What 50 Years of Meditation Taught This Teacher About Anger, Aging, and Grief | Sylvia Boorstein

Key Takeaway

When you find yourself struggling with difficult circumstances, remember: you don't need heroic willpower to transform suffering into grace. What works is intentionally turning your mind toward kindness. As meditation teacher Sylvia Borstein discovered over 50 years of practice, the secret isn't conquering your mind—it's making it sweet. When you cultivate compassion for everyone around you (who are all suffering in their own ways), you naturally become kinder. And here's the profound truth: the kinder you get, the better you feel.

Episode Overview

At nearly 90 years old, legendary Buddhist teacher Sylvia Borstein reflects on five decades of meditation practice and shares profound wisdom about aging, impermanence, and the true purpose of spiritual practice. Through stories spanning from airplane turbulence to Olympic rowers to sharing figs in a retirement community, she illuminates how practice isn't about achieving perfect stillness—it's about transforming your mind into something sweet and kind, which is ultimately the best antidote to depression and the secret to not missing your life.

Full Transcript

Transcript of What 50 Years of Meditation Taught This Teacher About Anger, Aging, and Grief | Sylvia Boorstein from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Hey, welcome to the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Today we have a fantastic conversation with a legendary Buddhist teacher, Sylvia Borstein, as of this taping is about to turn 90, will have turned 90 by the time this thing posts. and we talk about uh how not to miss your life. Uh how to accept life's ups and downs with a measure of grace, the best way not to be depressed, how to talk to yourself in moments of anger, and the fact that uh we're all going to be all right.

It's an incredible conversation. Just a little bit more about Sylvia before we dive in here. She is a co-founding teacher of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center. She has written five books including Pay attention for goodness sake, It's easier than You Think and Happiness is an inside job. We'll be right back with Sylvia Bourstein. A few things before we hear from our sponsors. I highly recommend that you head on over to danharris.com to check out my newish meditation app, 10% with Dan Harris. Right now, we're in the middle of this really cool series where every Sunday, the legendary Dharma teacher Sharon Salsberg is leading a live session where she does some teachings on the Buddha's eight-fold path.

You can think of the eight-fold path as the Buddha's foundational list. It's his cookbook for leading a happy life. Sharon does some teaching on one aspect of the path. She guides a meditation and then she takes your questions. We're in the middle of it right now, but it's not too late to join. You can sign up at danh harris.com and you can watch the first few sessions on video replay and then join the rest of them live. It's really cool. One of the keys, I believe, and this is an evidence-based assertion, one of the keys to starting a habit or maintaining a habit like meditation is doing it with other people.

And that's what we're doing over on 10% with Dan Harris. Life is better in the carpool lane. Join the party. We'll be right back after this. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We talk about mental health more openly these days, but asking for help can still feel hard, and Better Helpp's latest research confirms this. BetterHelp's 2026 state of stigma report surveyed 2,000 Americans and revealed that 85% of Americans believe getting support is wise. Yet, 74% say society discourages people from doing so. I find these numbers personally quite disturbing.

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Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/happier. at betterhelp.com/happier. at betterhelp.com/happier. That's betterhp.com/happier. Sylvia Bourstein, welcome back to the show. show. show. I'm glad to be here, Dan. Let me start with the obvious question. So you're as we sit here today a few weeks away from your 90th birthday. I am. I am. I am. You've been practicing meditation and Buddhism for Buddhism for Buddhism for 50 years. 50 years. You know, I happen to know that my first ret retreat was on July 7th, 7th, 7th, 1977, 1977, 1977, which if you write the July as seven, comes out 777, which in a gambling city would be a very good number and I think it was apicious or I like to tell people that that that but yes and so this is uh 26 in 27 it will be 50 years.

So you're coming up on 90 years on the planet and 50 years practicing the dharma. Yeah. So I'm just curious what's on your mind given all of that? Like where is what's up for you in your practice and in your life at this juncture? I thought about writing a book. I might or might not try to do it but if you write a book you have to plan two years and uh there are all those bad jokes about at my age I don't buy green bananas and all that kind of stuff.

I don't start to write a book and I don't know if I'm as uh witty or as anything as I used to be. But uh it's different now to be writing a book. My what I started to say was my first book was called It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness. And I thought I would write a book called It's harder than you can imagine coping with being seriously old seriously old seriously old or just being seriously old because all of a sudden the skills and the competencies and all the things that you've honed and accumulated and guarded and taken vitamins to maintain and who knows what.

All of a sudden they start not working anymore. And uh you have to think I can't do that. I remember the first time I came home from uh some evening thing that uh I came home fairly late and I had a halfhour drive till I got home and I was as I was driving home and it was late in the evening. I thought I'm too tired. I really shouldn't be out. Anyway, obviously I made it home safely. But I got into my house and it was quiet.

my husband uh who's now my late husband was there and in bed asleep and I remember coming in the front door and there was a little room right there and I went into that little room and sat down and I thought to myself I'm too tired I'm really tired and I had been in my life a very physically energetic [clears throat] person it was not my way to be tired and I can remember that was the first time I thought ah I'm tired tired that uh do you get tired?

I I I don't get tired very or prior to that I didn't get tired and now I do. [snorts and clears throat] Um and so that took a little getting used to. Uh-oh, I get tired. So I think what you're trying to say is or at least one thing you might be trying to say is at nearly 90 the teachings of the Buddha around impermanence do not feel theoretical. No, they are real. And as a matter of fact, I remember hearing when I first started to practice when people said, "Here's a big thing is old age, sickness, and death." And because of old age, sickness, and death, when the Buddha made his way out of his secluded life, and looked around, he saw the secrets, the big realizations of old age, sickness, and death.

that those three teachings which he presumably saw in that fable, he thought, "Ah, there's got to be something else to do." But, you know, he didn't really say what there was to do specifically about old age, sickness, and death, except whatever comes along to be able to accept it with a certain amount of grace. Uh, one of my good friends when I was still a young person, probably in my 30s. Um, a friend of mine died. Person I still admire very much because he was actuarily speaking too young to die.

He was a young man with a family and a profession and everything going for him. And he got an unfortunate cancer and he died. He wrote a letter to all his friends to get sent out to them and he said I would have wanted more but I never wanted other and I thought to myself wow that's the kind of mind I want you know that uh I never wanted other means like now a person is 35 or 45 and gets a diagnosis of something for which there is no cure to be able to say well I would have wanted more but I never wanted other it would be heroic it would be amazing it would be so different for that's not fair why me why me why me and I think that's the crux of the whole teaching is we get born with this one life at this time and then things happen and you don't know whether it's going to be tomorrow or whenever it's going to be tomorrow sometimes I look at a whole classroom room of people and maybe there's 50 or 100 people there and I say, "Can you imagine how many streets we collectively crossed crossed crossed our whole life without any of us getting killed?" Cuz all of us are here in this room.

That's amazing. You know, there's 50 people living um approximately 50 years. It's a miracle that you live a whole life that uh one or another accident doesn't befall you on the way and to be able to say wow it's f which I am trying to do these days it's fantastic I get to be 90 and I did not get run over yet and the bridge that I was driving over or being driven over because I don't drive anymore that's another big thing okay you got used to not being able to do this out.

Try this. No more driving. Okay. Now try this. See if you can do this. And to be able that that I think is the job when you start to get it's always the job. Can you do this? this? this? Can you do can you accept whatever it is? Whatever it is. You have described several collisions with impermanence. Uh you've lost your driving privileges. You lost some of your energy that you used to have. You lost your beloved husband. But you are bringing to bear decades of pretty intense intense intense Buddhist practice to these moments.

And I'm curious, how successfully are you bringing it to bear? The honest answer is better than I was 6 months ago. Been about a year since I moved into this new place where I lived. I had a big old house and I lived in it for 66 years. No, no. Maybe 60 years. I was married to my husband 66 years before he died. and I moved in. And uh every once in a while, just a little earlier, we were in the museum today and we were looking at fine china and I thought to myself, I had uh I had a set of beautiful Veroy and Bach service for 12 12 12 china and it was in my house those whole 60 years that I lived in that house and had innumerable people for dinner and I loved that china and I had not only the china up.

But little salt boats. You know what a salt boat is? Uh, is it like a gravy boat? No, it looks it's a tiny gravy boat. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, you get an individual thing here with a teeny tiny spoon and your individual salt. individual salt. individual salt. Okay. Okay. Okay. Made by China companies. So, I'm trying even to remember which was my ch anyway. Very beautiful China little salt with this. And uh this is back in the day because I'm as old as I am. People used to say, "Sylvia sets a very good table." That was a big thing.

It's no longer a [laughter and clears throat] big thing. But when I had the stuff and I had a really big table and I had vitality and I could cook and I had all that beautiful stuff, I love doing that. And now I think, "Oh, my little salt things. What happened to them when we packed up and moved me out? I don't know where they are. What would I do with them if I had them? had them? had them? But it's always a little bit of thing that I used to be able to do.

I really see in myself over the last year a change from uh a tape in my mind that says, "What am I doing here in this place with all these old people? They can't remember. They can't this. They can't that. Don't tell me about independent adults. They're not so independent. Everybody needs a walker. This was a parade of the walkers, a kind of a irritable tape playing in my mind. And somehow I've lived there and um been with them and [clears throat] they're people. They're just old people.

And re I noticed that the climate of my mind changed over the years. Thank goodness I feel much better. All of a sudden, I'm looking at them not like those people who are old, but we people, all of us, we're all getting old and moving along on us uh moving sidewalk that's going to get us to the end of our life, whether it's next week or in 10 years or when it is or whenever. We don't know when. One of the things I love about your story about moving into the home for allegedly independent seniors, um, and I've watched my parents go through this.

One of the things I love about your story though is even after so much practice, you still had some resistance. And I actually think that's a beautiful thing to be open about because because because many people get involved in the self-improvement, personal growth game and expect consciously or subconsciously perfection. And what you're saying is no, even even at the deep end of the pool, neurotic tapes are going to start playing in your mind and that's okay. But you woke up eventually and that's the capacity that you've trained to wake up sooner or later.

This is not good for me. This uh this feeling badly, poor me. Look at this. I'm stuck with all these people. Because I think the whole thing about the mind unfolding unfolding unfolding is not so that we could have any heroic energy to sit and immobile for an hour or two or still the mind or not get upset there. That kind of heroic conquering the mind was never really interesting to me. What I'm interested in is the ability to turn my mind into something sweet something sweet something sweet and loving cuz you feel better when you do.

Oh, I forgot about that story. I'll tell this story. Okay, then I'll tell you another story on the top of that. Is that right? For all of it. Yes. Okay. I was flying on a plane from San Diego to San Francisco. I don't know, 20 years ago at least, cuz it involves one of my daughters. 30 years ago, flying on a plane and there's rarely any kind of bump. It's a 50-minute flight. It's not that long. It's rarely bumpy. And I'm flying along minding my business and there's a person sitting here.

I haven't even really changed a hello with her. And um all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the plane goes some serious shaking. And um without thinking I put my hand out like this and she took the hand and we sat like that. We sat holding hands for about um 60 seconds, however long it went on went on went on and then it smoothened out and the captain came on and he said, "Uh, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry." That was what we call a mountain wave and we can't see them in advance.

Really sorry about it, but it's they're rare this near the coast. So don't worry about it. Meanwhile, we're still holding. So we let go and we talk a little bit about thank you for holding the hand. So the the part of the reason I like to tell that story and it happened a long time ago is because there's always somebody whose hand you could hold and I really when it comes down to it if maybe if I wrote something I would call it there's always look for a hand to hold.

to hold. to hold. Don't do it alone. Anyway, always a hand to hold. So, we start to talk about one thing or another and she we're both flying up to the Bay Area and uh what do what I asked her, "What do you do for work?" And she said, "I work in the admissions office at uh UC Berkeley." I say, "Oh, my daughter just graduated from UC Berkeley." She said, "Oh, what's her name?" So, I think to myself, you know, how many people graduate from UC Berkeley every year?

Thousands. So I said, "Her name is Elizabeth Bourstein." She said, "Oh, I remember her. She's the person who at the last minute after they got the given out the diplomas called her up and said, "We just noticed that the three credits that you got from Grenell Grenell Grenell what and used to allow you to graduate really don't count as credits and you'll have to come in and take another test to uh get your degree. You have to bring back the paper." and what ensued from that and the fact that she finally got a degree.

But you thousands of people graduate from Berkeley. What's the chances every year? What's the chances that she's going to remember Elizabeth Borstein and her her credits from Grenell? And I thought, you don't know who this person is. Everybody is two stories away from you where you are. You know, if you talk long enough and you're interested, you find that out. I just want to jump in on this. Um, there's always a hand to hold thing. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. So, I had an experience the other day.

I just want to run it by you. See what you would have said. As you know, I have an 11-year-old son, Alexander. Sometimes he's a normal 11-year-old boy and does incredibly stupid things. And then sometimes he's really precocious and quite wise. And I was helping him get ready for bed the other night and he turned to me out of nowhere and said, "Daddy, what is the point of life?" Not in a nihilistic, depressed way. He was just genuinely curious. He said, "I play a lot of video games and they try to make you think the video games matter.

You're you're scoring all these points and getting, you know, achievements and you're ranking on the leaderboard, but I know it doesn't matter." And so what about life? Because we're we're doing all this stuff, but we're going to die. I had he was I was on the spot and and I said, "Well, you have to figure it out for yourself, but I'll just give you my answer for me, which I I think the answer is love. There's always a hand to hold." We're in this confusing situation, born without being consulted on the matter.

Dying, we don't know when, most of us. And so, what's the point of this whole thing? Be useful. Hold somebody's hand. I think that's great. What did what did Alexander think? Alexander think? Alexander think? Shockingly, even though I was being very cheesy with him, he would have he considers answers like that to be cheesy. He was like, "Yeah, that tracks. I like that answer." He must be a nice young man. You You know, he's a regular 11-year-old boy in many, many ways. Um, and you know, makes fun of his father.

And sometimes I'll say, "Good morning, Alexander." I'll say, "Good morning, loser." But, but I know it's funny. I and I deserve it. He tells me 75 times a day that he loves me. So, he's just a very sweet kid. That's lovely. That's lovely. That's lovely. Yes. Would you agree with my answer about what's the point of being alive? We are all of a sudden. I have no idea how I got here so fast. It seems to have happened like I missed whole decades and I didn't.

I was always very busy. I was never incapacitated. never incapacitated. never incapacitated. But all of a sudden, boom. you know, where did that come from? It just goes by by by and I don't feel like I missed it, but um I'm surprised that you know that uh I think about limited number of years I might yet live. It doesn't matter. I it everybody doesn't know how much longer they're going to live. It's a miracle actually that we get up in the morning with remembering who we are as long as we do we do we do uh and where we came from and what we thought and with a coherent idea of what's going on.

When I talk with people who don't have a coherent idea, I'm really moved by it. Yeah. But the the moved is they get moved to say um where are you going? I'll take you there. You were talking before about how what you think the point of the practice is is to make the mind sweet and to be warm toward other people because that's what makes you happy. And I sometimes think of that and I'm kind of borrowing from the Daly Lama now as the highest form of selfishness.

I don't know if it's selfish, but I think it's the ultimately the best way to not be depressed to connect yourself to first of all who's sitting in the plane next to you and second of all that whatever illision takes place in the mind that connects this event to all events ever that I that even if when I die, it's not just me dying. It's this whole circle of life just turning and turning and turning and people mourning and people dying and people borning and people dying and not separate from me.

And sometimes And sometimes And sometimes sometimes I've [clears throat] had an experience was walking along in an airline terminal at some point, 20 years ago maybe walking along in an airline terminal and here came a person walking towards me. um big person, a I guess a dad. And uh he had strapped to him uh with one of those things that you put a baby in uh baby bjorn or whatever it is with the baby facing out. So not sometimes in facing out and I'm walking along and here comes that person with that baby and baby's got his eyes open and I look at him and my imagine is that he looks at me.

It seemed like that to me and that it seemed to me or the story my mind told is we saw each other in that moment and I thought to myself that baby is me in a newer version just starting his trip or hers into the into the rest of their life and I'm already over the curve coming to the other but we're not separate from each other or for anybody else in this terminal. who's going and coming and going and coming from whenever they popped on to wherever they're going to get off this earth.

And we're not separate from each other. And that's the best feeling that I know that there there's um there are fancy ways to say it as a Buddhist or as emptiness or what but it is empty of anything. Not me, not us. He is wrong. Us is what it is. All of us. I wasn't meaning to go there with that much, but it's a lovely I remember it. It's got to be 20 years ago, maybe 30 when I was still traveling around. Turned out that I wrote lots of stories about being on planes and talking to people cuz there was a period of decades that I was traveling a lot and teaching a lot, meeting people a lot.

And I I've been making um notes about sometimes you meet a lot of people and they don't all ta say something to you. So and every once in a while they do. I only own one pair of prescription glasses which I got late in life. My whole life my vision was was pretty solid. Later in life I I started struggling to see things at distance. So, I went through the process of getting my eyes checked and then going and getting glasses and it was really long and arduous and complicated and slightly annoying.

Uh, which brings me to our sponsor today, Warby Parker. My wife, uh, who has been wearing glasses most of her life, has been using Warby Parker to get her own glasses. She has found it to be super seamless and she tells me with uh great confidence that it is much less annoying than the process I went through to get my one pair of prescription glasses. And Warby Parker, by the way, isn't just online, but you can actually go into one of their stores and get your eye exam right there.

So, there's no running around to multiple spots, which was my complaint when I was going through the process. There's no guessing if your prescription is even up to date. Everything is super clean, modern, and honestly feels more like a wellness experience than a typical eye doctor visit. Right now, buy one pair of glasses and get 20% off any additional pairs at warbyarker.com/happier. warbyarker.com/happier. warbyarker.com/happier. That's 20% off any additional pairs when you purchase one pair at wbbyarker.com/happier. I was teaching um a yoga class one time when I was 35 or something and uh in a local community college and I taught a class yoga for seniors and uh I was at that point somewhere between 35 and 40.

It's ridiculous. people aren't getting married till they're 35 or 40. Now here I am an older adult teaching a yoga class and uh a lot of people came older adults um and um I talked and I welcome oh I remember he had um those kind of pearlman crutches half crutches and he uh came in he said my friend John here he comes to this class he said it would be good I says fine you know find a match sit wherever you want I will leave you alone And if you need any help, let me know.

But otherwise, anyway, my way of teaching was not to fix people up and go around this that I did my own practice in the front. And whatever people could do, they did. So I do my whole thing in the front. And at the end of the time, uh, when it's over, people are putting their stuff away and getting ready to leave. And I see he's getting ready. He's standing up and he's ready to go. And I go over to him and he says, "I want to thank you so much." He said, "You're a very good teacher and I enjoyed your class, but it's too hard for me, so I won't come back again." So very, you know, thank you very much for having come.

and he walks off to the door and he's about to go through the door and he turns around and he says to me, "I just wanted you to know that I was a member of the United States in in in 1904. I was a member of the United States Olympic rowing team." You see, I got you. Yeah. you. Yeah. you. Yeah. Doesn't that get you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That he wanted to tell me that. Now I'm tearing all up. that he wanted to tell me that at that moment and I thought boing and it's happened a lot of times that somebody says something and people say you know hundreds of things to me somebody says something and I think that's like a communication from on high you know I just want you to know that I was once upon a time and I took away a lot from that what did you I have to tell another story.

My teacher, Rabbi Zman Shaka Shalomi said, "When something happens to you and it's really important like it was something you did well or something that you suddenly understood well." He said, "Make it like a deposit. It's like winning something. Make a deposit in the safe deposit box in the back of your mind and put it in there. And sometime in your life later on when you're feeling a little low, go through your deposits and see what you have there. What's valuable What's valuable What's valuable that happened when I was 35, so that's 55 years ago.

the fact that he had been an Olympic rower and felt the need to tell you and in the context of him not being able to do very gentle yoga to to me it speaks of impermanence. It speaks of the human need to be seen and recognized. recognized. recognized. Anything else it says to you? I'm also thinking about it. What I think about was I think he wanted he liked me and he wanted to touch me with a story about him about him about him that wasn't infirm right right right and that I I'm glad that I went over to talk to him so he could tell it to me and he probably felt good afterwards.

So it's it's another hand to hold. It's another hand. To be able to hold a hand is really, is really, is really, you know, you know, you know, we're all just doing this. Somebody wrote this. Uh I don't remember if it was Rambas who said uh we're all just walking each other home. But that always touches me when someone says that we're all just walking each other home. Well, you didn't take the bait before when I I used the word selfish. I was kind of picking up on the Daly Lama's term of wise selfishness that we're all selfish by nature.

That's just part of the human animal. But the highest form of maybe self-interest would be to, as you said before, turn your mind into something sweet so that you're inclined to hold the hands that need to be held. Yeah. I remember in stories. And what else I'm discovering is that when I meet somebody and they say, "Oh, Sylvia Bourstein, I read all your books. I'm so happy to meet you." And the story I like best because I tend I don't I I I teach by telling stories because I don't want to pontificate.

you know, my I have well I have a my style my style my style for myself requires that if I'm going to say something like such and such is the end of suffering I'm going to say in my experience da so that it's just my experience what you know otherwise I'm going to say is that's it it's been my experience or I'll tell you a story at the time that I began my Buddhist meditation practice in 1977 with uh all of my teachers, Jack and Joseph and Sharon.

We were all young. Uh I was always older than than they are, but I because I am. But we were all young. It didn't occur to me to think about or didn't but I let it go. We went on retreats and we thought I thought I was heroic doing them because I was um 35 40 maybe uh 196 77 I was born in 36 46 56 46 56 46 56 66 66 66 I was a 40. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. And I was a yoga teacher so I thought my body would be great and it wasn't.

But I, you know, I did what they did. And for me, what it was in the beginning was I was proud of myself when I could finally sit on the floor on a Zafu and sit for a whole time and sit still. And I thought that was great. And I didn't even think to say, by the way, what's the endgame? What am I supposed to learn from this? Why am I doing this? uh a friend of mine who who recently died. I'm discovering how many times I'm telling a story now and I'm having to say a friend of mine who recently died because it's a recent phenomenon.

Anyway, my friend Mary said, uh, tell tell anybody. My friend Mary was a Dominican nun. She said, "I can really understand and people will understand if you tell them what you're doing and towards what end and ask them what they're doing, not the name of what they're doing. She's a Dominican nun. What what's her practice and what are her?" So, what would I say about my practice? So, could say I do uh a meditation of paying attention and uh I do it this way and that way and I pay attention to this or that.

But she said you have to al ask towards what end? What are you hoping will happen? What's the point? And when we all started that, do you remember going to the your first retreat being clear about why you started? started? started? No. I had no idea what I was doing. Yeah. I thought I didn't either. Especially in the 70s, they didn't say it. It was just what was happening. It's, you know, uh it was it was trendy. M um and my husband went on a retreat and he came home and he said, "This is great.

So, you have to do it." Okay. Then you go and you see what they do. And and and anyway, fast forward, I got to be able not only to sit still, but actually to um be able to quiet my attention and really begin to see things in a new way. And I don't remember a lot of people saying you know everything uh your something will fall away and the mind will heart opens but I you know what's going to really happen to me what what and one time my husband some years maybe into practice said to me um what what's happened from all your practice still what's happened you know what's changed and I said to him quite seriously ly I said I became kind and he said you were always kind and I said well I became kinder and then I think that's profoundly what happened and I didn't become kinder because all the practice just pushed all the aggression out of my mind or beat me down I think what happened is that as I paid attention you begin to re I began to see that really everybody is suffering.

suffering. suffering. Everybody is suffering. And I began to think about things like we're all living in a hospital ward on a way to be dead and buried, and buried, and buried, but in the meantime, everybody is sick and everybody is suffering and they can't figure out why. and they get caught in some sufferings that are uh adventitious things that h a bug gets you or a gene gets you and you get sick. But we tell ourselves so many stories that make us in more pain. It took a long time for me to think that what was really developing in all the time that I was learning to sit and pay attention.

attention. attention. I am I think naturally good-hearted. I come from good-hearted people. I come from mildmannered, good-hearted people who loved me and they thought I was terrific. So that is like a royal flush. I was the only child of an only child. And so they thought I was terrific, which is very good for you, by the way, whether you're an only child or not, to have your parents think that you're terrific. But to discover that the kinder I got, the better I felt accidentally. I told you the story about holding the hand.

Do you like it if I tell stories? tell stories? tell stories? I like whatever you do. Okay, that's wonderful. Cart blanch. Uh I can tell you a recent story. The the man who told me uh about being on the rowing team is like 50 years ago. Recently, I moved into my place where I had conflicted feelings about it and uh I came home from a shopping trip to a grocery to the grocery one day and uh I brought home with me, you know those little uh boxes?

They look like mini fruit cr fruit strawberry crates with strawberries in them or cherries or in this case dates. I'm putting them in my fridge, which I have in my room. And I realize it's lunchtime. And I usually eat lunch with um Seline and Jean, who are uh 84 and 8 94 and 96. And except for hearing difficulties, they think well, which is I love. And so I I go to the lunch and I and I pick up the little crate of figs that I bought for myself.

I said, "I'll just take it for Seline and Joan." And I go into the dining room. There's tables of people sitting all around. And here are Seline and Joan. Oh, here are not Seline and Joan. They're not there. That's it. I come to my table with my little thing of figs. figs. figs. And they're not there. And I've got them. And I look around and right next to me is a table for six all full of its people. They're all there. So I just on the moment turned around.

I said, "Would anybody like a fig?" You think who knows? Who could have figured that? I said, "Who would like a fig?" This is in August when the first figs are out and a whole figs. I love figs. My uncle Fred had a a a fig tree in his backyard. That was the best. So I give them the figs and they're passing around. Someone else said, "I love it. My mother used to make a pudding from figs and I love figs and this when I all around the table and I'm starting to be on to something cuz my mood which was I've been work as as I told you I've been working to get to be happy about being there.

But now they were so excited about the figs. I could feel myself being coming all excited. So they finished with the six of them and I see here's another table for six. Say anybody want fig? A and I so I suddenly realize that I am having such a rump giving out the figs that I I wanted to give them out more than I wanted to have a fig. So I give out more figs. Then I sit down back in and I go back to my table where Seline is then there with Joan and I give them the last three figs.

I don't think I had any. But I I thought to myself, you know, that's it. It it is kindness that dictated do that. And then as I'm doing it, I realized I was getting really happy. I didn't need the figs. I just need somebody who I can be moved about and do something for and then I'll feel happy about it. And I really was so boyed up about that and think about all the different kinds of dharma stories I've told and mostly they you know I tell dharma fables but mostly I tell people my experience what works I think what happens over the year or what I would say now what happened over the years as I discovered about myself and I think it's true for other people that when we are connected to other people with a positive energy, we feel good.

Yep. Yep. Yep. That's it. That's it. That's it. You said earlier that when your husband asked you, "What's the impact of all the practice you've done, Sylvia?" You said, "I I got kind." And he said you were already kind and you said, "Well, I got kinder." That raised a question in my mind. Um, we live in a in a very angry time. time. time. There's a lot of political uh polarization. There's um economic inequality which is creating a lot of anger. There's a lot of fear and anxiety about encroaching technologies.

I'm curious. Do you get angry? Certainly. Sometimes I do, but I try very hard to not go with it. I tell people when they say how much do you practice every day and what do you do? What is your spiritual practice? Do you sit every day? What do you do? Do you do meta practice? That's why you said I said my practice I think from the moment I wake up in the morning is to be mindful of the presence or absence of ill will in my mind and as soon as I feel that ill will is arising in my mind I address it because I feel it I'm really getting restrained about not watching television I don't not read the news actually I get the New York Times in California I get the New York Times delivered to my door every morning before I wake up.

I go to my door at 6:30 in the morning. There's the good old New York Times. If it's not there, anger arises cuz anger arises whenever you something didn't happen and you thought it should have. have. have. I, you know, it always reminds me of uh I used to have a dog who whatever else about him. He would know when somebody came in the house who wasn't a regular person or when there was a that we that he knew or maybe there was uh some animal outside the window and he could be sleeping right next to me and he would turn on his motor like he's sleeping doesn't even get up and open his eyes and all of a sudden he going [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] And he's like starting, you can feel his motor go on when he hears it.

[groaning] I realized that if I stroked him and I said, "It's all right, Nigel. Don't worry about it." Then he could turn the motor off. It wouldn't go anymore. And I think that about myself that look at that. I read a headline d and say, "Don't do that. Just let's just read it. It's just a headline. It's not that I say I never do any other kind of mindfulness practice. I think the whole life is mindfulness practice punctuated if we have time and situations by sitting still and really trying to uh consolidate the ability to hold yourself together.

And I can't I'm not suggesting that I can all the time do it. Can you say more about the moments when you do do it? When your inner Nigel is starting to rev up the engine? Yeah. What is the mechanism by which you can relinquish the ill will? We'll do this. Whatever it is, I say something to myself, but I it's just I see it and I feel it. Dan, you know, you probably if I feel it in you, the engine is running and the body is starting to get tense.

I sometimes when I teach people I say we're going to do this little exercise now briefly just so you can see what happens. Feel your body as it's sitting. We're all sitting here together. Feel your body breathing in and out. Feel your arms in and out. And now think about or envision some personage about whom you don't have good feelings political or otherwise. And notice how your body starts to do that. Just when you say, "Think about so and so, so and so." Cuz your body starts to do that.

I say, "Notice what happens. Your arms get tight. Your jaw tightens. It's unpleasant." It's unpleasant." It's unpleasant." And see if without telling yourselves any stories, you can just say to yourself, "Relax, sweetheart. You're going to be all right. This is okay. All right. We'll see. It's not happening now. Take a breath. Relax. So when you get up, that's that's the practice. You get up in the morning. I said that they say, "How long do you practice every day?" Well, this is sort of being clever. Say it's an all the time practice.

The practice is in this moment. Is anger arising in me? And if it is, how can I relax it without thinking any story about he'll be defeated? be defeated? be defeated? D how can I re because anger it's just you feel it in your body. How do you know you're angry? Cuz your body has done that. Relax it. Take a big breath in. And [clears throat] if that doesn't relax, you say, "Sweetheart, take a breath." breath." breath." I was so surprised to find when I first heard about uh meta meditation, which probably all of your listeners know as the recitation of goodwill phrases to yourself and to other people.

And in order to really get the hang of what that meant, I had to realize that when my mind was getting into a mess, I would say to myself, cuz you know, it starts to come, but he said, he said, he said, bagger, and I would think to myself, sweetheart, you're in pain. I mean, that's the honest to God mindful assessment of that moment when the mind's doing, sweetheart, you're in pain. Get a grip. Take a breath. Let the breath in and out. In and [clears throat] out.

Sometimes I say things like, "I'm in pain and I don't want to be in pain." Take a breath in and out. Everything that arises passes away. This moment is going to pass away. But I'm going to pass away first. No, you're not. That's practice. And you do it all day long. It never fails to fascinate and reassure me that we can learn to talk to ourselves. It's like we have our own meditation and dharma teacher in our head that we can harness and use on ourselves.

A very lovely thing happens to me as years have now passed since I began doing that. I meet people and they say, "Uh, I sat with you 8 years ago, 6 years ago, and the best thing you taught me was to say to myself, sweetheart, you're in pain. Take a breath." And then I do that and I feel better. I don't solve the world situation, but I don't make myself worse. You said you wanted to talk about your version of the Buddha's four noble truths and you might reduce it down to three noble truth.

The four noble truths anyway I think is three noble truths and the the fourth one is just a filler um to make an index for a book you know that if then they're none of them they all require all require all require uh some sort of exigesis of what this all means but the first one which is life is difficult for anyone and the second noble truth that we make it worse than it needs to be by not being able to say this is what's happening what should I do which might be one of the things I might do was to do some ailiorative thing or a kindness to myself or something and the third noble truth which is lovely is if the second noble truth is we make it worse the third one is we don't have to the more thoughtful we are and the more kindly we are to ourselves but I think for a long time in the beginning I had a trouble with the life is difficult one of the ways I what I was always looking for some way to not say life is difficult because it's more der sounding that I want to say life is amazing uh that we woke up again and that I'm still here but we'll go back to anyway but it's hard once once you get born, inevitably you feel comfortable and then you don't and you feel comfortable and then you don't.

And the whole life is you feel comfortable and then you don't. And to be able to feel secure that uh if you let your needs be known to other people, they'll take care of you. And for babies for whom that's true, I I feel so good when I see someone taking care of a baby in a solicitous way. And I and so dismayed when they're not paying attention to what what was his name, doesn't matter. Child psychiatrist a long time ago anyway said, uh, don't need to have a book on instructions for how to raise a child.

You're his mother. you'll figure it out. Child's crying, they're trying to tell you something. They don't feel good. If they felt good, they wouldn't be crying. So, if they don't feel good, you have to figure out what's going to make them feel better until they're in a place where they can tell you what they don't feel good about. I read that book, I don't know how many times when my first children were born, and I didn't know why, but they said, "Don't worry about it, mother, cuz it's your baby, and you love it.

you'll figure it out. I didn't understand in the beginning when I said life is difficult for everyone because I was young and healthy. My children were young and healthy. My everything in my I loved my work that I did. Uh, and I thought about people who live really terrible lives terrible lives terrible lives sometimes through their own missteps or their own misfortune or the state of the world or something. But I didn't actually get life is difficult until much more much later. And it didn't have anything to do with being a Kardashian or the king of the world or having everything in the world.

It had to do with since we're alive, we're going to lose things and we start in losing from the beginning. It starts to be demanded of us to, you know, pull pull it together. uh uh uh and you know get your body together and I have um five great grandchildren now and it is so cool to see the fifth generation of people are remarkable with their baby machines their baby m you know they make another garment and it looks like the prototype garment it's really amazing uh I remember James saying something that he got quoted from.

James Baris said something about when um his son was born like you're on your own now, but [clears throat] you know, he wasn't on his own. His mother and his father were taking care of him. And if we're fortunate, we're born into situations that take good care of us. If we're fortunate, we take good care of ourselves and the people we're taking care of. It's not that everybody is homeless or everybody is starving, but everybody is vulnerable to at any moment. Could any of us get a phone call that say so and so was run over, so and so had a heart attack, so and so died.

And that existential alarm that it's all frail uh it's all um temporal that really that uh the Buddha's final words presumably words presumably words presumably was we're transient are all created things. And the best the best translation of his last line after that I think is uh move into the future with confidence. There's another translation that says strive on with diligence. I don't even want to say strive. Move into the future with confidence is good. When you hear all things are transient and you look around at the people you're living with now and you look at the people you've referenced repeatedly in this conversation who have died and you think about how none of us is exempt, does that bring up any fear for you of death?

Personally, death? Personally, death? Personally, I don't think so. I I think I'm old enough. I mean, I hope I don't die all of a sudden with nobody around. I want to die with somebody holding my hand, preferably one of my family. But I can arrange that. Unless I'm sitting in the dentist chair or someplace else, and then I won't know about it, it won't matter. But if I can organize it, I'll be with my family and they'll hold my hand. But I'm not afraid of being dead.

You know, I remember when my father was dying, he said, I could just hear him saying when I just said that, he said, "I'm not afraid of being dead." He said, "But I'm just afraid of the minute that dying is happening. I think it'll be terrible and I'm afraid of that." And I said to him, "Nah, I don't think so. I think you'll probably be in a coma and you won't even know about it and then you'll be so cuz you'll be already in a coma and then you'll just die and you won't know about what it's happening." and he thought about that and he said, "Yeah, I think you're right.

Turn on the television. We'll watch the ball game." That was it. I was talking to our mutual friend, Joseph Goldstein, recently, the great meditation teacher. We were just talking about what we think maybe our respective final moments will be like will be like. And one of us came up with the phrase, we want to go out in a haze of glory. Um, meaning, you know, let's be kept comfortable. And if that means um opiates, if that means whatever they need to give you, let's be kept comfortable comfortable comfortable and hold hands.

That's part of being kept comfortable in my opinion. There's research to show that holding hands with somebody you love reduces the subjective experience. Yeah. Of the D or the D of of anybody, whether you're dying or not. the the way the te the the studies were done I think were they were actually just delivering mild electric shocks or something like that to to people and they found that the people who were holding somebody's hand found those shocks or whatever infliction of mild pain was being inflicted uh less severe severe severe there's a book called doesn't matter uh cutting for stone anyway the book is about intensive care units uh and paramedics paramedics paramedics go out and pick up people in a terrible shape that have been in an accident.

And the first thing you say to a person is you touch them and you say, "You're going to be all right." And it's not a lie because if they die, they're going to be all right. And if they don't die and they get saved, they'll be all right. But if they if the person gets reassured, you're going to be all right. Then you don't have to do anything. You know that that's why if you get to talk to people who are in a bed right there and dying, you say, "You did a good job.

You don't have to do anything else. Now's your chance." I'm laughing because I when I was doing that with my father, he spent some days in a coma trying to die and he didn't die. And every once in a while, he'd wake up suddenly. And he'd be breathing that kind of uh agitated breath that people do before they die. And I'd say, "This is it, Dad. Now is your time. You did a great job. Everybody loved you. You did a wonderful job. You don't have to do anything." And then he'd go back to sleep in his coma.

And another four or five hours would go by and s and then he'd do wake up and start the breathing again. I say, "This is it, Dad. said, "Now's your time." Finally, um, he's gets up and he's doing that stuff and I get up and I start and this is it, Dad. And he opens his eyes and he looks at me and he says, "You know, it's not that big of a deal." So that's it. This is like the Seinfeld version of the end of life.

That's it. It's not that big of [clears throat] a deal. And also just the absurdity of having to give the speech over and over. The first time it's really meaningful, but by the third time. third time. third time. So for you again, you don't even as you've been surrounded by people passing away, you don't experience terror at the thought of the end, whatever that means. I have a fear that something will happen or I don't have a fear that's active. But what I really don't want to have happen is any of my progeny or their progeny should die before me.

I get to go first. That's, you know, otherwise be too hard for me and for any of my children, you know, you know, I actually know in my right mind that whatever happens, you you deal with it. You can't change it. But maybe I feel like if I just say it out into the world then the cosmos listens to me and you know that I really have some power over it which I know I have nothing. Meaning if you say it aloud it somehow uh forestalls uh the eventuality.

eventuality. eventuality. No, if I say enough that just you know like I I don't think there's anything that I can say arrange my death this way or the other way. I don't think there's anybody listening to what I have to say about that. But if there was, I would say if there were, I would say I go first. That's my my thing cuz I don't want to deal, God forbid, with the pain of my children were they to lose somebody. I don't want to do that.

If you could go back at age 90 and talk to Sylvia at say 40 or at some point in midlife, what advice would you give? That's a really interesting question, Dan, because one of the things I I feel like my life in a certain way has been blessed. Not in some magical way, but at different points people have said, "Why don't you try this, Sylvia?" And I said, "Okay, I'll do that. and someone else would say, "Why don't you try this?" I said, "Okay." I tried a few things that I didn't like.

Uh they just weren't my thing. Different meditative paths. I've been a psychotherapist. I watched my uh interactions with people. I got trained as a psychotherapist. It's not formulaic, you know, psychotherapy. You really you really can't teach people. I mean nowadays you can tell people about uh pharmarmacology and there are a lot of things that people do which I certainly don't have any problem with people doing. I really discovered that I like sitting with people and talking to them about their inner experience and encouraging them to keep on.

So there wasn't some sort of preventable, avoidable suffering you were doing at midlife that if you could go back now, you'd be able to uh turn the volume down on. on. on. I don't feel like I had a suffering life. life. life. I really had such good luck. I met my husband when I was uh just before my 16th birthday and I married him just before my 18th birth, 19th birthday. I stayed married to him for 66 years until he died and we liked each other.

That was very good luck. There's somebody some some dharma teacher about whom they said she was I don't know if it was Moren Stewart or who it was but she was dying and they said do you have any last words and she said um I I and I think it was Moren Stewart but I'm not sure. Thank you very much. I have no complaints. complaints. complaints. That's really good, isn't it? Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you very much. I have no complaints. complaints. complaints. I think I've had a very lucky life.

I worried more when I was a child. My mother was sickly. She had um chronic heart failure from uh childhood rheumatic fever and she died when she was was was 47 47 47 and I was 23. And that had been at that point the worst thing that I didn't want to have happen to me because I loved her. And uh I worried more than I let on about being worried because I didn't want my parents to think that I was worrying. But I think we all worried about her.

But really But really But really uh she was a great person. Maybe I'll tell you, we must be finishing our time. I'm going to tell you one more story because we're ending talking about my mother and her untimely death. My mother died when she was 47. I was 23. And she had been sick all those years, but they weren't thinking that she was going to die right then. And I was in Fort Sam Houston in Texas with my husband in his basic training to go into the army to do compulsory army service.

We had just driven driven from San Francisco to uh Fort Sam Houston with two babies in the car and we got to the where we were staying and we found a motel and stayed overnight and early in the morning the phone rang and I answered it and a man's voice said, "Is this Sylvia, not my father?" And I said, "Yeah." And he said, "Um, give the phone to Seymour." So I knew he was going to tell him some terrible news on my mother. So um I hand the phone over and they talk and they hang it up and then he said, "Your mother died mother died mother died last night and here we were we were exhausted.

We just driven all the way from San Francisco to Fort Sam Houston. Now we've got these two babies and this news and the funeral, as is the case always with Jews, you have to bury the next day. So we bundled them all up. We got tickets. I have no recollection of doing that, but we got on a plane and we flew to New York and we stayed overnight. And the following morning, I was getting dressed to go to the funeral with my mother's sister, Miriam. We're standing in my mother's former bedroom and getting dressed to go to the funeral.

And I said, um, Miriam, um, I'm just thinking about putting on lipstick. Do people wear lipstick to a funeral? And she said, I don't know. She said, it's too bad Glatty isn't here. She would know. would know. would know. And it was so funny because it was really too bad that Glatty wasn't there. but not as a cosmet cosmetic consultant, you know, you know, you know, just too bad that Glatty wasn't there. Says, "Too bad Glatty's not here. She would know." And I laughed in that moment.

And I realized that in the middle of my really very [clears throat] extreme grief, I had laughed. And I knew in the back of my mind that I was going to be all right because I laughed in the middle of this most terrible moment in my life so far that had happened to me. That that moment it all happened. She said I laughed and I realized I'm going to be all right. That seems to be the through line of this conversation. It's what you say to somebody if you're a paramedic.

It's what you say to yourself when you're experiencing ill will. It's what you experienced in that moment of grief. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. You're going to be all right. We're all going to be all right. We're going to be just how we are. We can't be another way. I'm so much more charitable about when I think about the people who I really don't like because they can't be another way. They can't be another way. They're unfortunately the way they are. An old friend of mine said, "I never say when someone says to me, "How are you, Gwen?" She said, "I never say I'm fine.

I say I couldn't be better because I couldn't be." But none of us can. That might be the best thing I taught this whole time. This is it. Don't you think? I think it's the best thing you've taught the whole time. Or do I agree with the point? Agree with the point. I definitely agree with the point. Okay. Okay. Okay. I don't know if I could rank your teachings. I think they've all been great. great. great. Thank you. Thank you. This is awesome. I'm so glad I and my team and I were able to talk you into taking time out of your vacation here on the on the East Coast um to spend some time with me and by extension my listeners and viewers.

Really appreciate it. I'm really happy to do it and I love doing it. You know that. Right back at you, Sylvia. Thank you again. You're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you so much to everybody who works so hard to make this show. 10% Happier is produced by Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the great indie rock band Islands wrote our theme.

Also, one last thing before you go. Remember to sign up for my new app which is called 10% with Dan Harris. You can sign up over at danharris.com. On the app, you'll find a growing library of meditations from world-class teachers. Adree access to the full expertise of our podcast guests, meaning you'll get this podcast with no ads. Exclusive live stream events, which we do weekly, sometimes twice a week. Robust discussion threads to connect you with our team, with our teachers, and with one another. There's a free 14-day trial if you want to try before you buy.

Peace.