in place for 45 minutes

or picking heavy shit up and putting it back down. But why are they doing that? Because we know that the cardiovascular system and the muscular skeletal system can be trained. Well, the same is true for the brain and the mind. And so our innate capacity for warmth, for compassion, these are just skills that can be trained through practices. And then I think it's not, then I think their real training is in your life. Like when somebody you love or several people you love get dementia simultaneously or, you know, my case, my wife's had many serious health problems.

So I've done many, many trips to the hospital. So you just, that's like, you're either going to let that shut you down. Or you're going to, like, rip your pirate shirt off on the prow of the boat and, like, go for it. I'm sorry for that image. I'm so, so sorry. You're not sorry. I'm not sorry. I'm going to be the owner of that karma.

I also think that it might be useful to expand what we're talking about when we talk about love here, you know, because quiet is love too. getting quiet and still. I remember I asked this, I had this thing where I thought, I just want peace in my heart. I don't have peace in my heart. I just want peace in my heart. It was like my refrain at a certain point in my life.

I just want peace in my heart. And I was saying this to this smart friend of mine who far smarter than me. And she's like, well, what does it feel like right now in your heart? And I was like, that's the problem. nothing. And there was this pause. She's like, yeah, that is peace, dude. And I was like, oh. You know, I was expecting fireworks sometimes and just the quietness of just coming to stillness, of basic availability to life. That's an act of love too. And that is where love blooms and

emerges all on its own. So yes, the trainings to hold you. But the wonderful thing is that's also part of being in love is just giving yourself that and noticing how that, how generative it is. I mean, yeah. I know you probably have something to say, but just to pick up on that, like you you talk about the banality of evil. Well, there's a humdrumness of love too. Like the, it doesn't, or Joseph Goldstein often says that there's no hierarchy of compassionate action. Like, it's more newsworthy if you run into a burning building and bring out a kitten, but it's pretty cool if you text, call your mom or text a friend who's in need or hold the door open for somebody or whatever.

There's, it's such a, and I think I might have said this last night, It's such a, given what a dumpster fire it is right now on the planet, like it's a target-rich opportunity for doing good. And the doing good does you good, you know? And like there's a real virtuous spiral available to all of us if we take advantage of it. Nicely said. Hi, my name is Kathy, and my question is, how do you use your practice? meditation to not compare yourself to others.

That's my question, too. What do you guys think? I don't know. I'm comparing myself right now mentally to Sabine, and I'm thinking she'll probably have a better answer. You know, sometimes I feel like we fetishize meditation as the answer to everything. And meditation in any culture, in any context,

is usually embedded in larger, spiritual teachings. And so it's not just the meditation practice itself, but it's the wisdom and insights that come from the practice. And so one of the teachings that actually I first learned from Joseph in this tradition, in the Tarabban tradition, is around this thing called mana, M-A-N-A. And it's often translated as comparing mind. Its etymology is measurement. It means to measure. and it includes the comparison of better than, lesser than, but also equal to. So any kind of comparison is really separating ourselves from others.

And the most powerful part for me of this teaching is that it's there until the very end. Like until full enlightenment, which I don't think, and I'll speak again for myself. I have not achieved. Please. Gather around. Allow me to impart the wisdom from a fully enlightened being.

I don't know what my karma is that I get to play straight man to two straight white guys. It's like the opposite of that sound of music song. Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good. So, you know, it's like get used to it. Really. Get used to comparing mind. And just seeing it is part of the antidote to lessening it.

Yeah. Seeing the pain of it. Seeing the pain of it. Seeing our judgment of it. You know, that it is there. I struggle a lot with envy. It's kind of one of my bugaboos. And so it's something that I work with. But yes, our practice, our meditation practice can help us to see it because we kind of still, enough to start to notice our reactive patterns, you know, both in the practice and then as we bring the practice into our lives. But that measuring, that comparing, that separation is going to be there for a long time. Another Josephism, we're talking about Joseph Goldstein, as a meditation teacher, has been very important, at least for the two of us. He doesn't like Jeff. But he's never met Jeff. He'd love Jeff if he met. We've emailed. We get it along.

He would love, you guys really would get along. But another Josephism is, don't waste your suffering. And so if you're seeing the suffering of comparing, all right, well, that's a wake up, that's an alarm bell right there to check it out. And over time, you can kind of disincentivize the indulgence of that. But it's still going to, of course, as I've had said, it's kind of comforting to know it's going to be with us until the end. Coming up, more audience. questions. What does it mean to step behind the waterfall and see your thoughts instead of getting

lost in them? And how do you work with powerful emotions like anger in real time? Hi, I'm Jennifer. Dan, I've heard you mention being behind the waterfall. And I don't know what that means. Can you explain it? So it's from John Cabot-Zinn, who is another of the kind of really senior teachers here in the West. And what he means, or what I understand, is that if you think of the mind as like a nonstop, a stream of consciousness, mostly me, me, me thoughts,

just rushing all the time. There is, if you think of that as a waterfall, then you can think of what's in the rock face behind the waterfall. there might be a little indentation or crevice from which you can observe the thinking mind. And so every time you wake up from distraction in meditation and you notice, oh, wow, I've just been in the grips of mana or envy or comparing mind or, oh, wow, I've just been thinking about,

I wonder if they'll have pastrami at lunch or whatever it is. They won't. Whatever it is, then you are in that little. little nanosecond there behind the waterfall. You're not caught up in the contents of your consciousness. You're seeing it with some hopefully non-judgmental remove. So am I, am I, does that make any sense what I'm saying? How does that relate to non-attachment? Well, I'd be curious to hear from the more experienced teachers on the stage about that, but in that little glimpse where you're just watching it instead of inhabiting it, you are not attached.

Exactly. As Jeff said in the meditation for the one little part that I was awake for, the, you letting go, which is another way of saying non-attachment, is probably better translated as letting it be, letting it just be there. So you're just like watching, hopefully with a, like, a little grin on your face, how crazy you are, right? And that, just for, it's not, it's not some permanent state, at least not for us unenlightened worldlings, as the Buddha calls us.

It's just a little glimpse of, oh yeah, I could just let that be there. And then you're right back in it. And then you're free again. And that kind of ebb and flow that Jeff has compared, he didn't use it this time, but has sometimes compared that to the tide. You know, so it's those little moments. How am I doing now? Does that make any sense?

Yeah. If you can notice it, you're not fully in it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's very different than being fully in it. Because being fully in it is being lost in it. There's no perspective. You're inside the worry.

You're inside the mood. It's the whole world has become true. That has become the whole, it's expanded out to include the truth of everything. you know, and then boom, you can pop out and notice that you're in that. That is radical. And that's what we're talking about here, getting, at popping out more quickly, realizing that there's more space and that's kind of one of the measures of over time that grows. That's why I get so excited when people come to me and say, you know, I can't meditate.

I'm so, I'm seeing all these distractions or sleepiness. Like, bro, that is, that's not a tight. You are seeing stuff. And that's, that just gets that compound, that skill. gets better and better over time. And we're going to work on it this afternoon. Very deliberately, we're going to work. I'm going to guide a practice around noticing.

It's going to drive you crazy. It's going to be around noticing, thinking and feeling. It's going to be a non-strap monologue for 25 minutes. No, it won't be that. The important point here is thoughts are almost perfectly camouflaged with awareness. We don't know the difference at the beginning. it's like their work we you know that the idea like notice that you can be aware of your thoughts it's like you think being aware of your thoughts is the thinking and it is it starts out that way and it's

slowly beginning to like tease those things apart that you can sit there's a part of you that's aware of the thinking that is not the thinking in a way I mean it gets even more paradoxical the further down but for now this this this initial step of like disembedding from that but you first have to notice where it is notice that it's images you're lost in. It's a little bit of self-talk. It's some conviction that's gathered to fill up your whole body. It's like, it's getting, I sometimes describe it as like, you know, those old, this will date me, those old transparencies from the classroom or that you put the transparency up. But always the teacher on the way to doing that would at some point

fumble and they would fall on the ground and then they'd be trying to pick them up and they, but they were perfect transparencies and they can't get your nail underneath it and pull it up. That's what it's like at the beginning. It's like this, perfect transparency, and you can't get any space around it because you don't, because you are, you know, and it's like over time, it's just, oh, you can kind of begin to peel that off and see that that was the layer you were in, if that analogies. Our references are so Gen X. So Gen X.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So Jonathan again. You know, a lot of teachers say something happens, and that's, Chris. for the mill, work with that, right? I don't know what that means. I don't know how you do that. So if I see anger arising or I see something like that,

I try to kind of figure it out, which I think there's a better way. So I'm just wondering what you do when that's being taught. And then the other question I have with similar related to it is, you know, I think my heart's closed. And other than meta, is there any other practice you would recommend to kind of open the heart? Well, there's some good drugs for that. I already do that.

Okay. Okay. Maybe you can tell me where to get some. Let's talk later. Yeah. You holding, dude? You'll see Dan at the back of the dance party all sweaty, hanging out pills. No, that's not going to.

happen. I'll take a first crack at that and then see what you say. So the instruction, as I understand it, when something comes up like anger, let's just take anger. You said you try to figure it out, and I understand the instruction to be check it out. So one of my favorite ancient expressions in the insight or VIP. a meditation tradition, which is much of what we're teaching here, is seeing by dividing. So you can really see the true nature of anger by looking at it closely and breaking it up into its

constituent parts. So anger feels monolithic, and it feels personal, like not only monolithic, but personally monogrammed. Is it my Jonathan's anger? When in fact, if you look at it mindfully and carefully, oh, no, it's actually a bunch, it's more like a meteorological phenomenon because it consists of a bunch of changing constituent parts. So maybe a rumbling in the chest or a burning in the ears, a starburst of thoughts. And if you look at it, if you investigate it with interest, instead of trying to intellectualize it, you start to break it apart and put it through as I like to say, a cheese grater. And then it's much more workable.

And you can allow it to come and go and then not do the stupid shit you would have done in the throes of it. You can respond wisely as the cliche goes instead of reacting blindly. Sit with it. Sit with it. You welcome it.

Hello, anger. Thank you for being here. Yes, exactly. I actually, I'm going to talk about this later. he was off mic Jonathan was, but what he was confirming what I was saying is just sit with it. And yeah, that's the answer. And then Jeff said, welcome it.

And actually, that's the really, I think, in my experience, and I'm not that experience as a meditator, but in my experience, the move from just a clinical investigation, which is what I spent the early years of my contemplative career doing, toward more of a welcoming plus the investigation is really where you start to get toward okayness and equanimity and not being so yanked around by it. How does that sit with you, SIP?

Yeah, yeah, beautiful. And I like to make a distinction, kind of going back to these three centers, which are metaphors. You know, there's no even mind-bodied. when we talk about that, there's no separation between the mind and body. It's one system, but it's a way of us talking about these different experiences. So, you know, the belly or the body and sensations, we can be with sensations in a particular way.

And then the heart and feeling and emotions. We can be in the motions in a particular way. And then thoughts, which are the most kind of ephemeral and elusive. And so with anger, we're talking about emotion. And so I work with those different kind of qualities of experience. differently. And one of the most powerful practices I've really benefited from for working with strong emotions is called Rain. It's an acronym. It was created by an insight teacher, Michelle McDonald, but it's been really kind of proselytized by Tar Brock. So if you want to look it up,

but just briefly, rain stands for, recognize, allow, investigate, and nurture. And it's sort of this four-step process for working with strong emotions because they're so, overwhelming and it's hard to not get lost. I love Pima Chodran, the Tibetan teacher, says, you know, feel your feelings, drop the stories. It's really hard to not drop the stories when feelings are so strong because they really flood the system. So just even recognizing we're in anger is the first step because a lot of us just go straight into anger or you know, grief or whatever strong emotion we may have. Allowing it, it, welcoming it, as you're describing, and then parsing it.

Like, Dan is talking about investigating, okay, what is really here? But even the first two steps, that could be the whole practice. Because that recognizing and allowing, without getting lost in story, but actually feeling it in the body, because that's where emotion is. It's a physical, and you mentioned the heart, you know, and that closed sense, it's because those feelings are so strong. They're usually rooted in our trauma, maybe childhood experiences, or our adult trauma.

They can be so overwhelming. And so even just recognizing and allowing is regulating for our system. But then when we are feeling more, less lost in the story, more with the direct experience of it, first of all, it might dissipate. And then we don't want to kick it back up again.

But if it's still there, even on a subtle level, we can start to get underneath. it. We can say, you know, what's there? Like, what is this? And usually the deeper we get, we realize it's just a cry for love. You know, whatever the strong emotion is, it's just this desire to feel safe and connected and okay. And then we nurture that. You know, we really just allow for that. So it's a beautiful practice if you want to try it out. And just with the heart thing and opening the heart. This is a physical reality, too. Whatever we feel emotionally is probably

also happening to us physically. So actually literally opening the heart is helpful. I have one of those big balls, you know, those exercise balls, and I just lay on it, open my chest. I have a lot of trauma. I think many of you know I have stage four cancer. And so a lot of surgeries and treatments to my chest area and I do a lot of literal opening because because it is so helpful for my emotional regulation as well. And you know another really great practices? Just telling people you love them. Anyway, I love you.

I love you too. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I tell my friends I love him. I'm like, I love you, dude. I love you.

I love you. I like, I don't care. I see it's ridiculous, but it's like that's helped open my heart because I didn't know how my was like, you will never come close to me. And it's like, now I'm like, fuck it. Life is short. I love you.

I love you. Just try it out. Try it out. Try it out. It's great instruction. And I'm glad you brought up rain, too, as a really practical approach here. I don't know if you guys know, but I have a podcast. And if you just Google Tara Brock on my show, like she's been on several times talking about

this and she explains it so well. Not that you need much more after what Seb just said, but if you want to go deeper, Tara is just such a great teacher on this stuff. And she guides it. She has also on her website many versions of guiding the practice. Yes. We have one more.

Thanks. I wonder what can you do, if anything, to counter the resistance sometimes of others to the changes that you're trying to achieve. I love that.

I am. I'm just laughing because so many people in my life find me so annoying. It's like you decide to get into meditation or whatever, and the people in your life did not sign up for it. What's helped? What helps me, and I was having this conversation, with somebody in the cafeteria today, what has helped me is to not try to convince anybody

to do what I'm doing and to really try and learn, I've learned to like let my little obsessions not have any or really much impact on the people around me. So, and I've made, I've learned that the hard way by making a lot of dumb decisions or proselytizing to my wife or, you know, getting so into meditation that I would commit so much time, that I was taking away time from the family. And like, I just did a lot of dumb shit,

and that generally is a good way to learn, if, you know, not fun, but good way to learn. Funny later, actually, when you talk about it with a microphone. So I would just think about not trying to, oh, the cartoon I often think about is the two women having lunch in a New Yorker cartoon, one of the cartoon, one of them says to the other, I've been having, I've been gluten-free for a week and I'm already annoying.

And so to just not, you know, oppress other people with your sudden interest in meditation, better, as it is often said, it's better to be a Buddha than a Buddhist. And can I ask a clarifying question? Yeah. Did you, were you asking about that about? No. Or talking. Yeah. Yeah.

I thought so. Yeah, so you were asking if you're trying to make change somewhere and you're getting resistance from people. Is that... Thank you, Jeff. Bro, I'll get that mic taken away from you. Yeah. Yeah.

So you mean people want you to go back to being a dick? No, no. You're making, like, in the context of, like, a company, in the context of worker. Not go back, by the way. Stay where I am. What's the context there? Well, without getting too personal, I mean, it's just a matter. of, you know, the emotional and behavioral changes that, I don't know if this applies to, you know,

it applies to me. My purpose in adopting this practice is to alter how I view and how I react to these things. And I'm 60, so people have known me for a long time as the asshole. Now, I'm not putting you at the asshole. You called me, you kind of called me one as all. It wasn't, that came off. Miles. You guys are taping me in the bathroom.

I can say whatever I want. But so, so it's like, oh, all of a sudden you're the nice guy. And sometimes that's hard, you know, it's, because I'm not always going to be that way. So you can be nice for a few weeks and everybody's like, oh, wow, he's changed. And then you just something triggers and you do something. And then you're back to square one with a lot of people because they don't kind of believe your desire. That's their problem. Yeah.

For real. Yeah. That's their thing. You know, it's like, you just be how you are. You own the new version of you, and you don't be attached to the result. You know, that's the kind of classic Indian teaching. You know, you are, you do the thing because it feels like it's the right way to be right now, and it might be received.

Well, it might not be received. Well, it might be received terribly. But you do it anyway, because that's the way, you know, not to say there isn't a place to have a skillful conversation and all that, but I think that you can't manage how other people are going to receive this. It's just, that's not in your power. You can, your power is how you're going to be. That's mine.

We're having a full team meeting from my little company the other day. And our CEO is here, Tony. She, I heard her say to somebody, yeah, Dan practices what he preaches about 60 to 70% of the time. So like, yeah, do your best to do better. And it's not like nowhere is it written that you have to be perfect. Have we still not answered your question? That was great. Thank you very much.

Such a diplomat. Big thanks to Seb and Jeff. I love doing these meditation party retreats. As I mentioned at the top, there's a link in the show notes if you want to come to our next retreat. Coming up the weekend of October 16th, it's a super fun event. Lots of different styles of meditation, lots of opportunities to meet new people, although you don't have to do that if you're an introverture. it, lots of fun activities to participate in through the course of the weekend.

We even do a dance party. It's really cool. And if you can't come in person, you can just sign up to do it virtually. Speaking of signing up for things, I've got a meditation app, as you may know, and both Jeff and Seb are teachers over on that app. You can go to my website, Dan Harris.com, to download the app and sign up. We do lots of cool stuff. We've got guided meditations from amazing teachers.

We've got courses from amazing teachers. We also do these weekly live meditation and Q&A sessions on video. There's a free 14-day trial if you want to try it before you buy. Dan Harris.com, join the party. Final thing to say here, thank you very much to all the people who work so incredibly hard. To make this show, our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer.

Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive. executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.