Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - The Buddhist Case For Laziness (And How It Can Make You More Productive) | Brother Chân Pháp Hữu

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

What if one of the often overlooked keys to being productive is being lazy? That’s the case you will hear made today by Brother Pháp Hữu, a very impressive young zen Buddhist monk.Brother Pháp Hữu is a senior Dharma teacher in Thich Nhat Hanh’s International Plum Village Community and abbot of Upper Hamlet, the monks’ community in Plum Village Monastery, a practice center founded by Thich Nhat Hanh in southwest France. Born in Vietnam, he emigrated to Canada as a child. He began training with Thich Nhat Hanh at the age of thirteen when he first entered the monastery to become a monk. Thich Nhat Hanh gave him the name Chân Pháp Hữu, which means “True Dharma Friend.” For more than ten years, he accompanied Thich Nhat Hanh on his international teaching tours as his attendant and assistant. Today, Brother Pháp Hữu is deeply committed to building community and continuing Thich Nhat Hanh’s legacy, bringing his teachings in particular to businesspeople, families, and young adults. Brother Phap Huu is passionate about basketball, music, and developing new approaches to teamwork, leadership, mentoring and coaching, and is a beloved co-host—with journalist, leadership coach, and workshop facilitator Jo Confino--of the Plum Village podcast, The Way Out is In.In this episode we talk about:The origin and purpose of something called Lazy DayWhat doing nothing looks like in practicalityWhy doing nothing is so hard for peopleHow you can integrate the wisdom of lazy days into your life, even if you can’t carve out a whole dayHow laziness in and of itself can be productive and how it allows for a re-examination of our own happiness.And The geopolitical case for being vs. doingRelated Episodes:The Buddha’s 8-Part Manual for a Good Life | Brother Pháp DungHow to Suffer Well | Brother Pháp DungThis Episode Will Make You Stronger | Sister Dang NghiemSix Buddhist Strategies for Getting Along Better with Everyone | Sister True Dedication3 Buddhist Strategies for When the News is Overwhelming | Kaira Jewel LingoA Buddhist Recipe for Handling Turmoil | Kaira Jewel LingoSign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter hereFollow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTokTen Percent Happier online bookstoreSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelOur favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular EpisodesHelp Dan out and take our audience survey — we’ll thank you with 10% off all merch at shop.danharris.com! The survey is available at tinyurl.com/tphpod. Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/br-phap-huuAdditional Resources:Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/installSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, gang. Okay, so this one, this interview really got under my skin in a good way. I say this as a compulsive doer, somebody who has trouble sitting still and is often creating and then checking things off of to-do lists. In other words, I say this as somebody who is somewhat obsessed with productivity. However, what if one of the often overlooked keys to being productive is being lazy. That's the case you're gonna hear made today by Brother Phap Hu, a very impressive young Zen Buddhist monk.

Lest you jump to the conclusion that my guest as a monk doesn't know squat about being productive, please consider that he's an abbot at Plum Village Retreat Center in France, which was founded by the legendary Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh, who died not too long ago. Meaning this guy has a very busy job helping to run the whole place, but that's not all. He's also a podcaster and a self-described gym rat.

We talk about the origin and purpose of something called Lazy Day, what doing nothing looks like in practicality, why doing nothing is so hard for so many of us, how you can integrate the wisdom of lazy days into your life even if you can't carve out a whole day, how laziness in and of itself can be productive and how it allows for a re-examination of whatever we're calling happiness and the geopolitical case for being versus doing. This is part of our series called Get Fit Sanely. If you missed the previous episodes, go check them out.

We've covered the science of longevity, the science of motivation. We've taken deep dives on exercise and also ozempic and other new weight loss drugs. And today it's laziness. We'll get started with Brother Fop Who right after this. But first a little BSP or blatant self-promotion. We are conducting an audience survey over the next couple of weeks. We want to learn more about you, and also we want to get some feedback from you on the 10% Happier podcast and my work more broadly.

For example, what do you want more of, less of in the future, etc. I would be very grateful to you if you would do me a solid and take five to ten minutes to fill this thing out. You can go to tinyurl.com slash tphpod, tinyurl.com slash tphpod. I will drop the link in the show notes to any of our new episodes. So you can just go click it there. By the way, anybody who completes the survey will get 10% off our new merch. And on top of that, you'll be entered into a little raffle where five respondents will win $100 worth of merch.

Again, super grateful to anybody who can take a few minutes to fill this out. We've got some big decisions to make. We could use your help. The link is tinyurl.com slash tphpod or just go into the show notes of any of our new episodes and you can get the link right there. Also want to tell you about a course that we're highlighting over on the 10% Happier app. It's called Healthy Habits. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal and the meditation teacher Alexis Santos. It's great stuff. To access

it, just download the 10% Happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% dot com. That's one word all spelled out. Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, new ways of thinking. Listening can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits, and ultimately your overall well-being. Audible has the best selection of audiobooks without exception, along with popular podcasts and exclusive Audible originals,

all in one easy app. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And just a warning, our latest season will feature a lot of accents. Can I just check what accents? Because... I can't tell this story without going all in. Okay, I'm scared to ask, but can you give us a clue?

Why I'm Ant? Oh, Ant-and-or-de? I'm afraid not, and it's not Alan Shearer either. I am talking about a young woman, plucked from obscurity, who rose to become the nation's sweetheart. A woman who's had a lot of surnames. And has ditched them all to become just Cheryl. Love it.

Girls Aloud fans, strap in. We're going to follow Cheryl from her Girl Band glory days, getting together with Ashley Cole, and the many scandals and humiliations that followed. Not to mention a near-death experience. Oh, she's been through a lot. And she has needed every ounce of her Northern grit to see her through.

I promise you it's going to be an emotional roller coaster. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to podcasts. Or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple podcasts or the Wondery app. Brother Fahpoo, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to have you here. So I'm curious about the history and purpose of the Lazy Day.

What's going on with that? What's going on with the Lazy Day? It started in 1984, so Plum Village was created and established in 1982. And Plum Village is a practice center where we focus on meditation and offer all these retreats. And we have a lot of young people that come through Plum Village to practice with, in that time, Zen Master Thich Nhi Hanh, who we call Thay. And one day, one of the youth came up to our teacher, Th, and he said, Tai, it's so wonderful to have the structure of a day where the Zen Master and the community

creates a practice schedule, but seven days a week, it's quite intense. So how about giving us a day to just do nothing and a day to just also see can we still maintain everything that we've learned and we've cultivated in the retreat in a day when suddenly there's no structure. Is it possible for us to still maintain our quality of peace, our quality of stillness or does our mind take over and our habits take over? So in a way, it's giving back to every individual the agency of how to be when there is a day that is offered to you that you can pick whatever you like to do, but at the same time, be very intentional with the 24 hours that you're going to be offered.

So, this was the origin in 1984, and it's quite drastic because in any Zen monastery or any traditional temple, there's no concept of a break for prayer, for peace, or meditation. And I was speaking to this young friend who asked our teacher, which he's not young anymore, he's in his sixties now. I talked to him this morning to double check about the origin. And he said what he admired in asking this to the Zen master, to Thay was how open Thay was. And he said know, he said, when I look back, like, we were quite, like, upfront about it and not knowing how he would, how Thay would respond to this request, but it just offers the openness of a teacher, as well as his listening to his community

to see that, oh, maybe it is tiring for everyone to practice so intensively for seven days in a week and to offer a day of just rest. And in our modern time, I would say that lazy day is such a drastic view. It's like, how do you be for one whole day and do nothing? It's almost like against the stream of our society. So in our Zen approach, we are learning to be more present, right? To be more alive. But how can we be if we don't give us an opportunity to also stop, rest, and heal? So sometimes it's so important to disconnect yourself from the automatic pilot that we have inside of us, from the

day-to-day routine and just double-check, like, what can I do for myself today that can offer me back the feeling of being? And I think in our modern time, and I reflect this on myself, sometimes it's so important just to look at a day for us in Plum Village is every Monday. So in society, Mondays, like you're back to work, in Plum Village, we take a different approach. Monday is going to be our lazy day. And it is to teach us to not schedule anything and just let the day manifest as how it should be and how do we navigate ourselves in the present moment. So it's another way of living deeper into the present moment.

Most of us have never been to a Zen monastery. So I can imagine some people listening to this thinking, well, isn't every day at a Zen monastery a lazy day? What is the schedule that you suspend for one day? Okay. So we would normally wake up at 5 a.m. and at 6 a.m. we would have meditation going on for 45 minutes to an hour and then followed by breakfast. And the whole morning is in complete silence. And then from 9.30 to 11 o'clock, we in the monasteries, if it's the monks and the nuns, we would have our classes, our workshops. In big retreats, we'll be offering teachings to all of the retreatants that are coming

to participate in the week with us, and then followed by a collective walking meditation, and then a lunch altogether, a mindful meal together. And then in the afternoon, we would have a physical work or chores, duties, a lot of us who are residents of the community, we have tasks that we help support in the monasteries to help the organization run.

So Plum Village is an international meditation retreat center. So there's a lot of organization that needs to happen. So there's a lot of backstage. So a lot of us also work in the office. We do administration work and even have to work with our lawyers, have to work with contractors that come to help renovate, help build. And then that goes on into like, let's say, 5pm. And then we always schedule, we try to schedule exercise for

one hour in our daily routine, because there's a lot of stillness like in the classes, in the meditation. So our life we try to balance the physical and the mind energy. So we have physical work as well as physical exercise and then dinner and then we end our day with silence of meditation and chanting. So from 8 to 9 or 9.30 depending on the day, depending on which sutra we are reading. Sometimes it's very long so it can go on longer. And we would end the day around 9.30 and turn to Nopa silence into the next morning. And so this is like the basic framework of a schedule, but it depends on our seasons. So let's say in the summer, we have our one month summer opening where we would receive thousands of people per week

for a seven day retreat from July all the way into August. And then we have retreats for young people. We call them Wake Up on the Wake Up Initiative from 18 years old to 35. And we would host around 800 people for these particular retreats. So you can imagine in those settings, our sangha or sangha means our community, the monks and the nuns, we become the host. So we are also, we're cooks, we're leading the teachings, we're picking guests up at the station,

we're welcoming guests, we're doing the rooms, and we have a lot of volunteers. So there's a lot of organization. So in the midst of all of this, to maintain our balance, these lazy days, these Mondays become such holy days for us. They are like the untouchable days in the monastery. And I remember one time, sometimes it just looks like there's so much we want to do, but 24 hours is not enough,

and seven days is not enough. And there was a guest monastic that came to visit us, and he was in one of our meetings trying to squeeze in an activity and he wasn't aware that how special Monday was and he said, I look at the schedule and I see Monday has nothing. Why don't you put those schedules that you want to do in the Monday and the whole community? Absolutely not. That is the holy day. That's the day that nobody is allowed to shift and change. So in a way, in Plum Village, we have created a culture and a respect for the lazy day, where we learn to allow ourselves this space of rest.

And it's not easy, it's very challenging because all of us monastics, there is probably a concept that we just meditate all day and we are very quiet and so on. But in Plum Village, our foundation is Engage Buddhism. And our teacher started the concept of it from the war time, because Buddhism has to be applicable to everyday life. So for us, for myself, why I was inspired in Plum Village was because how engaged the monastic was with the people that come, as well as going on tours to offer the teachings around the world and receiving different walks of life in Plum Village and having time to be with and to serve together. So the habit of doing and the habit of working, or we call it service from the heart, can also, if not mindfully and skillfully, approach.

It will become a job. It will become labor. And it becomes also an automatic thing that we just do every day. So having a day to just reset and check in again to see what is our intention for the week. So what does doing nothing look like in practicality? Or you do not get out of bed? What form does it take? Yeah. Okay. So I think the first thing for a lot of us is we get to sleep in. So we would try to sleep in a little more instead of waking up at five, waking up at six or seven.

And doing nothing is actually, it's not about doing totally nothing, but it's doing something that is unplanned for. And for myself, I would just want to give myself a lot of space and time to connect more with my community. So I am the abbot of Plum Village in France, and that means a lot of organization. And I realized that throughout the months and years, having heart to heart connection, just having a cup of tea with no business has become more rare. So for myself on Mondays, especially in the mornings, I would make the room available and whoever wants to come in and have a cup of tea, just enjoy a cup of tea and enjoy a conversation and giving space and time and

not to feel like I'm rushing you. So the doing nothing for me would be how can my presence offer to myself as well as to my community? I'm present, would you like to connect? And also have boundaries within the week if it was so intense for myself, if I had so many meetings in the week, if that day I would allow myself to connect more

to nature, for example. So just to give myself permission to just rest instead of finding myself lost in, let's say, music or reading something that can distract me away, just giving myself permission to just be present and go for a walk with not really a clear destination. And that in a way is doing nothing. So it's just allowing yourself to be present for yourself and for whatever that is there. So you're not reading, you're not watching TV, you're not listening to music? No, there can be some days I would listen to a podcast,

I would listen to a Dharma talk, or I would listen to some music, yes. So it's just intentionally seeing what I can do in that day that would break my rhythm. So in a normal rhythm of a day, I have things scheduled, there's an agenda. So on a lazy day, allow yourself to just see that day without an agenda. And can you just discover yourself and have the curiosity

and listen to yourself? What is it that you would like to do? But the doing here is not to achieve something, but the doing here is allowing yourself to be more present for yourself. And sometimes that doing is allowing yourself to just practice total relaxation for two hours straight, just to have body scan, whether it is in a sitting posture, in meditation, or just laying down. And for some of the monastics, they would do a big hike on that day to just to allow themselves to sometimes

be out of the monastery. It's a good refresh. It allows us to touch within us, the artists inside of us. How can I still offer joy to myself? The reason why I was probing these sort of no movies, no phone or something, I'm curious

like what are the lines because I think part of the purpose of the lazy day is to get you to, I think your terminology is face yourself. That you're not allowing yourself many of the forms of self medication that are available to us on most days in the form of scheduling or distraction, etc. Yeah, you're right, Dan. I think in our modern times, with so much technology with so much devices, I think we have such a habit of waking up and just like our hands just automatically looking for our cell phones. and just like our hands just automatically looking for our cell phones. And I'm sharing this because as you can see that I've also have that habit now of knowing, okay, what time is it? What is my next schedule? What is the next thing I have to be present for? And so in our way of looking how to enjoy life, there is a lot of service like Netflix, like Spotify, a lot of music, a lot of entertainment

that we can allow ourselves and indulge ourselves in these entertainment. But at the same time, to be alive is such a gift and to know that you have also the capacity to be with yourself and not having to rely yourself with technology or these other forms that can occupy our headspace and carry us away. But here, the Lazy Day is offering us, now this space is really for you. If you have a day to do nothing, can you really do it? Can you really just allow yourself to be? And I'm sure many of us will, the first reaction will be, oh, that would be amazing. But then our habit energies and our tendency is to occupy that space because we see that if we don't do anything, then it's a waste of time. So

here is like an antidote it's like but what is time for and for us time is for being and in the being there's many layers and it can be the being of to offer to be present to do but here we want to talk about how can we be so that we can really establish our full presence and having our clear intention of what we would like to offer for ourselves as well as for the world. And I look at animals, like when animals get hurt, instead of finding things to do, they have the art of doing nothing.

They know how to rest. And a part of our ancestors, our lineage of humanity, we've also had that wisdom of knowing how to rest, to heal. But we've also forgotten this. So the lazy day is also an antidote where, why don't you not try to run after healing, but why don't you just be to heal? Hmm. How do you enforce this?

What if you found out that your monks were going to the movies or doing things to distract themselves? How do we enforce this? That's a good question. I'm trying to remember to see if I had to like yell at anybody. Every monk and nun have mentors and whenever we go out of the monastery, we do ask permission and we always ask, what's your intention in going out? If your intention is to run away from the monastery because you're feeling bored and trapped, then we would say, are you sure you want to go out?

Or can you challenge yourself? To feel what needs to be felt in that moment is the feeling of feeling uncomfortable. So I think because part of our career is to continue to develop our self-acceptance and our sense of wholeness and that is accepting everything that is present, the beauty and the unduty. So the enforcement, it's actually not so difficult because there is a collective energy that has

been created. So on the Monday it does feel there's a lot more space. There's a lot more openness for people to just find their nooks and space of rest and being. And from time to time, I do want to say in the monastery, we do organize like movie nights together. We would watch a movie together or a documentary together or in Europe, the collective culture of soccer or over there football is a very huge celebration. So we would watch the finals together like of the world cup or the Euro cup.

So we do celebrate these moments together also. Got it. Yeah. And to be clear, you have to ask permission to leave, but if anybody wants to, nobody's physically restrained from leaving Plum Village. No, no, absolutely not. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

So I think it's worth, you've touched on this a little bit, but I think it's worth probably saying a little bit more. Why is it so hard for us to do nothing? Hmm. It's hard for us to do nothing because we've been trained since going to school. To be successful is to be worthy, to do something is to be seen as someone who has contributed to society. And that's not wrong to be able to offer a heart of service to humanity. But culturally, there's also this concept that time is money and do not waste your time.

Don't just sit there and do nothing, do something. And so all of these trainings and metaphors and ways of looking at life has been installed in us. And suddenly the moment when we're offered space and time to just be the monkey mind or that habitual energy of feeling unworthy comes up really strongly. And here in the emptiness of space and time, a lot of things can manifest. And that's why sometimes meditation is challenging because you get to see your habit energy. And seeing your habit energy, you have to face yourself and you

have to accept these particular qualities that are, some of it has been transmitted to you from your parents, from your ancestors, and some of it has been transmitted just by society, the stream of society. So doing nothing becomes the opposite of mainstream society and therefore that's why it's so difficult to just sit there and realize that I can offer myself a moment of just being, of just emptiness, of just stillness, and just sit there and follow your breath, feel the emotions that are coming up, being connected to the body to see why is there pain, why is there stress? And so suddenly that's why meditation

seems so difficult because it's the opposite of everyday action. It is so much different energies that are pulling us towards the future and being is to establish ourselves into the very here and now. So I think it's a matter of education, culture, as well as of transmission. And I think this is why in Plum Village, when people come to a retreat and they are given this space to do nothing, for some it's their first time in their lifetime having this 24 hours of just

being. And for some, they don't know what to do. They will look for where the noise is in order to get into conversations and to cover up the silence. And that lazy day becomes a mirror for each of us. They say, what is it that we're afraid of? And what is it that we are being pulled towards? So for me, all of these questions is always a reflection like, why is it that I can't allow myself to be still today? And I'm still practicing this after 22 years of practice. And for myself, there was recognizing myself, the seed of loneliness is very strong in myself. And I'm from a family that were refugees, and my parents worked two jobs when I was growing up.

So during the daytime, I would not see them. And only in the evenings when my parents would come home, we would have a very brief moment of togetherness. And so this feeling of emptiness was very present in me. And when I entered into the community, into Plum Village, where there is a residential community of monks. At that time there was 30 something monastics. I felt, finally I sense a feeling of wholeness, of family. And of course throughout my years there are moments when I wanted to be alone but I didn't know how to be alone. And a part of it was I was recognizing because I haven't come to also acceptance at looking and embracing the loneliness inside of me. And I was always

attracted towards the noise because the child that was feeling the void of love was so present and was running after those noise, those interaction. And so there was a time for myself when I realized in the lazy day, instead of going to the rooms where there was a lot of people, I would intentionally invite myself to just be by myself. And that was very new for me. That was a very new practice just to be and to feel the sensation of fear of not having anyone around me. And that was only when I allow myself to do that, this fapu to be present for it and to gently, tenderly embrace the past and the present moment.

Coming up, brother fapu talks about advice for everyday people on how to integrate the wisdom of lazy days into your life, even if you can't carve out a whole day. How laziness in and of itself can be productive and the geopolitical case for being versus doing. Em, what do you look for in a globally massive pop star? Oh, I want sensationally inappropriate outfits, incredible glamour, and an almost unapproachable cool.

Well, for the latest series of Terribly Famous, would you settle for some plaid shirts, ginger hair and an acoustic guitar? Er, no. No, I won't. What if there's a loop pedal? Alright, keep talking. That is actually it. It just sounds a bit ordinary.

Emily, this is Ed Sheeran. You really won't believe the twists and turns his story takes. Okay, fine. Sell me Ed. Addiction, shame spirals, family interventions, grief, massive court cases, obsession. Okay, okay, I'm listening.

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Hello, I'm Hannah. And I'm Saruti. And we are the hosts of Red Handed, a weekly true crime podcast. Every week on Red Handed, we get stuck into the most talked about cases. From Idaho student killings, the Delphi murders, and our recent rundown of the Murdoch saga.

Last year, we also started a second weekly show, Shorthand, which is just an excuse for us to talk about anything we find interesting because it's our show and we can do what we like. We've covered the death of Princess Diana, an unholy Quran written in Saddam Hussein's blood, the gruesome history of European witch hunting, and the very uncomfortable phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction.

Whatever the case, we want to know what pushes people to the extremes of human behavior. Like can someone give consent to be cannibalized? What drives a child to kill? And what's the psychology of a terrorist? Listen to Red Handed wherever you get your podcasts and access our bonus short hand episodes exclusively on Amazon Music or by subscribing to Wondry Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app. Before we get back to the show, just a reminder about the Healthy Habits

course over on the 10% Happier app taught by Kelly McGonigal and Alexis Santos. To access it, just download the 10% Happier app wherever you get your apps. For those of us who are not monks or nuns, how would you recommend that we integrate the wisdom of lazy day into our lives? Should we be taking lazy days? Should we be taking lazy hours? What's your view? I would start off with lazy 30 minutes to slowly ease in because like I shared, it may be quite challenging to give yourself a whole day first,

but to allow yourself within the day 30 minutes where you can just be present for yourself and not being distracted by the noise. And this noise is the within noise, the radio station that we have within. And if that radio station is telling us to turn on the music or to turn on a podcast or to turn on Netflix, can we resist a little bit? Can we train ourselves to just, no, you know what? I'm just going to have a cup of juice and I'm going to allow myself to just be with this cup of juice and not have all this noise distracting myself from enjoying this cup of juice. Or just giving yourself a moment of while you're going for

a walk. And I know a lot of us have built in the culture of listening to music or listening to podcasts and so on. And can we give ourselves 30 minutes where we allow our senses to be in touch with the present moment, whether that is the sounds of the birds or even the street cars, even the ambulance sound, like what is brought up when you hear the sirens of a police car and just to feel what needs to be felt so you are present for your own emotions and feeling. And as we progress with this practice, we do have built in our culture, our society, the weekend, Saturday and Sunday. And I'm sure that those two days become actually the most busiest day because suddenly we can schedule what we really want to do outside of the Monday to Friday schedule. can we look at our weekend to have moments that give us rest and presence?

And for those of us who live in families and have relationships, where within those days can we really be together and not distracted by the news or distracted by a project where we can just really connect with one another. So this is an invitation. And for myself, it's also finding the things that I like to do that allows me to also feel very present and alive. And for me, I love every two weeks I would schedule the first two hours of the Monday to just clean my room, for example, to really have a moment to rearrange my desk, to rearrange the space where I live, because that space where I live is a representation of myself. So within that, there's an intention of doing, but that doing is being very present with the action of sweeping, of mopping, of cleaning the windows.

So it's not just doing totally nothing, but it's doing so that we can be fully present. I hope that makes sense. Yeah, I think it does. I can imagine somebody listening to this podcast in their car on the way to an appointment in the middle of a busy day thinking, dude, I've got six kids and three jobs and you know, a bunch of financial concerns or whatever. And I don't have time for a lazy 30 minutes. Yeah, so that's interesting. I don't have time, but I have time to do all these other things. I would challenge that because we always think we don't have time, but we will

find ourselves having time to watching something on television or finding ourselves doom scrolling and so on. So how about the moments when we're sitting on the bus or we're driving a car when we have to stop at the red light? That's a mandatory stop, right? That's a mandatory that everybody has to pause. Can we see that that moment, the stopping in front of that red light, a moment of laziness? Can we just sit there and just feel our breath, feel our body? Are we stressed? Are we tense? Can we relax ourselves? Can we just allow ourselves to be present even for the stoplight? Can that stoplight be a reminder for us to

take a pause? So I would challenge for all of us, and I would invite, not a challenge, I want to invite all of us to look at the meaning of time. And our teachers and Master Thich Nghia Han, he, one of his quotes, and is still a teaching for all of us in Plum Village is, for all of us in Plum Village is time is not just to do, but time is to be. And sometimes the foundation of all of our actions has to also be from the foundation of non-action, meaning we have to also allow ourselves to know how to stop and to reflect, to have understanding so that we can continue to move forward with doing, but having the right intentions of our actions.

And we can be taking care of our three children, but how are we being with our three children? So it's a shifting mind of the way of being, the way of doing. So I'm hearing you correctly on a very practical tip here that the, even for the person who feels time starved, overwhelmed, certainly not enough time to do a lazy day, maybe even not enough time to do a lazy 30 minutes. What you're saying is you can actually understand this advice very broadly. What you're saying is you can actually understand this advice very broadly. So maybe a 30 minute car ride becomes turn off all the distractions and just be awake as much as you can. And then every time you get distracted, you start again.

So this quote unquote laziness can be integrated into any part of the day that you're doing anyway, but normally would be numbing out with something else. Exactly, exactly. And I do a lot of facilitation of meetings and I always come on time. And a lot of times people come late for our meetings and we don't start until everybody's there. So the time that I'm waiting for everybody

to arrive at the meeting room instead of being angry and annoyed, which those emotions do come, I allow myself to just sit and just to rest during that moment. Instead of being angry, I was like, you know what? It's okay. Them being late is giving me a few moments of just sitting here and doing nothing. It's the concept of a lazy day, but being introduced into busy moments in our daily life. Yeah. Yeah. I Want to ask and this may seem like a distinction without a difference, but

when you're talking about starting with a lazy 30 minutes and you use the example of taking a walk and minutes and you use the example of taking a walk and instead of listening to a podcast or music just opening up in a mindful way to whatever's happening around you inhabiting right now instead of distracting yourself or planning or ruminating about the past and so where do you draw the line between that and meditation? Because I do a non-trivial amount of formal meditation in my life, either walking or sitting, but there's a way that that too can become an activity. I have like a daily target for the number of minutes I want to do. And so at its worst, it can be subsumed

into my productivity agenda. So I said a lot there. Any response to any of that? Of course, that is exactly the concept of why even lazy day in the monastery is so important, because even the concept of achieving meditation becomes we're running after a to-do list. Like I need to get my 30 minutes or my 45 minutes or my one hour to feel like quote-unquote a meditator. But in reality, a true practitioner, the thread of meditation is always present, whether it's a lazy day or not a lazy day, whether it's a busy day or a day of nothing. But the intention is of having that lazy day and allowing yourself to practice the non-practice so that you can thread this within the moments of your busiest

months and weeks where you don't have enough time to practice, but actually the practice is not just built around a form of sitting in stillness. For us, engaged Buddhism, engaged practice can be seen in the action. So while you're walking to a meeting, those 100 steps from this room to that other room, can those steps be a walking meditation practice? From here into the next day as I have to plan, can I still not lose myself in the thinking that I can only be happy when the project is finished?

So the practice of the 30-minute of non-scheduling with the community is to also break free from the concept of even as a practitioner, I have to run after these particular timetables to feel like a practitioner. Because for us, the practice can always be portable. It can be invited up at any moment, wherever you are. But in a monastery or in a retreat, we give ourselves a schedule. We help structure it to help train ourselves to give ourselves those right conditions to build that foundation of meditation of presence. But in a Zen master, wherever he is, the meditation is always present. You can invite it to be there. I just want to add also where this lazy day has helped practitioners because even in Zen, we can also become a victim of running after enlightenment

or running after the success of meditation. And that becomes a target. And actually for us, meditation is our whole life, is a path of practice. It's not after you've completed a certain amount of retreats, then you're enlightened and you have nothing to do. You know, the Buddha had to practice his whole life to maintain his awakened nature. And our teacher, who is known as the Zen Master, had to continuously practice in order to maintain

his spiritual dimension, his spiritual practice, so that he can bring it wherever he goes. So for us, the lazy day also helps deconstruct all the forms that we create within meditation and in the Zen school. Yeah. But this strikes me as a very hard balance to strike, because it's hard enough to establish a meditation habit. It's very hard for most people. But so then how to do it without it being an agenda item? Yeah, so I think for all of us who are living in the world that there's so much to be present for, having that 30 minute or the 20 minute structure of meditation is very important.

And of course, continue to keep that if that is the well balance that we need, just like exercising, we want to make sure we have that 45 minute or 30 minute. But then to go beyond that, to also see that without sitting on a cushion, I can still follow my breathing. I can still have the intention of relaxing my whole body, being present for myself. And that is meditation also. So it's to build within the school of meditation more ways of bringing in the spiritual dimension into our daily life and not being so conservative with even the view of Zen or the view of meditation.

Combining what you just said with what you've said earlier about the benefits of laziness, something that I sometimes do if I'm feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, tired, is just lying on the ground for like a couple minutes, not in a dignified way. How does that go down with you, that thought, as a practical technique? 100%, I support that. If that's what helps you to feel that you can release and drop everything that you're carrying on your shoulders just to be present. That can be a Dharma practice, laying down on the ground, fully support that. One of the arguments you've made is that laziness is productive in an interesting way,

because it does, the being, to use your terminology your terminology supports the doing can you say more about that yeah, we all have like a built-in autopilot as we grow older in life and We fall into a rhythm we fall into a pattern and As we allow ourselves to continue that pattern, we may find ourselves dull and feeling not inspired to live life and be and to offer. So sometimes the doing nothing, it gives us an opportunity to just reflect, to just really look deeply and ask ourselves, am I happy? What I'm doing, is it giving me nourishment? Is it offering me the joy that I need in order to also offer joy?

Is this moment of everything that I'm doing, is it allowing me to feel love, to offer love, to be beloved? So the stopping here is an opportunity to just re-examine our life, re-examine our actions, our body, speech and mind. And so therefore, sometimes we're looking for a way out by doing more, but sometimes the way out is by coming back inwards. The way out is actually in. So we're looking for a way out by doing more, but sometimes the way out is by coming back inwards. The way out is actually in. So we're learning to come back and just to reflect and just to see.

If we don't allow ourselves time to look deeply, sometimes it means to do nothing, to really allow ourselves to do nothing, to really allow ourselves to do nothing, just like a lake. When the lake is finally calm, it will reflect whatever that is present. Whenever the cloud is passing by, a bird is flying by, it can reflect the blue sky. It can reflect exactly as it is. It presents reality as it is. And sometimes our mind, it wishes for that. But if we continue to preoccupy our daily activities, our habits, then we're not allowing ourselves to have a moment to understand ourselves more. So in the non-doing here, it is actually doing.

So in the not being active, there is another thing that is happening, which is allowing yourself to feel and to see what needs to be felt and seen, and then ask yourself the questions that can invoke more curiosity, as well as giving us another opportunity of having different views at our own life. Yeah. You said a lot there but one of the things that I took away from it and this might be an add-on so please tell me if I'm wrong but a lie that many of us tell ourselves and certainly I've told myself this is that the best way to be productive is just to go, go, go nonstop, go, go, go. And actually encounter intuitively the stopping is what allows your

brain, your mind to rest in a way that will make the rest of the doing more effective, not less. Correct. Exactly. Exactly. And sometimes when we're so tired, we think we're productive, but we're actually not very productive. So to rest is to rebuild and to heal in order to continue to offer, continue to be.

Yeah. Your teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh or Thai, that's the name his followers, as you explained earlier, use for him. He, when he was alive, argued that there's a kind of geopolitical case for laziness. And I think this is the quote, it's important to learn to be instead of do if you want to create a new society. Those were his words. What do you think he meant by that exactly? I think when our teacher has a pulse new society, those were his words. What do you think he meant by that exactly? I think when our teacher has a pulse on society, on the beat and the rhythm, the heartbeat of society,

the heartbeat and the rhythm of society is like what you explained, it's just we need to do, do, do, go, go, go. We need to feel established only when we're able to get this diploma, when we're to get this position. And that has become the mainstream energy of a lot of our part of the world. And therefore, even in the child, the child already experienced stress at a very early age because of the level of competition, the level of the complexes that we have to deal with to feel worthy to be loved.

And so what he offered in those quotes is a different view, it's a different way of being. Like, can we have another approach to how it is to be loved in this society, to be seen in this society because in our modern times or even before that was like to feel loved is to be called something, to be seen as an accomplished when you have done this and that and it builds on our ego, it builds on our title, etc. And there's nothing wrong with having titles or anything, but if that becomes our dominant force of energy just to be, then we're sacrificing a lot.

We're sacrificing the present moment, we're sacrificing the people that we love, the people that we want to commit our time with to be there for one another, to communicate, to understand each other. So I think all religions and all traditions, one of the core foundation of our ethics is love. And love is an energy that allows us to feel wholeness, allows us to overcome complexities. And if we're continuing to chase after the wholeness, but we don't recognize that the wholeness is present and we can offer wholeness to one another by just being there for one another,

then we're never going to stop running. And we're never going to allow ourselves to just stay still in this river of life and to enjoy also the river of life. So by being, we allow ourselves to just not continue to run after something, but just to be present and just to feel the miracle of life that is here. And his quote in those lines is also to introduce a new culture. Can we establish a new culture in our society where we can allow ourselves to be disconnected and to be present and to offer our true presence,

our true connection. And right now, I think, like I'm dealing with this, it's like every time I get a text message, a lot of anxiety comes up because I feel like I have to respond right away. So there's a new culture that we've introduced to each and every one of us. It's like this very quick response. We have to respond to one another. If not, then we're expressing that we don't care about the situation and so on. But sometimes some of the questions in the emails or in the conversations, it needs some time for reflection. It needs is sometimes for some deep looking, for some intention before responding. So we've created a very fast-paced society of give and take and take and give. And here,

if we continue to run after this energy, we will lose ourselves, we will burn out, because we're not also allowing each and every individual and humanity as a whole. Also part of our system is to rest. Even the day, even Earth, we have day and night, even the nature of the trees, the flowers, they even know how to rest in order to keep giving. So all of us as humans, we're losing this wisdom that we have inside of us, which is the wisdom of resting in order to continue to be. So it is also an invitation for all of us to reflect on our way of life. Are we allowing ourselves to be present or are we always running after something towards the future?

This may also be an add on, but what kind of what I'm taking away from what you just said and from what your teacher has said is that we have massive problems on the planet, which really require creativity and communication and collaboration. And it it's gonna be hard to get into that headspace if we're always stuck in a headlong mindless. Pursuit of gratification and for momentum exactly exactly. One other thought that came up for me when you were talking about, as you have been through the course of this conversation about laziness, is the Buddhist concept of right effort. You know, one of the hard, one of the many hard things about meditation is, well, how hard am I supposed to try here? You know, you throw around the word relaxation, but then I fall asleep and or but if I try too hard I get too tight and I can't get anything and you know the Buddha often compared it to like a lute which is or you can say a guitar that if you tune the strings too tight it doesn't sound

too good and if you tune it too loose it doesn't sound too good so there's some art and science to the tuning of our effort and so that that's coming up in my mind as you're talking about laziness does that sound like an appropriate connection or leap that I'm making there and does it provoke any thinking on your coming up in my mind as you're talking about laziness. Does that sound like an appropriate connection or leap that I'm making there and does it provoke any thinking on your end? What you mentioned is very correct. It talks about the middle way in right effort.

And I would like to also add on on the practice of lazy day or laziness. Sometimes there are those of us who haven't had enough time, funny enough to say this, as a monk to practice within the week because of all of the projects that we're doing. So in that lazy day, you give yourself even more time to practice. You give yourself more time to sit. You give yourself more time to explore the sutras that you want to go deeper into. So you're creating yourself the

right space and the boundaries for yourself on that day is, let me break free from my five days of projects and just to nourish myself, whether that is meditation, whether that is art, myself, whether that is meditation, whether that is art, whether that is study, and whether that is just the simple act of resting. And the fine tuning is the mindfulness that we all have to have. And I like to use my terminology is like, I want to listen to my pulse, like, what does my body need for that day? And then also what does my spiritual body needs for this coming week? I look in the many different layers, like how about my connections with the community? Is my brotherhood, my siblinghood with the people that I live with, is there enough connection? Do I need to make more effort to see somebody

but not see them because of work, but see them and just ask them how they are doing to check in so the lazy day becomes this immense opportunity for deeper being. Coming up, Brother Fah Poo talks about the role of exercise and why a monk goes to the gym, how exercise can be another form of meditation, and how even monks can have inferiority complexes when it comes to sports. Hey y'all, it's your girl Kiki Palmer, your favorite quadruple threat, actor, singer, dancer, and my new role, podcaster.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to episodes everywhere on May 22nd or you can listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app on Apple Podcast. In our remaining time, I want to ask you a few questions about something you mentioned earlier, which is exercise. As you know, this interview that we're doing with you is part of a series that we occasionally run here that we call Get Fit Sanely, because exercise and diet and other things that we do to get healthy, you know, they can be healthy and they also can be pursued in a way that can be unhealthy And so I'm curious like what's the goal for a monk?

In going to the gym because it's not gonna be to improve your dating life What is what's on your mind? What are you trying to achieve? I know you describe yourself as a little bit of a gym rat So what's your agenda for the gym? For you to move the body first and foremost is to practice with the body so in in a lot of different temples part of the Mahayana school martial arts was brought in into the training of monastics and martial arts was brought in into the training of monastics. And there's many elements. One of the elements is to physically move the body to sweat, to train, but also it's a deep

connection towards the body to also learn to be very intentional with how you're moving the body. And so for myself, like as a gym practitioner, well, it's to also maintain just wellness in the body because we've learned that to exercise is also a wonderful way of releasing stress, releasing the emotions and channeling the different energies that we have. And Plum Village, a lot of the monks and nuns are very young. We're in the early 20s, mid 20s and early 30s. So we do have a lot of energy. So to have sport as part of our program

is in order to intentionally direct the physical energy of an individual. So you're right, we're not here to increase our looks for the dating life, but it's also So many people have also developed the the non acceptance of the body so practicing yoga or practicing physical exercise is also to Recommunicate to reestablish a connection to the body and I hope one day day we can introduce contemporary dance or something like that in the monastic

world because I've done some dance classes with some of the practitioners that come to Plum Village. And we can be so judgmental with ourself and with our body and just to learn to just accept the body. And so the dancing, the flowing is also very mindful when you're listening to the music and allowing your body to move intentionally. So exercising is another form of meditation. Being critical of your own body, does that go away when you become a monk and the dating thing is off the table? No, I had a lot of complexes growing up because I'm very small. Like, you know, growing up, I was like always the smallest in my group and so on.

And then even in the monastery, we do a lot of sport like soccer and volleyball and basketball. So there's going to be those who are very athletic, very good. And then yeah, you have to meet again your inferiority complexes when you're playing sport with the monastics, even within the among monks, right? So that, but all of this is inward. So it's learning to, to be at ease with it is also learning to accept it and knowing that you can grow and you can develop your talent, you can develop your body. So it's a lot about accepting. And I've learned a lot with my own body and I've learned to accept my physical gift that

I have been offered and I have inherited from my ancestors. Yeah. Do you have any advice for the rest of us who may exercise with an agenda of, you know, meeting some arbitrary standard set by the culture and getting into rounds and rounds of unconstructive self-laceration around how we look, et cetera, et cetera. This really helped me, this quote. We are all flowers in the garden of humanity. And the garden of humanity is beautiful because it is so diverse in its sizes, its form, its colors, its offering.

So each and every one of us, we are a flower in this garden of humanity. And if you are able to be your authentic self and your true self, then you are already offering to this wonderful garden your greatest gift, which is your being. And of course, we can always continue to develop ourselves, but our aim is not that particular form, because we are also of the nature of impermanence. So we're ever-changing and to know that ourself as a flower in every stage of life has something to offer,

whether it is the work that we do for humanity, whether it is how we show up. But each and every one of us, whether we are physically fit or not, there's something that we can always offer that is our smile of kindness, our way of looking with compassion and our way of being. So fitness for us is not just in the physical form, but fitness in also the way we offer our actions. We offer our actions of body, speech and mind. And I've learned to offer a smile and I've learned to train myself to have a genuine smile, a smile that I can give to myself and to many others. So there is a spiritual fitness that we can also develop, a human fitness which is beyond just the physical form but the gift of kindness.

What strikes me is that if, at least for me, my experience is that when I work on my spiritual fitness, meaning how I treat other people, and I'm by no means perfect on this score, but when I'm in that mode of, to use your phrase, offering a smile, I'm not thinking about my abs. It's a really nice way to kind of get you out of your head.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I love that. Yes, exactly. Then every time I'm going to offer a smile, I'm going to have that. I'm not thinking of my abs right now. That's so true. Like the grace, our loved ones, we don't remember like about their physical attraction, but we're more attracted to the kindness that

they offer or the way that they were with us, how they impacted our life by their presence and their support to us. Brother Phapu, it's been great to talk to you. I just want to ask two questions before I let you go. These are questions I ask at the end of every interview. The first is, is there some place you were hoping to go that we didn't get to in this conversation? No. I was following your flow, so I have no expectation. Said like a Zen monk.

The final is, can I get you to do some self-promotion, please? I know you have your own podcast, and also you might want to tell us a little bit about how we can learn more about Plum Village. Can you go into the pitch mode if you don't mind? Thank you, Dan, for having me on the podcast. It's been a great joy to share and explore laziness. And I also have a podcast called The Way Out is In. It is a Plum Village podcast with my co-host, Joe Confino.

And we also explore a lot of how do we bring meditation into daily life. And as well as I'm from the Plum Village community, student of Zen Master Thich Nhi Han. So if you are curious about us, there is a website www.plumvillage.org where you can learn a lot more as well as we have a YouTube channel for a lot of teachings from our teacher, Zen Master Thich Nhi Han and many other teachers in our community. And that's also where you can find our podcasts. Yeah. And thank you, Dan, for also not just having me, but having also my other brothers and

sisters on the podcast. Brother Phap Yung, Sister True Dedications, Sister Dat Meen. I grew up with them in Plum Village in the early 2000s. Yeah. I'll put some links in the show notes to the folks you just mentioned who we've interviewed on the show, who come out of the Plum Village and Thich Nhat Hanh tradition. But we're very open to many more, so pitch us.

We are, I am an admirer of the work that you collectively have done and are doing, so very open to more. Amazing, thank you so much. And I will, I have a few in mind that can be very interesting to also bring onto the podcast. Yeah.

Thank you, Dan. other monastics from the Plum Village or Thich Nhat Hanh tradition. Go check out my interviews with Sister True Dedication, Brother Phap Young, Sister Dong Niem, and Kyra Jule Lingo. Before I go, I just want to thank everybody who worked so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. We get additional pre-production support from my guy, Wombo Wu, an old friend of mine. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager.

Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our managing producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. If you like 10% happier, and I hope you do, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. Summer is here and adventures await.

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