Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - The Buddha’s 8-Part Manual for a Good Life | Brother Pháp Dung

Episode Date: February 1, 2021

Today we’re talking about one of the Buddha’s first and most important lists: the Eightfold Path. I’m kinda surprised we’ve never done a deep dive into this list on the show before, but better late than never. Some context before we dive in: The Buddha, as many of you know, was a congenital list maker. His first and foundational list was the Four Noble Truths. This is the list that begins with “life is suffering” -- which is something of a mistranslation; it basically means that life will be unsatisfying if you are constantly clinging to things that will not last, given the nonnegotiable fact of relentless impermanence. The second noble truth is that the cause of our suffering is thirst or clinging. The third is that there is a way out of this mess. And the fourth is a sort of manual for waking up and suffering less. That fourth noble truth is the Eightfold path. It’s a list within a list. And to help us unpack it all is a fascinating person named Brother Pháp Dung. He was born in Vietnam, came to the US with his family as a child refugee, and was raised in LA. He later trained in architecture at USC before becoming a monk under his teacher, a towering figure in modern Buddhism named Thich Nhat Hanh. Phap Dung has a fascinating critique of our capitalist, consumerist culture. He’s not saying that we should opt out, just that we can use the Eightfold Path to create a different relationship to it all. So we dive into all of that in this chat -- but we begin with his personal story, which involves family strife and a lot of skepticism. Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/brother-phap-dung-320 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to 10% Happier early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. From ABC, this is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, hello. Today, we are talking about one of the Buddha's first and most important lists, the Eightfold Path. I'm a little surprised we've never done a deep dive on this list on the show before, but better late than never. Some context before we dive in here. The Buddha, as many of you know, was a congenital list maker.

His first and foundational list was called The Four Noble Truths. This is the list that begins with life is suffering, which is a little bit of a mistranslation. It basically means that life is going to be unsatisfying if you're constantly clinging to things that will not last, given the non-negotiable fact of relentless impermanence in the universe in which we find ourselves. The second noble truth is that the cause of our suffering is the aforementioned clinging or thirst. The third is that there's a way out of this mess. And the fourth is a sort of manual for waking up and suffering less. That fourth noble truth is the Eightfold Path. So it's kind of a list within a list,

is the Eightfold Path. So it's kind of a list within a list, the Eightfold Path. And to help us unpack it all is a fascinating person named Brother Phap Yung. He was born in Vietnam, came to the United States with his family as a child refugee and was raised in Los Angeles. He later trained in architecture at USC before becoming a monk under his teacher, who is a towering figure in modern Buddhism named Thich Nhat Hanh. Pap Young has an interesting, as you will hear, critique of our capitalist, consumerist culture. He's not saying that we should opt out, just that we can use the eightfold path to create a different relationship to the juggernaut. So we're going to dive into all of that in this chat, but we begin here with his personal story, which involves some family strife and a lot of skepticism. Here we go with Brother Fabian.

Brother Fabian, thank you very much for coming on. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Thank you, Dan. I was just kind of genially, I hope, genially complaining to you before we started rolling that you were saying too many interesting things before we started the interview. So I'm starting the interview now because I want to make sure I don't,

neither one of us forgets all the interesting things you were saying. You were starting to tell me a story seconds ago about how you were skeptical of Buddhism when you first went on your first retreat. Can you say more about that? Yeah, you know, my family, we grew up Buddhist, but you know, it's like Sunday temple Buddhist, but I never related to any of that. It's a lot of stuff that I didn't understand. There was a lot of praying and, you know, it's worshiping and devotional.

But when I had some trouble with my family, my father and my mom took me to a retreat the first time with our teacher. And I remember seeing these monks and nuns and people behaving nicely. And especially the young monks and nuns, they seem very happy and smiling and so on. That was a little suspicious. And, you know, the second time around, two years later, another retreat came and a lot of monks and nuns were there. I actually wanted to follow them. So I called in my boss while I was working as an architect and I need a couple more weeks.

So I followed them on the tour because I wanted to see what these monks and nuns are like after the retreat. I was like, are they always smiling and mindful and very, you know, I grew up in Los Angeles. I was educated in the West. Our family was refugee coming over.

So my education kind of is very suspicious of anything. I think you probably know, raised and educated in a Western education system, you're always skeptical and suspicious and critical. that kind of a young man and that I can relate to people who are very suspicious and skeptical of any type of things that promise or look like it's a happy and peaceful all the time. So anyway, I just wanted, you know, to relate with you on that. But in fact, you know, I began to discover other things besides, you know, looking out at other people. I began to discover other things besides looking out at other people. I began to see the practice as looking at myself. And I started to see some effect on me.

Like the first time I realized my thinking and seeing my thinking, I remember that. And I came back from the retreat. And I just did it. I just went into our altar room in our family and I started just sitting and meditating. And I remember the first time ever seeing my thought and how it arise and how it disappears. So at that time, I had some difficulty with my father and I was sitting there one morning and I heard his voice in the other room. And I remember seeing my anger, my thought towards my father come up.

I began to just really be with it and feel that sensation through my body and this kind of like tightness, but like staying with it, following my breathing and being in that state, not moving and allowing and seeing the rising of a thought and the feelings, the anger that it produced. And then slowly how that actually starts to dissipate a little bit just because you recognize it. And that's nothing about skeptical or belief. It's just an experience. And you realize that, wow, I didn't do anything. I didn't say anything. I didn't slam the door. And I was so thankful. That was the beginning for me to really become interested of how my mind works and how it determines the quality of the way I am. And that started affecting how I am at work and so on. And seeing my mind and seeing feelings, I started seeing in others as well. So slowly,

slowly that it moved from being skeptical of others and looking for systems to believe in, I began to see it is more like looking inward and discovering how my mind works. That was my doorway into meditation. And I just wanted to share that because it related to your doorway, which is going through suffering. And from that suffering, it opens up a new way of looking at things. Yeah, I relate to everything you just said. And I appreciate you saying it. I think many of the people who listen to the show are like us in that come in a little skeptical. What's this weird meditation thing? Do I now have to wear robes and be a Buddhist? What's this all about? But absolutely, the way you describe it, that once you start looking at the way your mind works, you realize dogmatism has no role, really.

It's just about seeing the truth of your inner experience and learning how to relate in a different way to it improves your life, and you can just get better and better at that skill. Right. skill. Right. You know, and the way I was raised and educated, kind of like going to college, going through the degrees, getting the job, getting the house, a car, a wife, kids, success, bank account, you know, and retirement plan. That's a kind of belief system. And I actually became skeptical of that. I remember I was like, wow, this is the system. And this actually became skeptical of that. I remember, I was like, wow, this is the system and this is what I'm caught in as a happiness. And so I began to reflect on what our society impose on us and we just believe it without being suspicious or skeptical that that is really true suspicious or skeptical that that is really true happiness.

So in a way, I still was skeptical. That's called investigative mind in Buddhism, that we begin to actually investigate everything in ourself and how we interact as well as our world, what we accept as normal. You're constantly examining how when you touch something what it feels like when you see something when you hear something what does that invoke and what your feelings come from it goes very well with science the the practice and it's uh that's the part of buddhism that i didn't know growing up with my family it was my family is more like cultural buddhism it was just accepted a lot of young people grow up and they just do it because it's in their families in their

culture and so that's the part i was liberated from i realized that actually this man in India we call Buddha now, he just basically discovered another way of being in the world and started to examine and question everything. For me, when I discovered that the Buddhist practice, not the Buddhist religion, that really inspired me to look further. You talked about generating this skepticism or investigative quality vis-a-vis the traditional messages from our Western culture about what a good life would look like, house, marriage, car, 401k, et cetera, et cetera. I hear that and I think a number of things. One is that I still kind of believe that personally. I mean, not all of it and not uncritically, but

I like having those things. And I suspect many people listen to the show like that. And I also think about the Buddha. You know, he wasn't out there saying everybody should shave their heads and become a monk. He was hanging out with kings and wealthy merchants, etc. There was a robust role for lay people or worldly, as he called them, people in the Sangha or the Buddha's community. So what's your take on everything i just said yeah you know when i say investigate it doesn't mean that it is bad it's just we should not assume you know i remember like one friday night just uh sitting there and really feeling that like why am i not going out you know in la if you're at home on Friday night,

you know, and you go straight from work to home, it's like you don't have a social life. And I remember just, you know, going, I'm going to stay home. So that was also my first time actually staying home on a Friday night and being okay with it. And then I don't have to spend money and feeling, I remember the next Saturday feeling like, wow, that wasn't so bad. You know, I'm not a loser. I don't have, yeah, it's just these little moments of like questioning

what you assume. So I'm not saying having a house a car a job and security and these things is bad i'm just saying these are conventions and this is what we live in and we have to in a way accommodate with some of that but that shouldn't be just without question you know and meditation helped me actually. So that Friday evening, I was restless and I felt this energy. And just because I've been doing meditation, I recognize that energy, this push, this restlessness to go out and stimulate myself and to feel like you're happy. So I began to investigate that. So I began to actually choose to stay home on the weekend, which is like, wow, inviting my friends over,

I would make them, you know, food, or we would like, you know, we'll have potluck. So we found an alternative rather than just spending money. So anyway, that was the, like one of the first, and then I started questioning jobs. I started questioning the whole profession of architecture and why we go to work and so on and so on. And that was the journey for me.

Not everyone should become monks and nuns, but I think they should have at least some practices to examine when things happen to them or what society tells them, how you look and what you should be doing and what people think that that's their happiness. But in fact, maybe it's not. I began to see that, you know, I don't need a new car. And my friends kept pushing me to buy a new car. And I said, look, when you get a new car, look at you. Every time we go out, you're worried about your car and where you park it. When I take you guys out, nobody's going to pick my Toyota

and I can park anywhere. So in a way, it's like the push to get a new brand new car, it's great to drive in it. But I see the anxiety it causes him. And in fact, he got a key, you know, someone scratched it with the key and I can see what it does to him. So the assumption is to buy a new car or when the seasons change, you got to get new clothes. It's like, why do I need new clothes? This is fine. I was into clothes and shoes, by the way. But I had to question that. I was like, well, do I need

another pair of shoes? Do I really need another pair of shoes? For me as a young man, I accepted all that. I love the LA life. And I was, you know, if you'd asked me 25 years ago that I would be a monk living in the mountain nature in a quiet place, I would think you're crazy that I would be doing what I'm doing now. So if I'm hearing you correctly, in terms of how you would take your own experience and channel it toward guidance for other people, I mean, you'll correct me here, but it sounds to me like you're not preaching some strict anti-materialist, anti-capitalist, never buy a new pair of shoes, never get a car. But just to investigate, why are you doing it and what's the effect? That's right, exactly. And this is what meditation, this is what the path will lead us to, a more correct way of looking at how we interact with the world. And this is actually the premise to what we accept as a collective, what is happiness. And in the last century, I would say it's very individualistic, very materialistic,

and very focused on fame, power, violence. So we accept that. We accept war. We accept progress as always producing, like get back to normal. Everyone should get back to spending. And these kind of collective acceptance, what we call our society, our culture, is actually where we're at now, which with the planet, with society, people are lonely. People just take care of themselves. people just take care of themselves you know if each person would take on the path and slowly we can contribute to a kind of different way of looking at how to be in the world i struggle

with this a lot holding two things simultaneously one is this critique of capitalism i buy it. The idea of infinite growth in a finite system is inherently problematic and leads to a aggressive stance in so many ways toward the planet, you know, which we're, you know, I've been on the front lines of my reporting life of spending time in places like the Amazon and seeing how that is being destroyed in the name of, you know, infinite growth and that the consequences of what we're doing to the climate is just sort of incalculable almost. And it can lead to aggression in terms of war, as you described, the kind of, we might go to war over scarce resources, it can lead to a kind of inner aggression around capitalism being based on inculcating in each one of us a sense of insufficiency so that we keep buying to sort of medicate that sense of insufficiency. That critique really lands with me.

On the other hand, I like having a nice house. I like buying my kid toys. And, you know, I don't go out much these days, but I like having nice sweatpants to pat around the house in. So how do I act ethically in this context? Yeah, this is where it's a dangerous thing because we're dealing with a notion, an idea of how to be in the world. And that's why I always try to start off by looking more personally, individually at the person and what makes them suffer, what makes them happy. And their journey as an individual is very touchy. I've given talks on it and how to be active, engaged in the world, but also be taking care of yourself because you need

to be engaged with the world in a particular way, right? In a quality. You can't be angry at a peace movement. So anyway, I got a lot of comments on that. People get really reactive. Wow. Very defensive as well. And that's why in our teaching, we always start with teaching people to be mindful first. Be mindful of their breath. We have to start with that first. Slowing people down. ego into concepts and ideas too early, then it becomes opinions and values too quickly. Your value, my value, your take, my take, your view, my view. And usually it won't help anything. But I started with my own individual, my personal suffering with my father, personal suffering with my father, you see, and how that actually framed everything. When you understand that your father suffered because his country, his life was destroyed because of a war, because of a concept that caused the war, communism is going to take over Vietnam and it's going to domino effect you know i think many of us know now but because of that one view that fear that cause and it caused so

many people lose their family their life so in a way the war never ended for my father we lost everything he was well off we everything. And so I began to see his suffering. He had a hard time and, you know, the roles changed. My mom became more the breadwinner. She got a steady job. She started speaking English faster before my father. So my dad became more depressed and led to anger, frustration. Anyway, I remember all this stuff coming up as I sat and as I reflected on my father. And my hate and my anger towards him starts to diminish because of understanding.

I began to have more insight. And the more insight you have, your views about your father and yourself start to change. And I started seeing when that relationship starts to change, how I relate to people at work change. So you become happy, happier. Happy is not like, you know, bubbly happy. It's just you feel like, gosh gosh i don't have to be angry all the time you know i don't have to carry it around you become lighter you have more space and because of that you begin to look at other people at work as not always competitive and

you know selfish with their ideas and protective you have more space and you started helping them with their projects which is unbelievable in an architectural firm you know everybody's protective of their ideas it's very competitive you know and so that's started affecting things and i started to see it starts with my inner happiness and the a4 path helped me that. I don't know if you want me to share a little bit about that. That's been my manual that I turn to, the Eightfold Path. I do want you to share about that. Maybe a helpful place to start would be to explain to folks what the Eightfold Path is and where it sort of fits into the Buddha's teachings. path is and where it sort of fits into the Buddha's teachings. Yes, this is one of the first teaching that the Buddha gave and also his last teaching. And the Eightfold Path is part of the

fourth noble truth. So these are foundational teaching, the four noble truth and the Eightfold Path. And this is exactly his, what do you call it, in medicine, when someone's sick, you kind of bring them in and you go, okay, what is your sickness? Okay, this is nature. Okay, this is how we're going to treat this. And you need to do this and do this and take this, and you'll be okay. This is the Four Noble Truth. Find out why you are angry, why you are sad, why you are so on, and look at where it comes from. And from that, you will realize that healing is possible. Once you know what the sickness is, and you know its cause, that already tells you there is a cure. And that is happiness.

So the Buddha was not just talking about suffering. People mistake in Buddhism as all about suffering. No, it's actually quite practical. And this is the path. We forget that mindfulness is only one aspect of the practice. Mindfulness needs to go with concentration, diligence, and then insight or right view, along with speech, thinking, and action. And then it moves to right livelihood, how you are in the world. You see the Eightfold Path? And then it moves to right livelihood, how you are in the world.

You see the Eightfold Path? What the Buddha found was quite empowering. He said, you determine a lot of your world. And if you practice this path, this will help you see more clearly. In Vietnamese, they never say Buddhism, like the Buddha becomes an ism. But in Vietnamese, it's the way of the Buddha. Dao means the way. Phuc is the Buddha. They don't have the word for Buddhism.

We are practicing the way of the Buddha. Dao Phuc. The word for Buddha in Vietnamese sounds a lot like a bad word in english yes it's spelled p-h-a-t and it's chino vietnamese fuck yeah it sounds like not a nice word in english but the word now is important when i realized that i, I was like, oh my God, how come I missed that? It's actually, it's a path to travel on. It's not a belief that you devote and you just blindly believe in. And then you practice it and you see your result. So it's very evidence-based as well. My teacher loves that, use that word, because it's very related to science.

Do it and see what it does to your mind. Watch your thought and see how it arises and how it goes away. See what happens when you're stressed. Stop, breathe, and see what it does to your body. You see, there's evidence. There's investigation. Amazing. So the A4 path is beautiful because there's an element. They're all related. They interact with each other. So when you're mindful, you're mindful of the way you speak, your behavior. So it's not mindful of just going home and doing something else.

So this is where our teacher founded Engage Buddhism. So it engages every aspect of life, not just in the monastery, in the retreat, but how you open the door. When you open the door, you're mindful that you're opening the door. And what does that have to do with anything? Your relationship. And I remember coming home after my second retreat, and I still had the habit of, you know, coming in and kicking the door. You know, it's just in LA, you say,

don't want to waste your time on these little, you know, and how I threw my shoes after. It's just a habit that I had. But I remember after a few retreats, and you think that that would change. But when you came back home, that habit is still there. And I remember being mindful. I was like, why do I do that? And I remember it bugged me because I couldn't stop it.

It was just a habit. And how I closed my car door as well. It's quite violent. And it dawned on me one time when I was having a conversation with a colleague and I kept kind of like interrupting him. You know, you get into these topics and you get excited and I kind of like jump in without letting him finish. And I related that to the way I treated the door. For me, there was a moment where I see that actually I behave like that with other people.

Just get it over with. Get it out of the way. Slam it. Throw your shoe. Don't waste my time. And then so I made it a practice. When I take off my shoes, I take one off and I take both of them and I put it down. And we have that practice in the monastery.

And I began to use that as the training. So the internal training, the diligence, the effort, the purpose of doing an act and being mindful and concentrated it affected my speech you see and my thinking so this is the way the buddha kind of envisioned how i interpret his path is that there's a way that you can train personally and how that affects your interaction with your world through your speech, your action, your behavior, and your choice, your livelihood, what you do as your work. Can we go through the eight aspects of the path? And just to say, you know, it's translated as right mindfulness, right speech, et cetera, et cetera. Other translations include, you know, correct or wise. Some of the ways the sort of early Buddhist teaching has been translated can be, I don't know, either stilted or

a little off-putting, but just don't get hung up on that. This is really, as you have said, I love that phraseology of it being a manual. So can we start and just kind of go through each of them so that people get a sense of what the fullness of each term and then how these concepts interlock? Yes, the word right and pure and, those things I react to when I first came to. But it's just indicating that there's a way of doing something. Just give you a quick example. Concentration could be right or wrong. Concentrated, you're focused and the effect you're wanting has wholesome and good intention

and so on. Or you can be focused and concentrated when you're trying to steal something, for instance. So there is a basic ethical underlying intention of what the Buddha is trying to help the world in relieving less suffering and not causing more. So there's a way of doing something where you cause more suffering. And there's a way of doing something where you cause less suffering or find more relief. So that's where the word right comes from. It's not so much he's saying, this is right and this is wrong.

I know because I'm the king of the world. It's more like, try this out in the laboratory of your own mind and see what's right and what's wrong, what's wise and what's unwise, what's helpful and what's unhelpful. Exactly. This is one of the things that I have learned is do not become dogmatic because it becomes poison as well. So when you find the right thing and you share with someone and they're not ready to receive it, then it's the wrong thing.

right thing and you share with someone and they're not ready to receive it, then it's the wrong thing. Because actually, when you learn something and you think it's correct and you give it to someone and they're not ready for it, you're giving them poison. It's kind of like when I first started meditating and I lectured my wife about it all the time. That was poison for both of us. Exactly. So that is incorrect, even though it all the time. That was poison for both of us. Exactly. So that is incorrect, even though it is correct practice. Yeah, that's exactly, you know, you got it.

So we have to be very careful because we love to be right. Much more of my conversation with Brother Fop Young right after this. Maybe you've stayed in an Airbnb before and thought to yourself, this actually seems pretty doable. Maybe my place could be an Airbnb. It could be as simple as starting with a spare room or your whole place when you're away. You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. I personally love Airbnbs. My friend Glenn and I just rented an Airbnb in Fort Lauderdale. We're going to bring our families down to see Inter-Miami play some soccer. Glenn and I both have boys.

Our boys really want to see Messi play. So anyway, I'm really looking forward to all staying in the same place instead of being in hotels where we, you know, maybe run into each other once in a while. I love the intimacy of all being in the same house. It's really cool. Maybe you're planning a ski getaway this winter or you've decided to go someplace warm. While you're away, you could Airbnb your home and make some extra money toward the trip. It's a smart and simple way to use what you already have. Whether you could use extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host.

Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. When you visit Audible, there are endless ways to ignite your imagination. With over 750,000 titles, including bestsellers, there's a listen for every type of listener. Discover all the best in audiobooks, podcasts, and originals featuring authentic Canadian voices and celebrity talent. Check out Audible Canadian Originals, including The Downloaded, a sci-fi adventure featuring Brendan Fraser and Luke Kirby. A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. All right, gang, we're back now with the second half of my conversation with Brother Phap Young. He's about to drop a lot of wisdom. He's going to walk us through the entirety of the Eightfold Path. Quick note before we dive back in here, Phap Young was recording from a monastery,

so you may on a couple of occasions hear a few monks chatting in the distant background. Don't let that bother you too much here. Now, once again, Fab Young starting with the first element of the eightfold path, right? Mindfulness. I go back to the element of right. Mindfulness is part of the path. My mindfulness here is just a state of awareness. You're doing something and your mind and your body is there. Your mind is fully present in the here

and now. And the technique they use to train in the energy of mindfulness is the breathing and the awareness of the body. This is where meditation comes in. See yourself as a battery, and mindfulness energy is how much loaded your battery is. And so the practice of being aware of the breath and staying with it constantly, you develop a kind of concentration. This is where right concentration comes in. Your mind can hone in and can focus when it wants to. So these are the two energies that are fundamental to our training. If you can maintain and hold on to an idea, to your anger, to your whatever it is, something will come up. it is, something will come up. So when you're aware that there's anger in me, and you can hold it without going to eat or changing the subject or getting out of the room, going for a drive,

sit still. And if your energy of mindfulness and concentration is well developed, mindfulness and concentration is well developed, you can see that anger and where the cause comes from. And you'll have insight. You have right insight. You have view about it. So you no longer see that it's just them or that person causing it. There's many other conditions. And right insight usually opens up. It doesn't tighten. It releases a knot. So a lot of ideas we have, a lot of things we carry, we call it internal knots. You have ideas about your wife, yourself, your son, your colleagues, and they become little knots and we hang on to them. Neural pathways, I would call it. You keep going to that thought and the knot gets tighter. And insight has the ability to release it. So we have those three elements. We call the three trainings. And these are the first three aspects of the

Eightfold Path. Right mindfulness, right concentration, and right view or right insight. Yeah. And then we have right diligence, which is really needed. Right diligence is not like showing up on time every day. Right diligence in the way the Buddha described it is very beautiful. It's a mental kind of diligence. When you recognize that something is arising that is not so wholesome, not so skillful. In Buddhism, we don't say something is bad, something is evil. We just say it's not skillful. You haven't mastered it yet. So when something comes up, it's not so skillful, it's not so healthy, it's not so wholesome, then you recognize it and you practice to bring it down. So when that arises, you know what to do with it. You have to be careful and slowly that seed,

you don't, what do you call it, water it. So in meditation, we see our mind is like the earth. You have seeds of anger, you have seeds of sadness, you have seeds of understanding, You have seeds of anger, you have seeds of sadness, you have seeds of understanding, seeds of love. And all these seeds, when they rise up, you have to recognize, are they helpful? So when one is more positive or more wholesome, helpful, cause less suffering, you recognize it, you hold on to it, you tend to it. So you have four there elements and on the other side of the circle from right view how you view the world how you view yourself makes how you think so right view leads to right thinking a wrong view about the world and about yourself leads to wrong thinking about yourself and about the world. When I say the world here, it could include the other person, your father, your mother.

Anybody who's living in a family will know, you know, you turn to your brother, you turn to your sister, your wife, your father, your mother, and you can look and see how you view them. We manifest that in our head. They're not really like, they could be a totally different person the next day, but we don't allow that. But if you release and you have views like I did about my father and it changes, then the way you think about him is very different. Right thinking. And then from right thinking, it comes out of your mouth. Right speech. Whatever you think, eventually it will come out in a certain language or a certain noise even.

So communication, right? Speech is not just verbal. You know, how I slammed the door. You get it, don't you? Yeah, you heard that, didn't you? Yeah. So how you speak, loving speech, how to stop yourself. And if your concentration and mindfulness energy is strong, you're very careful to use speech. And this is, oh boy, I really had to practice with this.

I should tell you a story. I'm an architect and I came in the monastery. Oh my God, it's a mess. I wanted to correct and fix everything. And I loved going to meeting when it's about planning and fixing. But I have a roommate, my older brother, and he said, you know, I noticed you really lose yourself when it comes to issues about planning. You know, in the meeting, if I catch you and I put my thumb in my mouth like a hook, then you have to stop talking. You can't talk from then on because, you know, you think that, you know, I was trained in architect.

I know more than you guys. So I always have the right answer and I always have to contribute so my view of who I am and how I'm educated in architecture affected how I speak in the meeting so any of my brother one time caught me and he put his finger like a fish hook in his mouth and I remember it was at the early part of the meeting. For the rest of the meeting, I had to sit there and I couldn't share anything. Oh my gosh. You know, growing up in the West, when you hear ideas and you want to contribute, it was tough, you know? So anyway, that's right speech. Right speech is not always about speaking the right thing or what is right. Right speech is knowing yourself and compensating because you're victorious, not because you speak. You're victorious because you are not a slave to the way you have been cultured. That was so liberating for me. That's the kind of spiritual happiness

that I'm talking about. When I speak of happiness, these are the happiness of the training. And then you move from right speech to right action. It's even more complicated and more subtle. So there's a lot of very biased things under our speech and our action. That's why we slow down. We learn to stop. I remember learning to be quiet, not to make noise with things around me. And when we eat, it was a training as a young monk not to make noise. You begin to see many things from action. When I see a brother stand up and how he stands up tells me a lot because I have trained in that. And so you become more aware when you're into the room,

your body, your energy, how you sit down. Anyway, it's right action. And then it moves into right livelihood. And I think you're discovering this is why, you know, I wanted to talk to you because it's like, wow, you're on the path. Because now you're finding a livelihood that is in line with your heart, I feel, I sense, from just doing what people tell you you should be doing out of fame or whatever. Now, you have intention now. And that's right livelihood. When you do something, and for me particularly, it's to serve, to help. It's just amazing. That is right livelihood.

For me, that's the thing we need to teach young people, that we need to have a different view about our purpose in the world. We educate people to become workers. Society, collectively, we're just preparing people for salary, and we forget to actually teach people to find that calling for themselves. And this is related to your endeavor to increase happiness, even if it's 5% or 10%. Sorry to be less interactive. It's hard to share a full path briefly. I apologize. You did great. No, no need for apologies. You did a great job. It is hard. That's a lot.

And you did it in a very helpful way and especially appreciate how you add in how you've applied it in your own life. at the beginning of this conversation about how one can orient oneself toward the world and particular a world that's sort of dominated by capitalism and materialism, which can have some nice aspects, creature comforts aspects, but it could also have some pernicious impacts in terms of the climate, in terms of the epidemic of loneliness. And so, and you said that sometimes if you introduce this kind of against the stream message too early, people can get triggered and you get into their opinions and their hot takes, et cetera, et cetera. But if I understand correctly, and I hope you will correct me if I'm incorrect here, that this Eightfold Path is designed in part, at least, to help us walk the middle path between being utterly abstemious and totally reclusive and rejecting everything about society or being completely caught up, on the other hand, and fully stuck

in a materialist mindset and thinking that's the only route to happiness, that this Eightfold Path is a way to help us interact with the world with maximal wisdom and skill. That's right. This is the path of awakening, path of becoming more aware of yourself and how the world works. That's just basically it. Your happiness is linked to your view of self and your view of others. And you see, that is also the cause of suffering. You see, so happiness and suffering is very related. So the path helps an individual. And if we come together collectively, we can contribute more light, more awareness, more correct or open view about the world. And that's why I'm happy to sit with you and contribute whatever that I have found helpful.

And I hope it's been helpful. It has been. It's been a pleasure as well. So big thank you. Really appreciate it. Thank you for being out there, Dan. We need people like you. You, in the monastery, we're always praying for people

out there who don't look like us, who are in the trenches, but awaken in the sense of having good intentions. Thank you, Dan, for having this conversation with me. Much appreciated. Thank you. Big thanks to Brother Frappion. It was a pleasure to talk to him. I want to thank as well everybody who worked so hard to make this show a reality, 2.5x per week. Samuel Johns is our team leader, the senior producer.

DJ Kashmir is our associate producer. Our sound designer is Matt Boynton from Ultraviolet Audio. Maria Wartell is our associate producer. Our sound designer is Matt Boynton from Ultraviolet Audio. Maria Wartell is our production coordinator. Also want to thank everybody from the TPH side who weigh in with such useful advice on the regular Gen Point. Nate Tobey, Liz Levin, and Ben Rubin. Oh, and Ray Hausman, who is constantly pitching in with helpful advice. And finally, I would be remiss if I didn't end with a hearty salute to my ABC News comrades, Ryan Kessler and Josh Cohan. We'll see you all on Wednesday for a

fresh episode. If you like 10% Happier, and I hope you do, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. I'm hiring, but where can I find potential candidates? Hundreds of thousands of Canadians with disabilities are ready and eager to work. Help create an inclusive workplace that benefits everyone. Find the tools and resources to help you hire persons with disabilities at Canada.ca slash right here.

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