Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - The Voice in Your Head Doesn't Have to Ruin Everything | Rachel Martin and Dan Harris

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

Practical advice for handling anxiety, envy, and that feeling that you're a bad person. What happens when a deck of cards controls the conversation? On Wild Card, hosted by Rachel Martin, that's the whole idea — and when Dan sat down as a guest, the cards led somewhere genuinely interesting. In this episode: why Dan keeps going on silent meditation retreats even though loneliness is the hardest part; what finally made him delete Instagram; the "good-ish" concept that unlocked a new relationship with self-criticism; and a deep dive into the Buddhist take on the soul — which turns out to be a lot more useful than it sounds. Wild Card is produced by NPR. Join Dan's online community here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube Channel Join Dan and Emmy Award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert at 92NY on May 17th for a live conversation about how mindfulness can deepen connection and combat loneliness, available in person and via streaming. Register here. Join Dan, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18. Grab your in-person spot here, or sign up to livestream here!  To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

It's the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, it's the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Harris. Today we have a conversation about envy, Instagram, defensiveness, and why the Buddhists do not believe you have a soul. This is a conversation between me and my old friend Rachel Martin from NPR. She has her own show called Wild Card, which she refers to as a metaphysical game show. So what you're about to hear, is me playing the game with her. And the goal is for you to enjoy our conversation, but also to go check out her show,

which again is called Wildcard. Real quick, before we dive in, I want to remind you to check out my new-ish meditation app, 10% with Dan Harris. If you sign up, you'll get guided meditations and courses from many of the greatest living meditation teachers. You'll also get ad-free versions of this podcast

and weekly live video, sessions where we do some meditation and take questions. Join the party. You can get the app at Dan Harris.com. Also, if you want to meditate with me in person, I've got a few events coming up on May 17th. I'll be at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. And then coming up on October 16th through 18th, I'll be doing my annual meditation party weekend retreat with my friends, Seminay, Salasi, and Jeff Warren. We do this at the Omega Institute in upstate New York. I will drop links to both of these events in the show notes. All right, we'll get started with Rachel Martin and Wildcard right after this.

Hey, it's Dan. I just want to tell you about something I'm really proud of. The new community we are building over on my new app, which is called 10% with Dan Harris. Here's something I believe with no reservation. Taking care of your own mind is not selfish. It's actually essential if you want to show up for the world, if you want to deal with the various emergencies on the planet right now. There is, in fact, a geopolitical case for you to get your shit together.

In other words, taking care of your own mind is good citizenship. I think about it like an upward spiral. You train your mind. That makes you happier and less reactive because you're steadier. That improves your relationships with everybody around you. And because relationships are crucial to human happiness, you get even happier, then your relationships get even better and up you go. Our mission over at this new app is to guide you.

through this process with a growing library of meditations from world-class teachers like Seven A. Slassie and Joseph Goldstein and on and on. Also add free access to our full podcast archive, exclusive live stream events where we guide meditations and take your questions. We do those every week and much more. Head on over to danharis.com. You can try it for two weeks free. And if you cannot afford a subscription, we'll give you one no questions asked. Just a heads up, this episode does have some strong language. What do you enjoy complaining about? My own mind.

My favorite thing I ever wrote was the first line to my first book, which was, The Voice in My Head is an asshole. And I think that is true. I think it's true for many people. I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard. The game where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers questions about their life. Questions pulled from a deck of cards.

They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one back on me. My guest this week is Dan Harris. The next time you're in a spiral of anxiety, ask yourself this question. Is this useful? We often and very quickly cross the line between constructive anguish and useless rumination. Dan Harris and I have been on parallel tracks for much of our career. We both covered faith and spirituality as reporters. We were colleagues for a while at ABC, and then several years later, we both ended up leaving

our news jobs. I started this very show, and Dan created the incredibly successful podcast 10% Happier, based on his book of the same name. He's generous and wise and the only Buddhist I know who can drop the F word into a mantra, and somehow it works. I'm so happy to welcome Dan Harris to Wildcard. Hi. I love that.

That's my innovation in the world of the Dharma. That's your value add to the Darva. We're just going to start with memories. First three cards. I hold three up, and you pick randomly. One, two, or three? Two. Two.

You're feeling two. At what point in your life did you spend the most time alone? Well, there was a strange twist in my life. that you made a reference to, which is after decades of being a hard-charging news anchor, I got interested in meditation. As a result of that, I now every year do a 10-day silent meditation retreat. And in fact, this year I'm going to do, on the urging of my teacher, I'm going to do 14 days. So that is a lot of alone time and in silence.

And it's challenging. I, a lot of people focus on the silent aspect of silent retreats. Not talking isn't a huge problem for me. It's loneliness. And there's a way in which it kind of brings up this primordial sadness, like a homesickness. And even though I am homesick for my actual home, it's kind of, it's more people. I don't know, it's deeper than that. It's, I think one of the psychological trends for me in looking back at my life is, is a fear of feeling unmoored alone adrift?

And some of the earliest traumas, and this may be a small tea trauma, for me, I've had a very charmed life. But going to summer camp as a kid was incredibly hard for me. And I used to have these really intense, gnarly bouts of homesickness. I have a very clear memory of sitting in the back of my dad's shit-brown, Plymouth Valiant, and weeping in his lap on visiting day. And I would just, I would be bereft every summer for a period of time and then I would recover. So loneliness is a root of sadness for you. Yeah.

Yes. loneliness. Yes, but it's loneliness, but it's also this kind of yearning for some, some connection or stability. Like it was, home sickness feels like a better word for it, but like a much, much bigger than wanting my actual home, whatever that happens to be in the moment. But why, what do you get out of putting yourself intentionally in that position? I mean, 10 days. is a long time. Now you're going to do 14 days, silent retreat, no people, hardly. I mean, I guess it's exposure therapy? I don't know.

Well, a couple things to say about it. It's the perfect question. I'm laughing because it's perfect. One of the immense sources of power in mindfulness meditation is that you see that some poets said this, maybe Rilke, I can't believe I'm the kind of guy who quotes poetry now, but anyway, that no feeling is final. Everything changes all the time. And so when you get really quiet and your mind is tuned up because you're doing this exercise of trying to focus on one thing at a time, usually the feeling of your breath coming in and going out, and then every time you get distracted, you start again and again

And again, what it helps you see is how quickly the mind is working all the time. We're moving. We're like, as my meditation teacher says, throughout the day, we're kind of like a bee in a jar moving up through excitement or interest and then down through loneliness or anger or fear or whatever. We're just cycling through these thoughts and emotions and urges so quickly all the time. And what happens on retreat is you start to, and this can happen in a daily practice too. You just start to see how wild and chaotic the mind is. And as a result, you're not

so owned by it. And so I do go through a period of loneliness or homesickness, usually in the first couple of days of retreat. But the power is seeing, oh, yeah, I can be with this. And it's going to change. And you can be with you, right? It is also like, I'm just going to sit with myself and all that myself contains, not all of it's awesome. Yes. Yes. But. And, and. And, And this is a little out there, so you may want to cut it. But then you start to see, like, what is this thing I'm calling the self? How solid is that? And that's a very interesting, sometimes a little scary, but ultimately liberating thing,

because then you don't take your emotions, your anxiety, your anger, whatever, so personally. And you're able to work with them in a more fluid and sophisticated way. And so it's a long way of answering your question, which is why do I put myself through this retreat. Well, why would you put yourself through a vigorous workout? That sucks, too, but it has many, many benefits. Okay. There's so much in there I want to get back to, so maybe one of these cards will afford us the opportunity. Okay, next set of three, one, two, or three? Three. Three. What's a moment with a stranger that made you feel loved? Okay, you answer that first. Oh, flipping that one.

So I have talked about this before. I sort of live for those moments, like, stranger moments. I love stranger kindness from the tiniest little things. I get weepy when someone waves to me when I've let them in on a lane of traffic or they have done the same for me. It, like, it makes me so, because there's so many jerks who drive. And when someone just acknowledges, I'm like, oh, yes, thank you. The more profound story is that my eldest kid, during the pandemic, we went on a trip up to New Hampshire.

And we were at these waterfalls that come cascade down all these rocks. And he fell down this waterfall. He slipped and he fell about 10 feet and landed on his back on a rock. It was incredibly harrowing. It was very scary. We had to wait a long time for people to hike up the mountain with a stretcher on tires. It was wild. And there was just a woman there who was a nurse.

And she was with her own kids and her own family. And she was everything you want that person to be in that moment, you know. And it's COVID. We're outside, but everyone's still wearing masks. So I couldn't even see her face, just her eyes. And she had the kindest eyes. And as a mother, she knew exactly what I was feeling. And she just, she gave me all her love and kindness.

And I just felt it so profoundly. It was such a gift to me in that moment. And we exchanged holiday cards for a few years. And I just, I love the opportunity to repeat that story because we all have the capacity to touch people in moments of crisis like that. But in the most banal moments when you think a thing doesn't matter, like to reach out to a person from a place of compassion creates a story that that person might tell for decades, you know? So that's my story. That's beautiful. It's really beautiful. Just to put some

a sheen of psychological research on top of this, you know, there's been quite a bit of research into what the scientist Barbara Fredrickson calls micro interactions. And so we tend to move, I'll speak for myself, as somebody who kind of wired as a frosty New Englander. I, for much of my life, in fact, you know, I kind of wince a little bit with embarrassment to recall that you met me, that we met each other in 2006, because I was very much in this mode at that time of just hurtling through the world in a sort of self-suffer. centered, ambitious way, and often really, frankly, rude to people.

Not because I just thought you were super serious, very focused, a little tightly wound, and just like very serious person. Well, that's all true. And I, you know, I fear that it's a little generous, honestly. And, you know, I, I, what I was doing was denies. myself of a massive opportunity for well-being. You know, we, life is a target-rich opportunity for these little moments of happiness that Dr. Fredrickson calls micro-interactions.

You know, we're just constantly moving through the world and meeting other people, baristas, the people you give your clothes to it, the dry cleaner, coming into NPR today. I met Summer, who's one of your producers. And these don't have to be long exchanges. It's just like a little chit-chat. Summer grew up in Las Vegas. And I was telling her about how I took my son to Vegas and he loved it. And, you know, neither of us may ever ultimately remember this interaction,

but it's a little hit of dopamine that is available to all of us as we move through the world. So let me answer your actual question about a stranger interaction that may be. me feel loved. Just to set this up a little bit, I, notwithstanding the fact that I'm allegedly some sort of happiness expert, you know, continue to be. Only 10% happier. Yeah, exactly. I thank God I called the book 10% happier. I have lots of challenges, you know, and one of them is that I have really intense claustrophobia. Oh, yeah, I know this. It's gotten worse over the years. Really? And so I struggle on elevators and airplanes.

It's a real challenge for me. And there's a studio in New York City where I often record podcasts when I'm not recording from my home studio. And one day I showed up at the studio, and I was in the middle of this, I was in a particularly bad place with my claustrophobia. It was the first time I'd been there. and I saw, I looked at the elevators and they looked really small and scary to me.

And I kind of was panicking and I had a suitcase and all this stuff with me. And the security guard looked at me and I said, hey, can I just, can I walk up? And he's like, it's 16 flights, dude. You've got all this stuff. And he said, he got up from his desk, put his blazer on and said, I'm going to ride with you. he somehow knew what was going on with me. His name is Barry, B-A-R-I, and I see him all the time because I go to the studio. And he rode, he said, I'll hold your hand if you want.

And I didn't need him to hold my hand, but he just talked to me about where he's from and where his family lives, and we made it to the 16th floor. And even though I'm slightly more stable in my claustrophobia, having done a lot of what's called exposure therapy. Every time I go to the studio, Barry rides the elevator with me. Oh, come on. This is a beautiful story. That's a beautiful story.

I love that he just saw that and didn't make a big deal out of it. He was just like, this is what we're doing. I'm just going to write up with you. I got you. Last one in this round. One, two, or three. One, you knew. One.

You're feeling one. When did you first find a group of peers who really understood you? Oh, I remember the exact moment. Really? Yes. So I had a really good group of friends in high school and also some good friends in college. But I was always jealous of my little brother who loved his college so much and really had this crew that just he felt they were so smart and he felt so embedded in it. And I never had that.

my 20s, I was kind of moving around in television news from small market to small market. And I had friends, but I just didn't, I didn't, I never felt like I had my crew. And, um, and then my, when I turned 30, I, or actually in my late 20s, I moved to New York City and started working at ABC News. And for the first couple of years, I was traveling so much. It was post-9-11. I was in war zones. And I was just, you know, way for long periods of time. And I came home in 2003, after, you know, I was post-9-11. I think six months in Iraq. And I didn't have, I really just, the few friends I had in New York City had moved away and really didn't have, I felt very lonely here. We're coming back to this. And a guy from work, a guy I didn't even really like that much, invited me to a party. And at that

party, I met a bunch of people I really liked. And one of them, who's still one of my best friends to this day, her name is Kayama. Kayama came over to me and said, we're having a party tomorrow night. You should come. Don't bring that guy. She said, I like you, I don't like your friend,

but you should come to this party tomorrow night. And at that party, I met another guy named Willie. And Kayama and Willie and now our massive cinematic universe of friends are those are my people. And it was, my life is like a before and after that weekend. So I have to ask you, what was it about those people in particular that made you feel understood in a way that you hadn't before?

Why did those become your friends? I really like smart weirdos. I guess I come off as, you know, I was a former anchorman. I kind of still talk like an anchorman. You don't present as weird, Dan. You don't present as weird. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But I am weird.

I mean, you know, I'm the guy who like needs help getting on an elevator. and, you know, goes on silent meditation retreats. I'm definitely a weirdo. And part of why I'm so happy not to be in the news industry is, you know, I have a much more creative output these days. And in our extended friend group, there are writers and artists and people who do all sorts of things. And that just makes life, and I'm married to a doctor. And so it's very diverse in every possible way. way, and that just makes life more interesting.

Before we start round two, I'm going to step back from the game and talk about your podcast and where you're at in your professional life, which I think is a good place from the outside, it seems to be. And tell me if my math is right. Is this 10 years of doing your podcast? It is, right? 10% happier? Congratulations.

Thank you. I mean, you're a former newsperson. You know that we ascribe this meaning to these times, these anniversaries. But 10 years is a thing. For better for worse, it's a place where culturally we set a marker and we kind of look back. And so as you look back on the last 10 years, how's the show changed? What are you still trying to figure out in terms of how you learn and teach simultaneously, which is what 10% happier feels like to me?

I would say the biggest change is that when it started, it was very meditation-focused. And while I'm still a huge believer and proponent in the practice, the show over time has really evolved into every aspect of doing life better. You know, we really think about it as drawing from modern psychology and ancient wisdom to, you know, all evidence-based stuff to help you upgrade your life. And I'm just following my own interests here. You know, so I'm interested in how to sleep better, how to exercise without, you know, being driven by self-hatred, how to, you know, improve your work life, how to improve your home life. I want to talk about all these things because, as discussed, I'm a bit of a mess myself. And so I'm just kind of using this. The way many of the psychology researchers I interview talk about their own work is research is me search.

And that's what's happening on the podcast. Yeah, for sure. I think that's what's happening in your works. Yes, 100%. No, I started this because I had my own questions, and it's helpful to hear from other people if they're still in the muck of those same questions and how they've managed their way out or conclusions or if they're just still swimming in the existential goo of it all. I mean, you talk about how the podcast has evolved to be, you know, let's just look at all

of our life and different facets of it and how we can improve. But I do feel like this optimization culture can sometimes feel oppressive. Like, everything can always be better. And so how do we make it better in my sleep? And I got the rings and I got the apps that tell me the stuff. And sometimes do you just want to throw it all up and be like, on today's episode, how to just be cool with having things not be better than they are? It's a huge theme on our show. And it's a huge topic of discussion on my team.

I have a really mixed relationship with this idea of optimization. I am naturally somebody who wants to track my sleep and count my steps and all that stuff. But I think it's a really tricky thing to do without driving yourself crazy. There's a great expression, the subtle aggression of self-improvement. I think, however, if you can switch the motivation to, and I'm going to use a loaded word, but if you switch the motivation to love, it just becomes simpler. So one of the things that I've gotten into the habit of saying throughout the day before I meditate or before I exercise or before I go to bed is, and this is a little kind of off brand in its earnestness, but I'm doing this, fill in the blank, exercise, whatever. so that I can be stronger and happier, so that I can make other people stronger and happier. That tweak to my motivation in my...

Yes, it is about me. It's cool. Like, I think it's totally fine. Self-love is really important. In fact, I think it's the unlock for a whole spiral of benefits because how we are with ourselves inexorably redounds to how we are with other people. And so if you can take care of yourself, that's not self-indulgence and it's not weakness. So, yeah, that's kind of how I think about it.

And I, on the show, the spirit very much is, look, this is a menu, not a to-do list. We're going to explore all these things, but you should take what you want. Like, whatever works for you is cool. Like, there are some of my brothers and sisters in the wellness space who are super prescriptive, and that's just not my style. So if there's a person listening or watching who has not had the opportunity to check your show out,

I know this can be an annoying question. But tell me an episode that you would point someone to. Where do you send him? Probably the most influential person for me in this whole space of whatever you want to call it, wellness, human flourishing, whatever, is a guy who's not famous.

His name is Joseph Goldstein. How is your teacher? Yeah, he's my meditation teacher. It has been for a long time, and he's a very close friend. And he's 82 years old, does not, you know, wear robes or anything like that. He's a Jewish guy from the Catskills who wears khakis and button downs. He doesn't present as a guru. But he is a walking example of what can happen with sustained practice.

He is funny and smart and other-oriented and helpful and teaches using these very pithy phrases. Just little one-liners that are kind of like Buddhist earworms. They just wriggle their way into your mind stream and then surface when you need them the most. So I'll give you an example. the next time you're in a spiral of anxiety, maybe if you can catch yourself in one of these overthinking periods, ask yourself this question. And again, this comes from Joseph. Is this useful? Like, some amount of worrying makes sense. But we often, and very quickly, cross the line between constructive anguish and useless rumination. And that little question of, is this useful? Or,

Should I, you know, think about something else? Yeah. Maybe even help somebody else. That's an incredibly helpful little earworm. And so at the beginning of this year, 2006, I dropped two episodes with Joseph where we went through a bunch of these phrases. And you just get to hear this truly brilliant human being who, and I don't love this word, inspiring, but it is inspiring. in the true sense of that word because it gives you a sense of, oh, yeah, like, this is what's on offer. Right. If I follow this path.

Thank you for that. I'm going to go check it out. Everyone else should, too. We're back in the game. Round two. Insights. One, two, or three. One.

What do you enjoy complaining about? My own mind. The first line, this, I, maybe my favorite. I don't love my own writing, honestly. I think my writing is fine, and I do write books. But my favorite thing I ever wrote was the first line to my first book, which was, the voice in my head is an asshole. And I think that is true.

I think it's true for many people. We have this, like, nattering inner voice that, you know, is chasing us out of bed in the morning, and we're just constantly wanting stuff, not wanting stuff, judging people, comparing ourselves to other people. And when you're unaware of this inner conversation, it owns you. And this is like the, this is my MO. I think it's very useful to talk openly, especially I've been blessed with this public platform. It's very useful, I think, to talk openly about all of my craziness.

one of the most common words that Joseph Goldstein uses is ridiculous. And he uses it to describe the mind. It's ridiculous. We're just, we're always in the past or the future instead of right now. We're always comparing ourselves to other people. We're always judging other people, putting ourselves down. It's ridiculous. One of the little things he gets people to do is, if you're in one of these periods of time

where you're just totally down in yourself, count the judgmental thoughts. Count the self-judgmental thoughts. But by the time you hit 87, you just start laughing at it. Yeah. Well, that's why I like the word ridiculous. Yeah. Because there's an element of just, it's silly. It's just, it's not worth it, right?

Like it doesn't give it so much power and agency. It's just ridiculous. Just let it go. And that feels powerful in and of itself, just the word. Okay. Your own brain. That's what you like to complain about. Next three.

one, two, or three. Two. Two. When has envy been a problem for you? Oh, man, all the time. I just deleted Instagram because it was just like, I have an amazing life. I have such an incredible life. Somehow, every time I looked at Instagram, I felt like I had a terrible life.

It's funny, that. And it's such a reliable source of unhappiness for me. It really is. or everybody's career is taken off in ways that mine is not. And so, deuses, I'm out. Like, I still post. Isn't that part of your job? It's like embedded in your job, like the metrics, how many followers you have,

how many subscribers you have, how many Instagram posts, like you do them. I see you walking down the street and you do them and they're really good and powerful, but it's all on that same platform that is the source of so much angst and envy and sadness. Yes, and I have a lot of problems with so. social media. So why then am I creating content for it? It's where the eyeballs are. And if I can be a little node of sanity, as by the way, as are you, because I see your stuff on social media. And in particular, you and I texted about this offline, the Melinda French Gates clip that I thought you handled so beautifully. Thank you. So I think we can, I think it's possible to put little nuggets of

goodness out there on, on social media. But, It is largely a morass. Yeah. One, two, or three? Three. What's something you thought about yourself that you had to unlearn? Can I flip it again? No.

I mean, yes. Fine. Yes, you can. Yeah, you can. You can. This is a hard one. Okay, so my answer to this question, oh, it's kind of sad.

It's not that sad. I thought that I was like a chill, relaxed person that was friendly all the time and just like a chill person. This was how I thought of myself in my mind. And after many years of working on this morning news show, I got enough data back. I got enough feedback from other people I worked with. to prove otherwise. And it was a shock for me when I heard, not directly, but almost more person, I can figure out what you're communicating between the lines. And the feedback I was getting was, oh, you are not chill. You are not a chill person. Like, you're actually a super intense person.

And your vibes can be intense. And it can kind of elevate everybody else. It's not chill. That was a hard thing. So I think at its core, the question tends to be about what's a thing, a negative thing you thought about yourself that you had to unlearn. But the thing that comes to my mind is like, I thought it was pretty great. And it turns out I was kind of a jerk. That was a revelation to me. Have you ever heard the expression, self-knowledge is always bad news? No, but that's so true.

Yeah. I had a story in my head that I didn't fully crystallize until a couple of years ago. And the story was that I'm a bad person. I think it has its roots in childhood and some of the kind of family dynamics. And, yeah, I just got it in my head that, like, I was just irretrievably selfish. mean. I had a bullying incident when I was a kid where I was the bad guy. And I think that was a key moment where I just kind of internalized like, oh, yeah, I'm the bad guy. And that was just a big part of my operating system and was why I would get very defensive anytime I got tough

feedback. I would just overreact because it was triggering this thing that I didn't want to look at. Taking it in after periods of defensiveness. A friend of mine, a really smart friend of mine, her name is Dolly Chugg, and she's a professor at NYU School of Business, and she has this expression goodish. And that actually has been a key unlock for me. So many of us, have a story that we're a good person or a bad person, but when we get feedback, we get defensive because it either reminds us that we think we're a bad person or it challenges our core belief that we're a good person. And so that's the wellspring of defensiveness. If, however, you change yourself concept to good-ish, which by the way, it just makes complete sense.

We're all a mix of good and bad. But if you change yourself concept to good-ish, Well, then when you find out you screwed up and you're not as chill in the hallways of NPR as you thought you were, well, then, okay, well, that's fine. It's not fundamentally threatening because I'm good-ish. And so there's always room to grow. It's what the psychologists call a growth mindset. And so talking to Dali about that was one of the things that really turned things around for me. I love the idea of good-ish. It's interesting to try to teach your kids that. That's where I'm at right now is like talking about the good-ish of human nature and that we're all good and bad. And it's a complicated concept, actually, to wrap your head around because so much of parenting and so much of, like, children's literature,

storytelling is about the good and the bad, and they are separate and distinct characters. And it's like next level to think about, oh, it's, it lives in all of us. And what do we choose to lean into and what is activated and what are our triggers for each of those components? But we all have that duality. Well said. And I think it's a big problem in our news environment too, especially in this algorithmically driven news environment where you are being fed, you know, outrage porn all the time from your side. And it's giving you a cartoonish version of the other side. So we're good, they're bad. There's no nuance. and, you know, that's a good way to destroy a civilization.

Last round, beliefs. Three new cards. One, two, or three. One. One. What's your best definition of the soul? Well, in Buddhism, you know, the founding principle of Buddhism of Buddhism is that there is no soul. The Buddha came out of a Vedic or Hindu context.

But then, and in Hinduism, they talk about the soul. But the Buddha's concept was actually, there is no soul. Actually, if you tune up the microscope of the mind, you see that everything's changing so rapidly that there can't be some solid, unchanging nugget of anything. And by the way, this goes back to my story about being a bad person. I can't be, how could I be permanently bad when nothing is permanent? Yeah. There is no bedrock. And this is just intuitively true when you say it out loud, but hard then when you apply it to something like a soul.

And so the key to understanding this, again, from a Buddhist context, which nobody has to believe if they don't want, is that two things are true at the same time. On the one hand, Rachel Martin is real. I'm looking at her. and if she looks at the mirror, she will see herself. And she's got a social media feed and she's got a podcast and a resume and all that stuff. And, yeah, Rachel's real. However, if you close your eyes and look for some core nugget of Rachel, you won't find it. You'll find physical sensations, thoughts, emotions in a fluxing gumbo.

So that is what our self is, just fluxing gumbo. There is no. It's like this chair I'm sitting in right now. bring a high-powered microscope to it, I would find mostly empty space populated by spinning subatomic particles. That's true at the same time as this chair, I trust it, and I sit in it. And so Rachel's real, and she's not real at the same time. Rachel doesn't have a soul, though, from this, you know, sort of high-powered microscope perspective.

Does that make sense when I'm saying? Yeah, but I mean, we're all just living in this weird social contract where we've just decided to agree that we all exist. by deciding we make it thus. Yes, and I think actually this is where this construct that I'm proposing to you via the Buddha starts to become practical. Because, yes, we do live in a consensual reality, or what the Buddhists call relative truth, as opposed to the ultimate truth, which is back to the spinning subatomic particles. And these two levels of reality speak to each other. So the next time you're stuck in some story about how Rachel's this way, she's not this way, life is going this way or that way, you can switch into the ultimate perspective for a second.

Okay? No, no, no, on some level, this is all an illusion. This is all like in a movie, a play of light and sound projected on a screen. There isn't solidity. It's just 24 frames per second. And then for people who tend to drift off into that kind of nihilistic space of, oh, and none of it matters. No, no, no, it does matter. Both things are true at the same time.

Like, we are human beings and our ethical conduct has consequences or lack of ethical conduct has consequences too. And so you want to hold, it's a paradox. Much of life is understanding and utilizing paradox. And this is the big one, in my opinion, that these two things are true at the same time. And can you toggle back and forth between them with some skill? How does that affect your idea of your feelings about being forgotten? About there being no remainder of you. I mean, I know you have a child.

There's like a physical remainder of you. But how many generations before nobody remembers who great-grandpa don't. Dan was, does that freak you out? Or that's just part of the deal? It doesn't freak me out that much. You know, I, about a year and a half ago, I was interviewing somebody on my show, was an amazing Buddhist teacher named Vinnie Ferraro, who, it has an incredible story, which I'll tell very quickly, which is that he grew up in a very low-income environment in Rhode Island and was an addict and a criminal and served several stints in jail and prison. and during one of his terms, he was in there with his own father and got out, got sober, found the Dharma, and has become this incredible teacher. He's the only teacher I've ever interviewed who throughout the whole interview will call me bro. He's very funny and very wise. And he got me interested in an aspect of Buddhism that a lot of people might be tempted to reject him. That's totally fine. It's hardcore. But the Buddha himself recommended that twice a day you recall five things.

This body that I'm occupying is of the nature to grow old. It's of the nature to get sick. It will die. Here's the grimmest one. Everything in everyone I cherish will someday be lost to me. And the fifth one where he kind of pulls the knife out a little bit, as Vinny says, the only true possessions I have in this context are my actions. And so that's where the kind of hope results.

sides, which is, okay, so yeah, we, if you want to look at it, the truth of this reality that we inhabit is that it is relentlessly impermanent and chaotic and anthropic and very little is in your control, but you are in control of your actions to a large degree, and the, the the karmic consequences of those actions will outlive you. And so if you take that seriously, it will impact how you behave. And that to me feels like a soul. Like I guess when I use that word, it's just some kind of what difference do we make, who are we, and if we are the sum total of how we behave here, the choices we make and the

actions we take and the consequences of those actions. That makes sense to me. Makes sense to me, too. I'm totally cool with calling that a soul. I don't, you know, I have no desire to, like, police people's language. So soul is, it's certainly inoffensive to me. But from a, from a Buddhist perspective, you know, it's not a thing. It's not a thing. Three more. One, two, or three. Two. Is there a religious practice or ritual that you're envious of?

I have this odd interest in something that simultaneously repulses me, which is devotional practice. There are aspects of Buddhism where you really, and other traditions as well, where you sort of, you bow to a statue of the Buddha or it could be Kuan Ying, who's, this is where I, this is where I, this is where I, this is where I, my Buddhist knowledge is going to run out of road. But I think she is like the avatar of compassion in certain schools of Buddhism. And so I don't know a ton about this devotional practice. I just know that I have some friends who've done it. And I see that my initial response to it is revulsion. Like the prostrating yourself in front of some kind of. Prostrations, literally prostrations. And when I have that kind of response, I always try to investigate it, like, all right, what's going on there?

Because my life has just been a succession of things that I dismissed and was totally wrong about and later came to embrace. And so I'm just curious, like, huh, what's going on with that? It is interesting that practice. And at the same time, I, like you, see a person who can do that, and it feels also like a beautiful surrender. It feels like beauty and liberation in that kind of surrender. Yeah. In my first book, I wrote about how I was on my first retreat and everybody was bowing to the Buddha and I thought it was like, I really hated it. And then I wrote about how I started doing it, but only for a hamstring stretch.

I think the way I've come to understand devotional practice to the extent that I understand it at all, which is very limited, is that ultimately what you're bowing to is an aspect of the mind, of the human mind. of the human mind. So like compassion that we, that is papered over and sometimes cemented over by the world, by the world we live in where we're just armoring up and hardened. But we have this, it is quintessentially human capacity for compassion, for love. Just to put it in plain English, to give a shit about ourselves and others, right? This is, you know, love is this panoramic inner capacity that we have.

Yeah. Bowing to the avatar of compassion is a way to, it's like a snake charming that you're doing on yourself to bring that, that aspect, that hidden aspect of the mind into greater salience. Last one. One, two, or three. Three. What's an experience? you wish you could give every person? I think most of us, consciously or subconsciously, kind of think we're stuck with how we are.

We have X amount of patience, X amount of generosity. But what we know from the science is that the brain, and by extension, the mind, it's trainable. You know, doing what the brain is the organ of the brain. experience. So how you arrange your life, the practices you do or don't do, that you're just constantly training your brain. You learn how to play violin, your brain's going to change. You see it on the brain scans. You learn how to meditate. Your brain will change. You get better at social fitness. Your brain changes. We are not stuck with the aspects of our personality that we may be struggling with. This change is possible. It's messy and more.

marginal, and even people like me who have been meditating, you know, for a while and write books about it, you know, I continue to be a schmuck in lots of ways. But, you know, the trajectory is the right one for me, and it can be for anybody. Right. And so you can be this little node of sanity in a chaotic world. And so that's the experience I want people to have. Like, you can improve your life and it matters. Like, it is a political act. It's not self-indulgent. It doesn't make you you a doormat, it, yeah, it really matters. And so that kind of hope, not gaslighting you and telling you everything's fine,

because everything's not fine, but you do have more power than you think to improve your own mind and by extension the world. Thank you for that. Yeah, I'm on a fucking soapbox, sorry. Oh, my guess. I love a soapbox. I love it. Dan Harris, we end the show the same way every time

with a trip in our memory time machine, in the time machine, you revisit one moment from your past. It is not a moment you would change anything about. It's just a moment you'd like to linger in a little bit longer. What moment do you choose? Oh, my God, there's so many to choose from. The moment that's coming to mind is I had this completely random experience the summer after my junior year in high school, where I had been a total screw up. My whole high school career had a threat. driving weed business, just like really a, just a not a good student. And I kind of was starting to get it together. And I ended up getting into the summer school at Harvard, which isn't like

getting into Harvard. Not at all, because I was not, I didn't get into Harvard. I was never going to get into Harvard. But you can apply to the summer school and be a mediocre student and get in. And so I, but I was surrounded by all these smart kids and I had a great summer. And I was sitting on a warm Cambridge night on the front stoop of the dorm where I was living, and I just kind of entered into this calm elation. And it comes back for me once in a while on a meditation retreat of just like, I would say the underlying feeling is everything's okay. And for an anxious person, that is delicious. What a lovely thing. Where would you go?

Oh, and my memory time machine? I mean, I'm grateful that I'm the host of the show. And I don't have to answer the memory time machine question. Because it's hard to narrow it down. Yeah, it's hard to narrow. Do you want to say the birth of your children and all that stuff? Of course, but it's also like, you know, what comes up. It's like, right now, okay, so part of what the memory time machine is is you just

let whatever come up come up. And like, so right now, the thing that is coming up, I don't, I have no idea why, is driving with my mom, my mom's been, passed away a long time ago, but driving with my mom, like in high school, in Idaho Falls, my hometown in Idaho, through one of those coffee shacks. Like, Idaho Falls didn't have proper coffee shops when I was growing up. So it would be like in a strip mall, there'd be a coffee shack. And it was like a new thing. and she would have her little punch card. And we would just, she would look at me like with such glee, like, let's stop for a coffee. And we would pull up.

Oh, I'm getting weepy. I don't know what's significant about that. That's just what came up. And I'd love to sit in the car with my mom and get a drive-through coffee from the coffee shack in front of the Safeway in Idaho Falls. I did not expect to do that, Dan Harris. Well, it's totally beautiful. And yeah, you said something like, I don't know why this is coming up.

Well, it's a moment of love. Dan Harris is the host of the wildly successful podcast, 10% Happier, the author of many books. And I'm so glad to talk to you. Thank you. Huge pleasure, always. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening.

If you like this conversation, I would suggest going back and checking out my episode with the actor, Jesse Eisenberg. He's got this kind of anxious wisdom that feels very honest and hard-earned. You can watch that episode and many more on our YouTube page. It is at NPR Wildcard. This episode was produced by Mitra Arthur and Lee Hale. It was edited by Dave Blanchard and mastered by Josephine Nionai. Wildcard's executive producer is Yolanda Sangweni, and our theme music is by Ramteen Arableu. You can reach out to us at wildcard at npr.org.

We'll shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. Talk to you then.