How to Break Your Anger Habit | Sharon Salzberg

Key Takeaway

When you're feeling anger or fear, take a gentle turn inward and ask: 'How does this make me feel?' This simple act of self-awareness creates space between you and the emotion, revealing options you didn't have when consumed by the feeling. You can take the same strong actions without being driven by a 'heart of venom.'

Episode Overview

Sharon Salzberg discusses how to love your enemies - not through appeasement, but by cultivating loving-kindness as an inner state of freedom that allows for wise, skillful action. She explores four types of enemies (outer, inner, secret, super secret) and practical approaches to each, emphasizing that love can be a source of strength rather than weakness.

Full Transcript

Transcript of How to Break Your Anger Habit | Sharon Salzberg from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Hearing a voice can change everything. So AT&T wants everyone to gift their voice to loved ones this holiday season because that conversation is a chance to say something they'll hear forever. AT&T connecting changes everything. Sharon Salsberg, welcome back to the show. show. show. Thank you. It's great to see you. Always great to see you. All right, let me start with the the question that I'm hearing this question. I'm sure you're getting this question all the time. I'm hearing it from subscribers and from people at live events.

Um, events. Um, events. Um, and here it is. Is it possible or even wise or safe to love your enemies? enemies? enemies? Well, you know, I co-wrote a book called Love Your Enemies with Bob Thurman. And well, the original title was love your enemies. It will drive them crazy. And I love that cuz I thought that was the right spirit rather than something preachy and you've got to like pretend you're not angry or whatever. But somehow in the publication process that subtitle disappeared. So we're left with what it is.

Yes, I think it is possible. Yes, I think it's wise. It's not what we necessarily think of as love, you know, because we can have a conventional understanding of appeasement and giving in and being submissive and always smiling or something like that. I think uh as I think you are really deep in the process yourself of um exploring what does love actually mean and can it be a strength. I also personally often come back to the saying which is that the Buddha first taught loving kindness meditation is the antidote to fear.

fear. fear. So that puts it in a certain light you know when you're thinking about a particular people or a relationship or something like that. How exactly is love or loving kindness an antidote to fear? I think energetically we can see that when we're afraid we're kind of shrink back in. And it's a very contracted state. We're withdrawn. And actually in the Buddhist psychology, anger and fear are the same mind state. They're just two different forms. Anger being the expressive, energized, outgoing form. Fear being the frozen, imploding, held in kind of form of striking out against what's happening, wanting to declare it to be untrue.

So what if we can not say this is great, you know, I'm I'm really happy this is happening, but this is the truth of the present moment. and then recognize we have alternatives of how to deal with it. We may uh want to step back from a situation because it's not safe. We may want to be fierce. We may want to be gentle. You know, there's a lot of discernment in terms of the actual action. But our heart space doesn't have to be so embittered and you know whatever.

And we see that you know we can pay attention to our bodies, to our minds. What's the effect of being filled with huge fear or huge anger you know and and sometimes I say for example to people why not bring it up like bring it up right now this time you were hugely angry at yourself and feel it you know what's it like what's happening in your body in your mind and also when we're lost in those states there's a huge amount of information that's also lost it's like in that moment of being hugely angry at yourself you Don't think, well, you know, I did five great things the same morning.

I said that stupid thing. It's like those five great things, they're gone. When we're overcome with fear, and I don't mean just being afraid, but being overcome by fear, any possibility of change, of malleability, of a bright light somewhere in the situation or an action we might effectively take, it's gone. You know, we're just lost in that mastrom. And so the more we can establish loving kindness as an alternative to fear or anger in this case, the more we can see that it's like an energetic opposite and it gives us options we would not have had.

had. had. Something I sometimes hear myself saying to people who approach me skeptically about the wisdom of having a loving mindset in the face of what appear to be, you know, clear and present dangers to our democracy, etc., to our climate, etc., etc. Um, something I often say is you can do all the same stuff. You can take all the same actions as long as you're not planning to like, you know, commit a terrorist act. You can hit the streets. You can write the stridident tweets.

You can do whatever you were planning to do without the rage. Oh, yeah. Definitely. I mean, I think that's one of the um constraints we feel about the idea of loving kindness, which is that it's going to leave us really meek and sweet and, you know, malleable. And people often ask me, you know, a huge amount of time, isn't that the same as appeasement, something like that? And it's really not. I think the there's no mandate for how we're going to act. It's more like an inner state of freedom out of which we can choose the act that we feel is most appropriate and most skillful.

You know, when I um used to teach, the emphasis often was on those times when we we more projected an enemy when there was not one, you know, and and so the the image of course they use in idi all the time is that you see a a piece of rope curled up on on the ground and you mistake it for a snake. I sometimes tell the story about this time I was teaching loving kindness at a non-residential weekend in New York City and someone left on Saturday night, came back on Sunday morning and she said Sunday morning she was on the train platform.

I don't think it was the subway. I think it was a train and some guy approached her and and she thought, "Oh no, he looks really weird." And he started asking her about the train schedule or something like that. And she was so nervous, she kind of randomly pointed to some woman and said, "Oh, I don't know anything about the train schedule. Go ask her." And the guy said, "I can't ask her. She looks really weird." And I thought, "How are we walking around, you know, in in life?" Like, and that can also be true, of course, these days.

Um there's so much more emphasis on what if you see a snake on the ground and you think it's just a piece of rope curled up, you know, there there are people perhaps actively trying to cause harm to you or people you care about or people you identify with. And the question really becomes, is hating them and feeling like kind of othering them actually going to serve your actions? Is it going to serve you? um and sort of the wholeness of your being. Or is there a way to take strong action and protect yourself, protect others, maybe try to do whatever you can do to change a system in some way that is not going to be so kind of randomly destructive or you know so um so much like about striking out which may be a lot less effective.

actually there's so much in what you just said that one thing that's coming to mind and you addressed it but I just want to kind of hang a lantern on it is there was a book I think called the gift of fear there is something very adaptive and healthy about a certain amount of fear um and then but it gets really tricky really quickly because too much fear just is par paralytic and and reduces your decision-m powers and your clarity and also you know fear fear while it can be protective is shot through often with biases.

So, we're afraid of people just because of the way they're presented in the media as opposed to I mean, you know, you can see this with with different uh uh racial and ethnic groups. And so, this is tricky terrain. tricky terrain. tricky terrain. It's very tricky terrain. And um you know there's you could call it wise fear I guess which is uh like alertness and and recognition that that I think is actually a snake you know it's not really just a piece of rope on the ground.

And I think you've heard me tell the story about that actually happened to me once in Burma walking about to walk down a set of stairs at dusk and uh there was like a little green thread on the stairs and all these Burmese women were like shoeing me away and making me clamber down this embankment which I did. Then I looked back and then I realized, oh that was a snake, you know, which I thought was was just a piece of rope. So um we need alertness and awareness and and there are things that are of grave concern you know and we feel anxiety we feel fear but that is different than what I think is kind of a a free floating fear that is more chronic and you know my friend uh Sylvia Bourstein my colleague who calls herself a recovering catastrophizer and her mantra uh her personal mantra these days which I really love is not every bus ends up in a ditch, you know.

So when she finds herself in the beginning of that kind of arc of anxiety, she just reminds herself it's just perspective taking. You know, it doesn't mean no bus ends up in a ditch, but it's like not every bus is going to end up in a ditch. And um you know, you don't have to be off and running with every uh every uh every uh situation, you know, that that might be potential. In your first answer, you raised two questions that I wrote down. You raised them rhetorically, but I'm going to ask them.

You said, "What does love mean love mean love mean and can it be a strength?" Definitionally, I mean, might might be smart to start with like, "What is love? Is love and kindness different?" Um, and and how can either or both of these be a strength? Well, the classical translation for the word meta me- ta uh from the poly language language of the original Buddhist text is loving kindness. Um, and I've had translators and scholars say to me, just say love. Stop being so cutesy. You know, you mean love.

But love is also a complicated term. You know, what does love mean? Is it a medium of exchange? Is it conditional? Is it a freely given gift? I tend to think of both loving kindness and love in this sense as a profound sense of connection. Um it's not necessarily even emotional. It's a recognition. It's like a bone deep recognition that our lives have something to do with one another. And as much as there is a useful construct of self and other and us and them, these are just constructs.

there's another level of reality where our lives are intertwined, where we're part of a kind of network. Um, it doesn't mean you like everybody. It actually doesn't mean you like anybody, but there is that knowing that really deep knowing our lives have something to do with one another. So, and that another antidote to anger or fear is interest from the the classical teachings. And you know, when you kind of take an interest in someone rather than just wanting to shun them or reject them or push them away, it it's a very different relationship.

And so, uh, I think of it like that. Um, I don't think of it as something gooey or sentimental or, you know, appreciative. It's like you may not appreciate that person or people at all in the sense of may you be triumphant. You know, it's not like that. But we know our lives are really connected and and based on that when we take action even if it's fierce kind of intense action it's not from such a heartfelt place of of divisiveness and I think that's a strength you know it's it's a radical notion um but it doesn't leave us sort of sering which is what everyone might tend to think speaking about this and teaching about it correctly I or somebody uh one of our does a weekly uh live guided meditation and Q&A session uh through uh danharris.com.

I'm hoping to rope you into these. Last week I was doing one I was doing a a a loving kindness uh the the traditional meditation practice where you start with well sometimes you start with yourself sometimes you start with an easy person uh and then you move through a mentor neutral person a difficult person and then everybody and then the difficult person I gave everybody the option of of uh a political figure they don't like so for I think the vast majority of people in our set uh it would be Trump.

Um although I hope that people listen I hope we can attract some listeners on on uh both or all sides of the of the spectrum. Anyway, somebody wrote in the comments, yeah, like it's it's cute Harris that you think Trump could ever be happy when you, you know, wish that he'd be happy. And my my point is, and this is picking up on you talking about interest and interconnection, but my this is about me in my mind, not Trump. My and my wish for him to be happy is not for him to succeed in his plans with which I disagree.

It's I think a happy person wouldn't be doing a lot of the [ __ ] that I find objectionable. And yeah, it's totally theoretical, but it's really don't get caught up in in the Trump's dad but never loved him and therefore he can never be happy or he's somehow broken. That that's not the point. I'm envisioning him as holistically happy uh and which is enlightened self-interest because we're all interconnected. It would be good for all of us if he was a happy person because happy people tend not to be [ __ ] So that's my shtick.

Am I am I You're nodding your head. Where am I right or wrong? Yeah, I think you're totally right. I was also thinking of when uh that book came out, Love Your Enemies um and I was presenting somewhere with Bob Thurman and someone asked a question about their boss and it's similar kind of question and Bob said, you know, well, if they were happier, they'd be a lot less of an [ __ ] So you know there's different flavors to loving kindness and one flavor is compassion which is not like pity or commiseration or you know but it is it's recognizing that when we ourselves act in a way that's reckless it's harmful that's hateful even it's coming from a place of pain.

So more than likely, you know, as as people act uh in our view from in a way that's very harmful, we we can have a almost a sense of compassion. Like sometimes I think can you imagine devoting your life to like putting other people down and only feeling good about yourself when you feel like you're number one or you know uh endless accumulation thinking that's going to keep you safe like from change from death or you know it's a dog eat dog world so don't help anybody else and how lonely you end up you know in in that perspective and I think that could be a lifetime journey for people you know and I wouldn't want that life.

I I wouldn't want to be inside that that mindset. And so there can be a kind of compassion without saying, "Yeah, go for it." You know, it's it's a very different state. And so sometimes loving kindness has that flavor. And and the other thing I thought of was in the Tibetan tradition when they use phrases of loving kindness, it's often things like may you have happiness and the causes of happiness. May you be free of suffering and the causes of suffering. So that would be a way of kind of incorporating a wisdom element to it.

It's like I'm not really wishing for you to, you know, be even more self-satisfied at whatever you're doing. I'm wishing for you to really discover the causes of happiness, the causes of suffering. Let's say a word or two about the second question in the pair of of provocative questions that you um posed uh right in your first answer. Um, we we talked a little bit about what does love mean? And then the second question was can it be a strength? A couple things coming to mind as I as I ponder that one is you in this conversation said you know this isn't appeasement that this isn't Neville Chamberlain.

It's it's about freedom. It's about optionality. And and it kind of reminded me of something I once heard the Daly Lama say when I was listening to him speak that like the mind in altruistic mode aka loving mode you can access the full brilliance of the human brain and mind because it's not constricted. not constricted. not constricted. So can you just pick up on those sentiments and hold forth? Yeah. I mean I think look at how fear constricts us. You know the choices we make, the decisions, the way we hold back.

um the way we kind of castigate ourselves like I will never be able to you know in my case give a public talk I will never be able to do that because I was so afraid and we can also feel our way into and this is where interest also comes in or mindfulness what's that feel like you know to be locked into that state not to be having that state but to be locked into that state and really um paint a word picture of it or a picture of it you know and and get to know it and then imagine a state where we are are feeling a sense of connection toward another.

Um not demanding we act in a certain way or react in a certain way but that our options of action are based on on discernment and trying to figure out what's most skillful in this particular moment not on like an old habit of you know holding back and feeling I could never do it and this is all doomed or whatever it might be. uh and you see that there's just a range of possibility. The other way people get constricted is when they make assumptions about loving kindness.

Like if I were to come from a loving place, I could only say yes. I could only let them move back in. I could only lend them more money. And um I have a friend who was working a lot with the Daly Lama in the early early days, you know, when he was first coming to the States and there wasn't such formal security and things like that. So, you know, some people were getting very close to him and she um described her mother as someone who had uh you know, big mental health challenges and uh she was afraid of being in her mother's presence and she you know hadn't seen her in quite some time and then she heard from her mother that she wanted to see her.

So she was in that sort of mental projection state like I'm spending all this time with the Daly Lama and I should be able to go see her and where's the altruism? Where's the compassion? So she went to the Daly Lama and she described the situation and he, you know, was silent for a moment and then he said, "I think you should send your mother an enormous amount of loving kindness from a distance. It's not safe to be with her." You know, and I thought about that.

It was so different than what any of us might assume. like of course he's the Daly Lama. He's going to say go forth, you know, and go spend time with her and loving kindness will protect you or whatever. But he didn't say that. say that. say that. Yeah. So my understanding of love properly understood is not catastrophic altruism or self-sacrifice. It and so loving your enemy doesn't mean you're as you've said before, you know, hurling yourself at their feet. Um you it can include setting boundaries, taking affirmative action.

It's just that you don't need to do any of that as I said earlier with a heart of venom. Absolutely. And I think it was apprentice hempill who said boundaries are the way I can love myself and someone else at the same time cuz that figures too, you know. Just a question about some another thing you said earlier about one of the antidotes to fear/hatred is interest. One of the ways that works in my life as it pertains to this extremely volatile polarized moment in the history of the nation and the world is I really try to listen to and read articles by people with whom I disagree.

Uh and not like I heard I was listening to a conservative podcast this morning and they were referring to hate listening to NPR and that's exactly wrong in my opinion. That's what is sometimes called predatory listening where you're just listening to critique or disagree. I mean actually genuinely being interested being interested being interested in people's points of view. And oddly I find it soothing because sometimes like I realize that there are some you know often I just flat out disagree or I'm too exhausted to even listen to them.

But sometimes I realize yeah maybe something that I'm worried about is a little bit of hysteria on my side. Um, and also it's nice to know that, you know, people with whom I disagree, like they don't wake up in the morning thinking they're the I think most of them don't wake up in the morning thinking they're the Joker, they're a bad guy. Um, trying to burn it all down. Some some of them might. We all have our reasons for believing what we believe, even if it's stupid.

I think that could be very interesting. I think it also depends on a level of discernment even in listening to people with whom you disagree because um it also depends on your own kind of vulnerabilities. It's like I feel like I personally have a lot of um distress at situations where gaslighting is taking place place place where I feel there's deception where there's I mean there was so many secrets in my childhood that when I feel someone's lying to me or withholding the truth it's not a good situation for me you know it's not a place of balance or interest it's just like re very reactive and so I know that about myself and I would have to carefully choose I mean I don't don't don't flagrant partisanship on any side, you know, because there's no information.

There are many times when I don't listen to a commentator at all. I think I'm going to go back to YouTube and listen to the original speech or read the original document or something like that and decide for myself. Um, so I think it's also good to know your own vulnerabilities and and to have a sense of boundaries about that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think your point is that um yeah, Harris, interest can be a positive force for some people in this polarized environment, but for some of us, we need to protect our own nervous systems.

You didn't say anything that made me personally concerned, but for some people, I worry that that is a recipe for wrapping themselves in the warm blanket of their own prejudices and and only listening to people who confirm their priors and throw them red meat. And that I I see that happening on all sides. sides. sides. Yeah. No, I think that's true. Which is why I think um having a sense of determination to find out for yourself, not through a filter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As much as possible.

like go back to the original speech or document or or something like that and without someone else telling you what you should be feeling about it, you know, and and try to understand as much as possible. I remember a million years ago when the cover of Time magazine, you know, like person of the year was was basically YouTube. It was you through YouTube and I thought, what's that about? And then I started realizing I use that, you know, like when there's some political statement and I don't quite know what I feel about it, I go back to YouTube to watch the speech myself, you know, and and then make a decision and and as best I can or I try to get information like what was the historical implication of, you know, approaching this issue that way or that way and because there is history there as well and so uh I wouldn't want to be beholden to anybody really contouring the so-called truth for me, you know, so much.

You know, AT&T believes hearing a voice can change everything. It's why we love a good podcast or we save voicemails from loved ones because we appreciate the sound of a familiar voice. When I need a pickme up, I call my friend Willie. Willie and I have known each other for nearly 25 years. He's just an incredibly close friend, and I laugh my you know what off every time we talk. That's my guy. AT&T wants everyone to share their voice over the holidays. So, send a voice note, leave a voicemail, call someone because that conversation is a chance to say something they will hear forever.

Happy holidays from AT&T. Connecting changes everything. I've got a big trip coming up. I'm very excited about this. My family and I are flying to Washington to go to a Washington Commander football game. As you may have heard me mention before, my beloved brother-in-law, Jack, is a pro scout for the Commanders. Love Jack. Love the Commanders. Love their head coach who was on this show not long ago. Anyway, I'm excited about this trip and many of us are heading into a period of time when we're all taking vacation.

It's the holiday season and I've got an idea for you. While you're away, you could use that as an opportunity to host your home on Airbnb. I love staying in welcoming homes that I book on Airbnb. And it got me thinking, my home could do the same for somebody else. I put so much work into this house. My wife put most of the work in, but we put a lot of time and energy into this place. So, why not use it as a spot to help other people feel comfortable while they are away from home?

And think about it, if you host your home on Airbnb while you're traveling, it's a great way to offset some of the costs of your own trip. You get paid for taking a vacation. And the extra income you make can be put toward an upcoming trip, a splurge you've been eyeing, home improvement projects. So, if you've got some holiday travel or any other travel coming up, hosting is a pretty cool and unique way to make some of your money back. Your home might be worth more than you think.

Find out how much at airbnb.com/host. We've been talking for quite a while and we have not yet gotten into the guts of this book you wrote with Bob Thurman a while back. With your permission, I'd like to go there and again the book's called uh Love Your Enemies. Um uh in the book you talk about four kinds of enemies, outer, inner, secret, and super secret. Can you can you walk us through this taxonomy? Sure. That's a Tibetan formulation. Uh Bob is a you know well-known Tibetan Buddhist scholar.

The outer enemy is those people or situations or systems that we feel are trying to harm us. And here we have the dynamic I was talking about be or harm someone we care about or peoples we care about. So we have the dynamic I was talking about before. Sometimes it's just projection, you know, and we can be much freer. Sometimes it's not. And we're in a really difficult or even dangerous situation at certain times. And uh and we have to examine, you know, again whether hatred and fear are the most effective uh motivational bases out of which to act or are there ways we can find tremendous strength out of a sense of of wisdom and connection.

And then inner enemies are those states like anger and fear, hatred, jealousy. And it's important to understand that it's not just feeling those states, even feeling them intensely. It's when we're all wrapped up, when we're consumed, when we're defined by something. So it is determining our our action or our withholding of action which is its own kind of action because that functions to hold us back to limit us to confine us to burden us. In the Buddha psychology when the Buddha talked about anger and not again not feeling anger even intense anger but being overwhelmed by it he likened to a forest fire which burns up its own support and that means us it burns up our body our nervous system our relationships it destroys lives and like a forest fire it also may leave us very far from where we want to be and so uh we can in a way harness the energy of it the positive part of it is the energy that we're not passive, we're not complacent, but without the kind of, you know, being consumed by it and overwhelmed by it.

And and that's that's really the goal. If we are consumed by it, it's functioning as an enemy. And the secret enemy was kind of the construct of a separate self that is independent disconnected independent disconnected independent disconnected empowered to rule in a way over over life which is really our kind of belief you know that there's a being in there that should be in control of absolutely everything but seems to be in control of not much you know of anything. And you know that sense of it's not that countering that we all kind of morph together into some sort of soup.

We have individual existence. That's true. But it's interconnected rather than so separate and apart. So when we feel that kind of chasm of a of aloneeness um obviously is very detrimental to our well-being. And then the third, the fourth, the super secret enemy, Bob defined as a kind of self-loathing. Um, it's a feeling like we don't have any capacity to grow, to change, to love, um, to understand that we're stuck, you know, in in whatever we're experiencing. And so those were the four enemies as he laid them out.

So the super secret super secret super secret is kind of predicated upon the secret. So if the secret enemy is this sense that you there's some homunculus of Dan separate from the world which cuts me off then the super secret which is the self-loathing. Uh it requires a sense of some fixed separate self in order to operate. Am I right about that? Yeah. And it it's also a kind of uh it requires almost a sense of permanence and irredeemability. and irredeemability. and irredeemability. You know, one of my favorite Daly Lama stories is from the time he came to visit us at IMS at the Insight Meditation Society, which was 1979.

We heard Bob Thurman at that time was a professor at Amherst College, which is about 45 minutes away. And we heard he was coming, it was his first trip to the the United States in 1979. he was coming to visit Bob and teach for him. So, we shot off a letter to the private office being very young and naive saying maybe he'd like to visit us, too. Sure enough, we got a letter back saying, "Yeah, he'll come." So, uh he came in 1979 and there many many stories about that day, but we had a retreat that was ongoing.

So, people had been sitting in retreat for about two weeks or something like that. And the Daly Lama asked to go into the meditation hall and give a talk and then took questions. So this young man raised his hand and he said, "I've been meditating for about 2 weeks and I've decided I just can't do it. I have no capacity to understand anything. I can't change. I can't grow. I'm just sunk." Something like that. And the Dal, remember this is his first trip to to the United States.

He looked really kind of puzzled like, "Huh?" And then he said, "You're wrong. You're just wrong." And then he went on to talk about as they would formulate Buddha nature and we all have a capacity a potential for all those things understanding growth change love. And it was funny because after the talk after the presentation all these people came up to me complaining about what Daly Lama had said. They said that's bad pedigogy. You should never tell anybody that they're wrong. That's just bad. But you know who really got a lot out of it was the young man who totally changed after that you know.

So, um, that was interesting, too, you know. So, it's that sense of, well, I guess these days we'd say the difference between a fixed mind state and a growth mind state, you know, like, you know, I'm just I'm lost. There's no hope. Okay. So, the book then goes on to give some practical things we can do about each of these four kinds of enemies. So, if you're up for it, I'd like to walk through those. So, again, the first enemy is the outer enemy. this projection of of danger where sometimes it exists and sometimes it it may not exist.

Um the practice I I believe you recommend is something called critical wisdom. wisdom. wisdom. Critical wisdom um is kind of fierce, you know, it's I mean it's a little bit like what we were talking about before. It's understanding the difference between our motivation and our action. like our action needs to be our best guess of what's most skillful in the moment. You know, maybe it's saying no, maybe it's leaving the scene, maybe it's being gentle, maybe it's not being so gentle, you know. Um, we need discernment and of course we make mistakes, mistakes, mistakes, but it's our best guess of what's most skillful in that moment.

It's also been interesting to me that these teachings are um contextual. depends on the relationship. It depends on the moment. Depends on the situation. There's there's sometimes not a a universal truth. Like people say, should I always give money to someone on the street? And that may be situational, you know, depending on what we assess in the moment. [snorts] But knowing the difference between that and our inner state that which is motivating us um is is really crucial because we discover we can be coming from a a motive that's more aligned with wisdom with with um compassion with connection and still take really strong action.

One thing that's been really clarifying for me and I learned this from you is this this concept of bodhic chitta which is just to be motivated to benefit all beings everywhere right just kind of omnidirectional omnidirectional omnidirectional good vibes um and you're you're crucially you're not left out of it all beings includes you so if that if you can cultivate that and look plenty of days when I don't have it or plenty of moments when it when it just lapses and I do something stupid. If I can cultivate that as a source of energy, a clean burning fuel, well then the critical wisdom comes in.

All right, let me make the best guess about the wisest thing I can do with this as my motivation. motivation. motivation. Yeah, that's great. You know, and I think it's always, you know, there's a certain um and this holds for the next enemy as well in Tibetan Buddhism. Uh it's just like a a gentle turning toward oneself oneself oneself to see how does this make me feel? You know, like you're about to erupt at somebody, how does that make you feel? Or, you know, we know we have a flexibility because we see in different roles, we adapt.

Like if you're supervising someone at work and your motivation genuinely is to mentor them, not to just put them down so you feel better about yourself. What's your best guess of the way to address this problem, you know, or or this issue? And it will be different because you you know you may be really annoyed and you may be about to lash out and then you touch back in with that motivation and you think well may what's what good will come from that you know maybe I'll try saying it this way or all those times you know in uh the great annals of right speech you know you're talking to somebody about somebody else and you're about to say something really nasty true but nasty.

but nasty. but nasty. And then just asking, you know, you just turn a little bit toward yourself and your motivation and you just ask yourself, well, what would be the result of telling this person? What good will come from this person knowing this about this other person and turning them against them? Is that going to do anybody any good or am I just going to feel kind of puffed up in the moment like I know something you don't know, you know? And so we have so much choice and that's very empowering and it's a lot of responsibility because there's no formula.

You know there's a formula but there's a lot of agency within the formula. Okay. So you mentioned the next enemy again. We're going through the the four kinds of enemies and that now we've gone through the four kinds of enemies and now we're going to talk about what we can do about them. We started with outer which is you know our correct or incorrect diagnosis of um threats in the environment. uh inner is sort of our inner cap capacity for for for rage, jealousy, rage, jealousy, rage, jealousy, hatred.

Um and I believe the practice that you recommend for the inner enemy is patience. Well, I think that patience is born out of mindfulness, which is an ability to know what we're feeling and to feel it, but without being consumed by it, which is tricky, you know, of course, because we tend to think, well, I've got to get over this or I've got to vanquish this or I'm bad because I still feel this and uh I'm hateful because I have hate, you know, whatever. But to recognize over and over again that mindfulness doesn't mean not feeling certain things.

It means having a different relationship to what we're feeling. I mean, it can almost talk about mindfulness as a balanced awareness. We're not consumed by something. We're not overwhelmed or drenched in something. And at the same time, we're not pushing it away. We're not rejecting it. We're not trying to make it go away. It's like here we are together. you know this anger in me. Uh and then as we experience it experience it experience it a lot of interest arises there too like anger is not just one thing or jealousy or fear.

It's a compound of all these different strands coming together. You know we're looking at say anger and you see moments of sadness and moments of fear maybe moments of grief, moments of regret and you just kind of watch these come together and come apart. um if we can watch it and and we can have a kind of forgiveness of ourselves, you know, whatever we're feeling like we couldn't control it. You can't insist I'm never going to be afraid again. It doesn't work that way. Life is not that way.

Um we can understand causes and conditions and understand, well, if I don't sleep at night, then I'm much more prone to losing my temper or being overcome by fear. And so you try to sleep at night. It doesn't mean we're passive, but that idea of absolute control. I'm insisting I will never get angry again. I'll never get afraid again. Life's not like that. And so we can forgive ourselves for what we're feeling and develop a different relationship with all those feelings and the beautiful ones, too, cuz that's part of it.

We don't often talk about, you know, that clearly we're very painobic, you know, and it's very difficult for us to open to painful feelings. But sometimes it's really difficult to open to beautiful and wonderful feelings as well. And so um it's a kind of universal task to practice presence and and openness with whatever is happening. And if we can do that more and more, we discover a kind of patience and life and tolerance that wasn't there before. As you're speaking, I was thinking a little bit about the second arrow.

Um does did that seem relevant to you? And if so, you want you want to explain it? It's uh another image that um is very useful sometimes in in the Buddhist teaching where somebody gets shot by an arrow and of course that hurts. I think that genuinely hurts but then in an attempt to uproot the arrow they kind of take another arrow and they try to dig it out and they hurt themselves a lot more. So the second arrow is not what happens. It's not what arises, it's how we are relating to what arises which sometimes hurts a lot more in the end uh through the kind of coalescing of all these different reactions, you know, and the seeming solidification of the pain.

And it's actually a lot worse than even the original injury. And and so here too, we're very empowered because you can't stop those first arrows from flying. You know that that is life sometimes, but how we react and the strength, the agency to be creative and not just fall into those old ruts of reactivity and um to test out options, to see where our power lies, to see where our happiness actually lies is something that is in our hands. An experience I've had many times and I think I think it's quite common if not universal is universal is universal is I'll have an experience like recently uh the last couple of years as I've discussed publicly before I've had a lot of panic in closed quarters like elevators and airplanes.

I'll panic a little bit on a plane or a lot on a plane and that sucks. That's an arrow and then I'll add the second arrow of I'm supposed to be Mr. [ __ ] happiness. How can this be happening to me now? I've got to I'm taking a clownopin. That's even more embarrassing. Um embarrassing. Um embarrassing. Um that's the second arrow. And I think all of all day long we have a mean thought, a bigoted thought, an angry thought and and then we tell ourselves a whole story about what kind of person we are as a result instead of just being mindful of uh a conditioned arising in the mind.

Yeah. And it's not just you. It's never just you. But it feels like it's just you when when we're caught in that mastrom of the second arrow. And it does. It hurts so much worse you know than just give yourself a break you know these things arise one of my early meditation teachers named Mindra said something to me like why are you so upset about this thought that has come up in your mind did you invite it did you say at 3:15 I'd like to be filled with self-hatred please no but when conditions come together for something to arise it will arise can't we affect those conditions we certainly try but we cannot utterly control them we cannot and so you can wake up in the morning and say, "I've decided not to have any panic today, but good luck," as the saying goes.

um, you know, hopefully that would be true. Maybe it's not true, but it's okay. And it's never ever just you. And and that's part of what's so beautiful, for example, about your talking about these things, you know, or disclosing them is that there a lot of people hearing you breathing a sigh of relief, you know, and saying, "Oh, thank goodness." You know, it's like someone's admitting it. It's not just me. I love that I've set up a life where for me to do my job well, I have to continue to be a [ __ ] That's right.

Was like Ramdas was sort of like that too. He's like his neurosis were like the most relieving thing in the world. Like oh thank god you know like like like yes Ramdas just for the uninitiated is I think of him as like the protojubu. He's he was actually more of a Hindu but a Harvard psychology professor who got fired for doing experiments with psychedelics and um then went off to India and changed his name from Richard Alpert to Ramdas and became a quite influential author and teacher and um including for for people like you.

Um and he was very open about his neurosis. I think he said um he called himself a connoisseur of his neurosis. Okay. So the third kind of enemy is super uh is secret and that is this suspicion that many of us harbor often subconsciously which can make it even more dangerous that we are some fixed irreducible irreducible irreducible unchangeable unchangeable unchangeable self um fretfully navigating a a hostile universe. The antidote to that is an an an um a practice that you call exchange of self and other and the Tibetan practice that's tonin it's exchange of self and other and uh you know I think the basis of that is an is a real understanding of interconnection interconnection interconnection because that aloneeness that incredible sense of corrosive isolation is the problem with [snorts] that enemy and this is just wisdom you know like I love just these reflections about interconnection.

It again it doesn't mean that we we morph into this soup you know with undifferentiated bodies and minds. It it's understanding that even though we are individuals we do not actually live an existence that is independent of one another. So like my favorite question going into a workplace or an organization to teach is how many other people need to be doing their job well for you to do your job well because really the unacnowledged people who are really central to our success exist and sometimes that doesn't resonate.

So I say well did you commute to work? Do you ever think about the auto mechanic or the train engineer or do you stay home and work from home? Is it a technology company that you were kind of relying on? Sometimes that doesn't resonate. So then I say, "Did you eat today?" You know, and if you didn't grow all of your own food, like just spend a moment thinking about the many lives that are involved in that plate of broccoli being in front of you right now.

You know, someone planted a seed, some soil, and someone harvested a crop and someone transported it. And you know, we live in an interdependent universe. And uh there isn't always a pleasant understanding. You know, for years I I was saying I'm really interested in the fact that we live in a time where that isn't necessarily spiritual understanding. Like economics shows us this and environmental consciousness certainly shows us this and I used to say epidemiology shows us this and people used to say why are you talking about epidemiology?

Where's that you know and look where we are right? What happens over there doesn't nicely stay over there. there. there. It ripples out. It affects us over here and what we do, where we put our energy, what we care about, it matters because it too will ripple out. And the more we understand, again, it's like a gut level understanding interconnection, understanding interconnection, understanding interconnection, the more we relate to one another differently, to issues, to problems differently, um to the the need for a collective sense of understanding, we relate very differently.

Yeah. So when I wish for Trump to be happy, I wish for him to understand this. this. this. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So tongen, the exchange of self and other. Can you just describe how that is done practically? So so listeners can do it themselves if they want. Yeah, I mean it it's a practice um that some people find very daunting, but you basically uh in tunnel you breathe in the suffering, the situation, the um difficulty, the grievance, whatever it is of someone else or someone, you know, many beings.

You breathe it in. You transform it within to this kind of spaciousness and openness where anything could be possible. possible. possible. And then you breathe out light and love and and the good things of life. And it's a practice uh that's very powerful in kind of universalizing one's own real pain about something. Like I had a friend whose brother was in the hospital the hospital the hospital um and her Tibetan teacher counseledled her to do this practice like uh not just to care about her brother but like maybe everybody in the hospital and maybe everybody we're all so vulnerable life so fragile and and it's scary for a lot of people because you think I'm breathing in a lot of schmutz you know and but the key is that sort of um moment when you you kind of almost dissolve all of that into the sense of possibility and openness and then you breathe out the good stuff.

Are there pitfalls or potential misunderstandings or mislications of this like in the breathing in of the schmutz and then in the transformation? Can there be a kind of oversimplification oversimplification oversimplification disification disification disification right there? uh there are always pitfalls I mean in any practice and you know of course uh I mean I think mostly you know people often they forget that inner step and it's not so easy to understand you're breathing in like all this garbage and it it doesn't feel very good and it's going to make you sick and you know things like that but that doesn't actually happen and it certainly doesn't happen when we we understand that that dissolution dissolution dissolution into you could say spaciousness or or possibility possibility possibility which is the source of then having resource to breathe out.

I mean a lot of times in these practices um like say you're doing loving kindness which you know is not precisely this but is sort of related you feel like you got to you've got to manufacture all that love you know and send it out and it's up to you and and this is the kind of practice that dispels that because uh you're almost touching the source out of which this can come through you um rather than it being something you're manufacturing. manufacturing. manufacturing. I'm still not entirely clear.

So where my mind is going is um um um so tongland is a Tibetan practice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Loving kindness is a terraoden sort a sort of old school Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism being a later school. uh in in terra practice there's loving kindness and then there's a a cousin or sister practice called karuna or compassion meditation which seems close to tongen actually which is you envision somebody who's having a hard time and you send them the wish that uh they be free from s suffering or pain or or fear or whatever it is all of them that I understand because at least I've done enough of that practice just to know that it isn't all on me.

It's it's just the wish. I don't have to feel any kind of way. Um that's liberating insight actually for that practice. You don't have to feel any kind of way. You're just doing the reps. Just like with a bicep curl, you don't have to feel powerful. Just do the thing. But tongen feels different first of all because it's matched to the rhythm of the breath. Um so it's got a more rhythmic quality to it. But then there's this step of this transformation that isn't quite as simple as, you know, I'm just breathing out the wish that you be free from suffering.

It's it's something else. And and that something else is where I get a little confused. It is very subtle and and it's often left out, I would imagine, you know, in using that practice. And but that is actually the core of the traditional practice. Um, you know, we might say dissolving in an emptiness, but that's it's almost like saying the suffering that you're breathing in is not so solid, so unyielding, so permanent, so inflexible that within it there's also spaciousness. And this this is not an easy teaching, you know, there's a a transformative process in that in that breathing in.

You're not just sort of it's not like an exchange plan like I've got this much suffering I'm sending you this much light you know but you're seeing more into the nature of the suffering and you're seeing the um porousness porousness porousness within the suffering and in that porousness you you find the the light so to speak. Yeah, I'm probably overintellectualizing it, but here I'll just keep going in that potentially not so fruitful direction. But the way I hear what I hear based on my limited understanding of the dharma as I'm listening to you talk is um okay, a core insight of Buddhism is that everything's changing all the time and everything is changing based on this vast gumbo of causes and conditions.

And so the suffering that I might be considering in this practice of Tong Len or exchange of self and other um whatever suffering is relevant to the situation is conditional and and therefore porous and so just kind of filtering filtering filtering filtering whoever's whatever suffering I'm addressing through that understanding. Yeah, that's great. Good for you. That's that's a great explanation. And I would also say that my uncertainty I'm not a teachin practice. I've done just a little bit of it. Um as a practice my uncertainty about teaching is that I think that whole layer of loving kindness for yourself is kind of assumed.

assumed. assumed. I wouldn't want to make that assumption about a lot of people including myself. You know that that's there at the ready. that's going to be the basis of our being able to do this transformative process or find the sense of resource to breathe out all this good stuff. I I don't think it's missing. I think it's just assumed just assumed just assumed and I would personally rather do a practice where it's it's explicit. Right? So without the explicit warmth toward yourself, uh um Tong Len might actually veer into sort of a what I was calling before like a catastrophic self-sacrificing altruism.

altruism. altruism. Yes, I never heard that phrase before. I like that phrase, catastrophic altruism. What does John Halifax call it? Like toxic altruism or something. These are great distinctions that we really need to be making. If you're a business owner, check this out. You can build your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. When you want more, start your business with Northwest Registered Agent. Everything you need to launch and protect your business, all in one place. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years.

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Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/paidhappier and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered agent at northwestregisteredagent.com/paidhappier. You know, AT&T believes hearing a voice can change everything. And if you love podcasts, you get that. The power of hearing somebody speak is unmatched. It's why we save those voicemails from our loved ones. They mean something. For me, when I need a a one-on-one holiday boost, I know who to call. My friend Joseph Goldstein, my meditation teacher, this is a guy who is just every time I got a problem, I can call him up and he talks me off the ledge and gives me practical and profound profound profound advice.

AT&T knows the holidays are the perfect time to do just that. Share your voice. If it's been a while since you've called somebody who matters, now is the time because it's more than just a conversation. It's a chance to say something they will hear forever. So, uh, spread a little love with a call this season. Happy holidays from AT&T. Connecting changes everything. Okay, let me get to the fourth. Um, the super secret enemy and its antidote. Uh again, the super secret enemy is predicated upon the secret enemy.

Secret enemy is a sense that you're somehow separate from the living universe. The super secret is based on that separation, that kind of fixedness. That's not a word, but that sense of being fixed, stuck, separate. Um you can tell yourself a whole story about how you are irredeemable, uh unchangeable. Uh and so the antidote to that is what's called the yoga of self-creation. That too would be a Tibetan uh slant on things, you know, like where they may do a visualization of a deity, but you become the deity.

In a way, it's like a reflection of um when I wrote this other book called Real Love and I said it was based on one line in a movie. the movie being Dan in real life uh written and directed by Peter Hedges and Peter had a a character say um love is not a feeling it's an ability and as soon as I heard that I just loved it I thought it reflected so much of my experience doing loving kindness meditation that if we think of and of course it is also a feeling and it may be the feeling we yearn for but if we think of love only as a feeling we tend to think of it as a commodity and it's in the hands of someone else to either bestow upon us or take away from us.

And I often would get that image of like the UPS person standing at my doorstep with this package of love and looking down at the address and saying, "No, I think I'll go somewhere else." And I go, "Wait a minute." Then there's no love in my life. But if it's an ability, it's within me. And it may be that other people ignite it or inspire it or threaten it, but ultimately it is mine. And so that's that's the sense that we have ability. We have capacity.

No matter what we've been through, no matter what we may yet go through, no matter what we've done, we all have this capacity. It's not cuz I did something special, you know, we all have it. And it it cannot be destroyed. It may be covered over. It may be hard to see. It may be hard to trust, but it is absolutely there. And it's on that basis that we practice that we cultivate different strengths because we can. Um, and that's a very different worldview than feeling uh I'm lost.

I'm a loser. You know, it's like it's not going to go anywhere. And you can really see how that functions as an enemy. And so everything we do that helps us have a a sense of potential, not fully realized growth but potential is really useful. I can remember doing loving kindness meditation and and feeling so much love and thinking is that me you know am I really capable? and I realized, yeah, I'm the one feeling it, you know. So, it's it's it's an ability within us.

And I when I wrote the book, I was uh quite late turning in the manuscript. And and the editor said to me, "You didn't finish the book. You have to finish the book." And I said, "Of course, I finished the book. That's why I turned it in." He said, "No, you didn't finish the book. You just told some story and drifted off somewhere. You have to finish the book." And I could not finish the book. I just like I stared at the computer screen and stared at it and I could not finish the book.

And then the 2016 US presidential election happened and I finished the book in 15 minutes because it came to me that if love is an ability, maybe it's also a responsibility responsibility responsibility that if I want love to be present in a conversation, maybe I have to be the one to bring it in. or I want it as part of an assessment of a solution to something. Maybe I have to be the one to suggest it and and that's how I finished the book. the book.

the book. Really good. I'm writing that down. I'm not sure you answered the question though about the yoga of self-creation. self-creation. self-creation. That would sort of be a Tibetan version of it where you imagine a deity, you visualize a deity and the deities are chosen often on the basis of some attribute. Maybe um your teacher wants to inspire in you or or whatever you know wisdom or love or or something and you visualize the deity but then you become the deity. So it's a little bit like what I experienced in doing loving kindness meditation.

It's like I I became something I never thought I could I could become. And and you know in Tibetan practice they use active imagination a lot that way cuz it's almost like wow is this me you know like here I am radiating you know light in all directions like wow look at this you know I don't have to just like slink into my corner again. Um you so that's that's how you sort of realize that uh the limitations we have so often are just self-imposed through culture through conditioning in some way and that we are capable of so much.

One last question about the book and then I want to turn to your new book. Um I think and you'll correct me if I'm wrong. One of the punchlines of Love Your Enemies is that ultimately there are no enemies. What does that mean? Yeah, that was that was also a little uh bomb by Bob. Um in the sense that the solidification solidification solidification of what we interpret as an enemy is is really a mistake. And that when we understand first of all everything depends on how we're relating.

You know like our own anger may not be an enemy if we are relating in a certain way with forgiveness toward ourselves and patience and an ability not to be engulfed in it. Even this other person who we feel is trying to harm us may not be an enemy in that we have removed ourselves from the situation or we have uh not taken so to heart the story they have told about us. We don't have to become what they are saying. Um you know there ways in which we can find courage and strength that render ineffective these so-called enemies and there's also a way in which we can decide what our north star is what our life is about and that enmity you know hatred and fear is not something we want to live by I've often pondered that statement of the Buddhas where he said hatred Hatred will never cease by hatred.

Hatred will only cease by love. This is an eternal law. And the more we understand genuinely where our happiness comes from and uh strength and wisdom, the more we see that that kind of rigid categorization of of a mind state or a person uh as an enemy um and holding to that is is not serving us, you know, toward that end. Like there are ways in which as you know we do loving kindness practice toward those who have helped us who've been like benefactors. We do loving kindness practice toward those who are friends.

We do loving kindness practice toward those we don't like. Again understanding what it means and what it doesn't mean. But it's not uncommon for people to say, well, you know, I was doing loving kindness for my benefactor and I was feeling all this gratitude and then I remembered, you know, there was that one time when they didn't call me back and they weren't really there for me. Maybe they're my difficult person. Maybe they're not my benefactor. And as the Daly Lama said, quoting Shanti Deva, this great Tibetan sage, friends become enemies.

Enemies become friends. Life is molten. It's changing. Everything is so changeable. And so we don't have to hold someone or a part of ourselves as, you know, this permanent and flexible forever enemy who I hate. Uh cuz we're going to be miserable as a result. Before I let you go, let's talk a little bit about your new book. It's a children's book called Kind Carl. How did you how did you end up writing a children's book? [clears throat] Well, my first book was Loving Kindness. It was published by Shambala.

It came out in 1995 and they have just started a line of children's books. They had an author um that they had often used and they asked me about working together with Jason uh Grul to to create this children's book about loving kindness. So, it's about Carl the crocodile who's so cute so cute so cute um who learns to be kind and it's got some loving kindness instruction. uh at the end and I actually wanted to talk to you about borrowing your son literally because you know I'm not totally sure the book is coming out uh December 9th.

I'm not totally sure about how to present a children's book like in a reading and I thought maybe I could borrow Alexander who teaches loving kindness sometimes. kindness sometimes. kindness sometimes. Uh Alexander really likes attention so I'm sure he'd be happy to do it. Okay, Okay, Okay, just just to fill that in, you know, as a parent, uh you often wonder whether you're having any impact on your kid aside from annoying them. Um and one of the hallmarks of my parenting the one of the hallmarks of my parenting is that I take Alexander or historically I've taken him with me everywhere.

Once he turned five, I just started taking him on all my travels and um so we've gone all over the world together. I made what I think is a wise parenting decision, which is that I don't lecture him about meditation or any of that stuff. He he is in the world of it. Your next door neighbor, Joseph Goldstein, uh who's an amazing meditation teacher. Most of the listeners will know uh he Joseph and Sam Harris and I recorded a whole series an 8-hour series for the waking up app on the noble eight-fold path like this one of the foundational lists of the Buddha.

And Alexander was in the room the whole time you know like half the time he was on his iPad but the rest of the time he was just listening. I don't think he was happy about it but like he's just been around a lot of dharma. Um, and then I found out a couple of years ago, the principal of a school called and said, "Yeah, your son's been teaching loving kindness around the school." Uh, and the high school heard about this and they wanted him to come teach it there.

So, I'll I'll put in the link. I'll put in the show notes. I actually made a little Instagram video of my son teaching high school students loving kindness meditation. Anyway, so I'm not sure how much he understands the concepts. I I think he likes the attention. That's fine. What is that old Jewish line about? You put the word of the of God on top of your heart because eventually it will get into your heart. And so so maybe that's how it will happen with Alexander, but a long way of saying I'm sure he'd be game for whatever high jinks you've got in mind.

Okay. Well, I'll be in touch. Okay. Okay. Okay. So the idea of kind Carl is that this alligator, many of us associate alligators with alligators with alligators with crocodile. crocodile. crocodile. Crocodile. My bad. Right. They're different. different. different. They have different snouts. [clears throat] [clears throat] [clears throat] They have different snouts. It's one of my favorite words. Snout. Crocodiles are not often associated with loving kindness. And yet even this fearsome creature has the innate capacity for love that can be watered and and grown. Absolutely. And and you know, he did it uh Carl did it in part by looking at his thoughts like uh nobody likes me and I'm stupid and realizing that they were just thoughts thoughts thoughts and that he could be different and um sometimes he felt happy, sometimes he felt sad, but he learned to be kinder to himself.

And then he learned not to snap at others and uh he made a lot more friends and and right at the end there's you know activities for everyday loving kindness for kids loving kindness meditation gratitude meditation gratitude meditation gratitude uh joy for others compassion things like that. So it it's really my my favorite illustration is right at the end there's uh Carl the crocodile meditating and you see these thought clouds. May I be peaceful? May you be safe. May you be healthy. You know he's doing loving kindness meditation.

He's so cute. so cute. so cute. Didn't our mutual friend Richie Davidson, the eminent neuroscientist, didn't he do some landmark research that showed that when you teach preschoolers loving kindness meditation, they're more likely to give their stickers away to kids they don't like? Yes. And he's doing more and I sent him a PDF of the book, you know, so he's about to engage in in even further research. Yes, he he did it. And uh it's kind of wonderful that people like him, you know, who are such eminent researchers are turning their attention to children so much.

You mentioned gratitude. Yeah. Are there dharma teachings around gratitude? Yes. Uh there are because um sympathetic joy which is one of the companion qualities to loving kindness along with compassion and equinimity. Sympathetic joy is feeling happiness for the happiness of others. And uh one of the reasons it's very difficult sometimes is because we feel we have nothing going ourselves. ourselves. ourselves. You know it's like you have everything and you will forever and I have nothing and I will forever. And of course, there's several problems with that cuz nothing is forever, but also that feeling of like I have absolutely nothing.

nothing. nothing. You know, we may not have much we're paying attention to or appreciating, but it's not like we have nothing. And it's also unlikely you have absolutely everything, but that's that's its own issue. But in order to counter that sense of I have nothing, I'm depleted. I'm I'm kind of empty in that sense of the word. You have everything. In contrast, we do gratitude reflections and realize we're not so bereff. We're not so um without impoverished that we actually can offer someone loving kindness or sympathetic joy out of a space of if not inner abundance at least inner sufficiency.

Is there something you were hoping to get to in this conversation that we haven't gotten to? No, I just really appreciate I always like talking to you and someday I want to sit down and ask you a bunch of questions about loving kindness. Um, kindness. Um, kindness. Um, and I it is such an interesting time, you know, with so much hatred and so much fear on the rise and and sometimes being pronounced and uh, you know, sometimes I feel like there are these these voices that saying, "What about love?" You know, what about that?

You know, really, it's okay. It's it's important. It it's really it's vitally important and um I'm also glad that Carl the Crocodile uh is coming into the world. So I usually end by asking people to mention stuff they've made that the listeners should know about. You you mentioned Kind Carl. I'll put a link in the show notes for people who want to purchase that. You also mentioned your book which came out uh 20 years a 30 years ago. Loving Kindness. Loving Kindness 1995. Okay. Which I remember, as I've often joked, reading on an airplane, but covering up with another book because I didn't want anybody to see me reading something called Loving Kindness.

My attitudes I forgot about that. That's true. And you also mentioned Real Love, which came out. When did that come out? I think just before the pandemic. Also to mention, aside aside from Sharon's books, which include Loving Kindness, Real Love, Real Happiness, Real Change, and Kind Carl, also your podcast, The Meta Hour. Yeah. meta where I uh get the chance to interview people about mindfulness about love about their work in the world so as you know it's it's a very rewarding exercise and I learn a lot final thing I want to mention on your behalf in terms of promotion is Sharon is one of the co-founders of the insight meditation society which is coming up on its 50th anniversary and uh IMS is doing something in my view incredibly important which is building a third center on the property There are now uh two centers where you can meditate.

There's the main retreat center and then there's a a place for experienced practitioners called the forest refuge. Uh IMS is now raising money for a third center uh which will be on the grounds. This is really important because it's very hard to get into a retreat right now. If you've ever tried to sign up at dharma.org for a retreat at IMS, you will have undoubtedly noticed that it's really hard to get into them. Often they're often run on a lottery system. So having more capacity for more retreats is good not only for us as rank and file yogis but also good for retreat teachers who I you know I think we all want to support and give opportunities to make a living.

Um anything else you want to say about this third center for people listening? people listening? people listening? I think it's it's really exciting. It's al also of course daunting but um you know I was 23 when we started IMS the original and there was no knowing you know like we looked at that building which was a Catholic novic and thought how many people in this country are ever going to want to meditate you know or do this kind of meditation and look what happened you know so we're kind of entering a new era and and uh it it feels like the right thing to do to to as you say try to meet demand which is exploding exploding exploding um and try to serve people.

You know, it's it's a refuge. It's a sanctuary. It's also it's a learning center. People come there not just for an experience, but for in a way training to to get some tools that they can take out into their lives. So, um it feels like the right time to do that. IMS has been a truly, and I use this term unironically, like a beacon, a a vector of practical wisdom that has had ripple effects that are incalculable. So, I'm supporting this Third Center fundraising campaign. Uh, I encourage you to do so, even if it's just a couple bucks.

Um, uh, I'll put links in the show notes, uh, for anybody who wants to get involved. Meanwhile, Sharon, love talking to you. I love talking to you. Thank you for making time to do this.