Why It Always Feels Like Something’s Missing | Vinny Ferraro

Hello, everybody, welcome to the 10 Percent Happier podcast. I'm your host, Dan Harris. One of, if not the most potent sources of human suffering is compulsive wanting. You know what I'm talking about. No moment is ever good enough. Nothing's ever complete. We're always looking for the next thing, the next bite, the next scroll, the next achievement, you name it. But what if you could achieve some sort of contentment of enoughness? That's what we're going to talk about today with one of my favorite Buddhist teachers, Vinny Ferraro. Vinny, many of you know him. He's a fan favorite. He trained in the Spirit Rock IMS tradition, and he leads retreats across the country and the world. He teaches in schools, juvenile halls and prisons. He's also got an online course that he co-teaches and that will be launching in a few weeks. It's called A Year to Live. You can sign up for it at the link in the show notes. And he is teacher of the month for this month, the month of November on the 10% with Dan Harris meditation app, where he's created a series of guided meditations on the subject of enoughness. OK, enough out of me. Vinny Ferraro, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me, Dan. Good to see you. It's a huge pleasure. Thanks for making time to do this. I know that all of the folks in my world would be happy to hear your voice, to see your face again. Thanks, bro. OK, enough, enoughness, contentment, compulsive wanting. We reached out to you and said, hey, we'd love to have you back on the show. What do you want to talk about? This is what you said. This was like topic number one for you. Why? Well, you know, I don't know. Maybe it's because I've worked so hard in 20, 30 years. And it's just like, yo, but like you've succeeded. OK, you, you did what you want to do. You, you have meaning and purpose and beautiful family. And so I was just kind of wondering what is ever enough? You know, like, is there a happiness to be had in this life? You know, I'm not waiting on any blood test to come back. You know, I'm not waiting for the parole board to wonder if I'm able to be in public again. Like, I don't have real problems. And yet there's always this feeling that it's just about to get better. I just want to point out that that reference to the parole board was not tongue in cheek that you you in earlier parts of your life. That was a live issue for you. Yeah. Yeah. But it just becomes alive for me now, like with having a son and watching his childhood, just how quickly it's moving. And so over the last year or so, I just feel like everything I've been teaching has been somehow wandered into this territory of what is what will ever be enough for the mind. And where else can we look for what's enough? There's something about I don't spend too much time on raising boys, since not everybody listening will relate to that, but I would just literally right before this podcast in my son's room and he was talking at length as he is want to do about the National Football League. And I could feel myself getting a little bored and thinking of all the shit I could, you know, be crossing off my to do list. And yet and some other part of me is like, dude, you should soak this up because in five minutes he's going to be moving out of the house. Yeah, man. Yeah. You know, it goes by fast and it's like, is there anybody here to receive this experience that's happening? Right, like, you know, there's that old church raffle phrase, you know, you have to be present to win, you know, and it just feels like that's like, yo, if I'm always on my way somewhere, always strategizing, always trying to get the drop on the next moment, I'm literally missing what's in front of me and I don't want to do that. Why are we like this? I don't know. And I don't know if that's the right question. You know, like the why question has been a labyrinth for me. And yeah, we could say, oh, yeah, there's a primordial fear of slowing down and always getting the drop on the next moment. You know, great evolutionary benefits. You know, all that stuff makes sense to me. But it doesn't really satisfy the the real question of like, can I actually pause and not be driven by. This kind of compulsive quality that comes with this nervous system in these bodies and these minds. So, yeah, I find I find just seeing if I can just not grab the next vine so quickly because there's always another vine to grab. How are you doing with that? They're not grabbing the next time it's getting easier, right? It's like anything we practice, I feel like we get better at. And so I've been noticing it more in the moments when I actually fail it. And it's like, oh, wow. OK, I can take this kind of backwards step and. And we turn back to the moment because it's a short commute. You know, it's like, you know, I can come back and find my feet on the floor or, you know, whatever is present, you know. So I've been watching just what takes me away and what delivers me back. And so that's been just a practice of mine. And it's just as simple as seeing, OK, I'm I'm not here anymore. What was it that took me back to seventh grade? And how do I get back? Yeah, not so much to former. I don't care what distracted me because that's just more distraction. Right. I still haven't arrived because I'm backtracking and trying to find the breadcrumbs of where did I go wrong? And it's still just more narrative, more story. It's like, no, dude, there's an experience like right here. Right. And so that's what I mean about returning to the present moment. But I like the question about reach. Why do we reach so much? You know, why do we think that some other moment is going to hold what this one does? And that's like playing three card money in the back of the bus. You know, it's never where you think it is. And so, you know, I at least for me, I always knew something was missing. I just never imagined it was my presence. Like, there's no way that would be the last place I would ever look. And so I've been I've been watching. What am I reaching for? Do I have to? Is there a compulsive quality? You know, these kind of this neighborhood. I want to dig into the reach and the things we can do about that, about the reach and that key moment of noticing it. But let me just ask one last larger question here is because I think sometimes people get a little. Squirrelly around this issue of wanting and and and not being in the present moment because they feel like, well, don't I need to be? Don't I need this wanting in order to get anything done? That old trope. Let's try that out. Right. Like we have been taking our marching orders from the mind for a lifetime. Great. It's great benefits, but it can't be the only source of wisdom because what has ever been enough for the mind? How many times have you felt in your life? You know, great success, right? How many times are you just like, you know what? This is it, man, you know what I mean? Like it's it's this is enough. Embarrassingly few moments of that. So so if we know that that's not based on conditions because we you know, there has been success, right? We have gotten what we wanted 10,000 times. And it's like, wow. So it's just not a great. You know, the mind is not good at gauging what is enough. You know, one of my teachers told me early on, she said, Samsara is this endless urge to improve. Right. Nothing wrong with improvement, but the endless part and you can feel the compulsive quality to it as well. Right. Healthy, healthy desire, healthy wanting that can tolerate a pause, but but reach that unending urge. That I have to obey it right now. Right. It it lets us know that this is this is not freedom. The Buddha did distinguish between healthy desire and unhealthy desire. Can you say a little bit more about that? Well, I hate to be the mouthpiece for the Buddha. I am sure if he's rolling around anywhere thinking about me paraphrasing his teachings, but. Yeah, it does come down to, well, what's the quality of the awareness? At least for me, I can notice what's the tone of this desire. Right. And how much are we saddling on experience? I've had low riders almost my whole life, you know, so there's always been like the next one. Right. So here I am. I have my eyes on the perfect low ride. Sixty six Malibu. Right. I was early 60s Chevy's, you know, and this wasn't just another low rider. This was like my dream car. So I located it in another city. I get there. It doesn't have an engine in it, which, you know, is a pretty important feature. So here I got a tow at home. You know, a guy wants to charge me extra for the motor anyway, the whole way back, you know, and so much anticipation. I was already living in some imagined future. And in this movie in my head, that's playing. The car is finished. Me and my friends cruising around. And we're always laughing. Apparently, there's some perpetual joke that never stopped being funny in this movie. Right. Somehow in this fantasy, I was even a little taller. I was a little thinner. Apparently, the Malibu had the power to perform some minor body work on me. This is what I'm saying about like, it's just not realistic. So I'm not just buying a car. I'm asking this car to deliver an entire life to me. You know, friendship, joy, belonging. And of course, no car could carry that. So, but I didn't let myself stay with that disappointment, you know, very long, right, because the mind's right there with the next plan. You know, once I map black it out, I want my lowriders to be murdered out. Right. Like it's got to look like that. And then it was like, well, now you know what? The sound system could use some love, you know, so I got to get that. Then it was like, no, you know what I really need? This shit needs rims, dude. You know what? Once I get the rims, I'm going to push it over the edge. Right. And so there's always one more thing waiting to rescue me from the disappointment of the last one. That's what I mean by reach like it. Like it barely lets us register the disappointment because there's another vine to grab. And apparently, if I keep upgrading the car, a newer and improved version of me was going to come with it. Hmm. Yeah. So that's one example of reach and how desire can be kind of delusional. Yeah. So what do we do about this? And, you know, the practice is to slow it down, right, to get a little bit more discernment about where are we taking these marching orders from? And I kind of know what part of my personality is operating or running the show at any certain time, because because it comes with certain tones. Right. There's the tone of me that feels 15 with a leather jacket on. Right. That young rebel punk kid, you know. And then there's the, you know. Older, more contemplative that has seen it, everything come and go so many times. I'm a bit more settled and relaxed and I don't know, mature. Right. So I think just knowing, oh, this part of me is trying to run the show now. Do I want to throw it the keys or do I want to kind of take a moment and kind of settle into a different part that may have more clear seeing? Yeah. So I think that's what I do about it. It's just knowing, OK, where is this coming from? And is this realistic or am I in a fantasy? OK, quick break from my conversation with Vinny, if you're enjoying him as much as I always do, I've got good news for you. You can get a lot more of Vinny on my app this month. He has made a new series of practices for my meditation app, which is called 10 percent with Dan Harris. And these meditations are all about our relationship with enough and all the ways we miss the life that's already here, because we're always trying to reach for something else, which may sound familiar to many of you over the course of November. Vinny is going to help you catch the urge before you act on it. He's going to help you actually enjoy the good stuff that's already here without leaning into the next thing. And he's going to help you learn to recognize that fleeting state of enoughness. Also, Vinny will be leading live meditation and Q&A sessions on many Tuesday afternoons throughout the month. So you can sit with him and ask him your questions about meditation. New meditations drop every week in November, only on the 10 percent with Dan Harris app. You can sign up at DanHarris.com. We all want to stay healthy for as long as possible with aura. Getting started is effortless. Our ring measures more than 50 health metrics, including your sleep movement, stress and heart health, all from your finger. The aura app shows you how. It's all connected and what to do next. The more you can understand your body, the better you can live in it. Wear your best life with Aura. So it's training up the wherewithal to notice when we're about to reach or mid-reach and checking it out. I think so. Just pausing for 10 seconds, feeling my feet on the ground before grabbing the next thing, right? So can we feel the urge without immediately obeying it? And noticing whether the desire remains after the urgency softens. You know, because a lot of times I'm like, oh no, I'm actually okay. You know, like I'm kind of surprised that I'm okay because the mind is like, no, no, no, you need, you need, you need. And it's like, oh, actually, there's a fundamental okayness that I can rest in. And like, where else are we gonna find contentment or satisfaction or dare I even say happiness if it's not in the settling back? Because it's certainly not in the acquisition mind, right? That's, we know that that's over promises. So I think what you're saying is that like, you can kind of, and I've tasted this when I can remember to do it. You can kind of red pill yourself that you, okay, you notice a desire arising, or like I said, you notice your zombie hand moving toward the phone. And once in a while, speaking personally, I'll wake up from that and I'll just let the desire be there and then like everything, it will come and go. And the other side of that is there's something pretty delicious on the other side of that, but it's not as jangly as the initial desire. Yeah, yeah, it's not a shiny new thing, right? For me, it actually feels like, can I receive what's here already before reaching? You know, like, can I receive and recognize enough? And that's a practice, right? That doesn't come factory stock. No, no, not in me anyway. Should we feel like a failure if we don't manage to catch most of our desires? Definitely. That is not the answer I was hoping for. No, listen, the mind's gonna judge every step of the way. You know, it's how seriously do we take that? You know, like the inner critic is alive and well in me and in you, you know? So it's like, okay, we know that tone, right? So we're just talking about what part of our personalities is operating. We generally know by the tone. I know the tone. Again, when have I ever been enough for the mind? So, you know, I don't take it too seriously, my thoughts, the thoughts that occur around this self. It's like the practice is the same. And that's to begin again, right? Slow down if we can, pause and begin again. And we do that a hundred times in a 20 minute meditation. So this is the same, I don't wanna call it a technique, but the same movement. It's like not so fast, let's slow down and let's see what's here. So this receiving and recognizing what's enough. I had this moment, 1990. Okay, I had to start over. I just needed to leave the East Coast. And so here I am, state trooper car, Harley in a trailer. I make it to Capitola on the bike and I'm seeing dolphins and day glow and you know, people chilling on the beach, right? I'm 22 years old and I was blown away because I had never seen this kind of like, you know, it's like Annette Funicello vibes. Like, you know, it's like, you know, I hadn't seen beach culture yet. And just like so many moments of insight, it came with a feeling of being pissed off. I thought, why didn't my frickin' family tell me we could live anywhere? You know, I grew up in a dilapidated neighborhood with violence and poverty. Nobody told me you could just live somewhere else. And so there was just like this poor me vibe of just like, look at everything I missed, man. Look at what nobody gave me, you know? And so there was a phone booth there on the beach and you know, 1990, way before cell phones. And I walked over and I grabbed the phone and I was about to lay into my family and tell them how pissed they were. And the phone's ringing, Dan, and something just shifted. And I realized, bro, they didn't tell you because they don't know. And suddenly I understood, yo, that's who I am in the timeline. I get to be the one who calls back and be like, you're never gonna believe what I'm looking at, you know? So I got to bring this good news home. And so I walked toward the phone thinking about everything. They hadn't given me. And by the time somebody picked up, I was thinking about what I could give them. Now, this is before I knew much about meditation at all. I didn't know hardly anything. But there's a wisdom that we have. Nothing about where I came from changed, but I could finally receive what is in front of me and then share it. Kind of an amazing moment of this epiphany, that I didn't have to be so bound by my self-pity-poor-me identity. Like if I actually wanted to start a new life, this was part of it. And so I was really elated to have that moment and to share with them something very beautiful. And now you get to do it as much as you want, because you still live at the beach or near the beach. Yeah, I do. I mean, I'm the luckiest person I know. Well, that actually, that sentiment, I'm the luckiest person I know, is interesting because it gets us right back to enoughness. Like can we, you know, we can do what we've discussed earlier, which is try to muster some mindfulness to notice when we're reaching for things, but can we recognize on the other side of it what satisfaction is, what contentment is? Because the culture is pushing us toward dopamine and the next, the more, all the time. Yeah, and we could end up like bullying ourselves into gratitude. You know what I mean? At least the difference for me, between gratitude and enough, you know, I can make a list of everything I'm grateful for and still spend the day reaching for the next thing. Right? And so that's why I feel like enough may come first because enough means I'm not demanding a different moment before I'm willing to be present, right? When I stop leaning toward the next thing, I can finally receive what's already here. And from that receiving, gratitude begins to arise on its own. So it's not something we have to manufacture. It's what becomes possible when I'm actually available, you know, for my life. But that does require some slowing down. I think as you describe it, letting the, to use a low rider metaphor, letting the engine idle. Yeah. Yeah, and there's things that make the idle higher, right? When I'm surrounded by my extended family, I could notice the idle just a bit more, you know, ready to punch it, you know what I mean? Ready to hit the eject button, you know, ready to escape. Right? And then there's things that, you know, time in nature for me now, I've never lived anywhere but cities. And now there's like this natural slowing down for me as a, you know, somebody that's turning 60 in January. Oh, happy birthday. I'm kind of surprised at it because I've always been right in the middle of everything and, you know, music and art and shows and, you know, all the things. And now I know that when I take a walk in nature, it kind of does something to my nervous system. Something I really like. Can you enjoy that without holding onto it? Sometimes. You know, for me, when I'm in nature, it's like this endless display of life and death that's just always unfolding. So living in the mountains here with the redwoods and the creeks and mudslides and everything that it means, it's like, I know I'm gonna be a different person after scrolling for 20 minutes or taking a stroll in the garden for 20 minutes. Right? It's just gonna deliver a different Vinny. So there are things that we can do. You know, sitting every day is something that is really important to me. Not because I should. I get to. I get to sit. I get to have 20 minutes where it's just like time out, dude. What if you didn't have to do anything right now but be present? Just rest in your own presence. And so for me, that's a very important part of my day because the world wants a lot from us. There's a lot that is living. And so there's, you know, by the end of the day, I feel like drawn, you know, by all of these forces, you know, all these responsibilities, all these obligations. It's like, no, but if I sit in the morning, I'm never that far from the well. You know, that presence that comes from a sustained practice. I personally, I can have moments of, okay, this is great. But then another kind of wanting comes in, which is I don't want it to end. Yeah, we come by it all so naturally. Yeah. You know, that's really important to me. In particular, what you said before about the judging mind. That's just like, ah, dude, you're even gonna fuck this up, right? Here you are. You have this beautiful moment and you just wanna squeeze every bit. You wanna extract every bit of happiness out of it. That's like, phew. This is another kind of reaching or clinging, right? That grasping. So we can know that and we can soften it, right? Even after we grab it, it's like, oh. You know, we always talk about letting go and all this kind of language. It's like, what part of me lets go? I don't know. The part of me that wants to let go can't. Right? So it's like, hold on a second. Maybe wisdom lets go, having felt the pain of holding on. So it's not that the urge shouldn't arise. It's like, the Buddha's main question is, how can it be in the service of awakening? Whatever this is, this urge even to grasp, that can be in the service of awakening. When I feel the pain, the cost of that, I give you another example. And we're going back to the beach. So this was a couple days ago. And I brought Valentino and some of his friends. He's 10 years old. They're jumping in the water. It's fucking unmitigated joy, right? They're just going buck wild. I literally was in the water with them and I got tumbled by a wave. I literally hit a dolphin. I touched a dolphin. So I go back up on the beach and I'm just like, oh my God. The mind started making up this story. Wow, look at what you're giving him that you never had. And it's partly true. There was love in it, but there was this other thought alongside it. Even like, man, I can't remember the last time I was that excited. And just like that, I wasn't with him anymore. His joy became a story about me. And I was, you know, something in me was like, bro, take a beat, look at him, and is it enough to see him happy? You know, is it enough that I'm here? And I could feel in real time, again, what takes me away from the moment and what delivers me back. Comparison takes me away. Narrative story takes me away. But here I was, I could see his face, the sound of the water, sand between my toes. This direct experience, it was enough to receive what was there. And I didn't need to find my own version of his joy. I could feel his. And so for that moment, it wasn't his joy over there and me standing on the beach watching. There was just joy. It was just kids in the ocean. It was just, you know, toes in the sand, you know? So I don't wanna begrudge the journey away from that because homecoming doesn't mean shit without exile, you know? So it's like, oh, why am I, why do I keep leaving the moment? It's like, I don't think why is the right question. It's like, how do I wanna meet that? And how do I find my way back? Feet in the sand, here I am. Nothing to reach for, no story to make up. Can I live? Can I receive this moment and let it be enough? In terms of that judging mind, and I may have told you this story before, so I apologize if I'm being repetitive, but I was on a retreat years ago with somebody who I think is a mutual friend, a meditation teacher named Spring Washam, and I was kicking my own ass for being distracted, and she said that a potentially useful little mantra from When You Wake Back Up is great job, welcome back. Hmm, I like that. I like that. It just, for me, it just changes the whole nature of that moment. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't wanna assume you live in as a busy mind as I do, but very, very busy mind. So early on, I really just turned the practice upside down, and I was like, yo, bro, we're not here trying to force awareness to stay present. My only job is to welcome it back every time. You know, we're not forbidding awareness from wandering. We're welcoming it back every time it does, and when I keep my attention on that part of the experience, it's like an endless ticker tape parade. Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back, you know? Because the mind wanders so much. Now, if I'm in the camp that says, you know, I'm here to concentrate, and I really want stillness, and I don't want the mind to wander, I'm not gonna practice very long. Yeah. You know, it's impossible. It's just like one insult after another, one failure after another. And it's like, no, no, no, if you just pay attention to this other part of the experience, how much more will we come home if we knew we were gonna be warmly welcomed? Yes, yeah. You're disincentivizing waking up if every time you wake up, it's to a thrashing. Exactly, and it reminds me of being at, like, let's say our front door, right? And let's say in our living room is the practice, and every 10 seconds, I find myself in the middle of the street. It's like, what the hell am I doing here? I don't remember leaving. So then we're already back, but if we walk in the house, we're like, you know, look at this rug, look at these curtains, these cabinets, they're so friggin' old, man. You know, if there's always criticism, it really de-incentivizes, I like that, the sense that we are welcome in the present moment, that it's enough in the present moment, right? I wake up to a feeling that things should be otherwise a hundred times a day. That's just how my mind is organized. Like, oh, this could be a little better. Oh, I wish it was like this, whatever, right? The endless urge that things could be better. Like, that's the outgoing message in my mind. So I have to work with that, right? It's like, oh, every time that belief arises, it sends me back to the present moment. It's like, oh, but what's actually here? Like, this is the nature of mind, at least this mind, but what's actually here? And then I'm usually surprised. I'm usually surprised to find myself okay, or content, or satisfied, or happy. But it doesn't happen without that slowing down. And so when I say don't begrudge the leaving, that's what I mean. It's like, if it could be in the service of awakening, it doesn't matter that the mind is super busy. Does that make sense? It does. I think it does. I'll just check it with you. It seems like you've kind of co-opted the wanting mind so that when you notice, oh, yeah, this hot dog could use some more mustard, or whatever it is, that's a trigger. That's a mindfulness bell in and of itself. That's right. That's right, because we have to use something. So we use the breath a lot, right? Many of us use the breath. Why? It's not some magical key to enlightenment. It's like, no, it's constant. Oh, what else is constant? My desire for things to be otherwise. Okay, so if you're not good at ground balls, what's your baseball coach gonna do? Hit your ground balls. So I don't know much about a mind that doesn't have much thought. So we have to work with what is true for us. So what's true for me is this urge, and then it's like, well, what do you do when that urge arises? It's like, okay, I don't have to obey it. I can take a step back and see what's actually here. Do I need to reach? Is there something that needs to be done? Because that's really the main message from the mind. Something has to be done, Dan. The fuck are you doing, bro? And it's just like, hold on a second. The dharma tells us maybe something has to be felt. Maybe something has to be seen clearly, right? So it's a very different response. That's beautiful. You've created these guided meditations for the app, 10% with Dan Harris. One of the little takeaways, and this is just something simple that people can insert into their lives, is leaving one small gap alone for 10 seconds. What are you pointing at there? Yeah, a lot of what we've been talking about, right, which is this almost compulsive quality of leaning towards some other moment. And so when that is present, we could say that's the opposite of freedom when we're allowing that to run our lives, that urge. So what does it mean to slow down and to just settle back in our experience and see what's actually here before launching into the next thing? So my wife finds me regularly sitting in the car. I've pulled up, I've parked, but I'm not ready to go in the house. I'm not ready for all that. I'm not ready to transition. If I'm walking up a couple flights of stairs, I'll just stop on the first flight. I'm just sitting there. I'm kind of in this liminal space where I left my car and I haven't arrived to my meeting yet. And it's just like, hmm. It's so funny how fast we move. And it's unnecessary. And I don't think why we're moving so fast is true. And like I said, there might be this primordial evolutionary benefit to not being in the back of the pack where it's dangerous, right? We want to keep moving. Well, you know, we got shit to do. And it's just like, yo, but if I can't take me with me, where am I going, you know? Why am I moving with such urgency if I don't have to? Sometimes you have to. Sometimes you're late for a plane and you're doing the OJ to the airport. Like I understand. That ain't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this sense that if we slow down, it's not gonna be good. Like, what leads me to believe that? Like, really? Like, we can treat presence like it's our old dealer. You know what I mean? We're like ducking and dodging. And it's just like, yo, bro. What are you doing right now, bro? I don't know if anybody who hasn't quit using drugs will fully understand that. But I remember those first few weeks after I stopped doing cocaine, getting texts from my dealers and dodging them. And what you're saying is, let's not do that with the present moment. Exactly. And it's funny how that urge or that sense of kind of like moving faster than we want to move. It's like, dude, the good news is you're close by. You can slow down anytime you want. It's like, well, can I? And it is a practice. It is a practice of like letting there be gaps between all the doing and all the becoming. Your business identity is everything that makes your business legitimate and professional. From public records and compliance to your website, email, and phone number, with Northwest Registered Agent, you don't just form a business. You start with a complete foundation built for privacy, credibility, and growth. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They are the largest registered agent and LLC service in the U.S. with over 1,500 corporate guides. These are real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business every step of the way. Starting a business is so much fun. Running a business is so much fun. The least fun part, for me at least, is all the details, the legal stuff, setting up your website. So having trusted advisors and competent technical solutions is a huge must. With Northwest, your business is set up to stand on its own from day one. That means your home address, personal email, and phone number stay private. Don't pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for what you can get from Northwest for free. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com slash happierfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com slash happierfree. One of the things that meditation trains you to do is notice. You start to see the patterns, the things you keep doing on autopilot. Sometimes what you notice is happening at work. For example, something like this. I walk every new client through the exact same process by email, by hand, every single time. There should be a tool for this. Today's sponsor, Base44, is built for that moment. Base44 is an AI platform where you describe the software you need in your own words, like what the pages are, who's using it, what it should remember, and what should happen next. And then you get a working build. That could be a client portal, a dashboard, or an internal system, and even the website in front of it. The database, login, backend, and hosting are already handled. The useful part is that this is not a mock-up. It's the real thing, and it stays in your hands. You can use it, you can change it, add what's missing, and keep building as the work evolves. I personally play with Base44. It's a lot of fun to use, even for somebody like me, probably especially for somebody like me who has no technical know-how whatsoever. Go to base44.com slash happier and sign up through our link to get 30% off the builder plan for your first year. That's base44.com slash happier. I love it when I go to one of my favorite local businesses and I see that they use Square, which has been a longtime sponsor and supporter of this show. In particular, I'm a big fan of the card shop in Armonk, New York, about 20 minutes from our home. My son is obsessed with sports cards, so we go to the card shop quite frequently, and I can tell you that checkout is always quick. You get a text receipt in seconds, and everything feels smooth. And now Square's newest AI tools turn your business data into answers you can actually use, like what's selling and where you might be losing time or money. Features like Square Savings can automatically set aside a percentage of your sales for taxes or for slower months, and it all works inside the same Square system you already use to take payments and to manage your staff. Square launched its most powerful tools yet, designed to give local businesses a competitive edge without the complexity. If you're ready to sell smarter, run faster, and stress less, right now, you can get up to $200 off Square hardware at square.com slash go slash happier. That's S-Q-U-A-R-E.com slash G-O slash happier. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today. Just to go back to what you were talking about, the 10 second pause or whatever, however many seconds you want, dealer's choice to be a little cute, different type of dealer. If I'm hearing you correctly, you will just, at random intervals through the day, walking up a set of stairs, pulling into your garage or driveway, you'll just stop and look around. Yep, I'll stop and be with my present experience. Even if there's this urge to keep moving, it's like, oh, I can watch that arise and pass away. I can feel my feet on the floor. There's something about being grounded, for me, that it doesn't feel like a story. Like, it's like, no, but what's actually happening? Okay, what's not a concept? Okay, I can feel myself being supported by this chair. I can feel myself catching my breath. And like I said in the beginning, where else do we think contentment or satisfaction might live? It's not gonna come through acquisition. We know that, we've seen it a thousand times. So it's like, well, maybe it's just born out of this willingness to be available to what's already here. I had the great good fortune recently of having a very cool house guest once or twice a year. Joseph Goldstein, the legendary Dharma teacher, will come stay with us. He stays in our guest bedroom, which he calls the guru suite. And having him around kind of just throws into stark relief for me all of my neuroses. And just, we were kind of moving, we had to do an event together, and then we had a little dinner at our house the next night. And there were a lot of moments of not doing anything, but all of that, having him around, just made it so clear to me, this habit of mine of trying to, what's next? What do I gotta do next? How do I control what's happening right now? It's like a helicopter parent. And I did what I think you've been pointing at through this discussion, which is, not use that as an excuse for self-flagellation, but as a moment to wake up with some interesting curiosity. Like, well, okay, what is this about? How does it feel? actually paying attention to it. That's the important thing. How does it feel when I'm paying attention to it? I like that, Dan. Because what is this about, or why am I like this, and how long is it gonna get me to where Joseph is? It's like, you can let all that shit go, because we're talking about 40 years of three-month retreats, you know what I mean? Like. 60 years. God damn, I gotta update that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, the comparing mind, you know, it's like, okay, how can this be in the service of awakening? What am I waking up to? Oh, wow. Sharp relief. What's the difference between his nervous system and mind, right? Yeah, how can that be in the service of awakening, bro? Awakening's a big word. What are you pointing at, exactly, when you use it? I'm talking about waking up to the life that's right here, right? It's like, story, narrative, this kind of rocky mythology, you know, we're training every day, we're gonna get better, you know, la la la. I've never seen that deliver. Not once, not never. And so it's like, okay. I like the way Gil Fransdell put it. He said, when it comes to enlightenment, it's not you that gets free. It's like you free everything else. Right, so everything is already free, but our grasping makes it not so. So we look at like, oh, that moment of, you know, even this idea that, man, if I could just get my shit together like Joseph, right? You know, yeah, so the sense of not needing to cling or grasp, and if I do find myself clinging or grasping, feeling the cost of that, because it hurts. Grasping hurts, clinging hurts. Only every time, right? So it's like, yo, don't waste the suffering. We always talk about, don't waste the suffering. Like, you know, if you find yourself in a contracted state, feel that shit, let it guide you, because you don't want to do it in the future, but it's here right now. So we're not just gonna like, oh, no, no, no, I'm interested in, you know, awakening. Okay, how can I be more awake? It's like, this is still more striving. There's an experience right here of contraction. Can I be with that? You know, Marc Maron, he said, you know, wanting a positive experience is a negative experience. And accepting a negative experience is a positive experience, so it's not the conditions. It's like, how can I be with this experience? You know, even if it's unpleasant, right? Even if it's that urge that we've been talking about, about moving faster than we want to, or, you know, being in this cycle of becoming, or saddling too much on the next experience. It's like, none of that has to be wasted. Cycle of becoming, what does that mean? You know, we're always on our way somewhere. Dan, you're on your way somewhere, dude. You know, you made this huge transition, right, from news anchor to whatever the fuck this is. Right? Right? But there's gotta be a lot of becoming in that, right? I've been in this thing of becoming, right? I'm gonna become a meditation teacher, right? I became a father, you know? And it's like, there's always this, you know, that's what I love about practice, that even though the mind wants to turn this into the next thing I'm becoming, becoming a good meditation teacher, or a good practitioner, good student, whatever, I think it's a great disservice because it has us postpone arrival. Because that's when it's gonna be dope, when I can sit like Joseph. Right. When I can answer questions like him, and give people options, no matter how stupid the question was. He has a, his intelligence makes the question smarter. Every time. He's just watching this dude, in his 80s, it's just like, you know, so there can just be this, the comparing mind and the becoming, and we're always on our way somewhere, and it's just like, do you know Aya Kemma, the German nun? You know that name? I've heard of her. Yeah, so she's written some great books, but she's got a mantra that I use a lot, and I'm not much into mantra, but I'm into phrases, and she has this one that she used to use for walking meditation that I use in walking, and it's like, you take a step, nowhere to go. Take a step, nothing to get. Ooh, I like that. Take a step, no one to be, right? Nowhere to go, nothing to get, no one to be. And I don't know, man, it just makes shit panoramic for me, my awareness. Because it's not shrouded in the story of Vinny, and this welfare kid that's on his way, and it's like, dude, enough with the story, and the narrative, and the drama, ugh. And it's so shrouded in self. And so when I'm able to feel into that, that this is not some becoming story, I'm not on my way anywhere, then there's a simple experience waiting for me, that feels a lot more awake, to come back to that word. Awake to what's actually in front of me, instead of this Sisyphus story of becoming. Nowhere to go, nothing to get, no one to be. I like that. Just as a moment. We're not talking about like, okay, yeah, there's nothing to do, there's nothing to get in your whole life. No, no, no, there's shit to do, and there's shit, but does my practice have the same laundry list of checkpoints? Okay, you got the first two genres, okay, you did a 10-day, okay, how about a six-week? You know, and it's just like, we don't wanna do that with the practice. This is the one place we get to say, T, bro, on all the becoming, on all the getting, on all the acquisition and transaction. You know, is there one place in our life that we get to rest in exactly how it is? There's a phrase that I probably picked up from Joseph, I don't know, somewhere, but when I'm doing my walking meditation, two words, just this. Mm, that's nice. Yeah, I like that. And where does it deliver you? Like, you know, like when you feel into that, when you can actually taste the resonance of that, what's the effect? It can land in different ways, depending on the moment. It can be just a simple bringing it back to whatever's right here, but it can also be just a tiny little ego death, like an extinguishing moment of the Dan story, because there's no Dan to be found if you're looking in that way, not with like some sort of aggressive microscope. It's like, yeah, okay, well, just this? Yeah, well, what's here when I say that? Or another way that Joseph sometimes phrases it is, what's being known? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then by what? Yeah. Known by what? Yeah, and you know, I'm not a religious person. I really don't like religion, and I'm really glad that the Buddha didn't ask us to have faith, you know? Especially in the beginning, right? You might be able to have faith in your teachers, but like in regards to like the practice, it's like the Buddha had faith in us first, right? He said, you can know this for yourself. Don't take my word for it. Come and see for yourself, and I love that. I love that we don't have to sign on, we don't have to join, we don't have to become members. It's a very, very simple thing, and I don't know, it feels like it's a good life every time I let it be, you know? Every single time, you know? And like, you know, I get asked about the practice. It's like, well, what's the practice? It's like, well, you know, paying attention to how we relate to experience. Yeah, pretty simple. It's a good life every time I let it be. Yeah. Is that an off-the-dome coinage right there? Because that's really good. I've been saying it for years because it's a really good way to remember that I'm the common denominator here, not the conditions of my life, right? Right. You know, that I get to rest in that fundamental okayness whenever it comes to mind, you know, or mostly, you know? We've been talking about wanting, and we've been talking about the Buddha, and the Buddha's promise was that there was an end of craving, an end of wanting. Where you're at in your practice right now, how does that promise land for you? I think I'm still in the suffering part. You know what I mean? I think I'm still in the feeling the cost of wanting, right? Yeah. One of my teachers said, all wanting really wants is the end of wanting, right? And it's like, yeah, yeah. It's not the thing that delivers the satisfaction or the release. It's just that you stop wanting for a moment. So I've felt that, you know, around material things or even around ways that I wish I was different, right? But I haven't seen the end of wanting, even though, and I say this, that most of my, any kind of liberation that I have found has come through subtraction. It's not come through addition. It hasn't come through, oh, more and more, right? That it's like my life has become much simpler. And so, yeah, I don't feel like I'm waiting for the next invitation and then it's gonna be on and then it's gonna really go. It doesn't feel like that anymore. It's like, no. 10 years ago, I went through some crazy shit where my life kind of imploded and I just got real simple and it was like, renunciate complexity. This has all gotten too complex. So just renunciate complexity and I made decisions for the last almost 10 years based on that wisdom, you know, for myself. Like, this is where I'm at in this chapter in my life. Renunciate complexity. And when things are simple, they're dharmic. And when things are complicated, it's mind. You know, and I know that's a bit of a reduction, but. Have you been able to keep up that renunciation? Mostly. I mean, I get, you know, I like shiny things, too. You know what I mean? I got a fucking sheepskin in the hot tub. You know what I mean? Like, I like pleasure, you know. So it hasn't been adhered to with a monastic discipline. Don't get me wrong. But many, many times when there is a promise of more, I don't take it. Yeah. I don't say yes to many things anymore because everything is already enough, right? Like, and I don't mean like I'm on the other side of some veil, come on in, the water's warm. I'm not trying to, you know, assert that. I just mean, like, finding the right work balance and family and then, you know, my health. Like, my homeboy was here last night and, you know, he's like, yo, what do you wanna do for your 60th? And I was like, I don't really pay much attention to numbers and birthdays. And he's like, nah, dude, this is like the last big one you can probably enjoy, right? Like, you know, at 70, you're gonna be in a, if you make it, you'll be in a whole different situation physically and whatever, right? At least his idea is about what 70 meant. And I was like, wow, that's an interesting thought. So, you know, this week, here I am, like, just back from travels and leading retreats. And I've been in the ocean every day because I'm like, I just don't know how many summer days I have left. Then, not only this year, but, like, in this life. So it, like, inspires me to kind of show up for my life, you know, and not just kind of, you know, get more done, but, like, actually enjoy what's here. Pre-game is over, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I try to remind myself all the time. Actually, speaking of which, I wanted to ask you, because I think it was as a result of talking to you almost two years ago, right here on this show, who got me to make a practice out of what the Buddha calls the five daily remembrances, which he, just for people who are unfamiliar with it, recommended you do twice a day, which I now do right before, right when I wake up and right before I go to bed because of you, Vinny. I say this body's of the nature to get sick, to get old, to die. Someday I'll lose everything and everybody I hold dear, and in this atmosphere of relentless change, my only real possessions are my actions. And I believe that, in conjunction with just getting older, has put me, I think, in closer touch with, you know, how short this whole thing is. It's come with some sadness, you know? Like, I think, I feel, I feel, it's not all, like, awesome to have this increasing insalience. That is true, but we are in touch with reality, right? Like, you know, it is, there is some sadness in it. And if we can find, like, well, what is the actual sadness connected to? Sometimes, for me, it's connected to how much I've missed. Right, like, it's just like, oh, shit, dude. You've been living like this is never going to end, and you're sorely mistaken, right? And so, you know, we can kind of judge ourselves a bit, and that can bring some grief. about like, oh my God, I'm waking up to this and my kid is 10 and what, you know, like where have I been? How long have I been out? Right, so there can be that kind of, that kind of response. But I think the remembrances for me, particularly the last one, which is the hardest one for most people to deal with, that my actions are my only true belongings. There's something about that that just lands as so empowering to me. Yes. You know, something about it that just feels like the cat told it straight, this shit is undisputed for 2,600 years, it's okay to feel sad, you know? Yeah. It's okay, especially if it inspires us to be present instead of performance evaluation of where I've been for the last 60, you know? Back when I was a globetrotting foreign correspondent in my 30s, I actually got reasonably good at speaking Arabic. That skill has eroded dramatically in the intervening years, but I thought from time to time that it might be good to revive it and one great place to do that is Rosetta Stone, which is a longtime sponsor of this show for which I'm quite grateful. Rosetta Stone has this incredible new product called Rosetta Stone Sapphire. It's their biggest launch in over a decade. It's a brand new app that pairs their research-backed method with fresh, cutting-edge features so you can go from knowing a few phrases to speaking confidently about the things you care about. Instead of memorizing vocabulary, you learn entirely in your new language through visuals and audio the same way you did as a kid. It's intuitive, immersive, and fun. I can vouch for that. Having played with it extensively, I was playing with it to learn a little Japanese in advance of what I hope will be a family trip to Japan and it really does make the learning fun. One of the coolest new features is called Chat Missions, which turns conversation practice into a game. You are dropped directly into a scenario like checking into a hotel and you're given three objectives like getting the Wi-Fi password with real-time feedback to help you sound more natural. That's exactly the kind of low-stakes practice my rusty Arabic could definitely use. If you want to take your language skills to the next level, don't wait to try Rosetta Stone Sapphire. 10% happier listeners can get 20% off your Rosetta Stone Sapphire subscription when you sign up today. This gets you access to Rosetta Stone Sapphire in 25 languages. We talk a lot on this show about the quiet things that shape the way your home feels. Here's one that is very easy to overlook, the air in your house. If you wake up congested or your place feels dusty, no matter how much you clean, the air itself may be part of the problem. That's where today's sponsor, Air Doctor, comes in. Over 93% of Air Doctor customers say they noticed fewer allergy symptoms and 98% say their home's air feels cleaner and healthier. Air Doctor's three-stage filtration captures particles about 100 times smaller than what typical air purifiers can remove, including dust, pollen, mold, spores, pet dander, smoke, bacteria, viruses, odors, ozone, and VOCs. Its whisper-quiet auto mode keeps the air optimal 24-7 and filter change reminders take out the guesswork. It also won Newsweek's Reader's Choice Award for Best Air Purifier. Head to airdoctorpro.com and use the promo code HAPPIER and get up to $300 off any of their select Air Doctor models plus you will get a three-year warranty, absolutely free, all Air Doctor air purifiers come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Get this exclusive podcast-only offer now at airdoctorpro.com, that's A-I-R-D-O-C-T-O-R-P-R-O.com using the promo code HAPPIER. Looking at these blunt facts straight in the eye twice a day, and it accumulates force over time as I've, at least in my experience, yeah, I kind of miss not thinking about this shit. Yeah, yep, we want that, what is it, the blue pill? I can't remember. Or is it the red? You know, of course, you know, delusion, you know, sometimes we wanna choose that, right? I do, I don't always wanna look at reality. It's like, oh, okay, what part of my personality is that? It's like, ah, the one that feels like I'm already cynical enough. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I've already, like, I've always felt like a heavy-hearted kid and then a human being, right? And it's like, oh, man, am I using this to fortify some identity, or is this just, can I just be with these truths, you know, without making them bigger or smaller? I guess all the hospice work and all the year-to-live stuff, it's just been time after time of seeing, brother, there are many, many people like taking their last breath that wish they were where you are. So keep remembering that there's gonna be a time, you know, because there's a sense that we're just running the clock out, you know what I mean? Like, you know, I'm just gonna keep doing this, you know, until I can't do it no more. And there's this other aspect of, like, yeah, the fleeting nature of experience that is right here in front of us, you know? And it's just so easy to slip to our fingers or wish that it were otherwise. And I don't know, the five remembrances for me are just like, nah, man, I wanna be mature about this. I wanna look at it clear-eyed, even if it brings some sadness. I could do sadness, I know sadness, you know? And we go through different chapters. As you've done it for a couple years, you'll notice different things that, you know, maybe it's the first one or the third one that kind of comes alive. Have you noticed that in your practice in these last couple years? The one that's just stayed alive for me really is I'm gonna die, you know? I haven't gotten past that. You don't give a shit about your loved ones. You're just like, whatever, bro. You know what I mean? I don't even like these people that much, you know? I just, that's when I lose my loved ones if I don't lose them before. So it's all kind of part and parcel. Yeah, have you been in close proximity to death? Yeah, I was a hospice volunteer for many years myself. Oh, right, yeah. And I've seen family members die, and yes. And I was a combat correspondent for a long time. So yes, I've seen quite a bit. So I was familiar with the truth of death, but not as intimate as I now am, thanks to you. Yeah, well, I hope it's inward and onward leading. You know what I mean? They're certainly not meant to bum us out, you know? No, that's not the, I don't wanna give the impression that it's the only effect. I think one of the major effects is that I have, as you just said, I kind of have the 85-year-old version of me, if I make it that long, sending me letters, you know what I would give to be back in this situation where I'm talking to my son, and he's still 11, and he wants to tell me about his current rankings of the top five football teams, and I'm bored, but I know, like, let me wake back up. That's a huge impact. But there's also a kind of pervasive poignance slash sadness that I feel as well. And yeah, I don't think you get one without the other. Yeah, man, I mean, I haven't been able to find anywhere where you can buy a single side of a piece of paper, you know what I mean? Not yet. I've been looking, you know? I really just want the good shit, you know? It's always such a pleasure to talk to you, Vinny. I mean, and I'm always really grateful to you for making time for it, and also for making these meditations for the app. I have a few other questions I wanna ask you before I let you go, but on the subject of wanting, and anything else you wanna say, or you feel like we covered it? It's not as hard as you think. You know, the mind makes slowing down really hard. And so we have to trust a different wisdom, and I think that's maybe in our bellies, or in our bodies, or whatever it is, to say, okay, I'm here with you, you know? And I know it's scary to slow down, but it's not as scary as we make it out in our minds, and it doesn't take us long either. So, you know, all of these reasons that we have for keeping it moving, you know, when we start calling bullshit on that, and actually arrive in our experience, we're usually quite surprised by what's waiting for us. You know, it's not some boogeyman that's been like kinda on our ass, you know? It's like, oh, wow, wow, yeah. Just for the audience, if you haven't heard about this, we've been playing with most of our episodes of doing this little segment where, we'll see if it works. And what's good, we've basically been asking guests, like, is there a TV show, movie, book, record, anything that you're digging right now that you would recommend? And then I'll give you one from my side. Yeah, right. Yeah, man, I think They Cloned Tyrone was like one of the best movies I've seen in the last 10 years. Like, when that came out, I was like, They Cloned Tyrone? You know, Jamie Foxx, you know, it's got a whole bunch of people in it. Did you see that? No, I've never heard it. I feel like so culturally illiterate. Well, you know, it's kind of, I don't know. I think we could say it's like Afrofuturism a bit, right? Where we have these filmmakers making these films that wouldn't occur to me, right? But when I watch it, I'm just like, oh my God, all of these different voices, all of these different perspectives. And I found it really compelling and just funny. You know, it's like a romp where it's just like, I don't know what's gonna happen next here. Yeah, yeah. That has to be one of the greatest movie titles of all time, They Cloned Tyrone. That is phenomenal. Can I show that to my son? Let me see. It's a bit violent. There's some violence in it, but it doesn't, it's kind of strange the way it starts. It looks like a gang movie or something. You're like, whoa, this is intense. And then all of a sudden it becomes very surreal and absurdist, and you're like, oh my God. So I don't know if you're watching stuff like that with your boy. I haven't turned my boy onto it yet because he's super sensitive, but I hope to soon. All right, I'll take a look. Okay, so there's a record that came out the other day that I really like. It's by, I'm since age 15, just a diehard indie rock, underground punk fan, and there are a ton of great bands coming out of Australia these days. And there's a band called Old Mervs, M-E-R-V-S, Old Mervs. And they've got a new record. I forgot the name of it, but it's really good. Super catchy, it's not overly aggro like some of the stuff I listen to. Very, very catchy, very, very good. When's the last time you listened to something aggressive, bro, and what was it? Oh, yesterday working out. I was listening to my heavy rotation list, which was filled with super aggro stuff. Turnstile I love, a couple weeks ago they were on SNL. Who else do I like, Military Gun, which that's not a band name that I fully understand, but I think they're really good. How about you? My taste is wide, as many of us is. I listen to a lot of old Coltrane, and I listen to a lot of metal, and I listen to some punk, mostly like Bad Brains. It's all older stuff, because that's, when I was that age, it was just like, oh my God, look at this expression. And so there's still a part of me that, maybe that kind of, the reminiscent part of that chapter in the 90s or 80s or whatever it was, it just brings me back. So music has that ability to bring me back. It's funny, because I think I'm very impacted by music. I can listen to Big Boy, and all of a sudden I'm feeling like, yeah, you should shoot that dude. It's just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you talking about? I can get really into the music. It's just like, bro, I'm a non-arming person, but I really get taken into the music, you know? That's amazing. Just finally, before I actually let you go here, so I mentioned that you're doing some meditations on the app, and you'll be doing some live stuff with us on Tuesdays, and you've got this course that you do every year with Spirit Rock Meditation Center. It's called A Year to Live. Now would be the time to sign up. It starts in January. It sells out every year. Check it out at spiritrock.org, and I'll put the link in the show notes if you're not holding a pen right now. And Vinny, thank you again. Always great to see you. Yeah, dude, great pleasure to be with you, man, to be continued. Thank you very much for watching and or listening today. Really appreciate it. If you wanna hook me up, and I know podcast hosts ask for this all the time, but there's a reason why we ask for it, because it's genuinely helpful. If you wanna hook me and my team up, follow us and like us and rate us and review us on whatever platform you're consuming the show right now. Share with your friends, follow us on social media. It all genuinely helps us grow. Now on to the credits. Thank you so much to everybody who worked so hard to make this show 10% Happier is produced by Tara Anderson, Marissa Schneiderman, DJ Cashmere, David Hart, and Hayden Broom. production is handled by the great folks over at Greenhorn Creative and Nick Thorburn of the great indie rock band Islands wrote our theme. Thank you for listening. Deuces. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. Pop over to Progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit Progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, national average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.