0:00

Hey, it's Minouche, and in the spirit

0:02

of New Year's resolutions, we want to

0:04

share some wisdom from our friends over

0:06

at the 10% Happier podcast, which is

0:09

of course hosted by Dan Harris, who

0:11

was on the show recently. So

0:13

this is part of their series

0:16

called Non-Negotiables for the New Year,

0:18

and in this episode, Dan talks

0:20

to meditation expert John Kabat-Zinn about

0:23

starting a practice and being

0:26

more present and mindful in our

0:28

day-to-day lives. I hope you enjoy it. This

0:36

is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm

0:38

Dan Harris. Hello

0:50

my fellow suffering beings, how we doing? If

0:53

in this new year you are looking to

0:55

start or restart your meditation

0:58

habit, or if you're already meditating but

1:00

you want to up your game, we

1:02

have recruited a true ringer for you, a

1:04

legend. Perhaps more than

1:06

any other single person, John Kabat-Zinn

1:08

is responsible for the explosion of

1:10

interest in meditation over the last

1:13

decade or two. He

1:15

invented something called mindfulness-based stress

1:17

reduction, which took meditation out

1:19

of a Buddhist context and

1:22

made it secular and replicable. In

1:24

other words, he invented a repeatable

1:26

eight-week protocol which allowed scientists to

1:28

begin studying what happens when regular

1:30

people learn how to meditate. And

1:33

that is in large measure why we

1:35

now have all of the scientific evidence

1:38

that strongly suggests that short daily doses

1:40

of meditation can confer a long list

1:42

of tantalizing health benefits. John

1:45

has written many books, including Full Catastrophe

1:47

Living, Wherever You Go, There You Are,

1:49

which was first published 30 years

1:51

ago, and his latest, Mindfulness Meditation

1:53

for Pain Relief. We

1:56

cover, among many other things, the nitty-gritty

1:58

practicalities of starting a practice How

2:00

he's learned to be more relaxed about his

2:02

own practice, including advocating for meditating in bed.

2:05

How to practice being fully

2:07

present with no agenda. How

2:09

investigating your motivations, something most

2:11

people don't actually do, can

2:14

help you be more mindful. And how

2:16

to practice letting go of the story

2:18

of me. This

2:20

is the third episode in our New

2:23

Year's series, The Non-Negotiables, where we ask

2:25

smart people what their must-have practices and

2:27

life principles are. If you missed it,

2:29

last week we spoke to Esther Perel

2:32

and Bill Hader. This week it's Jon

2:34

Kabat-Zinn, then Pema Chodron, then Bryan Stevenson.

2:37

Enjoy this one, I find that talking to

2:39

great meditation teachers gives me a kind of

2:41

contact high. I suspect you may

2:43

find the same. Jon

2:47

Kabat-Zinn, welcome back to the show. My

2:49

pleasure to be here. Happy to have

2:51

you. Happy New Year. Thank

2:54

you. Thank you. It

2:56

is a new year and we are,

2:58

as you know, doing this special series that we're

3:00

calling The Non-Negotiables. And so I'm curious for you,

3:02

do you have a non-negotiable

3:06

practice or philosophy or precept

3:08

that you're putting into place

3:10

every day or daily-ish? I

3:13

would say so, but I don't

3:15

think of it as non-negotiable because that gives

3:17

me this sense inwardly that

3:19

I'm fighting with myself or negotiating with

3:22

myself or trying to set

3:25

it up so I will succeed

3:27

in a certain way and I

3:29

don't relate to the practice that way. So

3:31

in terms of my own life and practice,

3:34

as we've said in earlier

3:36

conversations, I see the

3:39

formal engagement with

3:41

meditation as a kind of

3:44

love affair and

3:46

something that is so common

3:48

sensical and fundamental to living

3:53

life fully and not missing one's

3:56

moments and the

3:58

richness of the

4:00

opportunity to be alive. For

4:03

decades, it hasn't been a kind of burden

4:05

or some kind of discipline, or yes, I

4:07

get up in the morning at this particular

4:10

time, and I sit no matter what on

4:13

my cushion, which was still a love affair,

4:15

but getting older,

4:17

I sort of somehow

4:20

moved into a space where

4:23

it's much less rigid in a

4:25

certain kind of way, but

4:27

in a certain way more disciplined, but

4:29

as a kind of effortless discipline.

4:31

It's like love. And

4:35

if the meditation practice isn't

4:38

life itself, at

4:40

least in all waking moments, then I

4:43

don't think there's much point in keeping

4:45

your rear end on the cushion for extended

4:47

periods of time unless it translates off the

4:49

cushion. So in that sense, my

4:52

meditation practice is really living

4:55

life as if it mattered moment

4:57

by moment by moment, and trying to in

5:00

some sense show up or

5:02

even giving up the trying, but simply living

5:05

one's way into the present moment and

5:07

realizing that whatever is unfolding is

5:10

the curriculum of that moment. And

5:12

that is true, of course, even on the

5:15

cushion, because there's no telling what's going to

5:17

come up once you park your body in

5:19

one way or another. And I'm

5:21

using the cushion metaphorically to include all

5:24

sorts of formal meditation

5:26

practices, including lying

5:29

down meditations, and even

5:31

lying down meditations in bed, which

5:33

is something I never would have advocated

5:35

in my 20s, 30s or 40s, but

5:39

in my late 70s, I don't

5:41

think I've gotten any less rigorous in

5:43

my connection to the practice. But

5:47

if any moment really is a good moment, then

5:50

you don't need to necessarily jump out of

5:52

bed to wake up. In fact, we

5:54

always say we're waking up. You know,

5:57

I woke up this morning, but is it really

5:59

true? Then

8:01

the way to describe it is

8:03

that you're not trying to do anything

8:05

at all. You're simply

8:08

opening to the actuality

8:10

of the momentary experience

8:12

of that particular moment

8:15

and recognizing it. And

8:18

sometimes I'll use the language of being

8:20

the knowing that your

8:22

awareness is. So you're not trying to

8:25

get relaxed. You're not trying to

8:27

wipe thoughts from your mind or

8:30

have a deep, warm, compassionate feeling

8:32

in your chest or anything like

8:34

that, or feeling like I'm

8:37

cultivating relaxation and then that's going to

8:39

translate through the rest of my day

8:42

in some way. Those are all kind

8:44

of what I would call instrumental practices.

8:46

And I'm not knocking them by any

8:48

stretch of the imagination. But

8:50

if you're asking me about how I practice,

8:53

I try to sit in a

8:55

posture that embodies wakefulness and dignity.

8:57

And I am a

9:01

very strong proponent of sitting on

9:03

the floor if it's

9:05

possible for your body. And if it's not,

9:08

not to worry about it, you could do the

9:10

whole thing in bed or standing on your head

9:12

or any yoga posture or

9:15

on a chair, straight back

9:17

chair rather than a big

9:19

fluffy armchair that you disappear

9:21

into. But the

9:23

most important thing is the

9:25

interior posture, which includes the

9:27

attitude of why would I

9:30

wake up early? And I'm a big

9:32

advocate of starting the day this way,

9:34

just like we're starting the year with

9:36

various intentions. Sometimes I

9:39

like to say, you know, even

9:41

the greatest musicians say violinists in

9:43

a symphony orchestra or whatever, with

9:45

the greatest trattavarius, violins or whatever

9:48

instruments and playing the greatest music with the

9:50

greatest conductors and the greatest and

10:01

then they tune to each other. And if

10:03

you think about taking your seat as a

10:05

kind of tuning your instrument, then

10:08

it's sort of almost common sense to go

10:10

that to do it first thing in the morning would be really good before

10:12

you take it down the road and

10:14

play it in various conditions at work or

10:18

even making breakfast or getting the kids

10:20

off to school or whatever it is, because

10:24

the instrument is best,

10:27

is most functional when it is tuned. And

10:31

when it's not tuned, the

10:33

problem is that you can very easily fall into

10:36

domains of thought and

10:38

emotion that actually

10:41

screen your ability to be

10:43

fully present with

10:46

whatever's happening. And of course, your

10:48

children will be the first ones to tell you that

10:50

you're not fully present because they

10:53

have fantastic presence detectors.

10:55

Actually, all human beings

10:57

are incredibly highly tuned

11:00

presence detectors for other people. I

11:03

work a lot with doctors and I kind of

11:06

remind them that they've probably also had

11:08

the experience of going to a physicians

11:11

for their own healthcare. And then

11:13

knowing that the doctor is somewhat

11:17

distracted and is not giving them

11:19

their full attention, we register

11:21

that almost instantly. And we feel it at

11:23

the level of the body and at the

11:26

level of the heart and the

11:28

sense of harm or rejection from

11:30

something like that. So that's

11:32

a muscle we can exercise. We can

11:34

practice being fully present with no agenda,

11:36

not to get more relaxed or to

11:39

be a sort of

11:41

clearer person or a less emotionally reactive

11:43

person. All those things can happen

11:46

from the meditation practice, but to

11:48

just revel in

11:51

being alive and marvel, I would

11:53

say revel and marvel at the

11:55

actuality of being alive in that

11:58

moment with no agenda. to

12:00

get to some better place with no

12:02

agenda other than to be fully awake.

12:06

And then take what comes as part

12:08

of the curriculum of that moment without

12:10

saying, well, I'd have a better meditation if

12:12

it weren't for the pain in my back

12:15

or the thought in my mind or the

12:17

emotion in my heart. But to

12:19

realize, no, those are just thoughts. And

12:22

the real practice is simply

12:25

being present and

12:27

seeing what happens. And it turns out

12:30

that if

12:32

you cultivate that and integrate

12:34

it into your life in that kind

12:36

of way, it

12:38

does over days, weeks, months, and decades

12:40

actually change and in

12:43

some sense, I would say, transform

12:46

how you live and

12:48

how you are in relationship to other

12:50

people and to virtually everything else inwardly

12:53

and outwardly. And it

12:55

all comes from, you know, to come back to your original

12:58

sort of question here, it all comes

13:00

from basically taking your seat

13:02

as a love affair with the present

13:05

moment and not introducing a whole lot

13:07

of instrumental things that should

13:09

come out of your sacrificing

13:12

a half an hour with your ass

13:14

on the cushion, for instance, if you

13:16

think that it's a sacrifice rather than

13:19

a sacrament. I think

13:21

for many of us, we attempt to meditate and

13:23

we notice how wild the mind is. And

13:25

then a voice in our head tells

13:28

us a whole story about how we are uniquely

13:30

distractible. We probably have undiagnosed

13:32

ADHD. Oh, no, by the

13:34

way, I need to mow the lawn and I

13:37

forgot to send that email and I'm out.

13:39

I'm over. It's over. I'm

13:41

done. Right. Do you

13:43

at this point in your meditation

13:45

career need to start your practice

13:47

with tuning up the muscle

13:50

of attention in your mind by focusing, say,

13:52

on the breath and then every time you

13:54

get distracted, you start again and again and

13:57

again. Do you do that before

13:59

you move into it? to the love affair with

14:01

the present moment? Yes,

14:04

a lot of the time I do. I mean, you

14:07

know, when I sit down

14:09

in the morning at first, I

14:12

bring full awareness to the body sitting.

14:16

And I sit in a posture that,

14:18

as I said, for me embodies wakefulness

14:20

and dignity. And that means, of course,

14:23

I've been practicing yoga, you know, for

14:25

almost 60 years, and

14:28

martial arts for decades

14:31

and so forth. So I have a particular

14:33

kind of relationship with my

14:35

body that, you know,

14:37

knows, so to speak, when it's

14:41

resting on its ligaments, but is

14:43

erect and dignified, but

14:45

not forcing anything. So

14:47

the idea is, you know, for

14:50

a beginner, would be not falling forward,

14:52

not falling backwards, not listening from side

14:54

to side. And also

14:56

with a kind of forward-facing lordatic

14:58

curve in the spine. If

15:01

you're sitting on a zafu in the zabatan,

15:03

that is helped by

15:05

not sitting on

15:07

the sort of center of the zafu,

15:09

but on the forward part of it.

15:12

And that naturally tilts the pelvis forward.

15:15

My knees go to the floor,

15:17

to the zabatan, but depending

15:19

on your body configuration, your

15:21

knees may not. And

15:23

it may cause, you know, a whole range

15:25

of different kinds of unpleasant

15:28

sensations to sit in a posture

15:30

that you're not used to over

15:32

some period of time. I

15:34

started this practice when I was 21 years

15:36

old. So, you

15:39

know, my body was really

15:41

flexible already because of just

15:43

being young. But if

15:45

you really want to sit in this

15:47

kind of way, most people over,

15:50

say, a year or two, can

15:53

shape the body. So this does that. It's

15:55

like getting your body into shape for any

15:57

particular kind of, you know.

16:00

a sport or performance or anything else. Yeah,

16:02

at first you can't run 20 feet and

16:05

then sooner or later you can run 20

16:07

minutes and then sooner or

16:09

later if you keep practicing you run 20 miles. But

16:12

it all starts with the willingness to just

16:15

be where you are. So sitting on a chair

16:17

is absolutely fine if it's tortured to be on

16:19

the floor. The important thing

16:21

is what we sometimes call mind sitting,

16:24

not body sitting. Body posture

16:27

is very important, but it's really the kind of

16:29

platform for opening to and

16:32

learning how to take up residency

16:35

in awareness. And

16:37

that's really the invitation as I see

16:39

it of mindfulness meditation is to take

16:42

up residency in awareness. And then it

16:44

doesn't matter what the objects

16:47

of attention are. It could be the breath

16:49

sensations in the body and

16:51

the sense of the body as a whole

16:53

sitting and breathing in a erect and dignified

16:55

posture with the vertebrae, sort

16:58

of aligning themselves

17:00

in that natural way from the pelvis

17:02

right up through the top of the

17:04

head. But

17:06

it can also be in any other

17:08

posture where you bring full awareness to

17:10

the body. And as you know, I

17:13

mean, the first foundation of mindfulness in

17:15

the classical Buddhist teachings

17:17

is mindfulness of the body. And

17:20

the breath is an extremely important part of it.

17:22

So yeah, when I take my seat, I

17:26

greet the breath and the body. I'm kind

17:28

of not with words, but it's kind of

17:31

welcome the infinite

17:34

mystery of the

17:37

fact that I get one more

17:39

breath. It's always this

17:41

moment. So like when nobody cares about

17:43

the last breath or the next breath,

17:45

it's only this breath that's important. And

17:48

if you were drowning or underwater, that's the

17:50

only thing you would care about is this

17:52

breath. Yeah, we take it so much

17:54

for granted. So it's very

17:56

helpful for people at the beginning

17:58

of meditation practice. I'm

18:00

assuming, beginning of what might

18:03

be intentionally thought

18:05

of as a lifetime of meditation

18:07

going forward, in

18:10

both formal and informal ways, to

18:13

really befriend the

18:15

breath sensations in the body. But

18:18

keeping in mind that it's never the object

18:21

of attention that's most important, whether it's the

18:23

breath in the belly or the breath at

18:25

the nostrils or anything else

18:27

that you want to attend to. It's

18:30

the attending that

18:32

is what's most important. And that is the

18:35

function of awareness, is to just

18:38

be present with whatever's arising, what

18:41

we sometimes call in Krishnamurti, called

18:43

choiceless awareness. And there are various

18:45

names for it in the different

18:47

Buddhist traditions. Shikantasa in

18:49

the Chh sottavvan tradition

18:52

and sopchand, the great

18:55

natural perfection in the Vajrayana

18:57

tradition. And these are all,

18:59

in some sense, that go first approximation, different

19:01

doors into the same room. And

19:04

so for beginners again, beginning at the

19:06

beginning of the year, or beginning

19:09

again, because it's always beginning again. It's

19:11

like this breath is gone, then now

19:14

it's this breath, and that's gone. And

19:16

so it's always right here, right now,

19:19

that it's not trying

19:21

to get anywhere else. As I said,

19:23

it's about being where you actually are

19:25

and opening to it. And you're not

19:28

trying to get awareness because everybody has

19:30

it. It's like our default mode is

19:32

awareness. We're all born with it. And

19:36

so what's the problem? Well, the problem is

19:38

access to it because we're so distracted and

19:40

lost in thought and emotions and, you know,

19:43

sort of the story of me going

19:46

on constantly in the mind, the

19:48

story of me meditating now, the story

19:51

of my new year, 2024, and whatever

19:53

it is, that prevents

19:56

access to establishing

19:58

ourselves in a way. awarenesses

20:00

are kind of home base. Like this is

20:02

where we live, in awareness. And then everything

20:05

else is like held in awareness. And

20:08

an interesting thing about awareness, if you

20:11

either stop and think about, or investigate

20:13

it in the laboratory of formal meditation

20:15

is that if you try

20:17

to find the center of your awareness, I

20:20

don't think you're gonna find it. You know, it's

20:23

like, it's almost like, doesn't make any sense.

20:25

The question itself doesn't make any sense. If

20:27

you try to find the outer edge or

20:30

the circumference or the periphery of your awareness,

20:33

I don't think you'll find that either. Of

20:35

course, people shouldn't take my word for it,

20:37

but try for yourself. But what

20:39

is that most like in

20:41

the realm of human experience? What

20:44

is that like when there's

20:46

a kind of domain where there's

20:48

no center, no periphery? The

20:51

only thing I know, of course, I'm trained

20:53

as a scientist, so I might know this

20:55

and other people might not think about it

20:57

quite that way. But the only thing that

20:59

I know that's characteristic that is space, space

21:01

itself, the boundless spaciousness

21:04

of the universe where there are

21:06

literal uses expanding, not

21:08

from one point outward, but from

21:11

all points all the time. So

21:13

there's no center to the

21:15

universe, nor is there any circumference to it. And

21:18

it's really hard for the conceptual

21:20

mind to grok

21:22

that. And we don't

21:24

have to go into all these questions about, sort

21:27

of dark energy and dark

21:29

matter and like the amazing

21:31

evolution of the universe. And

21:35

we can't go into it because it's so much fun

21:37

to think that your body, aside from

21:40

the hydrogen, which came out of the Big Bang, virtually

21:42

all the atoms in your body came out

21:44

of the nucleus of stars. And

21:47

the heavier ones like the

21:49

iron that's in our hemoglobin and the

21:51

calcium that's in our bones, even

21:54

stars aren't hot enough. So the stars

21:56

had to explode in supernova to create

21:58

that kind of heat. to make

22:00

iron and calcium atoms. And

22:03

then lo and behold, they show up in us.

22:06

And so, you know, Carl Sagan commented

22:08

on it, you know, decades ago that

22:11

we really are a stuff of stars

22:13

or stardust or however you want to

22:15

put it. But my point

22:17

is that when you take your seat

22:19

in the morning, you are a totally

22:22

miraculous appearance in the universe. And

22:24

it's impermanent. You're not you for all that

22:26

long compared to a star, which has like

22:28

a lifetime of tens, billions

22:30

of years, maybe even more for some

22:33

stars. Yeah, we

22:35

get a very, very short human lifespan.

22:37

And the real question, and why

22:40

one might meditate for life,

22:42

not for like two or three months, and

22:44

then you're onto something else, is

22:46

to not miss the

22:49

beauty of it in the only moments we

22:51

have and they are numbered. But

22:53

they were also an infinite number to

22:55

a first approximation. So that's

22:58

where the love affair comes in. Like, yeah,

23:00

let's see what this constellation

23:02

of atoms that created the body

23:05

and the natural world that we

23:07

inhabit on planet earth and that

23:10

we're despoiling. Let's see what this

23:12

could do if it really

23:14

woke up to its true nature. And

23:17

that's not to like become something

23:19

else at some future moment when

23:21

we get really good at meditating.

23:23

It's like, there's no improving on

23:25

this moment. You're already whole, W-H-O-L-E,

23:29

no matter what you think is wrong with you. You're

23:32

perfect, including all the imperfections. And

23:35

when you sit in that kind of a

23:37

way, it has

23:39

an effect on how your days can

23:41

unfold and how much trouble you're gonna

23:43

make, good trouble versus bad trouble, or

23:45

how much you're going to contribute to

23:48

optimizing well-being in the world,

23:50

your own and other people

23:53

and the planets, and minimizing

23:55

harm, a lot of it Unintentional,

23:57

but totally unconscious. So

24:00

there's a lot riding on it

24:02

in a certain way such as

24:04

like one more thing to have

24:07

a little less stress in your

24:09

life for to be a little

24:11

bit better person's Israel as you

24:13

are already have been a person's

24:15

as is no becoming some you

24:17

know so sick Texas perfect cells

24:19

of more like understanding the nature

24:21

of think of his cell for

24:23

myself and realizing that and there's

24:25

we tell ourselves or panic their

24:27

cities for compared to the true

24:29

nature of are being on any

24:31

level or scale you want to

24:33

think about and that that's actually

24:35

something that's. In some

24:38

says, not just a person, a lack

24:40

of yeah, I meditate, and I do

24:42

yoga and I eat well and stuff

24:45

like that for my own personal health.

24:47

but it's actually because you are one

24:49

cell in the body, politic of the

24:52

planet in certain way and of humanity.

24:55

This. Is also in the certain way

24:57

important for the wellbeing of. The.

24:59

World This world, our world's going forward

25:02

and I think that from seriously to

25:04

so when I sit in the morning

25:06

help think about it in those terms.

25:09

But in the world is different because

25:11

I've taken my seat and you've taken

25:13

your seat and millions of other people

25:16

doing this wasn't so much the case.

25:18

it was more or less isolated monastery

25:20

sons mountain tops in Korea and China

25:23

and also to places in Asia, but

25:25

not so much. Globally

25:27

and now. Something.

25:29

Is happening where mindfulness was

25:32

however you want understand it

25:34

and compassion practices which I'm

25:36

not really separate from mindfulness

25:38

or heart homes are moving

25:40

into the mainstream of society's

25:42

globally and I would argue

25:44

that. None too soon

25:46

because in new if we don't

25:48

wake up to a true nature

25:50

as compassion, weeks old, beatings, Reliable.

25:53

to the spoiled the planet and ways

25:55

the will be irreversible for even her

25:58

children to for my grandchildren future

26:00

generations and also other species.

26:04

Let me just get back to something I asked

26:06

about before. I'm just thinking about

26:09

this mythical person that I've invented

26:12

that you and I are both speaking to

26:14

in some ways of who's either trying to

26:16

start a meditation practice or restart one and

26:19

who might keep bumping

26:21

up against this story. You referenced the fact

26:24

that we tell ourselves pitiful stories, a very

26:26

common story among meditators, especially at the beginning,

26:28

and I know you hear this all the

26:30

time, is I can't do this. My

26:33

mind's too busy. I can't clear my

26:35

mind. I keep getting distracted. How

26:37

do you talk to people who have that concern? Well,

26:40

it's a misunderstanding of the root

26:43

instructions. The idea is not to

26:45

clear your mind. The part of

26:47

you that knows that your mind

26:49

is unclear or agitated or turbulent,

26:53

investigate that part, because

26:55

that part is called awareness, and

26:57

it's not turbulent or unclear. So

27:01

we just haven't been taught this in

27:04

school, that we sort of selectively pay

27:06

attention, but we don't really

27:08

know how to attend to

27:11

our attending. So we

27:14

don't know how to bring awareness to the

27:17

full dimensionality of awareness

27:19

itself. And so this is

27:21

kind of new in our

27:23

culture, and actually I think it's new

27:26

in Asian cultures as

27:28

well, because a lot of the

27:30

ancient practices within the kind of

27:33

more religious context

27:35

really didn't have to do so

27:38

much with liberation, as they had

27:40

to do with other more cultural

27:42

aspects of Buddhism, say, or something

27:44

like that. And there were very

27:46

few people who were actually doing the deep

27:51

work that Dogen was doing,

27:53

and that sort of

27:55

the great meditators and the various

27:57

traditions were doing. And

28:00

it's funny to even use the word doing in that

28:03

case, because it's really a being, it's not

28:05

a doing at all. And,

28:08

you know, so I don't know what else

28:10

to say about it, except that it's

28:13

a radical shift to

28:16

actually let go

28:18

of the domain of doing

28:20

altogether, intentionally

28:23

during periods of formal meditation practice,

28:26

and just drop into

28:28

being. And

28:30

what I mean when they say that

28:32

is being awake or aware, and

28:35

then learning how to inhabit that as if

28:37

it was an apartment or a

28:40

mansion, or, you know,

28:42

just a kind of beach or

28:44

the world, where you're

28:46

simply at home, and

28:48

there's no curriculum for what's

28:50

supposed to happen. It's like

28:52

you're not improving on yourself.

28:55

You're understanding that

28:57

even the word that we use, when we

28:59

use the word self, is

29:01

kind of a construct that

29:03

has no essential validity, enduring

29:05

validity. So whether it's in

29:07

your name or your age,

29:10

or whatever it is, the stories

29:12

that we generate around the personal

29:14

pronouns, especially I and me and

29:17

mine, very

29:20

often are so limited and

29:22

limiting that once we create

29:24

them, then we are imprisoned

29:26

by them. And

29:28

to recognize that when, again, coming back

29:30

to the formal meditation practice, when you

29:34

take your seat in the morning and

29:36

just let that stuff play out without

29:38

believing it, or getting sucked into it,

29:41

or seeing that, yeah, you're gonna get

29:43

sucked into it over and over and

29:45

over again, but then the discipline is,

29:48

sooner or later you're gonna notice you're sucked into

29:51

it. That's the awareness. And

29:53

then you're back. And

29:55

so more and more what happens over

29:57

time, it's not that you're thinking

29:59

mind-blowing. is ever going to shut down or

30:01

you're ever going to be like totally free

30:04

of emotions, but they will

30:06

not necessarily control you

30:08

in the same way as they before.

30:10

Or if they do, you'll catch it

30:12

more quickly and write yourself

30:15

a restraining order or simply wake up

30:17

and move in the direction

30:19

that again, as I said, optimizes clarity

30:22

and kindness and wellbeing, not just

30:24

for yourself, but for whoever

30:26

you might be blaming for. You

30:29

make me so angry. I mean, how many

30:31

people say that all the time? You make

30:33

me so angry. That's giving somebody else an

30:36

enormous amount of power over you and you

30:38

taking virtually no responsibility for the fact that,

30:40

Hey, wait a minute. I

30:42

took the bait. I

30:44

took it personally. I believed

30:46

that I was being thwarted in some

30:49

way and I can't stand, you can

30:51

feel the energy of what I'm saying, even

30:53

as I'm saying it. And that's

30:55

like, that's all technically called the

30:57

Pancha there. They're kind of proliferations

31:00

of thoughts and emotion in the

31:02

mind that have no substance whatsoever

31:04

to like dreams. And

31:07

what we're learning is how to

31:09

wake up and be embodied and

31:11

not lost in thought or emotions,

31:14

emotional reactivity to such an extent

31:16

that we dream our

31:18

way into our grave without having really ever

31:21

woken up and maybe even seeing

31:24

who we're married to with

31:26

clarity or who our children are

31:29

or our grandchildren, because we're seeing

31:31

our thoughts and narratives and

31:33

emotional memories and stuff like that

31:35

about them rather than, you know,

31:37

in this moment fresh, you

31:40

know, in a certain way we imprison not

31:42

just ourselves, but each other in our concepts

31:44

about who everybody is.

31:47

So it really is about a certain kind of freedom

31:50

that's available not after 30 or 40 or 50 years

31:53

of heavy duty meditation training in

31:55

monasteries or whatever, but right

31:57

here, right now, today. today

32:00

in this moment. And it

32:02

turns out this moment's every moment because it's

32:04

always this moment. So there's

32:06

something about that that's, I

32:09

don't know, I just have the

32:11

sense that more and more people are finding

32:13

their way to it because of a

32:16

certain kind of emptiness associated

32:18

with living on autopilot, even

32:20

if it's a very successful

32:23

narrative that you wind up, yeah, everybody

32:25

else thinks you're terrific and you have

32:27

all these titles and all this prestige

32:29

and money or whatever it is, but

32:33

you're a little bit distant

32:35

from yourself. That's not a good

32:37

feeling. So it's almost

32:39

like a win-win situation to balance

32:43

all the doing with being and know

32:45

who's doing all the doing. And that's

32:47

the love affair. Is

32:49

this making any sense to you, Dan, as I talk

32:51

like this? It is, it's made a lot of sense.

32:53

I don't want to sound like pie in the sky.

32:56

It's not something that's like I engage in a certain

32:58

kind of way without all this talk every

33:00

single day and not just for

33:03

the hour that we were a half hour, 45 minutes

33:06

or however long it is that I'm sitting.

33:08

And that's to say nothing of the

33:10

yoga, mindful yoga, which is like a huge

33:12

part of my life and just the different

33:15

door into the same room of awareness. I

33:17

mean, I'm a big advocate of practicing

33:20

mindful yoga, especially over the

33:23

decades as the body ages. But

33:26

those formal practices are only the

33:28

beginning. Life is the real meditation

33:31

practice. So every moment is

33:34

really the curriculum, so to speak. The

33:38

cliche is when you're washing dishes, wash the dishes,

33:40

or when you're making love, are you even there

33:42

for it? But it's true for

33:44

everything when you're hugging your

33:46

child. Whatever it

33:48

is, can you drop underneath your

33:51

sort of narrative about

33:53

it all and be with

33:56

the actual apprehending of it beyond

33:59

all of this? description beyond words

34:01

in a certain way. That's

34:04

where Thoreau's quote about going to Walden comes

34:06

in, you know, where he said someplace in

34:08

Walden, I went to the bit, which is

34:10

all about, it's a kind of rhapsody about

34:13

mindfulness, said I went to the woods because

34:15

I wish to live deliberately to

34:18

front only the essential facts of

34:20

life and see if I could

34:22

not learn what they had to teach and not when

34:25

I came to die, you know, that moment

34:27

right before you die when you really wake

34:29

up, discover that I hadn't

34:31

lived. That's the challenge.

34:33

So, and I like to say,

34:35

you know, again coming back to yoga and

34:37

the corpse pose, which is said to be the

34:40

most difficult of all the yoga poses, why

34:42

is it called the corpse pose? It's not like

34:45

an accident where we just like had to call

34:47

it something, you know, it's called the corpse pose

34:49

because the invitation is to actually die

34:51

to the

34:54

figments of your imagination that

34:56

are constantly creating narrative and

34:58

instead wake up to being

35:01

in the body in this moment. So

35:03

you're dying to the past and

35:06

memory and narrative and

35:08

to the future and worrying

35:10

and anticipation and planning and all that

35:13

stuff. Not that it's all fine, but

35:16

if it squeezes the present moment then you're

35:18

never alive and if you inhabit

35:20

the present moment, as far

35:23

as I know, that's the only way to

35:25

transform the world because it's the only way

35:27

to transform the future. Because

35:29

if you show up in this

35:31

moment fully and not caught in the story

35:33

of me or the story of us,

35:36

whatever it is, then

35:38

the next moment is going to be

35:40

different because you were present in this

35:42

one and that is like a virus.

35:44

It's like COVID, it's like a meme

35:46

that is infectious and

35:49

if you've ever encountered somebody who

35:51

is really present,

35:54

we have a very fine game

35:57

detector for that. We know it immediately

35:59

when somebody more present

36:01

than we are. And it's deeply,

36:03

deeply attractive, because they don't

36:05

have a selfing agenda. So it's not

36:07

all about me. And all of a

36:10

sudden you feel seen in a certain

36:12

way that you don't, if

36:14

whoever's seeing you is seeing you through

36:16

the lens of either their

36:18

story or your story or how

36:21

much you could help me or how much

36:23

I could help you or whatever that is.

36:25

I mean, all of that is fine on

36:27

the instrumental level. But what we're really talking

36:29

about is this, sometimes

36:31

called the non instrumental level where

36:34

there's no place to go when you

36:36

practice, there's no place to go, there's

36:38

nothing to do, you know, and there's

36:40

no special state. There

36:42

is no mind, one mindful state.

36:45

There are just gazillions of different states

36:47

and awareness can hold all of them,

36:49

but it's not any of them. And

36:52

it's a mystery. No, no, no, scientists

36:54

know how we generate sentience

36:57

out of billions of neurons

36:59

in the brain and gazillions of

37:01

trillions of synaptic

37:03

connections, which are changing all the time. And

37:05

all of a sudden, like you get sentience,

37:07

and now we're worried about that with general

37:10

AI. Because you know, the

37:12

thought is like by the fifth

37:14

or sixth iteration of these machines

37:17

training themselves for the

37:19

next generation, maybe they'll

37:21

become sentient. And,

37:23

you know, I mean, serious people think about

37:25

that. And I don't know what the odds

37:28

are around that. But maybe human

37:30

beings need to wake up to being

37:33

sentient in our

37:36

fullness before the machines get the

37:38

upper hand, so to speak, because

37:40

we've been asleep at the wheel.

37:43

This is a lot of fun for me. I enjoy listening to

37:45

you talk. And yeah, I mean, I

37:48

spend my days interviewing great

37:51

meditation teachers. And there

37:53

are at least two common denominators

37:55

that I've noticed. One is they

37:57

tend not to take themselves very seriously. the

38:00

great ones you would

38:02

qualify. In my mind, you probably

38:04

wouldn't refer to yourself as great,

38:06

but I will. And the second

38:08

is there's a kind of contact high that

38:11

I as a listener get when

38:13

I'm talking to somebody who's done a lot of meditation.

38:16

Yeah, well I think

38:18

there's something to be explored in

38:20

that because what is a contact

38:22

high? Except again, now

38:24

I'm sort of riffing on my own experience,

38:26

not yours so much, but a

38:29

sense of like recognition

38:32

of something important that's kind of below

38:34

the surface of ordinary awareness and all

38:36

of a sudden you see like, oh

38:38

that person kind of embodies it, you

38:40

know, that's a projection of course because

38:42

you don't really know that person even

38:45

if the Dalai Lama or whoever, you

38:47

know, put on a pedestal, it's a

38:49

human, real human being. But

38:51

people have done a lot of work on themselves

38:54

in the kind of way that we're talking about.

38:57

I agree there, you know, without

38:59

idealizing anybody or reifying

39:02

some kind of perfect wisdom or

39:04

anything like that because we're still

39:06

mortal human beings and totally fallible,

39:09

that there is this sort of sense

39:11

that at least they're not so self-centered

39:15

that nothing else really matters. It's

39:17

just the universe according to me.

39:21

And the movie is, you know, the story of me starring

39:24

me, you know, the greatest thing

39:27

to ever hit reality or the

39:29

planet. And I

39:32

think that's the opposite

39:34

of compassion and the

39:36

sort of recognition that for all

39:39

the narratives around the personal

39:41

pronouns, selflessness,

39:43

the recognition of how

39:46

profoundly spacious we are because as

39:48

we said, if awareness is boundless,

39:50

then you don't need to worry

39:52

about who you are because you're

39:54

the entire universe and you

39:56

can embrace the other and

39:59

simply be in a way

40:01

that doesn't have to do with optimizing

40:04

anything from a me, because

40:06

there's no self-centered ambition

40:09

or attachment to something

40:12

happening. And

40:14

I feel like if we all related

40:16

to each other with

40:18

that kind of deep appreciation for the

40:21

intrinsic beauty of being alive, then we

40:24

could govern ourselves differently. I

40:26

mean, really govern ourselves in our own life, even

40:29

how we use the 24 hours, you know, and

40:33

getting up in the morning to meditate is

40:35

the kind of governing yourself. And getting out

40:38

of bed, that's even more challenging than just

40:40

practicing in bed. It's not better, but there's

40:43

something to be said about actually getting out of

40:45

bed and, you know, sitting or

40:47

lying down or doing whatever one's

40:50

formal practices are. And

40:52

I've been thinking about this more and more because

40:54

the word dharma, which is

40:56

the word that's used to

40:58

describe the Buddha's teachings, and

41:01

the Buddha himself said that mindfulness is

41:04

the heart of the practice, is

41:06

a direct path to liberation. So

41:10

the word dharma, with a

41:12

capital D, is often used

41:14

to describe the Buddha's teachings,

41:17

and they are manifold. They're

41:19

just like huge numbers of teachings

41:22

over the 45 years or so that

41:24

he taught. But the

41:26

word dharma with a small D means

41:28

lawfulness. It's kind of like the

41:31

Tao in Chinese. And

41:34

so, lawfulness is like if

41:37

we are in tune with the

41:39

profound Tao or

41:41

dharma of the world, even

41:45

non-harming becomes virtually

41:47

axiomatic. And mindfulness

41:50

will show you how much you

41:52

may be drifting away from that because of

41:55

othering, for instance, and you start harming people

41:58

just in your thoughts. start

42:00

diminishing or devaluating some people and

42:02

taking sides with other people and

42:05

creating a kind of a situation

42:08

that is in some sense very

42:10

human and in another sense, and

42:12

I think one that humanity has to really

42:15

rise to and learn how to

42:17

govern ourselves differently to minimize war

42:20

and killing and genocide and

42:22

suffering, is to

42:24

recognize that we're all fundamentally

42:27

the same underneath

42:29

all the labels and the selfing

42:31

and stuff like that. And

42:33

so there's something about that

42:35

word Dharma, both

42:38

as the teachings of

42:40

liberation, from the point of view

42:42

of meditative awareness, and

42:44

how we govern ourselves in our own

42:46

lives. You know, like Buddhists take precepts,

42:48

you know, monastics take hundreds of precepts,

42:51

but regular people, when they practice in

42:53

the Buddhist tradition, will often for a

42:55

retreat, say to a weak retreat or

42:57

something like that, take five precepts, you

42:59

know, on which is,

43:01

you know, not killing or not harming

43:04

or not by being intoxicants and

43:06

stuff like that. You know, we

43:08

need to govern ourselves in a way that's

43:11

not just on retreat, but the entire arc

43:13

of a human life. And

43:15

that now we need to develop

43:17

new levels of governance in

43:19

the world, again, to minimize

43:22

harm and to maximize good

43:24

without it being warped

43:26

or shaped like spaces warped by

43:28

gravity, by like very large galactic

43:31

masses, you know, what we need

43:34

is to jump to an entirely

43:36

new level of being human on

43:38

this planet and outlawing

43:40

in terms of governance,

43:42

outlawing certain kinds of

43:45

behavior, whether it's on the port of

43:47

corporations, or whether it's on the part

43:49

of religious warriors, or

43:51

whether it's on the part

43:54

of any agency that would

43:56

seek their own benefit over

43:58

the greater good. of, let's

44:01

say, the entire Earth, not just humans. And

44:04

of course, nobody knows how to do that, and

44:06

it sounds like eutopic, but

44:08

that may be the curriculum of the

44:11

moment if we're going to actually move

44:13

to some kind of new level of

44:15

being on this planet, given what I

44:17

said about machine learning and next levels

44:20

of artificial general intelligence, and what

44:22

is the purpose of humans anymore?

44:25

In this new world that we created,

44:28

and with the suffering that we have

44:30

created as human beings, a lot of

44:32

it totally gratuitous. And

44:34

so there's a political, in some sense, or a

44:37

body politic element to this that I

44:39

think has always been there. I mean,

44:41

we transform ourselves, and we've already transformed

44:43

the world in a certain way.

44:49

In our remaining time, I wonder if I

44:51

could ask a few more practical questions about

44:53

starting a meditation habit. Absolutely. First of all,

44:55

I wouldn't call it a habit. Okay, why

44:57

not? The word habit has a

45:01

lot of downside to it

45:03

because there's so many negative

45:05

habits. Smoking is a habit. Gambling

45:09

is a habit. I don't want to

45:12

turn meditation into a habit. What

45:14

I think we want is to offer

45:16

it as a way, with a capital

45:18

W, actually, a way of being. Because

45:21

we're being anyway. We're going through our lives. We're

45:24

going to die. The question isn't,

45:26

and Oprah once asked me this. I don't

45:28

know if I've mentioned this to you in other

45:30

podcasts or something, but I was

45:32

once talking with Oprah. She was filming away, and

45:34

she had a whole list of questions that she

45:36

was going to ask. And at a certain point,

45:38

she just, you know, out of

45:40

nowhere asked her next question, which was, John,

45:43

what do you think about life after

45:45

death? And I

45:47

said to her, Oprah, I had virtually

45:49

no interest in the question of life

45:51

after death. I'm interested in

45:54

the question of whether there's life before death.

45:58

And I was deadly serious. Sorry

46:00

for the pun, serious about it, because

46:04

what often passes for life is just kind

46:06

of like a driven

46:08

automaticity that disregards

46:11

your own beauty, nevermind

46:13

the beauty of others and of

46:16

nature. And what this is

46:18

about, coming back to the word habit,

46:21

is really that it's a way of

46:23

rebooting yourself. It's like starting over. You

46:25

know, it's just like, cancel

46:27

that, let it be what

46:30

it was. We're not denying any of what was

46:32

in the past moment, but this

46:34

moment, this breath, new beginning, this

46:37

out breath, complete letting go. And

46:40

simply sometimes I'll use the

46:42

word awarenessing, just

46:44

being awareness with

46:46

no agenda other than

46:48

to wake up. And this is the

46:51

way to wake up, is to just be

46:53

awake, be aware. We all have it

46:55

already, as I said, so it's not like we have to

46:57

get good at this, or be

46:59

good at just stringing moments together in

47:03

a kind of disciplined way. And then

47:05

yes, of course it is transformative and

47:07

healing in profound ways over time. But

47:10

it's also about not having to get anywhere

47:13

else in this moment or be a better

47:15

person, but actually recognize that

47:17

you're already whole and

47:20

already beautiful. And with the

47:22

years, you know, you only get older,

47:25

but it's never gonna be better than in

47:27

this moment. So it's a perfect

47:29

moment for practice, and then

47:31

just let it spill out. So let's

47:33

go with what you're suggesting and sort

47:36

of zero in on all of the kind

47:38

of nitty gritty questions of practice that

47:40

maybe you wanna review or

47:43

ask. Yeah, so instead

47:45

of habit, let's say start a

47:47

meditation practice. Yeah, a formal meditation

47:49

practice. Yeah, is there a time

47:52

of day, a length of practice, a

47:54

flavor of practice, all of these nitty

47:56

gritty questions that people have, I

47:59

know what my answer is. are generally, but I'm curious

48:01

of how you answer it. You mentioned meditating

48:03

in the morning. Is that like the time

48:05

that one really should do it? Well,

48:07

I don't know what other people's lives are, but

48:10

MBSR, Mindfulness Based Stress Detection, was

48:12

designed to teach meditation to people

48:15

who ordinarily would never cross paths

48:17

with it at all, but when

48:19

they're referred by their doctors for

48:21

one kind of medical condition or

48:23

another, a lot of it often

48:26

associated with pain of one kind

48:28

or another and suffering. They

48:30

actually engage in practice. And people

48:33

often ask me, well, why did you

48:35

establish like 45 minutes a day, six

48:37

days a week as the kind of

48:39

core practice of MBSR? And

48:42

the answer was like, well, if

48:45

I made it 15 minutes or 20 minutes, it

48:48

might not be long enough for people to get

48:50

bored or for discomfort

48:52

to set in or for anxiety

48:54

or ennui to set in. And

48:56

of course, if those mind states

48:58

don't have time to appear, you

49:00

won't have time to, you

49:03

know, you won't have the opportunity

49:05

to actually see how to be

49:07

in wiser relationship with them through

49:09

the lens of practice. So

49:11

45 minutes a day, six days a week was

49:14

like the foundation of MBSR. And

49:16

that was in 1979. Now

49:18

it's like 44 years later. And

49:21

for the vast majority of MBSR programs, they're

49:23

still doing 45 minutes a day, six days

49:25

a week. So there are arguments for that.

49:27

On the other hand, if

49:29

you're not doing MBSR in a

49:31

hospital with a really good teacher, and you're

49:33

just trying on your own with an app

49:36

or with guided meditations or just

49:38

on your own with no guidance, time

49:41

doesn't really matter. What matters is the

49:43

love. What matters is the

49:45

intention. And if your

49:47

intention is not to get better

49:49

or to improve on yourself or

49:52

to become a great meditator, but

49:54

to simply drop into your life

49:56

and live it in moments where

49:58

you're not filling it. with doing,

50:00

but just experiencing being, then

50:04

time of day doesn't really matter

50:06

or how long you practice, doesn't

50:08

matter either. Play with it, experiment,

50:10

be the kind of scientist of

50:12

your own motivation. And

50:15

motivation's extremely important here. I

50:18

mean, people who decide hearing this podcast

50:20

or some of your other guests or

50:22

whatever, they may get motivated to practice.

50:26

How long that lasts, you know, New

50:28

Year's resolutions and everything. We know how

50:30

long that lasts. So yeah, and His

50:32

Holiness the Dalai Lama is very, very

50:35

powerful on this point. Motivation

50:37

is everything. So

50:39

you have to inquire in a certain

50:41

way, what is my deep motivation for

50:44

doing this? Is it just self-improvement or

50:46

a little relaxation or a little less,

50:49

or anger management or something like that?

50:51

Or is it that I have

50:54

a feeling that I'm actually missing

50:56

some essential element in my life that

50:59

maybe I remember from when I was three

51:01

or four or five years old and then

51:03

somehow it got squashed, whether it was in

51:06

school or not recognized by my parents or

51:08

whatever and bullied or whatever it was in

51:10

my social engagement. And I kind of got

51:12

onto a trajectory where some of me got

51:15

left behind. Robert Bly

51:17

talks about it in a very beautiful way

51:19

30 years ago when Robert Bly was doing

51:21

his stuff, the great poet Robert

51:23

Bly, you know, where he said, you know, we're

51:25

all born with a sort of a bag that

51:28

we have over our left shoulder, he said. And

51:30

over time when you wanted to social

51:33

situations where people shame you or they

51:35

blame you or one way or another,

51:37

you feel bad about yourself, you take

51:39

what you did and your real self

51:41

and you stuff it into this bag.

51:43

And by the time you're 30 years

51:45

old, the bag is like, you know,

51:47

a mile long and getting caught in elevators

51:50

when you get into the elevator. And

51:53

you're kind of like you've stuffed some

51:55

of the most beautiful aspects of yourself

51:57

because you didn't realize that that... beauty

52:01

was not to be denied. And

52:03

you tried to sort of make yourself

52:05

socially acceptable or whatever it is, which

52:08

is never a good

52:10

strategy for being yourself.

52:13

And so I think there's a way when

52:15

you devote yourself or come to

52:17

the idea that you want to live

52:21

a more mindful life, live

52:23

a more heartful life, because

52:25

the words mind and heart are the same

52:28

word in pretty much all Asian languages,

52:30

I'm told. And so if you hear

52:32

mindfulness and you're not hearing compassion or

52:34

heartfulness, you're not really understanding what this

52:36

is. That's why I'd say it really

52:38

is a love affair, but

52:40

not a love affair that's self-centered, you

52:42

know, like me on the star, but

52:45

the exact opposite of inquiring into

52:47

how empty those personal pronouns are that you

52:50

don't know who you are. And

52:52

that not knowing is part of awareness

52:54

and is beautiful, absolutely

52:56

beautiful. So to

52:59

start a meditation practice, presumably

53:01

the people were listening to this, maybe

53:03

something that you or I are saying

53:05

is resonating with them and saying, you

53:08

know what, this is speaking to some

53:10

aspect to me that's like actually very

53:12

old, it's been around as long as

53:14

I can remember, but I've never accorded

53:16

it any time or energy. So let

53:18

me kind of give it a certain

53:20

kind of nurturance with a

53:22

formal time that I'm going to

53:25

actually devote to this, whether it's pleasant

53:27

or unpleasant, doesn't matter or neutral, whether

53:29

I have a good meditation in quotes

53:32

or bad meditation, there's no such thing.

53:35

As I was saying earlier, awareness

53:37

is awareness. So awareness of good

53:40

feelings, fine. Awareness of bad feelings,

53:42

equally fine. Awareness of anger, awareness

53:44

of murderers, rage, whatever it is,

53:48

it's all fine because it's

53:50

the awareness that is what's

53:52

most important. And when you can

53:55

bring awareness to rage or to

53:58

feelings of self loathing or anything like that,

54:00

you can do this powerful experiment

54:02

or pain in the body. Ask

54:04

yourself, is my awareness of this

54:06

loathing or pain or whatever

54:09

it is, actually experiencing that and

54:11

the answer will be no. Your

54:13

awareness is just simply bigger and

54:15

it can see all those thoughts

54:17

and emotions as like waves on

54:19

the surface of the ocean that

54:21

come, that go and we

54:23

don't have to take them personally. When we don't

54:26

take them personally, then we

54:28

discover a totally new dimension

54:30

of our own humanity and that

54:32

can become the place out of which we

54:35

live and act and operate and love.

54:38

Everybody will do it differently. It's not like everybody

54:40

will look like they belong to some mindfulness

54:42

cult. No, there

54:45

is no mindfulness cult. I simply hope

54:47

there's no mindfulness cult and not devote

54:49

to great teachers or anything like that.

54:52

The devotion needs to

54:54

be to awareness itself.

54:56

It's completely impersonal and

55:00

we can be incredibly grateful

55:03

and express that gratitude for however

55:05

it was that we encountered the

55:07

practice and it started us on

55:09

our own journey. And I know

55:11

everybody who has ever meditated extensively

55:13

in their lives actually

55:15

remembers the moment that they

55:18

really knew this was not some

55:21

gimmicky thing that they were going to take

55:23

up for a moment and then let pass.

55:25

They remember the moment when they knew, this

55:28

is it for me, this is it, this

55:30

is for life. And

55:33

I love that. And I've

55:35

asked hundreds of people that and if

55:37

nobody doesn't know when that moment happened

55:40

and it evokes certain

55:42

feelings and emotions and memories

55:45

about what one's apprehension

55:47

was, what one saw and what

55:49

one found. So

55:51

again, that's another way of saying

55:53

that my motivation for doing this

55:55

myself to have this conversation with

55:57

you at the turning point. in

56:00

the year is that if

56:02

this program and all your other guests

56:04

can be instrumental in

56:06

tilting things in the direction

56:09

of greater authenticity, that

56:11

we're living the lives that are ours

56:13

to live rather than some fiction

56:16

that we make up driven by either

56:18

fear or insecurity or unexamined

56:20

ambition that's actually aggression expressing

56:22

itself in some way or

56:25

other, the world is instantly

56:27

different because we're transforming

56:30

what it means to be human or reclaiming

56:33

I would say what it means to be

56:35

human in the form of you. One

56:39

last question for me. There are so

56:41

many flavors, you referenced this earlier, so many

56:43

flavors of meditation. You can meditate on the breath,

56:46

you can do a body scan, you can

56:48

do it sitting up lying down,

56:50

you can do loving kindness meditation,

56:53

compassion meditation, sympathetic joy meditation, awareness

56:56

Zen meditation, Tibetan, Vajrayana,

56:59

Zogchen meditation. How

57:01

do we even begin to figure

57:03

out which style is for us? Not

57:05

to mention the Vedic and Transcendental meditation,

57:07

this is just as Richie Davidson, our

57:09

mutual friend, likes to say the word

57:11

meditation is kind of like the word

57:13

support. Yeah,

57:16

my moniker of the moment is

57:18

many doors same room. It

57:21

doesn't matter what door you enter.

57:24

You don't stand in the doorway and

57:26

say, wow, this doorway is beautiful and

57:28

all the other doorways are like, you

57:30

know, just can't compare to my doorway,

57:33

you know, or my teacher or my

57:35

tradition. The problem isn't the

57:37

doorway or the teacher or the tradition, but

57:39

the my is a big problem. Self

57:42

identifying. So to a first

57:45

approximation, all the doorways of course are different.

57:47

If you have a big hall and you

57:49

got 20 doorways, yeah,

57:52

we all know every doorway is you have

57:54

unique, right? Because it's located where it is

57:56

and it's not where some of the doorway

57:58

is. So the view is there. inwardly

58:00

and outwardly. But once you

58:02

enter the room, it doesn't matter which door

58:05

you came in. And the room

58:07

is the room of the human heart. When

58:11

it is willing to put

58:13

the welcome mat out to itself. I

58:16

don't know why it just popped into my mind as

58:19

a famous poem which I probably

58:21

recited for you in other programs

58:23

by Derek Walcott called Love After Love

58:26

because it's talking about

58:28

just that. When you

58:30

will love again the stranger who was

58:33

yourself. Give wine, give

58:35

bread, give back your heart to yourself, to

58:37

the stranger who has loved you. All

58:40

your life whom you have ignored

58:42

for another who knows you by

58:44

heart. And then he says, take

58:46

down the love letters from the bookshelf, the

58:48

photographs, the desperate notes. So that's like your

58:50

whole story of me, your

58:52

whole history. Take down

58:54

the love letters, the photographs, the desperate

58:57

notes, the full catastrophe

58:59

of the story of me. Peel

59:02

your own image from the mirror and

59:05

then the last words of the

59:07

poem. Sit, feast

59:11

on your life. So

59:14

here's somebody who didn't do Buddhist meditation

59:17

or any other kind of meditation as far as I know. He

59:19

got to it. However,

59:22

he got to it. And

59:24

when he said sit, I don't think he actually means

59:26

sit like a zen monk

59:28

or something like that or none.

59:32

But just beyond

59:35

any tradition, take your seat

59:37

in your life. Show up.

59:41

Be awake and aware. And

59:43

love again the stranger who was yourself. That

59:45

means reclaim all your narratives and

59:48

then be the knowing and the not knowing of

59:50

what the whole thing is all about. And

59:52

when I say the knowing and the not knowing,

59:55

that's what awareness is. I

59:57

mean, we need to be aware of how...

1:00:00

much we don't know, but think

1:00:02

we do and have opinions

1:00:04

about. And so yeah, it's important

1:00:06

to be aware of what it is that we

1:00:08

know and feel in our values and our, you

1:00:11

know, ethical foundation, which is

1:00:14

absolutely key to this practice

1:00:16

of non-harming. But

1:00:18

we also have to just like every great

1:00:20

scientist, what we know

1:00:22

can be profoundly blinding and oppressive

1:00:25

because it in some

1:00:27

sense, create some kind of

1:00:30

barricade to what is right

1:00:32

over the horizon that we may not

1:00:34

know yet. And then we're like an

1:00:36

insight into the nature of

1:00:38

things would produce

1:00:41

a new view. I like all

1:00:43

of a sudden on a ha moment.

1:00:45

I mean, scientists, you know, know this

1:00:47

because, you know, this moment of discovery

1:00:50

where you're the only person on the

1:00:52

planet that hasn't realized this thing, whether

1:00:54

you're Albert Einstein and the general

1:00:56

relativity or a special

1:00:59

relativity or, you know, whoever,

1:01:01

that that not knowing is really important.

1:01:03

So awareness, mindfulness

1:01:07

is both being the knowing, it's

1:01:10

an invitation to actually live in that space

1:01:13

of knowing and the knowing

1:01:15

of not knowing. And

1:01:18

that's really pregnant,

1:01:20

fecund with possibility

1:01:23

for insight and for say

1:01:25

an appreciation of people you may not have appreciated

1:01:28

in the past or see how you

1:01:30

write some people off or some things

1:01:32

off, or, you know, you get caught

1:01:34

in, you know, sort of

1:01:36

one thing or another with only partial

1:01:38

information about it. And

1:01:40

to find a way to live with

1:01:43

integrity and then take

1:01:45

stands, become, you know, an

1:01:47

activist, so to

1:01:49

speak of mindfulness, where you take stands,

1:01:52

but really deeply informed

1:01:55

stands that might

1:01:57

help contribute to the kind of.

1:02:00

governance I've been pointing to

1:02:02

where we create boundaries that

1:02:05

make it less allowable

1:02:07

to cause harm in all the infinite

1:02:10

number of ways we're so good at

1:02:13

and actually make unbelievable

1:02:16

fortunes causing harm as much

1:02:18

of corporate America does. So

1:02:22

minimizing the harm in whatever ways we

1:02:24

can and maximizing benefit

1:02:26

and well-being and peace and

1:02:29

health. You know, it's

1:02:31

not rocket science. It's

1:02:34

something where the Congress would

1:02:36

benefit enormously from being more

1:02:38

mindful and practicing together, sitting

1:02:41

together before making decisions. You

1:02:43

know, of course, there's a long way

1:02:46

before we can reach a point like

1:02:48

that. But it's also true that things

1:02:50

happen very fast when they happen. Fifty

1:02:53

years ago, nobody would have

1:02:55

predicted that millions and millions of

1:02:58

Americans would be meditating and that

1:03:00

the NIH would be funding millions

1:03:02

and millions, scores of millions of

1:03:04

dollars every year to fund meditation

1:03:07

research and mindfulness research in particular.

1:03:09

That would have been considered the

1:03:11

heart of insanity and yet it's

1:03:13

come to pass. And

1:03:16

so I, for one,

1:03:18

really want to stay in the

1:03:20

kind of non-diluted but

1:03:23

really open-hearted kind

1:03:25

of appreciation of

1:03:28

possibility and

1:03:30

that everyone of us is in some sense

1:03:32

an exponent of that. Emily

1:03:35

Dickens said, I dwell in possibility

1:03:37

of fairer health than prose. And

1:03:41

prose is that kind of linear thinking

1:03:43

that carries you away from your meditation

1:03:45

practice. And then

1:03:47

possibility is the awareness that just opens to,

1:03:49

oh, that's the mind just doing itself and

1:03:51

I don't have to get caught up in

1:03:54

it. And when you exercise

1:03:56

that muscle over these weeks, months, years,

1:03:58

decades, the right is to your grave

1:04:00

as far as I can see. In

1:04:02

a certain way, you're contributing as best you can

1:04:05

to not only your own life, but the life

1:04:07

of the world in ways that are

1:04:10

non-trivial and going to be more

1:04:12

and more essential in the coming

1:04:14

decades. John Kabat-Zinn,

1:04:17

always a tremendous pleasure to

1:04:20

talk to you and thank you for your time.

1:04:22

I really, really appreciate it. I

1:04:24

love talking with you, Dan, and I

1:04:26

love our connection over so many years

1:04:29

and may it be a benefit and

1:04:31

a deep bow to you for everything

1:04:33

that you're doing to curate in some

1:04:35

sense the kind of interface between this

1:04:37

sort of ordinary world and the world

1:04:39

of possibility that mindfulness or whatever you

1:04:42

want to call it can offer to

1:04:44

people. And I just bow to you

1:04:46

for the work that you do and

1:04:48

the position you take in the world

1:04:50

in that kind of a way, it's

1:04:52

like really beautiful. Thank

1:04:54

you. That

1:04:56

was the 10% Happier Podcast hosted

1:04:59

by our friend, Dan Harris with

1:05:01

John Kabat-Zinn. I hope you enjoyed

1:05:03

it. On Friday, by the

1:05:05

way, we have a brand new Ted Radio

1:05:07

Hour episode coming out with

1:05:09

even more wisdom to help you navigate

1:05:12

2024. Gonna

1:05:15

be a doozy, so stay tuned for that.