The Daily Stoic - Ten Percent Happier presents: The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness

Episode Date: January 10, 2023

Happiness isn’t just a feeling, it’s a skill that can be cultivated. This is a clip from The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness, a five-part audio documentary series by the Ten Percent Happier podcast. Over the course of the series, Dan Harris talks to His Holiness about practical strategies for thorny dilemmas, including: how to get along with difficult people; whether compassion can cut it in an often brutal world; why there is a self-interested case for not being a jerk; and how to create social connection in an era of disconnection. We also get rare insights from the Dalai Lama into everything from the mechanics of reincarnation to His Holiness’s own personal mediation practice. Listen & follow Ten Percent Happier wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app.Wondery.lnk.to/tph-tdsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Hello, I'm Dan Harris, host of the 10% Happier Podcast every week. I speak with leading meditation teachers, top scientists, even the odd celebrity about how to do life better, whether you're looking to tame anxiety, manage your time, reduce burnout, or stop arguing with people unnecessarily. We've got your back.

And now we're launching something new. And if I do say so myself, extremely cool. I recently traveled 7,000 miles to spend a few weeks in the orbit of his holiness, the Dalai Lama, probably the world's most famous meditator and happiness guru. While we were on the ground, we saw so many surprising and fascinating things go down that we decided to produce a five-part audio documentary. I'm about to play a clip from this special series while you're listening, go over and follow 10% happier on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts, download the Amazon Music app today.

Hey gang, it's New Year's and we're making a pretty radical departure from our usual format. I recently flew with a small team to Durham, Sala, India, home to his holiness, the Dalai Lama. I'm sitting on board a giant plane that we're about 13 hours into our flight. I think we're about 13 hours into our flight. Here's the backstory. I went because I got this incredible opportunity. The Dalai Lama agreed to do a course for the meditation app that I co-founded, which is also called 10% happier.

The plan was I would interview him on camera about how we can all get happier and then my team and I would edit that down and serve up the learnings to our users. Now, to be clear, I had actually interviewed his holiness before. The first time was back in 2011, and then a few years later, he was the inaugural guest right here on this podcast. Back then, though, I was a fidgety skeptical news anchor with a happiness side hustle, but by the time I was making this

trip, I had changed, or at least that's what I told myself. I was still, of course, skeptical about a lot of things, but I had done so much more meditation and general learning. In fact, I was even in the midst of writing a whole book about love. I'll be it in my usual Ysass style. whole book about love. I'll be it in my usual Ysass style. Another difference with this encounter was that instead of a quick sit down while he was on tour here in America, I would be on the Dalai Lama's home turf. And in fact, his team had agreed to let me kind of hang

around in his orbit for two weeks. So I knew this thing would be cool, but I did not expect that so many extraordinary, fascinating, and even jarring things would go down. But then I show up for my first audience with his holiness, and a young activist in the room goes after the dollar. We everyone in this room, is losing to the forces of power in this world. Tibet is losing. As we speak, today, Xi Jinping is assuming a third term as a Chinese premier, and it's creating a authoritarian state that will be very difficult to defeat

through words of compassion and love. Khrasana. While Jimpa is translating, you can see the activists trading clanses and nods like visual fist bumps across the room. Ronin has clearly articulated something they're all feeling. But the reality is the many of the challenges that we experience collectively does call for that kind of oneness of humanity. The whole humanity, I think, eventually have to think oneness of seven to eight billion

human beings as a one human family. At least oneness is the make-in-the-point. In a sense, we don't have a choice. We have to move there. Again, oneness without concrete action. So the activists start to pile on now, taking the mic and again pressing for specifics. Today in Afghanistan, women are demanding their right

and Taliban are holding gun to their faces. Where do you preach oneness with a group that truly doesn't understand or believe in the power of oneness? And yet again, the Dalai Lama talks about oneness, seven to eight billion human beings, one human family, until finally the meeting just ends. Everybody empties out into the courtyard of the Dalai Lama's compound. into the courtyard of the Dalai Lama's compound. I'm very curious to get your fresh response to the intensity of those questions and the...

Flood, what happened? That is Rochie Joan Halifax. She's an American Zen Master who has a longstanding relationship with the Dalai Lama and she's here serving as a mentor to some of the young activists. Because something broke open and Ronan spoke for many of us in the audience. You know, he was the one who sort of broke the trance of goodness in that meeting.

It's one of the most valuable acts I've seen in that room. I've been in that room since 1992 and that's never happened. Really? No. Somebody speaking up in such a tart and direct manner. Yeah. And also speaking the harp hines, many of the people who were in the room, but would never go over that edge. It was really courageous.

But did he give an answer? He did. It's a very end. I mean, it was subtle. You'd have to. Rochie Jones leans over, cupping her hand to her ear, pantomiming somebody straining to hear. She says his holiness did answer the question. But perhaps in a way, people may not have heard both literally and figuratively. The answer, she says, came in this key moment just as his holiness was having his microphone taken off.

I want to share my daily practice at tourism. That really gives you inner peace, inner strength. That brings fearless and your mind truly peace." I want to share my daily practice, he said, altruism. That really gives you inner peace, inner strength. That brings fearlessness, and your mind is truly at peace. What he's saying here, and to be honest, I actually missed it in the moment, but what he's saying is that if you can cultivate an inner attitude of generosity, of compassion, of care for the suffering of other people, no matter how difficult those other people might be, that will give you the confidence and resilience to navigate any challenge. To be clear, to be super clear about this, that does not mean that you should be a

doormat or that you shouldn't speak up for your needs. Actually, one Tibetan teacher has called that posture, idiot compassion. Instead, it means taking care of your own inner weather so you can handle whatever the outer world throws at you. That is the really that I think the most important thing to understand. Autorism is not the self-sacrifice standard. It actually builds resilience. It's a resource that very few people understand.

They have this idea of altruism as sacrifice, but actually it's the generative, it's liberative. Hey, prime members, you can listen to 10% happier wherever you get your podcasts or add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.