Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - You Are Not Your Thoughts | Bonus Meditation with Joseph Goldstein

Episode Date: August 7, 2020

Joseph Goldstein is one of the most respected meditation teachers in the world -- a key architect of the rise of mindfulness in our modern society -- with a sense of humor to boot. In the 1970's, he co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. Since its founding, thousands of people from around the world have come to IMS to learn mindfulness from leaders in the field. Joseph has been a teacher there since its founding and continues as the resident guiding teacher. To listen to this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, visit https://10percenthappier.app.link/DreamingMyselfIntoExistencePod You can always get started with the Ten Percent Happier app with our flagship course, The Basics. In The Basics, Joseph Goldstein and Dan Harris discuss the fundamentals of mediation and dispel common myths about meditation in a seven-day meditation series. Visit https://10percenthappier.app.link/TheBasicsPod to get started. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Young Pueblo, Jonathan Height, and hundreds more. Start listening right now. Look for the Good Life Project on your favorite podcast app. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. On my new podcast, Baby This is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad.

Where did memes come from. And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer, on Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcast. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey guys, it's Friday, so we're dropping up bonus meditation.

And today's meditation really picks up on a theme that we developed in the episode on Monday, where we talked about emptiness with guy Armstrong. Emptiness is one of the trickier concepts and Buddhism sometimes goes by the name of not self or selflessness or egolessness. And a lot of people get hung up on this myself included because it's hard to understand the argument that we don't exist. But that's not quite the argument. The argument is that on some really important foundational fundamental level there is no you, but of course on a relative level on a day-to-day level, you do exist. You need to put your pants on and make appointments, et cetera, et cetera. But if you really look at your mind, whatever's arising in your mind and try to find the you in it, you won't find it.

And one way to make this super practical and super helpful is to look at thoughts. If you look at your thoughts, they really feel when viewed from the perspective of an untrained mind. They really feel, as Joseph Goldstein, who you are about to hear from often says, they can really feel like little dictators,

the thought comes in your mind and and you just act it out blindly. But if you look at your thoughts, actually you'll see that again as Joseph says they're little more than nothing these thoughts. And when you have that perspective then you don't need to take them as seriously and that is really liberating. So here is Joseph with a meditation on thinking. One of the challenging aspects of this practice of paying attention to these quickly passing thoughts is that thoughts are very slippery.

They slide into the mind. And so we need to pay particular attention to the arising of these thoughts, and to do it in a light-hearted way. As we pay more and more attention to these kinds of thoughts arising many, many times during the day, and doing it with a light heart, doing it from a place of interest, from a place of investigation, we find ourselves abiding in a much more spacious and much more open quality of mind that allows the thoughts to arise and pass away in a field of awareness. As you begin the sitting, sit comfortably in a dignified posture with the back straight but not stiff, letting the eyes close gently, settle into your body, feeling the body in the sitting posture, and also begin to know that the body is breathing. Breathing in, knowing you're breathing in, breathing out, knowing you're breathing out. 1.5% 1.5%

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1.5% 1.5% At different times, you may hear different sounds. There may be loud sounds, there may be soft sounds, there may be pleasant, there may be unpleasant. Simply rest in the openness and be aware of how all sounds appear and disappear. Again return to the awareness of the body. Sit and know you're sitting. When thoughts arise in the mind, as soon as you become aware that you are thinking, make a soft mental note of thinking. The idea in meditation is not to stop thinking, but rather to be aware when we are thinking, to see it as simply another object of mindfulness. 1.5% 1.5%

1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw You can't just go to the other side of the world, but you can't just go to the other side of the world. You can't just go to the other side of the world, but you can't just go to the other side of the world. You can't just go to the other side of the world, but you can't just go to the other side of the world. You can't just go to the other side of the world, but you can't just go to the other side of the world. Never you become aware of a particular mood or emotional mind state.

Make that very experience the object of your meditation. Becoming mindful of the particular mood or emotion. So, they were actually investigating the nature of our experience. 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5%

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1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% 1.5% Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw There will be many times when the mind seems to be carried away by trains of thought. I would have a point you become aware that you've been lost for an extended period of time, in that moment of becoming aware.

Simply ignore that and begin again. Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw And when you're ready, you can open your eyes and reconnect again with the world around you. This concludes our meditation. Big thanks to Joseph, and if you enjoyed that meditation with Joseph, we have many, many, many more meditations from him on the 10% happier app, including our flagship course, which is called the basics. In the basics, Joseph and I discuss the fundamentals of meditation. We do a lot of myth-busting and Joseph leads you through seven days of meditation. It's a great way to get started.

So go check it out. In the meantime, have a great weekend. We'll be back with some new episodes next week, really diving into the themes of grit and resilience in this anxious, tumultuous time. We'll see you then. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Hey, hey, prime members.

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