Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - The Art and Science of Compassion | Thupten Jinpa

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

It can be incredibly frustrating when life-changing, world-changing concepts such as compassion and kindness are often presented as cliches, because scientific research strongly suggests that learning how to practice compassion -- through meditation and other modalities -- can genuinely change your life. And enough of us did it, it could maybe change the world.  One of the people who is the best at getting this message out, in new and creative ways, is Thupten Jinpa. He is a former Tibetan monk who went on to go to Cambridge University, where he got a B.A. in philosophy and a Ph.D. in religious studies. Since 1985, he has been the principal English translator for His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  In this conversation, we talk about developing a compassionate meditation practice, building kindness and empathy, the connection between intention setting and compassion, and identifying and regulating negative emotional reactions.  A few technical notes: This episode is a rerun. We do reruns when we have episodes that are amazing that we think our newer listeners might enjoy. We also do them to give our staff a break once in a while. We actually recorded this conversation live in front of an audience at the Asia Society in New York City a few years ago. It was the day after the school shooting in Parkland, so you will hear a few references to that.  Check out Joseph Goldstein's course on compassion in the Ten Percent Happier app: https://10percenthappier.app.link/CompassionWithJoseph Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/thupten-jinpa-repost See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher Alexis

Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm. All one word spelled out. Okay on with the show. to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, hello. I will admit that I find it incredibly frustrating that life changing, world changing concepts such as compassion and kindness are often presented to us as

clichés or empty bromides or at worst sort of finger-wagging self-righteousness. It's really a shame because scientific research strongly suggests that learning how to practice compassion through meditation or other modalities can genuinely change your life. And of course, if enough of us did this, it might even change the world. One of the people who I think is really doing the best work to get this message out in new and creative and evidence-backed ways is Thubton Jindpa. He's a former Tibetan monk who went on to Cambridge University where he got a BA in philosophy and a PhD in religious studies. Since 1985, he's been the principal English translator for his holiness, the Dalai Lama.

Jimpa is the main architect of something called Compassion Cultivation Training, which is an eight week formal program developed at Stanford University, which is a secular science-based program for teaching us how to practice compassion. In this conversation, we talk about developing a compassion-based meditation practice, building kindness and empathy in the rest of your life, the connection between intention setting and compassion, and identifying and regulating negative emotional reactions.

Before we dive in, just a few quick technical notes. This episode is a rerun, actually. We do reruns when we have episodes that are amazing and that we want to bring our new listeners into people who might have missed it the first go around. We also do them to give our staff a break once in a while, which might fall under the ages of compassion. We actually recorded this conversation live in front of an audience at the Asia Society in New York City a few years ago.

It was the day after that horrific school shooting in Parkland in Florida. So you will hear a few references to that. Also one related item of business before we dive in, like all of the game changing skills we talk about on this show, compassion, as you know, and as I've already stated, takes practice. And luckily for me and for you, my meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein developed an entire course on compassion in the 10% happier app. And he guides you through meditations to help you practice exactly what we talk about with Jimpa on the show today. So check out that course by downloading the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps and just tap on the courses tab

Enough throat clearing for me. Let's go Dracly to the interview now with Thubton Chinpa Good to see all of you. Thanks for coming out tonight Let me admit from the outset This is a massive bait and switch because the science says the miracle of mindfulness meditation, but I'm actually going to talk about a different kind of meditation. We probably will get to mindfulness, but we have with us one of the world's premier experts

in compassion and who's been teaching it in a secular format in conjunction with Stanford University. So I have a lot of questions for you about this. And just by way of background, mindfulness is what gets talked about all the time these days, mindfulness meditation. And I think that's a great thing. But the focus on mindfulness is to overlook that traditionally, mindfulness meditation

was taught in conjunction with something called compassion meditation, sometimes referred to with one of the most syrupy terms that you can imagine as loving kindness meditation, which I sometimes describe as Valentine's Day with a knife to your throat. It essentially involves envisioning people and animals systematically and sending them good vibes. The expert will describe it in a more technical term. But this is, I as a vowed anti-sentimentalist,

I really, I can sort of reflexively reject it, compassion or loving kindness meditation when I first started getting into meditation because it sounded so saccharine. But there's a significant amount of science that suggests that it's really good for you. And some science that suggests and will get into this because it's a little controversial, but some science that seems to suggest that it might change behavior, although that's controversial. Moreover, once I started to do it, I found that in my own personal experience that it does make a difference.

So I think that while the focus on mindfulness has been incredibly healthy in our society, it's just such a positive development, I think this piece has been overlooked, and I sense an opening here. Anyway, all that being said, let me let you do some talking. We sit here the day after yet another school shooting. This went in Florida. Do you think compassion, meditation, compassion, training? And you're in the business of this.

You have, again, as I referenced before this, this secularized protocol for teaching compassion that you came up with alongside Stanford University, taught all over the world as I understand it. Do you think teaching, compassion, meditation could help prevent events like this? Thank you. First, I would like to express my joy for being able to have another conversation with you, the podcast that I did in your studio. I really enjoyed it, and I felt the conversation was very meaningful, and I would like to thank Asia Society for putting this event. See how nice he is? I don't even say thank you anyway. So it's really difficult. For example, things like teaching compassion, teaching meditation or mindfulness.

These are long-term strategies. So it's very difficult to make the immediate connection and say, here's a solution, do this, and nothing like that would happen. That would be naive. But one thing that perhaps taking compassion more seriously can do is to allow the people within important sectors like school system to pay a bit more attention

to the individuals, differences, and pay more attention to those who are struggling. So clearly the person who did the shooting had a difficult, of course it's not to excuse what the horrible thing that he did, but the warning signs were there. So if the compassion is larger part of the society's value and something that is made explicit, then one thing about making our value explicit is that it sets a bar. And people who are part of that community

know that they're expected to behave in a particular way. So those are ways in which something like taking compassion seriously can help. But it would be naive to say teaching compassion and teaching meditation would have prevented it. And because part of that has to do with the reality of the complicated American relationship it guns. You know, human beings are very complex creatures.

They will always be people with difficulties. And we are all, each one of us carry the seatful frustration for anger, for hatred, for jealousy, you know, you know, I've been a monk for over 25 years in my life. To this day, I know my own limitations. I know I can get angry. I know I can get jealous. I know I can get frustrated, I know I can get resentful. So which suggests that these tendencies are very deeply rooted. But the difference is those one would hold, those who have paid a bit more attention to the way their mind works, are not going to act them out.

Because the mind has a tendency to spin by itself. And with the mindfulness, you ideally one can catch it early, so that you don't go too far into this crazy energy of the mind itself. So those kind of things, that's why I really believe that teaching like social emotional learning, not just meditation, social emotional learning, teaching children to be more aware of their own emotions, recognizing that they are frustrated, recognizing that they are disregulated, being able to teach them, even a simple technique of taking a breath, step and breathing. That makes a huge difference.

Those kind of things will make a difference, because these kind of things will allow children to have an ability to exercise that restraint. So I think it's a much more complex question. And when something like that happens, there's nothing you can do other than to feel sad and express your niche in the pain of the victims. And also, I'm not an American, so it's difficult for me to make comments on American culture, but on the other hand, I live, I'm a Canadian, I live next to a neighbor,

I can't help but make comparisons. I mean, the culture is very much the same, we share the same language, how come things like this happen here and not there? So that has to do with some reality of a distinct American culture where, you know, someone like this 19-year-old man can get a assault weapon and buy it legally. So those things are very complex questions and my hope is that,

you know, especially if you're writing a book, you know, you write really well and you write for the person on the street and you talk, you're able to speak their language and get really pulled from their heart and challenge them. I think compassion is a discourse that needs to be had now. Because until recently, a large part of the discourse on compassion has been relegated to the religion. And we know that religion's ability to influence public discourse is less and less strong. I want to now everybody can see why I wanted to talk to Professor Jim, because you speak

so well. Let me get you to think about, I know you're from Canada sometimes referred to as America's hat. But looking as I'm sure you do. I remember one, sorry, to interrupt. No, please. Once I was at a friend's place in America, and she was an academic. And she, on her fridge, there was a map. It was one of those maps which had the landmarks

and three-dimensional kind of slightly protruding. And it was an American map. But the upper part was all in the eyes, and that was Canada. Yeah. American map, but the upper part was all in the eyes and that was Canada. I always remember there was a great onion headline from back in the day, a long time ago, and the headline was, Perky Canada's, in my view, undisputed greatness, not to say it's one is greater than the other, but Canada too is

a great country. Lest I get myself in trouble. You look at America's political scene. I'm sure pretty much everything you look at is refracted through the lens of compassion, giving your training and giving your work. What role would either compassion, training as you teach it, or as you said before, just the simple notion of taking compassion seriously. What role could either of these play given the howling sea of toxicity that is our current

political scene? But the paradox of compassion is that it is one value that is claimed by people on both sides of political spectrum. So at least in principle, there is a promise in the idea of compassion as providing a basis on which people from different political backgrounds and ideology can come together. Of course, one of the things in America, and generally in the West, and particularly in America, is the perceived conflict between societal values on the one hand and the sanctity of the individual freedom.

And this is a very kind of Anglo-American kind of struggle. And here, therefore, if we look at the cultural values that are discussed often in the media, especially in the public discourse, and the public discourse tends to be about secular ideas. The values are almost exclusively defined from an individual perspective, you know, a center of the individual rights, a center of the private property, you know, a choice. If you look at each of the values that we in liberal democratic society value, they're actually

defined from individuals perspective. There's hardly any that is defined from a communal, social, societal perspective. And this is something that I really like to see. And I hope you will take that challenge in your book. How can we develop a discourse where we are able to develop a robust discourse on a value-like compassion without somehow being seen as wishy-washy or bringing religion through the back door

or something like that, but somehow, because if you, the irony is that if you ask individually, most of us would say, yeah, I value compassion, and most of us would probably believe that I'm kind of a kind person. So which suggests that actually at the individual level, all of us value it, but somehow we haven't learned to develop a public discourse where we can really talk about compassion in a serious way.

So I think in the political discourse, the more we're able to bring it, the chances are they will be more common ground to get. But I feel like the word almost has been ground down into meaninglessness through overuse. Partly that, but partly also it has a baggage that has type to religion. True. Yeah, yeah. But I feel like it's the religion, the religion people who have been overusing it. Yes, but I'm not, part of the problem is up until now or until recently, as anybody even know what compassion means, I mean I know you do.

No, I think most people, I mean most people I would argue will know. For example, most people will know compassion has something to do with someone who is suffering. Compassion has to do with someone who is in need. Compassion has to do with reaching out. Compassion has to do with feeling for. I think most people kind of know what it is. I mean, they may not be able to article it in a way that is clear and sort of defined.

But I think at a guttile level, it's a bit like, you know, We may not be able to define what happiness is, but most of us kind of know what happiness is because we know when we get it We may not be able to articulate and define it. We kind of know when we have to Can I jump in a second because I actually think people don't know what happen is I think people confuse happiness with excitement They think when you get what you want, you're happy. But of course, that is absolutely ephemeral. So that is the opposite of what I would view as happiness as an abiding piece of mind. Or sense of satisfaction. Absolutely. Meaningful. Meaningful.

And action. Sure. Sure. But even these individuals who tend to define have been as primarily in sensory terms or sensory gratification terms, when they get that deeper sense of experience, they will know what it is. Yes. Yes. So the seed is there. Except that the confusion about what makes people happy

in turn makes people do a lot of stupid stuff. Yes, yes. I mean, this is one thing about human beings. We don't really learn from other people's experience. We have to make the mistakes ourselves. So what would you say, you talked about it from a macro level, compassion from a macro level, but what about for those of us who live in this country and may find ourselves on one side? How can we take compassion seriously in a way

that would make us better citizens and less crazy and distraught every time we turn on the news? I think one important insight that comes from Buddhism, which I think is very helpful in this kind of conversation, is that the argument that compassion and instinct for kindness is a very fundamental part of who you are. And when you are able to express that, you actually feel gratified. You actually feel happy. You actually feel a sense of purpose. And we all know that even whether it is at our workplace or at home, when we are needed, when we are useful,

we feel kind of valued. So this is a very fundamental need that humans have. Yeah, in your book, a fearless heart, you talk about the helper's high. Exactly. I actually have a chapter in my first book called The Self-Interested Case for Not Being a Word that starts with a D and ends with a K. And I think it's true that my instinct is that to talk about compassion from a selfish standpoint is the way to go.

Exactly. And that's actually what his holiness promotes. That's right, yes. And he says that if you want to be a wise selfish, compassion is the way to go. And it's a kind of almost paradoxical. And sometimes some other people have said, how can Dalai Lama say that it's good to be selfish? And my argument is, explain to you,

is that he's not advocating selfishness, but he's saying that since pursuit of self-interess is an important drive that all of us have, anyway, then he's making the case that if you take that seriously, then be compassionate. So, the point I was trying to make is that since we have that within us, the more we are able to live from that place, the more we are able to view others from that place, the more we are able to view ourselves from that place, our own life becomes more meaningful, more enjoyable. So that is the self-interest argument. The paradox is, in an ideal world, you don't want to be doing

compassionate because it's good for you, because in actual act of compassion, the focus is really the other, whether it is trying to help your kid, or whether it's trying to help a poor person, or whether you're trying to help, and elderly trying to cross the street. You can't both be true simultaneously. Well, in an actual act of kindness, the conscious motivation is going to be about the other. Yes, but the having, transcending your own narrow self-interest is pleasing in and of itself.

Exactly. And that's not a contradiction. It's basically when we act out of kindness towards a fellow human being, we feel a sense of connection. At the core of the feeling of compassion is an identification. That's why compassion is very different. Pity tends to look down. You put yourself in a superior place,

whereas compassion tends to be more respectful because you are identifying with other person. So when you are able to do that, you feel in some sense, you feel enhanced, you feel expanded. So it is good for you, but in the actual act from a psychology point of view, the conscious psychology will be really about the other.

Compassion will force you to at least, you know, make you try to move beyond the surface of the differences and try to understand why certain person holds such an opposite point of view so strongly and so deeply. Why are they doing this? And the moment you ask that question, why, then you are able to connect because at the basic level, even though two people may be holding a completely different political opinion on a given topic, the reason why they're holding those views, if you start digging deep, they may be the

same. You know, they have, you know, they happen to have a different conception of how society should be structured, how to get there. And the difference is, I really about the method and the means, not about what. So that allows you. And if nothing else, it prevents you from being hateful. And that is a gift in itself. Because you don't really want to go through the route of hating someone.

There's a great expression from the Buddha that anger has a honeyed tip, otherwise it feels good, a honeyed tip, but a poison root. Yes. And so it can feel, there can be a little bit of dopamine associated with sending a mean tweet or whatever.

But actually, in my experience, it feels better not to be carrying around a backpack full of hate all the time. It's tiring. Yeah, it's basically tiring. So let me ask you about this. There was this meta analysis, a journal article of scientific journal article recently, and they looked at a lot of studies of meditation, not just compassion meditation, but mindfulness meditation. And well, you'll tell me what they concluded, because you know the study better than me,

but I saw all the headlines, I'm going to pull out, because the headlines were amazing. Essentially, one of them was meditation does not make you a better person. And there are tons of headlines about how meditation basically is complete baloney because it's not, it's gonna not make you a better person anyway. Is this study onto something, or is there a problem here? No, no, I think the study is a very important one,

actually, it's a meta-analysis, it's a very, very recent study. And also, it's very timely, because there's a kind of a hype right now. And sometimes, the people who are advocates of meditation sometimes give the impression that this is the panacea. And in fact, at the beginning of that study, I was surprised to see there was a code attributed to his solaness saying that if every child learns to meditate at the age of eight, in a generation,

there will be no violence. I mean, his solaness is not that naive. I don't know how that court got attributed to him. So that was that. Well, you translate for him, so. So. But I think the point about that article I think is this is one thing about Western consumer

society when something works. People then latch on to it. And then everybody jumps the bandwagon. And then they start believing almost like a kind of, well, we call it miracle of mindfulness meditation. So people close their eyes, and then expect there is some kind of miracle going to happen. So there is that danger, but if you look at the traditional,

for example, Buddhist understanding, which is one tradition from where meditation practice came from, but it turns out that even in the Western tradition, there was in the Greek Orthodox church, there used to be a strong meditation tradition. But it's absolutely perfect. Yeah, centric pairs and so on. So if you look at the Buddhist tradition, really transformation isn't really seen as just a function of meditation.

It really is seen as a function of combining a couple of things. One is knowledge, which this concept of mind-changing mindset, that is an important part of the Buddhist idea of one factor for transformation. You need to learn to see the world in a different way. The knowledge is an important part of it. The other one is intention. You need to somehow prime your, you know, kind of, you know, instincts,

prime your behavior in a way that you would want it to be. So there's a conscious intention setting that remembering yourself, the value of compassion, on a daily basis, you know, what you value and how you want to live your day. So the Tibetan Buddha set their intention every morning so that it becomes a sort of a set that tone for the day. So conscious intention setting is another important point. And the third one is, of course, meditation. And meditation,

in the way in which it's understood, the tradition is not just a process by which you calm your mind, which is one part of it, and being aware and be staying in this present. But meditation also has another function which is a process by which you internalize this new way of seeing things, so that it gets processed. So that transformation of your behavior, which is where you want to see the results, is really seen as function of combining these three things, knowledge on the one side, new way of understanding things, internalization of that through meditation, and learning to regulate your own negative emotional reactions,

and then setting your intentions consciously so that you, on a daily basis, make connection with your day-to-day activity and the values that you hold there. And that's how transformations can take place. So that's why in the Cambridge, not Cambridge, the Stanford Compassion Training, which we now offer through a nonprofit organization called Compassion Institute, Intention Setting is an important part of it.

And also having some understanding of the psychology, the basic psychology of the human mind, is an important part of it. Have you studied where your program changes behavior? Well, in the study that was the meta-analysis, one of the papers that came out of our program was listed there. But I think it's too early to now look at it. So the basic point that the meditation alone does not alter behavior,

I think it's a fair point. But even the authors weren't sure, they didn't say meditation alone doesn't alter behavior. They basically said the studies themselves are just not designed well enough. It's a problem with the methodology. Exactly. And then they were, you know, one important point they were making was that mindfulness and compassion meditation do seem to enhance on two pro-social emotions, compassion and empathy,

but the effects on prejudice and connectedness and aggression was almost non-existent. So that was an interesting thing, because if that pans out, it raises a powerful challenge, because one would hope, through compassion meditation, the feeling of connectedness with people of a different background, would increase, because a key part of compassion meditation is the reinforcement of the recognition of common humanity. So just like me. What does this give you any, does this create any doubt in your mind about whether what

your teaching works? No, I think it's too early. I mean right now many of the meditation research is pretty crude. I mean it's pre-imposed and many of them don't have active, you know, control comparison. Can you explain that because I'm not sure if it pre-imposed. Well, pre-imposed is basically you test the people before intervention is offered. Typically, they are eight big programs. MBSR and Stanford Compassion Cultivation Training. These are eight week programs. So you do some tests at the beginning,

then you offer the class and at the end you test. So some of these tests may have to do with, you know, whether it increases your attention or mindfulness or pro-sociality or empathy or, you know, kind of empathy across a different background. For example, like the racial bias test is also being used to test that. So this is, but then a good study would actually

have an active control group, which is similar program, similar is structured, but it would be a different program that is offered. So these people will sign up for eight weeks of whatever it is, which involves something different, not the program itself. And then you would also have a wait listed group, who will get the program later, but they are signed in, but they are not given at the moment. So they are just waiting for the program.

So there is an anticipation, so that might affect. So you then compare these three in the results, and if there is a significant statistical difference among the groups, then it is saying something. So right now, there are very few programs, research programs that do it because it's costly. So it sounds like it sounds to me that you strongly suspect that what you're teaching does work and that for 2600 years that people have been doing compassion meditation, it hasn't

been a waste of time. So what about for me, somebody's about to write a book about compassion? Do I have to just say right up front, look, we have no evidence that this thing actually works? No, I don't think, I think the point is not about whether compassion meditation works. I think the point is how does it work and what needs to be combined with it? That's the problem.

The point I'm trying to make is that sometimes people believe that the meditation is the penicillia. If you close your eyes and then sit there, something will happen. But what is more important, particularly, unlike mindfulness for compassion type meditation, even when you close your eyes and meditate, if you are doing compassion meditation, you are actually doing relational exercise. Compassion is always about, even if it is towards yourself, it's a self-to-self relationship.

So let me just put some meat on the bone there. So just for people who aren't steeped in how to actually meditate, basic mindfulness meditation is usually sit, eyes closed, back reasonably straight, bring your focus to the feeling of your breath coming in and going out, and then every time you get distracted, start again, and again, and again, and again. Compassion meditation is a pretty different modality where you same posture, but you are envisioning, it's taught differently in different traditions, so I don't wanna say too much about how you teach it

because I don't know, but I know how it's taught in tradition which I've been studying, where you close your eyes and envision people. You usually start with yourself, and then you move to a benefactor and then close friend and then neutral person. Somebody you see, but overlook often, and then a difficult person and then everyone. And in each case, you repeat silently in your mind a set of very happy phrases like may you be happy, may you be safe, et cetera, et cetera.

And the idea is that just like in mindfulness meditation where you're training your ability to focus and to not be carried away by your emotions, so you can see clearly what's happening in your head without getting an act around by it. So that's what's being trained and straight up, mindfulness meditation, and compassion meditation, what you're training is your ability to care about other people, to feel connected to other people. And so anyway, I just want to say.

No, that's exactly, I mean, this basic pattern is similar. The point I'm trying to make is that even when you are meditating in a compassion practice, it's about a relationship. So therefore, compassion, in order for the meditation to work, you actually need to act it out. So you need to, you know, as part of your compassion meditation practice, you then need to somehow practice it in your everyday life and seize the opportunity whenever an opportunity

for kindness arises. So therefore this, and then there is a true way, influence that your compassion meditation makes you more aware when opportunities arise, because you are consciously thinking of compassion, you are consciously connecting with compassion as part of your intention, you are explicitly making that as one of your most important personal values. So all of this makes it easier for compassion to be more pronounced in your mind.

So when an opportunity arises, then you express it, and that acting out reinforces your meditation. So it needs to be, you know, because meditation alone is not going to work. Because it's a simulation. Compassion meditation is a form of simulation. So, in order for that simulation, even the pilots who train in simulation,

at some point they have to hold the real thing and fly it, you know? So the same thing, the effect of compassion meditation really has to come from doing it on a regular basis and start starting with yourself, people around you so that you are less reactive, you are less self-centered, you're more attentive, you're more caring, you're more anonymous. I think, I mean, this is where I think the intention

is the key, because if- I mean, I have the intention. The intention is to reinforce, that's the thing. the intention is to be reinforced. That's the thing. I was going to talk to you later when we are dinner, that I have an app that I was involved in. Because I'm such a big believer in the conscious setting of your intentions. In the app, we have an intention setting device. So you choose up to five intentions,

and then you set your timer for reminder. And then, for example, like one of the things that I ended up doing lately was at home, after around 5'30, I ended up looking for a glass of wine. And ideally, I wouldn't want to drink during the weekdays, but my wife is French Canadian, and my in-laws are their love wine and food and stuff. So I've got into the habit of taking a glass of one regularly,

which some people say it's good for your health, but I don't really like that much. So after this app, that was my first intention, which says avoid drinking at home during weekdays. Come 5.30, it pings me, reminds me. So then I check whether I was successful or not, and then I track it across time. So this is how, and it works because what you're doing is instead of trying to suppress it by avoiding thinking about it, you're confunding it like in a mindfulness type approach. The Tibetan idea is that sets your intention in the morning and in the evening you quickly review it.

No, I actually do this because I read your book and so I do do what you do. And it makes a difference. I don't know. I read your book. And so I do do what you see. And it makes a difference. I don't know. Well, I have to give my wife. LAUGHTER So the point is that one needs to have a bit more nuance understanding of how meditation is supposed to work, especially in that compassion meditation,

because just closing your eyes and imagining is no longer to do the trade. It needs to be reinforced by acting it out. And then one of the beauties of acting it out is that when you help someone, there's a joy that comes with it. And joy is what sustains your motivation. Because it makes you feel good.

It enhances you. This is really important because I learned in my most recent book, so I wrote 10% happier about four years ago than I just wrote a book called Meditation for Figuity Skeptics and the goal of the second book was to get people to actually do the thing and I had to learn a lot about behavior change science and habit formation. And what I learned was that willpower, just saying you want to do something and gritting your teeth and aiming to do it, is a terrible strategy.

And that fact, if you can tap into the minds to the brain's reward system, then actually you can create sustainable abiding habits because it becomes pleasurable to do. Definitely. So I've found that for me, being less of a jerk actually does feel good on the level of the mind in the moment you're doing it. Just take the moment of holding the door open for somebody.

If you're paying attention, it feels reasonably good. That is, in my view, infinitely scalable. Definitely. Yeah, definitely. I think that this is one area where the new science of motivation is very interesting, because sometimes, and this is one area where sometimes religion really sort of shows

it's lack of understanding of human psychology, because it tends to hammer, and hammer and hammer and hammer, and people who don't do it are seen as somehow weak, weak willed, and you're right, the science shows us that expecting too much from your strength of your will It's not a long-lasting approach because it is exhausting

You know if you rely too heavily on your will So therefore having a strategy. I mean, this is one of the reasons why For example, you know the many of the things that we learn from Buddhism actually were initially designed to help the monks. You know, Buddhism initially was a monastic religion. It was designed to help the monks how to live their daily life without too much effort because there are so many presets. So mindfulness practice,, meta awareness practice. These are all there so that the monks and then they memorize all the precepts.

So you don't... Recepts are basically rules for people. Yeah, rules. And then you live your life because you create a structure so that you don't rely just on the excursion will all the time. So I think here the joy and sense of fulfillment is really key. I mean, you can push with your will to initially get motivated, but to sustain it, will doesn't carry you there. So I suspect that some of them, I'm sure when we open up for Q&A, which we're going to do soon,

people are going to ask this, but I'll ask it first. which we're going to do soon. People are going to ask this, but I'll ask it first. If you're compassionate, are you going to get plowed over by your nihilistically cruel boss? No, no, no, no, if you act out of compassion in a wise way, that shouldn't happen. Because you should have the composure to be able to tell the boss at the right time that was not a nice thing to do.

So I think it's important because sometimes, and this is where the Buddhist tradition insists that compassion should be combined with wisdom. Because kindness alone is not an answer. The Buddha's Tibetans have an expression, idiot compassion. Yes, yeah. We could sometimes call it misplaced compassion, but idiot compassion is not only a lot of the second. So I think you know that being compassionate does not mean that you give in, but being compassionate requires you to, I mean what it does require is to give the other person the benefit of the doubt, that you don't immediately rush to judgment.

That's what we normally tend to do. So you don't immediately rush to judgment. You give the other person benefit of the doubt. But on a closer look, if what the other person has done was not only mean, but actually done intentionally, then you do need to stand up. But you can do so without losing your composure, because you understand the reason why this

person did it, he or she is doing it from a place of pain. And given the choice, the person may not want to do it. But sometimes, because they're in a more powerful position, they tend not to see that what they're doing is not the right thing. Much more of my conversation with Hilton Jimpa right after this. Hey, I'm Aresha, and I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wundery's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities

the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about drag icon RuPaul Charles. After a childhood of being ignored by his absentee father, Ru goes out searching for love and acceptance. But the road to success is a rocky one. Substance abuse and mental health struggles threatened to veer Rue off course. In our series Rue Paul Born Naked, we'll show you how Rue Paul overcame his demons and carved out a place for himself as one of the world's top

entertainers, opening the doors for aspiring queens everywhere. Follow even the rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app. One last question for me and I want to open it up. Traditionally in compassion meditation, and I don't know if this is true for how you teach it, but I think it is having read your book that usually start with or somewhere along the way, sometimes you start with, or sometimes you build to compassion for yourself. Yes. A lot of people really struggle with that.

Why is this so important? I mean, this is a very interesting question. I, by the way, I know it's no problem. Yeah. This is a very interesting question. Actually, the first protocol that I developed when I was Stanford, used the traditional format. So we begin with a little bit of mindfulness type practice to settle your mind and basic meditation skills, then self, then a loved one, and then so on.

But then the teacher who taught it to undergraduate, he and I sat down after he taught it twice and he said, many students were just struggling. They just get stuck there. So it turns out that in the West, self-compassion is for some strange reason, a real challenge for many people. That somehow, they just, even some people have aversive reaction to thinking about the often phrases to you also saying, may I be happy? You know, may I find peace? There's a kind of a aversive

reaction even to thinking about that phrase directed to oneself. So, but my own feeling is that I don't think you need self-compassion to have compassion for others, because I would argue compassion for others is a more fundamental human trait than for self, because we are social creatures. You know, right from where we get go, we are always latching on to, you know, if a child is latching on to a mother. You know, there is a relationship is what defines us. So your perception of the other is probably more fundamental in relationship with others more fundamental. So I would argue compassion for other is probably more fundamental impulse than for self.

But to sustain compassion for a long time, long term, if you don't have a basic level of self-compassion, then you can't sustain compassion for too long. Because at some point, you get burned out. And then, not only that worst thing is that as a result of not having enough self-compassion, you start resenting the people for whom you have given so much of your life, feeling that somehow they are the ones who made me suffer, they were ungrateful, whereas if you have a degree of self-compassion, then it acts as a kind of a buffer against that kind of exhaustion. So I would argue that in order to have sustained compassion for many other others, you do need

a fairly solid basis of self-compassion. Let's open up for questions. This is my, actually, always my favorite part. Does anybody right there? And so we'll work our way through. Yep. So the one word that hasn't been part of the discussion is ego. And in a lot of the readings that I've done and thinking that I've done about meditation, there's the issue of the ego.

And meditation actually allowing you to relax, but also to tamp down the ego. And it strikes me that if you're in the middle of a lot of hectic activity, and you take a break and you're meditating, and then you get back to the hectic activity, without there being some kind of change in the ego consciousness, then it's the equivalent of a four-year-old getting a time out and becoming a four-year-old immediately again. And I would have to believe that if there is this other dimension of ego management, if you will, that over time it's cumulative and then the compassion component is more pronounced. So if you could maybe

address that. Well I'm letting you answer the question but I just will say as the father of a three year old that often after the time out my kid is actually much better. So anyway but you carry. I mean he's an awful person just that baseline. I have been telling this story recently about how I walked into the nursery not long ago and he was gleefully urinating on his nanny's leg. He was really happy about it and I looked at his face and was like, oh, that's my face. My co-anchor, Drew Ducang, one of my co-anchors on the night line says that she tells all of her friends, be careful who you sleep with because you'll end up raising him.

I've had a few moments like this where I've asked the Dalai Lama completely inappropriate question and I've had to watch him translate. So to get to your question, I mean, ego is quite a complicated term. There's a lot of baggage behind it because of Freudian psychology and all these other. But the basic point that has to do with some sense of self-image, some sense of self. And often, a lot of people have problem because of that relationship, perception of themselves. And I sometimes, because I sort of mix with many different kind of group settings. And sometimes you see individuals who are very well-meaning, kind-hearted, but then because

they have this complicated relationship with their own sense of self, somehow this self comes in the way. And it's almost like they stumble on their own self. And this is probably what you mean by the ego issue. And here, one would hope that by meditating, at least at the basic level, one will become a bit more self-aware. Because in meditation, you are not only quite in your mind, you are in some sense taking a reflective standpoint,

because normally if you don't meditate, we are constantly reacting to a situation and we are just being taken by the tide or wave. Meditation allows you to take a step back, be reflective, take a stand, and observe. So you learn to, you know, kind of disengage and learn to be an observer, and in this way you begin to see certain patterns in the way you think the way way you are. And many of our habitual thought patterns are formed quite early. And it's difficult for us to see because they're such an important natural part of who we are. But by meditating, we begin to see those patterns

and the quirky things that you as an individual do. So you become more reflective, and that's the idea that if you are really meditating, you know, whether it is mindfulness type practice, or whether it is compassionate type practice, whatever it is, you know, all of these meditation practices require a quietening your mind at the beginning and taking that stance and standing back and, you know, giving yourself that space.

I think then these ego-ehews will become more and more obvious to you. And then once it becomes more and more obvious to you, then you have a chance to handle them. Because at the bottom, all of us want to be nicer people. All of us want to be more fun to be with, all of us want to be kinder. And sometimes our own quirky personalities and habits come in the way. And here I think meditation can really help, because one thing that particularly the modern mindfulness meditation, One amazing power of that is teaching individuals the skill

to have this meta-awareness, to step back and observe what's happening in the theatre of your mind. And that ability to step back and observe is a powerful skill. Because, you know, and I would argue, this is exactly the reason why mindfulness-based cognitive behavior therapy is proving to be quite effective in prevention of relapse of depression, because often relapse of depression is aggravated by rumination.

And rumination is a spiral thinking. You know, you start believing in the story that you tell yourselves, whereas mindfulness, if you meditate it, cultivated, it teaches you the skill to catch yourself, and then step back and say, well, this is just a thought. This is just a thought and observe it. And it immediately cuts that spiraling energy so that you don't get sucked into this.

And that's the reason I would argue. That's probably the one of the main reasons why it's proven to be quite effective in preventing relapse, not so much treating, but preventing relapse of depression, because it helps you deal with the rumination. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Any other questions? Tell them in the second row here.

Hi. Can you be truly compassionate without understanding suffering? I mean, in a way that you have to understand someone else's suffering to be compassionate. And if so, how to do that in a society where we deny our suffering so much? I think all of us know what suffering is. It doesn't really matter how successful you are, how famous you are, how rich you are,

how enlightened you are, it doesn't really matter. I think we all know what suffering is. This is one powerful insight of the Buddha, suffering, the fact of suffering, the reality of suffering, is part of what makes us human beings. And I would argue that actually the vulnerability to pain and sufferings is what makes us empathetic creatures. And the reason why, when we see a total stranger bleeding

and crying, we instinctively feel for this person because suffering is such a powerful connector. You know, we don't need to know all the ins and out of the details of that particular person's situation. We know what suffering is. We know what pain is. We know what suffering is, we know what pain is, we know what need is. So, I don't think we need to know the specificity of the situation.

Of course, if you know more about it, the chances of being able to empathize deeper is that. But even without that, because otherwise, it will be very difficult for a man to be having a compassion and empathy for a woman who is going through a certain painful experience that only woman can go through. So the idea that somehow we cannot empathize with that just doesn't make any sense. But of course you're right. In some cases when the suffering is not evident, and on top of that, when there are counter forces like prejudices and so on, based on differences

of religion or some complicated history, then in those cases, then we need to make an effort to find that connection. Without finding that connection, we won't feel compassion. And in fact, what happens in a deep personalization and demonization of other group is exactly the opposite of what happens when you're able to connect with other group and feel empathy. If you disconnect, then in order to do horrific things

on other people, somehow we need to depersonalize that person first. We need to, you know, kind of objectify, first of all, objectify. And then in some cases, demonize to justify what we are doing against those people, and this is what we see in history. So that's why I think advocating compassion across differences is really such an important point because it allows us the ability to find a common language of humanity.

So compassion discourse can actually be the powerful antidote for discourse that divides us. Brent Roe, then I see you behind. Hi. My question is actually the opposite of the question that was just asked for those people who are in the business of caring for others, like nurses or doctors, people who are constantly in a position of providing the compassion I care, such term as compassion fatigue.

So for those people, how do we maintain the level of compassion and without getting so burned out? Well, thank you. This is a very, very important question. How do we maintain the level of compassion and without getting so burned up? Well, thank you. This is a very, very important question. And now the science is beginning to make distinctions between empathy and compassion. And beginning to recognize, actually,

even at the brain level, the expressions are a little different. And one of the, you know, it is a promise in the compassion training program is some possibility of teaching individuals, particularly at the forefront of these kind of, you know, acute caregiving, the ability to not disconnect, because sometimes doctors and nurses, as part of their self-protection mechanism, they learn to detach, and they learn to depersonalize the patient, so that they don't have to deal with the pain. And that turns out to be actually in the long run not a good strategy, it actually eats into you.

Like the doctors in the mash making jokes. Yeah, exactly. It turns out to be quite, and it turns out that this is one of the main causes for physicians burnout, deep personalization of the patient. But on the other hand, if you're constantly exposed and if you're open, then how do you avoid the other extreme of just getting compassion fatigue?

So here, the compassion institute that you know we have recently established to take on this work of you know propagating this compassion training. We are in the middle of a collaboration program with a couple of hospitals and some doctors on developing a special module to deal with physician burnout so that they can be taught certain skills. And the idea being that you can be empathetic, but not get stuck in empathy to move on to compassion. And the distinction between empathy and compassion

is empathy is more emotional. You are resonating, you are feeling for. And so the focus is really the problem. When you are able to move to compassion, then the focus also becomes a solution. What can I do? It's a more empowered state of mind, so because it also has, and in the scientific research, particularly the Tanya singer in Germany. She has done a lot of these work and turns out when people are asked to move from empathy to compassion, the motor regions, pre-motor area, which are connected with acting out, gets

more active. So, there seems to be a more proactive. So those, and these are very early days, but hopefully, I mean, we have quite an ambitious plan right now at the Convention Institute working with some hospitals. So hopefully something like this will come out. Thank you. Sir. Thank you. I mean, at the end of the day, all meditative forms want the more developed part of our brain, the neocortex to influence the more primitive parts

of our brain. The problem with the discussion and the study suggested is that things like motivation and attention is in a relatively developed part of the brain. Things like compassion and dopamine surge around the feel good is also quasi-developed, but hate prejudice. That's in the most reptilian part of our brain and the most difficult to control. So shouldn't meditation not be one-size-fits-all, but more directed to the mural sciences that we do know?

That's a very, very good question. I would actually take issue with the idea that emotions like hate and aggression and anger are more fundamental than emotions like kindness and compassion. I would take issue with that. Because even from a scientific point of view, we are biological and social creatures. And social creatures and biology evolved in such a way that we there's a mechanism building us to sustain that relationship and to nurture it. So, this is one of the tragedy of modern science narrative. Modern science narrative has focused so much on the aggression and the competitive part of

the narrative of the human evolution and competition. But it completely disregarded. Until recently, now it's changing. The other side of the story, which is our nurturing impulse, our caring impulse, and the evolution of cooperation. It turns out that if you don't take into account this impulse for nurturing and connection, we can't explain evolution of human complex cooperation. So I will take issue that I would argue that impulse for nurturing and connecting and

craving for others kind of affection and love is as fundamental as other forces like aggression and hate. Now attention and emotion regulation and those kind of things are of course has to do with preference to cortex. They are much later developed. But the more emotional kind of brain, including empathy and compassion, I would argue are more fundamental. So, and the point you are making about one size fit all is an important one.

And sometimes there is a tendency in the mindfulness community to somehow suggest that this is the panacea for everybody. And sometimes some people would even want to argue that this is the essence of the Buddhist meditation and the rest is all kind of rituals and cultural kind of things. And I have, on several occasions, said that that actually is not very helpful.

It's one thing to say we have extracted something from the Buddhist techniques and secularized it because it's a universal skill, that's perfectly fine. But then to suggest that somehow this captures the essence of Buddhism is not a very helpful, because, you know, Buddha, if you look at the meditation, for example, now we have the mindfulness practice, we have loving kindness practice,

we have now compassion practice, and there's a whole suite of meditation practices in the Buddhist tradition. There's a whole approach of meditation practices in the Buddhist tradition. There's a whole approach in dealing with anger. If you look at Shanti Deva's text, there's a whole chapter on this. There are many different types of meditation in these resources. In fact, the tradition says that, for example, according to the meditation theory in Buddhist text, we identify six or seven main personality types.

And depending on the personality type, it recommends certain types of meditation. So that's why my point is that the meditation research now is still in a very early stage. You know, at the moment, we are looking at a very generalized understanding. And we haven't even gotten close to understanding the mechanism of how it is working. We do know that there are some effects that it is helping X, Y, and Z. We do know. But we don't know how it works.

We don't even know which one are the more active ingredients. We don't know to what extent the effects we are seeing as a result of this gentleness of the teacher who is giving the class. I mean, at this point, honestly, we don't really know. You and I come at the science from a slightly different standpoint. You come at it as somebody who's engaged in the scientific

process. I come at it as a, I use this term a little bit tongue and cheek, but as an evangelist. You know, I'm trying to introduce meditation to a large audience. And what I like to tell people is, you know, the science is, you know, the science has become the lingua franca and our culture.

And it's really useful for me to talk about the science. So, you know, you might start meditating because you think your prefrontal cortex will change. But you don't keep meditating because that you. I completely agree. We've got all sorts of questions here. When you start in the front, then I see you up there. Yeah. You spoke a bit about the West's relationship to self-compassion.

And I wondered if you could, I think I guess, especially in our society, that self-compassion is seen in direct opposition to our society's ideas of pushing yourself or getting ahead. And so I wondered if you could talk a bit about your views on that thought process and also where that line of thinking might be incorrect. I think at the heart of the problem of self-compassion for those who are struggling is, I think it's part of the problem really has to do with a sense of self-worth. If your sense of self-worth is completely defined externally, then you have a problem.

If you can define your sense of self-worth not just externally as a good father, as a good parent, whatever it is,, as a good parent, whatever it is, or as a successful person, but also internally as someone who is a human being and all the rest, then there seems to be less problems. I think it has to do with sense of self-worth, and I think being self-kind, kind to yourself really doesn't mean just slacken that leash. I don't think it means to be self-indulgent. Sometimes in the West there is that tendency to be self-kind, you should treat yourself, have a chocolate or kind of thing.

So it's almost like infantilizing yourself. So I think the genuine self-kindness presupposes that you have a healthy attitude towards yourself and healthy self-image. And then also from that comes a healthy impulse towards you so that you treat yourself with kindness. And that should manifest particularly when you're going through a difficult time, when you have a failure, disappointment. That's when it is so crucial so that you learn from that experience rather than beating yourself.

Because when you beat yourself, then you become, you develop an aversive reaction to that kind of experience. And then every time you have a failure and disappointment, you completely lose your composure, you lose your bearing. So I think this is one area where self-kindness, being in a self-kindness involves being able to relate to yourself as a human being, with all the complications and weaknesses and failings and so on, but at the same time a human being who deserve happiness, just like anybody else.

And it's a more realistic sense of who you are. And of course, his solaness is that when you talk about competition, there's a positive kind of competition, which is motivated by not wanting to be left behind. Whereas the negative competition is you're willing to stand up on others to get on the top. So you would want to avoid that, but that doesn't mean you should not compete. You would want to compete because you want to bring the best out of you and you know contribute the best that you are capable of. So I think being self-kind, you know, for example, if you look at someone like his all in his, he's got a very healthy dose of self-compassion. But he's not laxed, you know, he's very hard working, he's got a quite a high standard for himself. He gets up at 3.30 a.m. in the morning, does his thing,

is constantly interacting with others. Does his thing, three hours of meditation, just like that? So you can see that having a healthy dose of self-compassion does not mean that you're being sostered in yourself. I think this is where I think it's important to make that distinction. Sometimes, you know, because of this kind of, you know, that the consumerist culture is very complicated.

On the one hand, it's all about self-gratification, you know, if, and not just self-gratification, but the gratification right now. But on the other hand, we also, the culture in the rest has this aversion towards thinking about yourself, because probably that has to do with the culture background of, you know, Christian value system and all the rest of what I know, what else it is. So this creates a very complicated relationship itself. So and for someone like myself coming from outside, and you know, who's brought up in the Asian culture,

seeing this paradox is interesting. It's very obvious. But if you're living, if you're part of that society, then it's not very obvious. And just as anthropologists are able to point out all the weird things about my own culture, but I don't see them because I'm part of it, you know? So in the West, I think, you know, this is where I think the self-compassion language and the message is a serious one, and we need to somehow find a distinction between self-absorption and genuine self-compassion.

Self-absorption is ultimately not a healthy thing. Very well said. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Great job. And thank you to the Asia Society and thank you for everybody coming out tonight. I really appreciate it.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks again to Thubton Genba, really appreciated his time and happy to rerun that. This show is made by Samuel Johns, DJ Cashmere, Kim Baikama, Maria Wartell, and Jen Poipoy-Poyant with Audio Engineering from Ultraviolet Audio. We got some extra help on this episode from ACE Producer, Donnell, Wetterburn. Thank you, Donnell. And as always, a shout out to Ryan Kessner and Josh Cohan from ABC News.

We'll see you on Friday for a bonus. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. Do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com-survey.