This Conversation Will Make You Feel Better | Jack Kornfield

Key Takeaway

In dark times, we can't control outcomes, but we can control our response. Practice 'loving kindness' meditation by offering well-wishes to yourself and others: 'May you be well, may you be safe, may you be protected.' Start with loved ones, expand to difficult people, then return to yourself. This practice transforms fear into love, giving you courage to act from wisdom rather than anxiety.

Episode Overview

Jack Kornfield discusses navigating political and cultural crises through Buddhist practices, emphasizing that external change requires inner transformation. He shares specific meditation techniques for managing anxiety, cultivating compassion, and maintaining hope during difficult times.

Full Transcript

Transcript of This Conversation Will Make You Feel Better | Jack Kornfield 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. Jack Cornfield, welcome back to the show. Well, thank you. I'm glad to be with you. So, it seems to me like both you've got two new things you're putting out into the world. A book called All In This Together and a course uh called Stand Up for Compassion. And you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the through line here is that you're trying to help us weather some pretty dark times, politics, climate, AI, etc.

So, am I right about that? And if so, can you just tell me a little bit more about your diagnosis of uh the the situation for the species? Yes, I'm trying to be helpful to myself and everybody else. And when I pause, it's actually a really profound question that you're asking and I don't know that I could diagnose it, but I'll say a few things. It's said that the Buddha and I'll speak from the Buddhist tradition somewhat um was called the great physician and his diagnosis in the most fundamental teachings were um that there is suffering in life.

Not that life is suffering but life has suffering and much of it is human caused and those causes are greed, hatred, fear, uh ignorance or delusion. Then he goes on to say there's a way to change greed to generosity. There's a way to change hatred and fear to love and there's a way to change ignorance into wisdom. And this is our human capacity, our human birthright. And the medicine to do that are practices of ethics or living a living a life of integrity are practices of generosity and forgiveness and compassion.

Um and then practices of mindful I'll call it mindful loving awareness that we can be present in a liberated and uh generous and peaceful way in this world. So that's since you raise it as a diagnostic question if you will then um and we can look around the world and see that the more greed the more suffering the more hatred and um promotion of fear the more suffering. The most important thing though is that for us in these times we forget that we have the inner resources ourselves to navigate these problems.

I like to speak about both inner climate change as well as outer climate change because it's very clear that no amount of AI and compute and internet and biotechnology and nanotechnology and space technology is going to stop continuing warfare, continuing racism, continuing conflict. continuing climate dis, you know, disruption, all the things that we've named because the roots of them are in the human heart. And if that doesn't change, then we continue down that path of divisiveness and fear. The opportunity for humanity especially at this time is what one elder I love Joanna Macy who just died she called she died at 96 and she lived and worked on this for her whole life.

Um she called the great turning where humanity is faced with the crisis that is exacerbated by uh exploitive view of the world that we should take and get as much from every part of the environment and we should compete with one another for that. Um, and she said it's been it's leading us to so much suffering, destruction that now it's time for humanity to realize that we are interconnected and that what happens in the rainforest affects our lungs and our breathing. What happens in the ocean affects everyone who lives on the planet and that it's possible to live in a different way.

So our invitation in some way in all the ways that we work and act and vote and and commune with one another is to live in a more respectful and uh conscious way. Um and that's how we'll change change the earth for humanity. So you're saying and I and echoing Joanna on on this score that there is an opportunity in this dumpster fire. There is an opportunity and in fact it's a critical opportunity. If we continue down the path of climate change disruption, we'll have hundreds and hundreds of millions of more climate refugees.

If we continue down the path of other forms of exploitive technology, people will lose their connection with one another in the earth even more so. So, we have to see it. We really have to see it from the heart and say what matters to us, to our children, to the people and things we care about. And that brings different decisions. Now, I I'll say something else cuz people also experience what you asked about, Dan, as a kind of cultural anxiety now. And I think you've seen that the anxiety about what some call the poly crisis of um climate change and continuing autocracy and more war and uh you know the loss of support for the most vulnerable and all kinds of things like that.

And the beautiful thing is that there are ways to regulate ourselves and to reduce the level of anxiety not because uh we shouldn't pay attention but because we can pay attention and be effective and responsive in a better way. I am concerned about all of the strands of the poly crisis personally, but I have noticed a particular uptick in my level of alarm about what you call the wobbly promise of America. And I've started to spin out a little I think the Buddhist term for this is propancha, mental proliferation, making these movies in my mind and just, you know, wondering, you know, I I've kept this show pretty apolitical, but as I watched what seems to me to be a pretty consistent and successful attack on the rule of law, uh, which raises real questions in my mind about the viability of our democracy going forward.

I I've wondered quite a bit about like what does that mean? are are like are we going to be hitting the streets or is there going to be you know where where does this go uh for for even for people who you know here to for haven't been you know super political beyond voting and paying attention. So, I love the fact that you're asking such a straightup question because it's one lots of people have. And on one side, there are a number of people who are kind of rooting for another civil war.

Let's take over, you know, let's um do what it needs to bring America back to kind of the old days of uh white supremacy, honestly. And in some way it feels like we're still fighting the civil war in the culture. Um because part of the dismantling of the rule of law is also the dismantling of the justice and and inclusion of a huge part of the population. How do we navigate this rather than make a universal declaration? All right, you know, we have to get out in the streets or we have to organize, which are all good and they're important.

Uh, I think it helps to have a also a bigger picture that social movements and suffering in society come um in cycles. We're in a very troubling cycle and we need to respond to it. But if we respond out of fear, if we respond out of anger, if we and rage, if we respond out of our confusion, those are the very things that are actually fueling it. And it makes the polarization more so. It's possible to see clearly this is destructive and to stand up for what you care about, but to do it with a peaceful heart without promoting further fear and further outrage and so forth.

My friend Ma goananda Cambodian elder who was nominated for the Nobel Prize a number of times and he worked with the people who got the Nobel Prize for helping to end helping to try to end landmines. um so many children are killed by landmines in all these war zones. He went to the US Senate and he said, "Yes, we need support for a landmine ban." He said, "But more importantly, we have to remove the landmines from the heart." that way of thinking that seizing territory or power and so forth and the aggression and and um fear in that whole complex um that's what creates our trouble.

So we actually had them meditate for a few minutes to kind of quiet themselves and they ask what really matters to you when you think of your grandchildren when you think of your legacy and that's a question for all of us and when we become that other things are surprisingly possible I love this phrase from layman Kaboi um layman Gaboi and uh Ellen Sirleaf are the leaders of Liberia and Africa, also Nobel Prize winners, and they said Liberia used to be known for its child soldiers and now it's known for its women leaders.

and to turn a country that was in so much conflict into a much more benevolent and caring society difficult though it was shows that it's possible and we need to keep that hope and that possibility um alive. Human beings are immensely creative. Life is creative and we are creative and even in this time of poly crisis we're trying to braille our way feel our way through. If we have a clear and quiet heart and mind then we can contribute without fueling it without making it worse.

We can stand up. We can support. We can care. All of those things, but in a healthy way. I just want to say to the listener who might be thinking, "Okay, well that sounds good, but how do you actually do it?" Jack comes with the goods. He's got a lot of practices that we're going to go through. We We almost certainly can't hit all of his suggestions, which is why everybody should check out his book and his course. Before we get to your very I think wise and incisive and practical suggestions, let me just stay with the question I asked you for a second because you know I'm now I'm abusing my um position as uh host of the show and asking selfish questions.

What when Trump first got inaugurate, elected and inaugurated, I went out and said very publicly a lot of the things that you just said and I still believe everything you just said. But I am finding it harder to act out of love than fear because the fear and anxiety many months of having him be in office, it it's it's worse than I thought it was going to be. uh his ability to I mean the the one thing I really watch I watch everything but the the one thing I watch the most is the degradation of the rule of law because everything rests on that uh do we have a democracy um and I think that's an open question at this point a really truly open question and then it goes to then the mind that's naturally that naturally it's fertile ground for propancha for proliferation, for concern, for the the inner production of horror movies of you know do I if I step out I am stepping out right now I'm saying I don't approve of what's happening does that mean the army's at my door in a couple years um do I need to think about moving my family somewhere but at the same time like I don't want to leave this country it's the only country I've ever been a citizen of and I feel as a patriot you know obliged to stay do I send my country, my my family away.

It leads to lots of practical questions that again just goes to your your exhortation that we act out of love instead of fear that it's just harder and harder for me to fully get there. I'm glad you're saying this so straight up because it's not just your voice, you know, I think this is true for a lot of us. I do not know what will happen. I do know that it's possible to make changes because we are immensely creative. I the last few years, Trudy Goodman, my my wife and beloved and I have been invited to teach at a place called the Oslo Freedom Forum in uh Norway.

And it's hosted at the place where the Nobel Peace Prize is given. Only instead of bringing one person to be celebrated, it it brings 50 people together, all who would be eligible for the Nobel Prize. And most of them are activists who've been imprisoned, who've been tortured, who stood up for justice, whether it was in Hong Kong, you know, or whether it was for the Rohhingas in Myanmar or whether it's standing up for women in Sudan or whether it's activists in Venezuela, all these places around the world, especially where there's dictatorships.

And the reason that we were invited is that these amazing people burn out. They don't have a way to manage the inner suffering. I think of this activist from South America who's one of the most celebrated rainforest uh defenders and she was able to get a million students into the capital of her country to protest the burning of the rainforest by big corporations and the government. But what happens to her is that every time a big part of the rainforest starts to burn, she gets sick.

And I sat with her and I said, you know, if you take the fire into your body, it's not healthy. And so, here are some practices. I want to support you. I, you know, I'll go out on the streets with you. And I want you to be able to last. I want you to be able to do this. So we did a series of practices of acknowledging how she held it in her body and then releasing it into the earth and opening up to a longer time p picture as Martin Luther King said the moral arc of the universe um may be long but it bends toward justice um of setting an inner intention which I'll talk about that really guides the compass of the heart of doing a compassion practice for herself and everyone who's suffering, even the ones she's fighting against, because everybody's scared.

And the reason that there's so much anger and fear also is because we care. And from the anger and fear to tune into to the place of really deep caring and love, we did a whole series of trainings for her and some of the other activists so they could continue and I'll meet them on the streets. um but they could continue in a different way. And the intention part is also really important to understand for us. We don't get to choose the outcome. I'll read this passage from the Christian mystic and sage Thomas Martin.

He was writing to an activist back in the 1960s. He said, "Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and achieve no result at all if not perhaps at times bringing about its opposite. As you understand this, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness and the truth of the work itself. And we as human beings can ground ourselves in values that we know are timeless, eternal values of compassion, values of mutual respect, values of um integrity and that becomes our resting place, if you will.

It becomes our power. And these activists, half of them, I said, were thrown in prison. it didn't stop them and in some cases it's still long and hard and slow. Some cases they succeeded um because there is success in this. So I'm also worried about our democracy and the undermining of the rule of law. Um very much so I want us to stand up and to stand up with the asking ourselves what's my highest intention and what's my best intention and then to go back to that in our heart as we stand up.

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That's noocd.com to learn more and start getting help. You said many, many things that I want to dig into further, but I just want to reflect back to you what I think the core of your message is, or at least uh to check with you that I'm hearing it correctly. The way I'm the way it's landing with me is, and this is really just a reminder of what I already knew, but in a much more eloquent um way than I I would be able to put it.

Um, look, in a world characterized by non-negotiable change and entropy, we we're not in control of the outcomes. You and I cannot uh restore the the the rule of law, just the two of us. But we can do what we can do. Yes. With with a cultivation of an inner climate change uh via the tools that we are have discussed and will continue to discuss and then everything else is, you know, not up to us. That's the truth. But what we get to do is to plant seeds.

And thorough said, "Convince me you have a seed there, and I'm prepared to expect miracles." We don't get to control the outcome, but we get to act beautifully. And when we plant seeds of care, when we plant seeds of justice, when we plant seeds of compassion, those will eventually bear fruit. So that's that's sort of what's given to us. The explorer Wade Davis says despair is a failure of imagination. that in fact it's critical for us to know that eventually as thorough as something miraculous can happen and it might take a long time and there might be a lot of suffering which is a terrible thing.

The other thing that really makes a huge difference is that we sense we're not doing this alone. That those 50 people in Oslo are a mirror of the hundreds of thousands and millions of people who care. And that's really who we are in some fundamental way. We need each other in community and all the acts. I saw a show on BBC some years ago. It was the 60th anniversary of the siege of Lenenrad in World War II. Um, and that was a dire time in Russia.

Uh and Lennengrad was besieged for almost 3 years through those harsh winters as German ar the German army tried to take over Russia and uh they interviewed a woman who'd been a child in the siege and she said we were so hungry and once a week we would go down to pick up bread in a bread line and I went to pick up the bread. She was like eight, seven, eight years old for our family. But it was cold and icy. And when I left with our portion of bread, I slipped on the ice and fell into a mud puddle and the bread got opened and into the muddy water.

And I sat there crying and a woman came out behind me, helped pick me up, and tore her bread in half, wrapped it up, and gave me half of it. She said, "Come with me." And the BBC camera followed her down the railroad apartment to her kitchen. And in the cabinet was this blue ceramic bowl. Inside was a blue napkin. And in it was a piece of bread. And she said, "I've kept it because this is what kept my spirit alive for those cold, harsh wartime winters." We can do that for one another.

And we can do that for our neighbors, for the people that we care about, and for the community that cares. And this is part of what makes the world change. And I think this goes back to your point earlier about the opportunity. If we were living in uninterrupted PAX Americana both internally and externally globally and domestically, we might not have the opportunity to do the amount of good that lay that potentially we can do going forward. You know what we can't control the results but we have an we have a lot of bread we can give going forward and and there's a you know the Buddha he didn't use this term but was a massive proponent of enlightened self-interest.

The enormous good you can do for yourself by doing good for other people. So, here's another two-line poem by Amy Lel. Perched on the muzzle of a cannon, a yellow butterfly is slowly opening and shutting its wings. And I read the poem because it's a reminder that we have the cannons and the war and the troops in our cities kind of militarizing politics right now. But there's something so much bigger that's also happening and that's the world which will renew itself which wants to renew itself.

The natural world and the turning of the seasons and the fact that in this very day there are 250,000 new babies born on this planet coming in saying what do I do here? How do I live here? Um, and among those are the Marie Curies and the Einsteins, you know, and the Mother Teresas. We're here and we have these capacities and we're in a long game and knowing that helps. There's another thing that helps too. I was working with the top with the CEO of one of the, you know, top dozen companies in the country who who was being attacked a lot for some more progressive stance and not just following the um current regime, if you will.

and we talked about it and after I listened for a while I said here are some practices you can do here's a practice of uh equinimity and stabilizing the heart um here's a practice of mindful loving awareness where you can hold your body and all these energies in a way that doesn't develop fear but brings a sense of inner freedom like Nelson Mandela walking out of Robin Island prison 27 years of prison with such compassion and magnanmity and graciousness that it showed that they can put your body in prison, but no one can imprison your spirit.

And I said, "So, I want you to tune into the fact that this is a universal birthright, your courage, your goodness that can't be taken from you." And then I said, 'But I think you could use some backup.' And they said, 'What do you mean?' And I said, 'Well, here in this corner of your office, people will say you're weird, but make a shelf and put on the shelf, you know, Buddha and Mother Mary and Quan, the goddess of infinite compassion, you know, and for the people who are attacking you, you might as well put Kie on there.

you're going to need her courage and strength and you know put on um whatever there is a page um even from the page from the Quran about the mercy of Allah because you know I know you're working with people in the Middle East and for them to see that will see that you have a connection to that and fill this place up with these figures of wisdom and compassion from every tradition that means something to you. So that when people look at you, they see that it's not your working, but actually you're working for something greater that you have backup.

And when you come in, um, maybe light a candle, a weird thing to do in a corporate office, and ask that your tasks be illuminated by your own best intention and carried by the spirit of the great wisdom figures of the humanity. and it really made a difference for this person. So, we tend to, you know, narrow our perspective of what what can I do? But we're part of something so big and also in the long term unstoppable. And it's unstoppable because it's based on love.

And that's actually the truth. It's who we are. We are not our bodies. I mean, it's good to have them and care for them, but they change. They're little and they get mediumsiz and teenagers and then they get pimples and acne and then they get bigger and they go to college or, you know, find a job and, you know, they have a family and they get middle-aged and then they lose certain things or droop or what they get. It's not who you are. I mean, you rent it.

You get to use it. You are the consciousness that was born into this body that's timeless. You are the consciousness that will also leave it. And I've been privileged to sit with many people in hospice or as they die. And there's this extraordinary moment that's silent like a shooting star where spirit leaves the body and the body is just there piece of meat basically. It's there physically but that person isn't there. And of course, because I've done all these weird meditation things and stuff, um I've had out of the body experiences, people have them regularly when they are in an accident and they float out of their body and see things that they could never see.

Um and people who are dying will float out of their body and sometimes come back and I'll say, "How are you?" They said, "Oh, there was so much light." Basically, I see that it's all love. I see that I have this life. They kind of look back. Okay, I did what I could do, the good and the bad sort of looking. But they look with the eyes of something vast and loved and say, "Yeah, this is really what matters cuz it's who you are. You are consciousness.

You are awareness born into this body." And I'd like to call it loving awareness because it connects to everything. So now we've shifted from politics to you know vastness and they come together. Yes. Because we can use the POV of vastness to leaven the daily drum beatat of horror in our news feeds. We need a bigger picture and the news is um it's not good for us. I'm not I I don't say that we shouldn't pay attention, but we shouldn't pay too much attention. By that I mean again out of fear people will scroll and read and it's not a good diet.

do what is necessary to keep yourself informed and then turn off the damn news and you know turn on Mozart or turn on whatever hip-hop whatever you know lights you up because we're so much bigger than the problems also and this sort of fits with what you were saying Dan about um opportunity and difficulty um Francis Lamb um who was um the head of the MIT media and futures lab and they were working on the futures of technology but they're also working on the futures of agriculture new seeds and new ways for crops and things to grow to really feed people um especially with changing climate.

And one of the students came and said, "Can we play music for the seeds?" And he said, "Well, sort of skeptical, he said,"Okay, but only if we do it through the lens of science, which is being poo pooed these days, but it's simply a honest inquiry." And what happens? She said, "Well, what do you mean?" He said, "All right, you plant some seeds in that greenhouse there and just leave them be and see what happens. You plant some seeds in the second greenhouse and play Mozart and you plant seeds in the third greenhouse and play Tupac and then see how the seeds do.

It turned out that music made a difference. But the place that made a difference was where the plants grew more robust and stronger was in the Tupac greenhouse. And the reason that's so is because the beat was really intense and it pushed on them and it strengthened their roots as they listen the plants listen to the music and they grew stronger. So we're being pushed on not by choice but by the collective energy and in many ways also the collective ignorance at this time. It is what also as you point to allows us to find a different kind of strength.

So let's talk about some of the specific practices. I have a bunch of uh practices that I would like to ask you about. But before I ask about my list, what's coming to mind for you as I begin to broach this subject? I got a call from a CEO um in the auto industry, head of one of the major auto companies who also meditates. He's a really great guy, Bill Ford. And it was it was some years ago and the US was in an an economic crisis and he said Chrysler's gone bankrupt, GM has gone bankrupt and Ford is, you know, we're being pressured incredibly.

I'm about to lose my grandfather's company and the whole industry on my watch and I can't sleep. I try him. What can you do? how can you help? And so I taught him several practices um of grounding, a practice of equinimity in which you really surrender to say that it's not in your purview to control things and you reflect on the changing of seasons and the rise and fall of empires and the birth and death of humans. And you again go to a place of um a kind of vast perspective.

And the most important practice I taught him was that of loving compassion, loving kindness meta and compassion practice. Um and he began to do this practice of well-wishing for the people close to him who he cared most about. And there simple phrases, may you be well, may you be safe, may you be protected. And he'd do it for his children or his wife or his family members or people close to him. And that well-wishing began to soothe his heart some. And then as he continued to do it, I said, "Well, now expand it beyond that to the people in your company." And Bill has a great affection for the employees of Ford cuz he worked on the line assembling cars and things.

So it's like in his DNA he's part of the workers and so forth and think of the different ones that you've met and do this loving kindness practice and now bring it back to yourself you know and imagine your family and the people around you looking at you and saying we want you to be well too may I be safe and protected and so forth and then extend it further and he found that that was the most helpful of these practices. is their number. Um that allowed him to settle because he began to rest in the the goodness of love and the goodness of his heart.

And yes, the econ economy would change and he had to do some drastic things in those times, you know, and also to hold the fear of everybody. And part of what good leadership is, is to say, don't be afraid. We know how to do this. We've done this for generations and for thousands of years. We human beings, we've got through really tough things. And if you think about it, and I think about our ancestors, they've lived through incredibly difficult things. And somehow it's like they're on your shoulder saying, "Yeah, we can do this." And his understanding of trusting that loving heart of loving kindness and supporting allowed him to sleep in a very different way of work in a different way.

I have found loving kindness practice to be incredibly helpful for me personally. I do encounter a push back that I'm sure you've heard a million times, which is uh well, this is just going to make me soft and weak. a paluca pushover doormat in a time when actually what's needed is to use the term of the day resistance. Yes. Well, there are different kinds of resistance cuz I've certainly heard this. Um, and I think a different word that I would bring up is the word courage because that's partly what's needed.

And the force behind courage that really makes a difference is love. You talk to soldiers who come back from the battlefield and they're not fighting so much for an ideal for the constitution of their country. They're fighting for their buddies. They're fighting to take care of the people that they care about and love the most. That's the story that you hear. That's the power. And we think that greed and fear and hatred is the most powerful thing. But then you watch mothers lift cars off their children.

And you realize that um turns out love is the big power. And it doesn't mean you back off and it doesn't mean you ignore or turn away. You become rooted in your love of the earth and one another. And that gives you the courage to care and gives you the strength. So in fact it's a power. Not for nothing the you know this I'm not telling you anything new for you but the listeners it might be new that the Buddha is said to have designed this practice as an antidote to fear and and yes anxiety.

Yes. Yes. Exactly. Another piece that's important and um is that of um joy. And this is um really something powerful to say because we can turn our meditation or our whatever we do, our fears, you know, into kind of some grim duty. Okay, I'm supposed to do this. It will help me. I go to the gym. I go to therapy. And now I meditate and I'll be a better person and stronger to stand out. There's an a book that was published called the book of joy I believe a dialogue between Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama and they both laugh a lot and their spirit is joyful and the question that's asked to them is how can you in South Africa all the suffering you saw under apartheid and people being killed and um imprisoned for years and all of the things how Can you be joyful for the Dalai Lama?

The Chinese military have taken over your country and burned the monasteries and you know destroyed the sacred texts and you can't go back. And the Dalai Lama looked back and he said they've taken so much from me. Why should I let them destroy my happiness? And so there's a a kind of instruction for about joy in in the Buddhist tradition that commends it. Um here's the here's the passage um the words the Buddha says live in joy in love even among those who hate. Live in joy in health even among the afflicted.

Live in joy in peace even among the troubled. Look within. Be still, free from fears and attachments. Know the sweet joy of living in the way of wisdom. It's not a turning away from the world, but it's actually a renewing yourself with every flower that comes in the spring. The poet Pablo Nuda says, "You can pick all the flowers, but you can't stop the spring." All those babies coming in, all the things renewing you, align yourself with that. As the French philosopher Guom Apollinaire said, now and then it's good to pause in your pursuit of happiness and simply be happy.

And there's something about this. When you go to a refugee camp, um, as I've done in the past, they don't want you to come in depressed. They're depressed enough. They actually want you to come in with that spirit that says in the middle of all of this there's a there's a possibility that we can do something turn plant seeds turn it towards something better and that way the French philosopher Andre Jed said joy is a moral obligation which is to say aligning yourself with the possibility of changing in this world.

Um, so that's another u another dimension of inner practice. What do you do personally for consistent hits of joy? I'm a runner. So I every, you know, a number of days a week I go out and I have a house that's right on the edge of the San Francisco Bay and there's this threemile path along the edge of the water. And I love the running, but I also I love to see which birds have come and the changes of the clouds and what ships are going by.

It's just stepping out and connecting to nature is an incredibly good thing. Doing of course my meta and loving kindness practice. I read things that are uplifting and I'm basically by temperament optimistic even in the very most difficult times. And again Joanna Macy's work she calls despair and empowerment that you actually have to face the fears that you've said and that we carry and feel the despair and then let it motivate you. Let it empower you to sense that that's not the end of the story because it's not.

Howard Zinn says to be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It's based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to respond. But if we imagine and remember those times and places, and there have been so many where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy as well to act and to contribute our part.

I just going to add one little sentence that my teacher Ajin Cha had and it helps um because we can get flooded by the difficulties of life. So here's the scene. He's walking with a number of monks like we would in the mornings on the little dikes between the rice patties carrying our alms to receive food from villages nearby. And across the field is this giant boulder. And he turns to the monks and he says to monks, he says, "Is that boulder heavy?" And the monks say, "Of course it is." And he smiles and he says, "Not if you don't pick it up." And it was really his meditation instruction that we have the choice of where we direct our attention.

Yes, we need to honor the despair or the suffering and become empowered by it to be a force of love, but not to keep picking up the things that that sink our spirits that take us over. And this is a meditative skill. You watch your mind spin out and then you can say like a bow, thank you for trying to protect me, I'm okay now. I'm going to do something positive. So it's not like you're fighting against it. You say, okay, all those thoughts, all that anxiety, it comes because you care and it's trying to keep you safe.

Thank you for trying to protect me. Thank you. I'm okay. And and you let it go and you say, "Now, what can I do that sustains well-being? What can I do that's where I can reach out my hand and mend the fabric of this society where it's being torn? You can't do the whole thing, but you can touch places and help weave it back together. I love that about thanking your anxiety. That is very cool and radical. I I do want to pick up on a few things you said earlier.

One of which was something about motivation slash intention and the importance of that and my question I guess is two parts like why is that so important and second how do we you know how do we cultivate wholesome intentions intention is really really important because out of it comes our actions and the life that we live. Here's an example. Suppose you're in conflict with someone close to you. It could be Jack and Trudy, even though we're Buddhist teachers, so we never have conflict. But just in case such a little thing could happen in that conflict, if I take a breath or to a mindful pause, which you learn in meditation to take a mindful loving pause and then I ask, "What is my highest intention?

What's my best intention?" And then on the screen goes, well, I'm trying to be right. I'm trying to prove my point. I'm trying to talk about how painful or how hurt I am. All this stuff. What's my highest intention, my best intention? It really is an intention of love. That's where where I want it to go. And the minute that that intention surfaces when I ask that, my tone of voice changes, my eyes soften. I see, well, we're in it, you know, can we hold this with compassion?

We'll sort this out. Instead of being right, I'd rather be loving. That is a kind of a seed example, but it can be in the work that you do, in the political activism that you do. Um, it can be in the the art that you make. Tuning into what is your deepest and and what is your best intention, what's your highest intention, and that sets the compass of your heart and which way you will go. I completely agree that I've seen that play out in my own life and I have gotten caught up or or stuck a little bit in, you know, if you read or for me in in reading a little bit about Buddhism over the years, you see this kind of grandiose veneration of pure motivation.

I think the the Buddha talked about it in in as a with an analogy of increasingly refined dairy products. So like the ultimate cream of ghee would be you know a pure loving motivation and you know the Tibetans have this whole thing about the ailokeshvar this thousand armed deity you know and all the arms have eyeballs in the in the in the palms of the hand and they're all looking for suffering all the time to see if they can help and like my thousand arms uh get berscitis a lot like I I'm not my motivation is not always pure and when I look at how the Buddhists talk about this.

I feel like I fall short a million times a day. You do, Dan. I feel sorry for you. No, here's the deal. And it's true. I mean, I say at the beginning of people coming for their first meditation retreat, a day or a week or something. Um, we are first very quick to judge ourselves. And in fact that pattern of self-judging there's a whole beautiful practice called mindful self-compassion because we haven't learned that in our lives and it leaves us without a kind of fundamental well-being.

The thing that I say at the beginning of retreats is don't be idealistic. The ideal there ain't no ideal human being. I mean, you know, every human being I've ever met, even the most saintly and so forth, they've all effed up at some time. You know, they have, right? And then to measure yourself, having an ideal is a lovely thing. It sort of sets a direction. Can I tune in and find better intention? And then I tune in and I realize, well, my intentions are actually kind of sucky right now.

Maybe I can improve them. But to measure yourself by an ideal and really think that it fits a human being, it doesn't. It's in a different realm. It's in the realm of thinking. The realm of the heart is different than that. And of course, you like everybody will have moments of magnanimity and graciousness and wisdom. And then you'll have moments mostly fueled by fear actually that are not how do we say the most charitable you know or admirable and the actual response is to hold that with compassion and say ah only human only human and then you realize you're part of humanity this is it and it's workable when you say only human it's like saying to your anxiety thank you for trying to protect me.

Okay, here's an ideal that you're not living up to. Only human. Now what? And now what is a, you know, is to say that you have a beginner's mind. You, it's never too late to start again in this moment. It's never too late to build something beautiful or to plant a good seed. So all them ideals, forget about it, honestly. Well, they're they're a compass. if they point you some way, but if you use them to judge yourself to give up. Do you recommend the regular recitation throughout the day internally or externally of your intentions?

I don't somebody might find that well you know the thing of recommendations is it's also inner practice of the heart is very much an art of listening to yourself. Someone can say it's really great to do mindfulness of breathing and for other people that doesn't help them at all. Some people say do loving kindness practice, shine love every direction. But in fact when they look around it's not love that's needed but compassion. You can't say may you be happy and well when these people that you're thinking of or looking at are suffering.

Then you might shift and do a practice may you be held in compassion. And you have to kind of listen to what serves you. Um there's a tradition in the Buddhist world of the bodhicattva vows. Um and bodhic satta is a Sanskrit word. Bodhi means awakened or free and satta is a being who promotes well-being and freedom for all. And so um one aspires to be bodhic satta and if you go into for example into a zen center um there are these bodhicatta vows as people sit down to meditate and they recite their vows.

Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them all. You know desires are inexhaustible. I vow to master them. Whatever it is there's a problem with these vows. are beautiful vows but that is that sentient beings don't want to be saved by you go home and try it in your family. So if you take it literally it's not going to help you much but if you see it instead as a setting of the compass and a better translation is beings are numberless I vow to free us all and free us from what?

free us from fear and confusion and delusion. So that sets your direction. How I live will be to help beings be free. Free from fear and confusion and free to love. Then for me having taken those bodhicatta vows I don't recite them several times a day as you asked but I remember them. And in particular, if I have decisions to make or I get in trouble or I'm in conflict or I'm maybe taking assessing should I do a new thing or whatever it happens to be, I can take a mindful pause and then bring up that vow of vowing to be a force for uh freedom and well-being, love in the world.

And I say, does it measure? or is this right? Um, and so having it to turn back to um, and I do this practice with people when I teach after they meditate and get quiet, I'll recite some of these kind of traditional vows and say, "If you had to make your own vow, what would it be?" And people I said, "Sometimes very poetic, sometimes it's simple. I vow to be kind." And then you go through your life. Um, Dalai Lama said, "My religion is kindness. I vow to be kind and then that becomes a mirror." Is there a time when not being kind is the right thing?

I don't think so. And kind doesn't mean you can't stand up and with courage and be incredibly strong and stop the suffering, do what you can, but even then you don't have to do it with a hatred. So, you kind of reflect on your own vows, if you will. 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. Another thing you mentioned earlier and this comes up in both your new book and your course that you're offering is this concept of imagination.

Um I believe the the some of the phrases you use are creating a wise society based on mutual care, transforming anxiety and fear into imagination and hope. You talk about being the h exhorting us to be the imaginal cells of the butterfly or a makeweight of hope. Can you sort of unpack some of these phrases and talk about the um this kind of envisioning of a better future in the and how empowering that can be? When you read, who knows what actually happened, but when you read the 2,000-year-old text of the last month of the Buddha's life, the last days, in that text in the last year, he says that if a society treats each other with respect, it will prosper and not decline.

If a society treats the vulnerable, the children, the women, the th those who are struggling with care, it will prosper and not decline. If the society comes together uh and meets with mutual care to consider how to live and go forward, they will prosper and not decline. If a society cares for the environment around, they will prosper and not decline. So these are some of the very last teachings of the Buddha for wise society. And the beautiful thing is that there are practices. If you do a loving kindness practice, if you do a practice of mindful mindfulness, a mindful loving awareness, you actually expand the window of tolerance in your life to where you can bear bear witness to fear and anxiety and longing and self- judgment and so forth and hold them all in a much bigger space of loving awareness because that's what you are.

your love and your awareness. So then um that image of uh when a butterfly is in its life cycle, a caterpillar spins a cocoon to go in and transform itself into a butterfly. The kind of naive idea is there's a caterpillar and it grows wings already completely mysterious like how does this happen? How do we grow a body out of these little cells? No, you know, we can describe it some, but it's amazing that anything exists and that it keeps making new things. And so, here's the caterpillar, but it doesn't do it that way.

In fact, it dissolves itself into a kind of gooey mass of cells. Um, so it deconstructs itself. Maybe it's partly what's happening in our society at this time. And then there's a series of cells in there that the scientists, the biologists have named imagininal cells that have a sense that they could come together and do something beyond being a caterpillar. And they start to assemble themselves as a butterfly. Those are the cells. And sometimes they're in conflict with the other cells as they watch, the ones that want to go back the old way, but they build and construct a butterfly with its wings until the crysalis opens.

We have the opportunity to be the imaginal selves at this difficult time to vision that there is a society that humans can have and we've seen it in places which is characterized by mutual respect by care for the vulnerable by care for the environment by coming together and listening to each other. The other thing of those images, if you go in the marketplace for a very long time, maybe until just recent electronics, and you buy fruit, the vendor will have a balance scale and on one side you put the mangoes or the bananas or apples or whatever it is.

On the other side, they put weights until it balances. They say, "Okay, this is, you know, 2 lb or whatever it is." and gives you the price. But it turns out in the balance scales that they're the big weights that sort of approximate, but in the end to get it to balance right, there's this little line of tiny weights that are called make weights. And sometimes they're like little animals, little dragons or dogs or whatever. They they make them in nice forms. And so it almost balances but not quite.

And then you take a couple of these little weights and you put it on that side and then things balance out. And those make weights are the ones that bring things back into balance in spite of how huge the other weights are or how big the pile of apples is. Those things tip the scale and bring it into balance. And it's really important for us to understand because we are in living in mystery that we don't know but maybe you are the makeweight. Maybe your podcast Dan, maybe the way that you live, maybe the people that you influence, you know, tips the scale in some important way.

And so there's something tremendously empowering about this. like the imaginal cells uh that we think we don't make a difference cuz the problems are so vast. Bigger than the problems is imagination. It's way bigger. In your last answer, you used a a word that might might be a good and meaty weighty subject on which we could close. You you use the word mystery and in in your in your new book you you talk about you know a a survival a sanity strategy in these dark times being connecting with mystery with death with consciousness these big just brainbreaking concepts and and there's a specific practice you recommend called the you are consciousness practice.

Would you mind describing how we could do that? It is mysterious. I'm sorry, but how does a planet, you know, create all this stuff? And it continues to create new species and new, it's extraordinary. And we have no idea. We really don't. There's a creative force, whatever name you want to use that cosmic creativity that makes not just the planet, but the sun and the turning of the galaxies and everything. It's incredible. And we forget it because we have our, you know, shopping list and our, you know, projects and things that we have to tend.

And we do, we have to tend our garden. But the fact that things grow out of the earth and assemble themselves in the way they do, how did that happen? It is incredibly mysterious, you know. And then trees. One of the great wonderful things about trees and there's so many wonderful things about them now. We know they communicate with other trees in the mcelium underneath and send sugar to their children and help sick trees and trees are a lot more um connected than we know. The thing that I love particularly is that this is how you live Dan and I I live also is that trees turn sunlight into sugar with through chlorophyll.

all those little lessons you learned in high school or whatever about the, you know, cycle of the plants that what it means is that when sunlight hits the trees that the light activates a chemical reaction that turns that light into sugar and then the trees become the food for all the animals and various things like that. Who designed this? You know, you can put whatever name you want on it, but it is wild and we think we're in charge. Now, the next thing to say is that there are 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows.

And if we look in human history, we've had very bleak times collectively and we've also done magnificent things as uh you know I read that passage of human history is filled with magnificent courage as well as difficulties. So you asked about a practice. There's two. Here's a really simple one. You can stand in front of a mirror in your bathroom and look at yourself and if you look, you'll notice you've aged, right? For me, it's losing fur. For others, it's like little bits of drooping, a little punch, a little your skin, you know, thought.

But you notice you've aged, right? No matter what. But the weird thing is you don't necessarily feel older. That's such a common experience. And that's because it's only the body that's aged. But that's not who you are. When you have that feeling, you know, it's weird cuz I don't feel older. The truth is that you are the awareness itself. And I like to call it loving awareness. borrowing that phrase also from Ramdas and working with him because this awareness is outside of time and it's who you are.

You're the consciousness that goes through all these different adventures and there are different ways to practice doing it. Sometimes you can sit quietly and close your eyes. And as you get quiet, imagine that your mind is not limited to the size of your head, but that it's vast like the sky. And all the sounds you hear, the airplane in the distance and the clanking of the radiator or the wind in the trees outside, they're all happening in the vast space of your own mind, which is the space of awareness.

That's a beautiful practice and it's one you can use sitting in a cafe and the street in New York and the you know the traffic's going by and people are talking and instead of fighting it you open and you hear it all as music and you are the space of awareness or like looking in the mirror you can also turn your attention back and my teacher Ajancha went to see the greatest master of his day past. He said, "I've been living in these forest, monasteries, and jungles and practicing, and I've had all these experiences.

My body would turn into light when I got really present. The sense of boundaries would open and dissolve and I would have these images and insights and you know all the kind of meditative experiences. Can I get your help?" And the master looked at him and said, "Chai, you're looking the wrong direction." Those experiences you have, they're like going to the movies. You know, there's a romantic comedy and there's a documentary and there's a war movie and there's a, you know, a social whatever movie and so forth.

He said, "Those are just the movies that come and go. Turn around and see that they're created by the light that shines. They're not fundamentally real because they arise and pass. And turn your attention back and become the one who knows the loving witness of it all. And you can do that even as you know we talk now even if you're driving. I don't know that you want to close your eyes but you can sense that who you are is not the body. It's not your emotions.

They come and go like waves. Who you are is not your thoughts. I hope because they're like, you know, fireflies. They appear pictures and words and disappear. Who you are is the loving witness of all of this. And this t this is the timeless dimension of consciousness itself. And practicing in this way and knowing this gives you a kind of freedom that is true for you. That is your birthright. Again, they can put your body in prison, but no one can imprison your spirit. You can go through beautiful things and you go, "Wow, that was fantastic and horrible things.

Oh my god, that's terrible." and breaks your heart and you feel so much compassion and then at some point you step back and say, "Wow, that was an amazing year we got through, wasn't it?" Because the one who knows is the consciousness itself that sees all of this arising and passing and is a space of peacefulness, graciousness, love. I like to call it mindful loving awareness because you're present and you're present with love and you're you're alive to it. There was a sign in the casino in Las Vegas um that I saw that said you must be present to win.

And it's true in Las Vegas, but it's really the invitation of meditation instead of getting lost in our fears and our thoughts. And you know, you walk down the street and you don't see anything cuz you're reliving something and planning something. You're not so alive. But instead, you can notice that or you can plan a bit. You can remember things. But how about being here and seeing both what's mysterious and responding from a place of really deep presence? And whatever you bring yourself to with that kind of mindful loving presence and attention, you do it more beautifully.

You come from a place of freedom. Wherever whatever is going on with you, you are free. Your spirit is free. That's the truth. I want to say to our listeners, Jack, we have barely scratched the surface of the treasury of practical stuff available in uh in Jack's new course, which is called Stand Up for Compassion. There will be a link in the show notes. It's free. Uh and in Jack's new book, All in This Together, there will also be a link uh if you want to buy that.

Um we have, as I just said, scratched the surface. you should go listen and or read to both uh the course and the book. Um before I let you go, Jack, anything else that you want people to know about that you've made and put out there? Just go on jack hornfield.com and there are lots of free meditations and for many many people having an audio or videoguided meditation is a really great way to start. Thank you for mentioning the merch. You know, here we are. This is our our our wild society.

Um I'm just grateful for the work you do, Dan. You know, I know when you started 10%. Um it came from your own inner transformation and it seems like uh your own understanding of meditation and mindfulness and loving kindness practice has made you a happy camper or happier camper and that's what we want for everybody that they find a well-being and so your work has really been important for a lot of people in finding that and I thank you for it. Well, I thank you. If if listeners go back and and check out your previous appearances on this show, they will almost certainly have heard me or will almost certainly hear me say what I'm about to say.

Um, which is that everything I do is because of all the stuff you did. So, thank you. Right back at you. I guess we are in it together. another um crass advertisement for my book.