Why Welcoming Your Anger Is More Powerful Than Letting It Go | Sebene Selassie & Jeff Warren

Key Takeaway

When facing difficult emotions or situations, practice developing an "inner dharma coach"—talk to yourself the way you'd talk to a good friend. Two things can be true simultaneously: life can be hard AND there's sweetness in it. The practice isn't about making pain disappear; it's about letting go of the suffering we add to the pain. Start by noticing when you're checking out or dissociating from discomfort, then gently stay with it. You'll often discover the "emperor has no clothes"—what felt intolerable becomes workable when you stop fighting it.

Episode Overview

Meditation teachers Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren join Dan Harris to discuss working with difficult mental states in meditation, exploring the Five Hindrances (desire, aversion, restlessness, doubt, and sleepiness) and the Five Remembrances (aging, sickness, death, impermanence, and karma). They emphasize that these challenging practices aren't meant to be depressing, but rather help cultivate equanimity by accepting reality as it is while still finding joy and meaning in life.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Why Welcoming Your Anger Is More Powerful Than Letting It Go | Sebene Selassie & Jeff Warren from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody. Today we're going to talk about how to tame some of the more unruly aspects of your mind. your tendency to live on autopilot, to constantly distract yourself, and to make yourself miserable by comparing yourself to other people, and more. Why are you so often at war with reality, wanting to be elsewhere or otherwise? In essence, my guests are going to talk today about how to develop a different relationship to your mind with all of its skittering thoughts and unhelpful patterns.

Said guests are the great meditation teachers and great friends. uh Sebast Salassie and Jeff Warren. Seb is the author of an awesome book called You Belong. She's based in Brooklyn, New York. Seb and I recently uh co-authored and co-recorded an audio book, an audible original called Even You Can Meditate. Jeff and I also co-authored a book called Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. Jeff is based in uh Canada and he's got his own podcast called The Mindbod Adventure Pod. The conversation you're about to hear was recorded live at our annual meditation party retreat.

Jeff Seb and I co-host this retreat every year. Uh we've got another one coming up uh October 16th through 18th at the Omega Institute in upstate New York. You should come. It's super fun. Over the course of the weekend, we teach a bunch of different meditation practices so you can go deeper in your own practice. We also take your questions. There's plenty of time to relax. However, it's not super intense. You can go take hikes, get massages, play pickle ball, whatever you like to do. Uh, but the crucial thing really is social support.

That's the technical term that researchers use. So many of us struggle to maintain a meditation habit. And the science is very clear that one of the best ways to keep the thing going is to do it in the carpool lane. And that's what meditation party's all about. You get to meet a bunch of people who also take this weird practice seriously. And by the way, if you're an introvert, you don't have to talk to anybody. You can just get a contact high from being in the environment and I think you'll get a contact high from just listening to this conversation.

I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to come to a meditation party this October. If you can't be there in person, you can also uh sign up virtually. All right, we'll get started with 7A Salassie and Jeff Warren right after this. after this. after this. We're talking about um uh problems that emerge in meditation. Let's talk about this has come up a little bit but um you sit to meditate and um and often there are all these problems you have um and so the Buddha who was a compulsive list maker uh made a list of five of them u it's not exhaustive either we can add to the list at any time but these are just broad categories of issues that emerge when we try to meditate so the first is uh desire I don't know if I'm going to do this in the right order but the first is desire, which is, you know, wanting often it's um wanting to be in a better place in your meditation or it could be wanting food or it could be having some sort of other fantasy.

Um so that's one of the principal hindrances, desire. The second is aversion, which is like kind of the flip side of that coin, not wanting not wanting whatever is here to be here. Some pain in the knee. I told her about how you were making inappropriate jokes during her juggling. Um, Um, Um, aver Seb feels aversion when we make inappropriate jokes. Uh, so that's another of the principal hindrances. The third uh would be boredom or restlessness. Um, I'm not sure exactly and sure Seb could correct me, but I'm not sure or educate me.

sure exactly why these are lumped together because they for me experience them quite in quite different ways but boredom is a kind of numbing out or delusion restlessness is also um something I'm very very familiar with cuz I apparently have restless leg syndrome the dumbest syndrome why can't I get a dignified syndrome um so restlessness I often experience I don't know if you ever saw since we're making Gen X references the Princess Bride where they have this torture advice that just makes you feel like gross.

That for me is restlessness. This ants in the pants or as my Jewish grandmother would said would have saidilkus. Um that uh that's another problem that can emerge in meditation. Um uh another is uh doubt. It's often described as kind of the most insidious. And now doubt is not to be confused with a healthy skepticism. Oh, let's not take everything that teachers say as um a commandment or uh inarguably true. Uh that's just healthy skepticism, which uh I would encourage as a journalist and one of the reasons why I like the Buddha is he encouraged u skepticism.

Doubt is more paralytic, a kind of analysis paralysis. Um uh am I I'm so wrapped up in questioning whether I'm doing this right that I am befogged and um stuck. Um and I know there's a fifth uh hindrance that I've missed. Sloth. Yeah. Well, how could I miss that? Sloth and torper. Sleepiness, which again is a huge um has historically been a huge problem for me. Uh I think there are many ways to to work with this. Um Jeff listed before, you know, standing up. Um it's totally fine if during this or any other meditation you're overcome with fatigue, stand up.

Uh or one of my favorite techniques for sloth and torper is don't fight it. It's okay. Fall asleep. No lightning is not going to strike you. Fall asleep. And somehow for me the giving myself permission to fall asleep ultimately is a source of kind of uh liberation from the fatigue. Um so let's do a little bit of meditation. I I'll say there are lots of ways to work with each of these hindrances and we don't have enough time to go into all of them. I'm going to just give you my general orientation to dealing with all problems uh both on the cushion and off which is to develop a kind of what Joseph calls an inner dharma coach or uh what Kristen Nef who I think is a historically um amazing figure and one of and the progenitor of something called self-compassion called self-compassion called self-compassion uh she just talks about talking to yourself the way you would talk to a good friend.

I just want to check in again like I'll start with you Seb like what's what's up with you? You know what came up for me with the hindrance practice is first of all you can have like a multiple hindrance attack attack attack it's not like it's so clear that it's like oh now I am experiencing desire now I'm experiencing that's all can be a soup. soup. soup. Um and so really slowing the mind down and being with okay what's happening right now can be really helpful.

really helpful. really helpful. Um, the other thing is, you know, I think sometimes we can have this idea that we're just trying to become these like neutral objects in space without any any any choice making. And and we're always going to be making choices. So, you know, we turn towards things, we turn away from things, we can have discernment, you know, each of these hindrances have a positive quality to them as well. Yes. So there you know so desire can be turning towards and aversion can be turning away from things that are good for us or bad for us.

Um uh doubt can be discernment and and knowing what's right or wrong for us. Uh restlessness can be energy, right? And and sleepiness can be relaxation. So we don't want to make any of these uh general qualities bad. It's when we are doing it unconsciously. So so much of this practice is really shining light on what we don't usually see. Making the unconscious conscious, seeing our reactive patterns. Years ago, I was journaling and I I've realized that creative and reactive are the same word and the C just moves.

So I was like, "Oh, what's the C?" So it's, you know, I think it's curiosity, it's consciousness, it's also compassion, compassion, compassion, connection, connection, connection, clarity. There are a lot of good Cwords. Um, I don't want to hear any of the bad cwords right now. I was not even thinking. Don't do it. Jeff was thinking it. He's the problem. Canada, the C word. But yeah, so there there is this um this way of making things really conscious so that we're we're creative in our response. You know, we're not reactive.

We're really responsive to life. And so the working with the hindrances in that way is is really such a good training because we're usually lost in these reactive patterns of of the hindrances, not just in meditation, just in our lives. lives. lives. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking about um what a deep practice it is actually. It was uh like it's such a profound insight practice, the hindrance practice. And it reminded me of like early on in my um meditation career, I remembered having this kind of set of Eureka revelations particularly around the kind of sloth and tiredness like and I've now heard other teachers talk about this a little bit.

So when you're getting tired, there's kind of two kinds of tiredness you could say. There's a kind of tiredness there. There's just the body is tired. You need a nap. You know, you've been working too hard. You haven't been getting enough sleep. There's something very and that's the part that you're trying to be very empowering of and let people do that. But there's also a kind of tiredness that's almost more in the mind. It's like my way of dealing with things when it's hard is to just check out.

Like I'm done with this. I can't be in this body anymore. It's too hard. I can't be in my experience. I'm going to go and just check out. And your body's not actually tired. your mind is just like I've made a decision that I and that is where you you were saying like all of these hindrances are kind of mixed up because there can be this like subtle and this is what I noticed there's like a subtle aversion just to staying here. I don't want to be here and and then the flip side is that there's a sudden there's a subtle attraction to spacing out to or going into thought and your mind will trick you here.

It's like, yeah, you could go into thought and there's a like it's nice just to think about to to think about your problems or whatever, but there can also be very nice to think about the insight you just had. You know, anyone have that like, oh, wow, that's really cool. Oh, oh, really interesting. I'm going to go. It's like it's a subtle way in which you're actually don't want to be in your experience. You want to go or you want you're used to this kind of particular form of almost like dissociating from what's happening right here.

Not to vilify creativity and the generative nature of thinking, but that's a very productive inquiry, you know, because you what you realize is what I realiz is well that's happening all the time actually. But as I'm walking around, I'm like constantly just checking out like I yeah, I'm done. I'm just going to go to this place or I'm in a social situation. I'm going to just my safe place is to be off over here. like not dealing with the intensity of what uh my what I'm feeling right here.

Whereas if I could actually come back and stay inside my discomfort a little bit, I can find out that you know it's like you said or or Joe said one time, the emperor has no clothes. This thing this this this this conviction on my part that I absolutely cannot be here. This is intolerable is is totally driven by my own mental conviction around that. And if I can stay with the discomfort for a little bit, it it's like you're riding the urge and you can get to the other side and realize that oh that wasn't fate after all.

That wasn't even I I could have all this time I could have been here if I just stayed with the discomfort. I can get to this place on the other side that's much more open and clear. So I mean that to me was that partly came out of working with hindrances like noticing how those come up in meditation. That's the kind of classic insight process, you know. know. know. Yeah. So, we're going to switch gears a little bit now and um explore a different teaching. You know, I think every year we've sort of offered a different practice or a different teaching teaching teaching because there are so many within the classical Buddhist teachings and um they're so rich and deep and profound and so um I was just kind of talking to Jeff about this one.

I was like, why did we choose this one? It was my suggestion. cuz it it is it is um it's an intense one, but I feel like it's a it's a very powerful teaching for these times. Um so, we're going to go for it and leave lots of space for conversation afterwards and maybe we can do a little check-in about it together first. It's called the five subjects for frequent recollection frequent recollection frequent recollection or the five recollections or the five remembrances. remembrances. remembrances. And many people chant it every day.

I chanted it every day for years. Um I know Dan has been practicing, you've been practicing with it daily for a while now too. Um and it's really a teaching on equinimity and equinimity is often used interchangeably with uh awakening or nirvana. So upeka, equinimity and nibbana are often seen as synonyms synonyms synonyms because there is this capacity of equinimity to hold our experience in this way that has an awakened quality and these teachings really bring us into that. So the five subjects for recollection are aging, sickness, sickness, sickness, death, death, death, impermanence and karma.

This is why we call this meditation hard. Yeah. Death. Bring it on. And what these recollections help us to be is more at peace with our reality, the realities of life, which is so countercultural. Sometimes these teachings are described as against the stream. I like to say in today's society they're against the tsunami. You know, we live in a culture that's telling us that we can stay young forever, that we can live forever, that we, you know, can avoid all sickness, that we can hold on to everything.

We can accumulate can accumulate can accumulate just massive amounts of stuff and that's okay for ourselves and the planet and that there are no consequences to our actions, right? But these teachings are the exact opposite. And they're they're not just bad news. They're really allowing us to be with things as they are with some measure of happiness. But over lunch, um we were talking about whether we would want other people's karma or other people's reality. And almost everyone at the table, I think, said no. You know, I I wouldn't change my experience even though I've had really rough time of it.

I I love my life. And it's that equinimity. It's that practice to recognize, you know, not why me, why not me? There there's plenty of suffering in the world. But I can also place my attention on the gifts of my life and the gratitude I can have for all the blessings in my life. So these teachings sound like downers, but they're they're not. They're the exact opposite. They they really allow us to say this is the reality of what it is to be human and we can find our joy not in spite of that but within that like we don't have to push away push away push away the truth of pain and we can not live in suffering.

Sometimes the modern equation is pain times resistance equals suffering suffering suffering or pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. optional. optional. And this again this these teachings do not promise no pain. They invite us into letting go of the suffering that we add to it. So there a a chant that um is chanted in Pali, but I'm going to chant it uh a little in a little bit in English with kind of the pi um intonation and they basically take us through these subjects. subjects. subjects. So they invite us to remember I I will grow old.

grow old. grow old. I will sicken, you know, I will grow old if I'm lucky, right? That's that's a really important one. And I will sicken. Maybe some of us will, you know, hopefully none of you will get cancer, but all of us experience some kind of unwwellness in the body at some point, even if only at the point of death, right? So, we're all of the nature to sicken. The one thing we all have in common is being born and dying. Everything in between, we have differences.

So we will all die even though there's some billionaires that think that they won't. That we will lose the things we love. You know material objects will fade. People will leave the material realities around us will change. change. change. And then the trickiest one is is the karma one to understand. the the the saying is I am heir to my karma or karma. Karma just means action and it's really pointing to the fact that there are causes and conditions for all reality. reality. reality. So I was born into a particular body with a particular ancestry and so it came with some genetic information including epigenetic including epigenetic including epigenetic intergenerational trauma intergenerational trauma intergenerational trauma and then for whatever actions you know as a child that I couldn't control but were a part of my life and then everything beyond that I did have some valition over that has a a consequence.

So causes and conditions or causes and consequences. consequences. consequences. So maybe you know someone smoked a pack of cigarettes every day for 20 years and then gets lung cancer. Although I've heard of many cases of lung cancer of someone who's never smoked. Right? So one thing the Buddha said is that we can never understand the multitude, the innumerable causes and conditions conditions conditions that led to a certain reality. So it's not about I did something good, something good will happen. I did something bad, something bad happened.

It's so much more complex than that. It's like the chaos theory of the butterfly who's flaps its wings in South America and a tornado happens in Texas. You know, we we don't know the exact karma, but we know that there are causes and conditions for every reality. And this is opening us to just the immense unfathomability of that. And so this is chanted in monasteries and Buddhist communities all over the world every day as a reminder of this. And again, not as a downer. One of the things I love about the the chant about kamas, it says, "Whatever kama I shall do for good or for ill, of that I will be the heir." Cuz sometimes we think karma and we only think bad karma like my bad karma that I have these two.

Kidding. My very very good fortunate karma that I have them in my life. Right? Right? Right? So we we are not looking at this only as a negative. We're looking at this as really understanding the reality of life that this this practice is really a reality check. This whole practice, not just these chantings and not to be in contention with reality. And sometimes I say that's the crux of my practice is to not be in contention with what is to to meet what is with some measure of ease or at least presence.

so that I can respond accordingly. respond accordingly. respond accordingly. And my my hope and my goal is that I'm responding with some measure of freedom and joy and love. So, I hope that's a a good enough framing of these teachings that we're not going to they're not going to bring us down, but really boyy us so that we can be in our lives with more presence. We can let ourselves feel what we feel. Yeah. and let ourselves feel what we feel. Exactly. feel. Exactly. feel. Exactly.

I'm going to do a sort of shortened version so that you can absorb each one and just kind of reflect on what comes up for you and just bringing all of this mindfulness, this awareness to that experience and just notice what sensations, what thoughts, what emotions arise with each reflection. Okay. I am of the nature to age. Second recollection, I am of the nature to sicken. And this third recollection, I am of the nature to die. This fourth recollection, I will lose what I love. And the fifth and final recollection, I am the heir of my actions.

the truth that there are causes and conditions to all things. things. things. There's karma in the past, in the present, and the future. And this is where we have any agency. Thus, we should frequently recollect. The Buddhists know how to have a good time. time. time. I used to do a lot of chanting and you know I should say there are a lot of really really really beautiful buoyant chants as well that are about the positive qualities and ourselves and the world and so it's not all a downer but you just didn't want to bring those here you know I think that it comes back to that perspective of equinimity that um you know I am miss no news before noon so I'm all about guarding the sense doors doors doors and it's not about hiding or or burying our heads in the sand, not paying attention to what's happening.

And so these teachings are so much about really being with things as they are. Yeah. I mean, the joy and the enjoyment of life emerges directly from the clear seeing of what the truth is. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It's like I found I didn't find the Madonna Raw and I found it sobering, but the soberness of it. Where does it land you? Boom. Right here. Cuz what the [ __ ] else is there you're going to do? But just then live right here. Live now. I mean, it's like you're sad to see your picture of your my boys and the impermanence of it.

But it's like, well, it's only one thing to do. Just love like crazy and be grateful for what's here. You know, it's just such a reminder of that. But you need that sobering cuz you see how much you've been in your fantasy about something and how much you're running away from it. Running away from the reality of Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. of aging, of sickness, of death. Big time. Big time. Big time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I sometimes think about like what is the logic of boredom in the face of these remembrances.

Like remembrances. Like remembrances. Like what a waste of time to be bored, you know, or to fee like that this is going to go forever. Yeah. And you know there's there's strategic checking out self-protective checking out. Yeah, for sure. that that um is a kind of skillful use of distraction or boredom that I think is part of the way we regulate, you know, our our totally totally totally our Netflix shows or our certain habits or proclivities that harm no one else but um allow us to just soothe.

And then there's the sobering part of um you know, what do we do? How do we respond? respond? respond? Yeah, I wasn't saying that the logic is that um we recall these and then never allow ourselves to relax again because we need to maximize every waking moment. And I think I like Netflix. Um uh it's just that the logic of of especially boredom or disaection or you know know know blaseness kind of goes out the window a little bit. My experience when you're starting to view the world through this lens.

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That's betterhp.com/happier. So, should we open it up? Yeah, we would love to hear your responses to working with thoughts and emotions, also working with the recollections. Hi, I'm Hannah. Hi, Hannah. Uh, how do you reconcile the five remembrances with loving kindness meditation? Kind of the letting go of the five remembrances with the hopefulness of the loving kindness. May my family be safe and healthy, but they won't always be. Whoops. Forget that. Uh, no. For now. Great question. Great question. Yeah. Those are the two sides of the coin, right?

I mean, that's that's the cultivation to me. Practice is two-sided. You know, you're cultivating kind of radical acceptance of how life really is, a true nature of what is exactly true in this moment. And there's a kind of there's a sobriety and embracing quality. That's the kind of equinimity training of like really being here for what is. And then you open up, you empty out and like, well, what do you want to have catch you? How about the best of what you have to give this world?

Your love, your caring, your buoyancy, whatever it is. So, you practice that too. You practice coming apart and then you practice coming back together better than ever. You know, that's like sabam. Well said. Well said. We have anybody over here who's got a question? question? question? Hi, I'm Katie. Okay. Um, I have a question about how to be present with somebody um, in the very advanced ages um, stages of dementia. How are you? And Dan, I've heard you talk about looking for the sweetness. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But I haven't been able to get to the sweetness because I get stuck in the anticipatory grief. anticipatory grief. anticipatory grief. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, how how do you be present with somebody but be with very painful feelings? feelings? feelings? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, unfortunately, this is an area where I have some experience. Um Um Um I mean uh what is grief if not love anyway, right? So, right? So, right? So, um, I think that's what when my friend Josh, Josh, Josh, who in his 20s nursed his mother while she died of a brain tumor, when my parents got sick and he said to me, "See if you can find the sweetness in it," that wasn't a toxic positivity.

That was, "Look, there's going to be there will be diapers. there will be like the shattering of your sense of um security in this world because of my I had good parents and so the fact that they so diminished is you know it's paradigm shifting tectonic plate shifting in a really in a way that can that leaves me feeling unmed often so try to find the sweetness in it wasn't like it's going to be awesome dude it was like what in there is sweet that you can focus on and the fact that I have feel so much grief about watching my parents uh fade and knowing where this is headed like what's under that is that I love my parents.

Um, also for me just um and again this might be a little gendered um gendered um gendered um I don't think men certainly not men and our my generation and older are really raised with a big emphasis on caregiving. So just seeing that that is a capacity that I have uh and developing it and and seeing that it feels good even even even with all of the stuff you know just being in the hospital with my dad if he has to go and seeing them do procedures on him and holding his hand and you know like it's gets it can be pretty gnarly pretty gnarly pretty gnarly but um but um but um you are tapping into this fundamental design feature in the human operating system which is that when you do good, it feels good, you know.

And um so it's back to what I was saying the other day about the news. It's like two things can be true at the same time. It can be unremitting horror show to be around someone with dementia. And also it's like there there is sweetness in it. Not only in seeing your own capacity to rise to the occasion, but also in tuning into why you feel sad in the first place. is because you love this person. Beautiful man. Beautiful man. Good luck with your continuing work.

It's not easy. The other thing I've learned about dementia is don't argue with them. with them. with them. Like I've I when I was volunteering in a hospice, like people would ask me for 20 bucks for a cab and be like, "Yeah, here you go, dude." You know, um you you just don't don't argue with them. let them have their reality. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, who else has a question? Uh, hi, I'm Lillian. Uh, in one of Joseph's recent podcasts, he spoke about not only training the mind, but also training the heart.

So, I just wanted to put that out to you, the three of you, and say how have you experienced that process? Well, I I as the tin man will defer to uh uh uh as the what? Tin man. Tin man. I think you you perfect person to talk about and I think it's it's the stuff we I want do want to hear what you both have to say, but I I uh I in my experience it's the uh you know the the the dharma has these practices like loving kindness meditation.

I suspect many of you are familiar with it, but if you're not, it really is, as I said earlier, about envisioning a series of beings and starting with an easy person, moving to yourself, mentor, neutral person, difficult person, everybody everywhere, and systematically, it's the systematic cultivation of sap, you know, it's like uh I sometimes joke it's Valentine's Day with a gun to your head. It's like really really really and and like as I al also often say if you were an alien and you landed on this planet and went to a gym, it would look really weird that people are running in place for 45 minutes or picking heavy [ __ ] up and putting it back down.

But why are they doing that? Because we know that uh the cardiovascular system and the muscular muscular skeleton skeletal system can be trained. Well, same is the same is true for the brain and the mind. And so our innate capacity for warmth um for compassion the the this is the these are just skills that can be trained through practices and then I then I think it's not then I think the real training is in your life like when somebody you love or several people you love get dementia um simultaneously or you know my case I've my wife's had many serious health uh problems so I've done many many trips to the hospital Um, so you just that's like you're either going to let that shut you down uh uh or you're going to like rip your pirate shirt off on the prow of the boat and like go for it.

I'm sorry for that image. I'm so so sorry. You're not sorry. I'm I'm going to I'm I'm not sorry. I'm I'm going to be the owner of that karma. Uh I also think that it might be useful to expand what we're talking about when we talk about love here, you know, because because because quiet is love, too. Getting quiet and still. I I remember I asked this um I had this thing where I thought I just want peace in my heart. I don't have peace in my heart.

I just want peace in my heart. It was like my refrain at a certain point in my life. I just want peace in my heart. And I was saying this to this smart friend of mine who far smarter than me. And she's like, well, what does it feel like right now in your heart? And I was like, that's the problem. Nothing. And there was this pause. She's like, "Yeah, that is peace, dude." I was like, "Oh, you know, I was expecting fireworks sometimes and just the quietness of just coming to stillness, of basic availability to life.

That's an act of love, too. And that is where love blooms and emerges all on its own. So yes, the trainings to hold you. But the wonderful thing is that's also part of being in love is just giving yourself that and noticing how that how generative it is. I mean, I mean, I mean, yeah. Just just I I know you probably have something to say, but just to pick up on that, like you you talk about the benality of evil. Well, there's a humrumness of love, too.

like the it doesn't or Joseph Goldstein often says that there's no hierarchy of compassionate action like it's it's more uh newsworthy if you run into a burning building and bring out a kitten, but it's um it's pretty cool if you text Yeah. call your mom or text a friend who's in need or um uh hold the door open for somebody or whatever that this there's this there's this there's it's such a and I think I might have said this last night just such a given what a dumpster fire it is right now on the planet like it's a target-rich opportunity for for doing good and um and the doing good does you good you know and like that's there's a real virtuous virtuous virtuous spiral spiral spiral um available to all of us if we take advantage of it.

Nicely said. Nicely said. Nicely said. Hi, my name is Kathy and my question is how do you use your practice meditation to not compare yourself to others? That's my question too. What do you guys think? think? think? I don't know. I'm comparing myself right now mentally to 7A and I'm thinking she'll probably have a better answer. You know, sometimes I feel like um we fetishize meditation as the answer to everything. Totally. everything. Totally. everything. Totally. And meditation in any culture, in any context is in usually embedded in larger spiritual teachings.

And so it's not just the meditation practice itself, but it's the wisdom and insights that come from the practice. And so one of the teachings that actually I first learned from Joseph in in this tradition in the Teraban tradition is around this thing called mana m a na and it's often translated as comparing mind. its etmology um is measurement is it means to measure and it's both or all it includes um the comparison of better than than than lesser than but also equal to. So any kind of comparison is really separating ourselves from others.

And the the most powerful part for me of this teaching is that it's there until the very end. Like until full enlightenment, which um I don't think I'll speak again for myself, I have not achieved. achieved. achieved. Please Please Please gather around. gather around. gather around. Allow me to impart the wisdom from a fully enlightening. fully enlightening. fully enlightening. I don't know what my karma is that I get to play straight man to two straight white guys. entire entire it's like the opposite of that Sound of Music song.

Somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good. Um, so you know it's like get used to it really get used to comparing mind and and just seeing it is part of the antidote to lessening it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Seeing the pain of it. Seeing the pain of it, seeing seeing our judgment of it, you know that that it it is there. I struggle a lot with envy. um it's it's kind of one of my bugaboos and so it it's something that I work with but yes our practice our meditation practice can help us to see it because we kind of still enough to start to notice our reactive patterns reactive patterns reactive patterns you know both in the practice and then as we bring the practice into our lives but that measuring that comparing that separation is is going to be there for for a long time another Josephis and we're talking about Joseph Goldstein who's a meditation teacher has been very important at least for the two of us.

Um, he doesn't like Jeff, but Jeff, but Jeff, but he's never met Jeff. He'd love Jeff if he met Jeff. We've emailed we get along. He would love you guys would really would get along. But another Joseph ism is don't waste your suffering. And so if you're seeing the suffering of comparing, all right, well that's a wake up. That's an alarm bell right there. Just check it out. Um, and over time you can kind of disincentivize um the indulgence of that, but it's still, you know, of course, as I've had said, it's kind of comforting to know it's going to be with us it's going to be with us until the end.

Coming up, more audience questions. What does it mean to step behind the waterfall and see your thoughts instead of getting lost in them? And, uh, how do you work with powerful emotions like anger in real time? One of the things we're doing in the larger 10% Happier cinematic universe is we are yet again redoing our website. This is something in my view uh that you have to do frequently. It's part of business hygiene. So if you are in the market for a new website, you should check out Wix Harmony, which allows you to create a website in about as long as it takes for a coffee break.

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Ready to create your website? Go to wix.com/harmony. That's wix.com/harmony. Buying glasses can be a nightmare, especially online. It can feel complicated and extremely expensive. Which is why in my family, especially, I'm now referring to my wife specifically, uh we use Warby Parker. My wife is an extremely discerning customer. She's got great taste and she also likes a bargain, which is why she loves Warby Parker has many, many, many pairs of Warby Parker glasses. The cool thing is that on Warby Parker.com, you can virtually try on glasses, so you get a sense of how they're going to look on your face.

Nothing comes close on quality, price, selection, and customer service. Once you buy from Warby Parker, you realize how much easier they have made the entire process. Right now, buy one prescription pair and get 20% off any additional prescription pairs at warbyarker.com/happier. warbyarker.com/happier. warbyarker.com/happier. That's 20% off additional prescription pairs when you go to wbbyarker.com/happier. Hi, I'm Jennifer. Um, Dan, I've heard you mention being behind the waterfall and I don't know what that means. Uh, so it's it's from John Katzen who is um another of the really senior teachers here in the west.

Um uh and we what he means or what I understand is that if you think of the mind as like a nonstop uh a stream of consciousness mostly me me thoughts um just rushing all the time. Uh time. Uh time. Uh there is if you if you think of that as a waterfall then you can think of what's in the rock face behind the waterfall. There might be a little indentation or crevice from which you can observe the thinking mind. And so every time you wake up from distraction in meditation and you notice, oh wow, I've just been in the grips of mana or envy or comparing mind or oh wow I've just been thinking about wonder if they'll have pastrami at lunch or whatever it is.

they won't um whatever it is then you are in that little nancond there behind the waterfall you're not caught up in the contents of your consciousness you're seeing it with some non hopefully non-judgmental remove non-judgmental remove non-judgmental remove so am I am I does that make any sense what I'm saying how does that relate to non-attachment well um here's I'd be curious to hear from the more experienced teachers on the stage about that but in that little glimpse glimpse glimpse where you're just watching it instead of inhabiting it inhabiting it inhabiting it you are not attached you're as Jeff said in the meditation for the one little part that I was awake for the um you letting letting go which is another way of saying non-attachment is probably better translated as let it letting be letting it just be there so you're just watching hopefully with like a little grin on your face how crazy you are, right?

And that just for it's not it's not some permanent state, at least not for us unenlightened worldlings as the Buddha calls us. Um it's just a little glimpse of oh yeah, I can just let that be there and then you're right back in it and then you're free again. then you're and then you're free again. And then that that kind of eb and flow that Jeff has compared he he didn't use it this time but he has sometimes compared that to the tide you know uh it's so it's those little moments how how am I doing now?

Does that make any sense? Yeah. sense? Yeah. sense? Yeah. If you can notice it you're not fully in it. it. it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's very different than being fully in it. Cuz being fully in it is being lost in it. There's no perspective. You're inside the worry. You're inside the mood. It's the whole world has become true that has become the the whole it's expanded out to include the truth of everything, you know, and then boom, you can pop out and notice that you're in that.

That is radical. And that's what we're talking about here, getting at popping out more quickly, realizing that there's more space and and and that's the that's kind of one of the measures of over time that that grows. That's why I get so excited when people come to me and say, you know, I can't meditate. I'm I'm so I'm seeing all these distractions or sleepiness. Bro, that is that's not a tie. You are seeing stuff and that's that just gets that compound that skill gets better and better over time.

And we're going to work on it this afternoon very deliberately. We're going to work I'm going to guide a practice around noticing. It's going to drive you crazy. It's going to be around noticing, thinking, and feeling. It's going to be a non-stop monologue for 25 minutes. No, it won't be that. The the important point here is thoughts are almost perfectly camouflaged with awareness. We don't know the difference at the beginning. It's it's like they're they're uh we're we you know that the idea like notice that you can be aware of your thoughts.

It's like you you think being aware of your thoughts is the thinking and it is it it starts out that way and it's slowly beginning to like tease those things apart that you can sit there's a part of you that's aware of the thinking that is not the thinking in a way. I mean it gets even more paradoxical the further down but for now this this this initial step of like disembedding from that but you first have to notice where it is. Notice that it's images you're lost in.

It's a little bit of self-t talk. It's some conviction that's gathered to con fill up your whole body. It's like it's getting I sometimes describe it as like you know those old this will date me those old transparencies from the classroom where that you put the transparency up and but always the teacher on the way to doing that would at some point fumble and they would fall on the ground and then they'd be trying to pick them up and they but they were perfect transparencies and they can't get your your nail underneath it and pull it up.

That's what it's like at the beginning. It's like this perfect transparency. Uh, and you can't get any space around it cuz you don't cuz you are, you know, and it's like over time it's just oh, you can kind of begin to peel that off and see that that was the layer you were in. If that analogy is our references are so Gen X. So Gen X. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay. So Jonathan again um you know you a lot of teachers say you something happens and that's gris for the mill work work with that right um I don't know what that means I don't know how you do that so if I see anger arising or I see uh something like that I try to kind of figure it out um um um which I think there's better ways so um I'm just wondering what you do when that that's being taught.

And then the other question I have was similar related to it is, you know, I think my heart's uh closed closed closed and other than meta, is there any other practice you would recommend to kind of open the heart? Well, there's some good drugs for that. I already do that, so Okay, maybe you can tell me where to get some. Let's talk later. Yeah. You holding, dude? Um dude? Um dude? Um uh yeah, I See Dan at the back of the dance party all sweaty handing out pills.

pills. pills. No, that's not going to happen. Um I'll take a first crack at that and then see what you say. So um the instruction as I understand it when something comes up uh like anger, let's just take anger. Um you said you try to figure it out and I understand the instruction to be check it out. So one of my favorite um ancient expressions in the insight or vipasana meditation tradition which is much of what we're teaching here is seeing by dividing. So you can really see the true nature of anger by looking at it closely and breaking it up into its constituent parts which so anger feels monolithic and it feels personal like um not only monolithic but personally monogrammed.

This is my Jonathan's anger. Um when in fact if you look at it mindfully and carefully oh no it's actually a bunch it's a more like a meteorological phenomenon cuz it consists of a bunch of changing constituent parts. So maybe uh a rumbling in the chest or um a burning in the ears starburst of thoughts. Uh, and if you look at it, if you investigate it with interest, with interest, with interest, instead of trying to intellectualize it, you start to break it apart. You put it through, as I like to say, a cheese grater.

And then it's much more workable. And you can allow it to come and go and then not do the stupid [ __ ] you would have done in the throws of it. uh you can act you can respond wisely as the cliche goes instead of reacting blindly. blindly. blindly. So So So you just you just sit with it. Sit with it and see what comes up. We welcome it. Yeah. So Yeah. So Yeah. So hello anger. Thank you for being here. Yes. Exactly. I actually I'm going to talk about this later.

He was off mic. Jonathan was but but what he was confirming what I was saying is just sit with it. And yeah that's the answer. And then Jeff said welcome it. And actually that's the really I think in my experience and I'm I'm not that experienced as a as a meditator but in my experience the the move from just a clinical investigation which is what I spent the early years of my contemplative career doing uh toward more of a welcoming plus the investigation is really where it's you start to get toward okayess and equinimity.

um and not being so yanked around by it. How's that sit with you, Seb? Yeah, that um yeah, beautiful. And I I like to make a distinction kind of going back to these three centers um which are metaphors, you know, there's there's no even mind body when we talk about that there's no separation between the mind and body. It's one system, but it's a way of us talking about these different experiences. So you know the the belly or the body and sensations we can be with sensations in a particular way and then the heart and and feeling and emotions we can be in emotions in a particular way and then thoughts which are the most kind of ephemeral and elusive and so with anger we're talking about emotion and so I work with those different kind of qualities of experience differently and one of the most powerful practices I've um really benefited from for working with strong emotions is called RAIN.

It's an acronym. Um, it was, uh, created by an insight teacher, Michelle McDonald, but it's been really kind of procilitized by Tar Brock. So, if you want to look it up. Um, but just briefly, RAIN stands for recognize, allow, investigate, and nurture. And it's it's sort of this four-step process for working with strong emotions because they're so overwhelming, and it's hard to not get lost. I love uh Pemma the Tibetan teacher um says you know feel your feelings drop the stories. It's really hard to not drop the stories when feelings are so strong because they they really flood the system.

So just even recognizing we're in anger is the first step because a lot of us just go straight into anger or you know grief or whatever strong emotion we may have. uh allowing it, welcoming it as as you're describing and then parsing it like Dan is talking about investigating okay what is really here but even the first two steps that could be the whole practice cuz cuz that recognizing and allowing without getting lost in story but actually feeling it in the body cuz that that's where emotion is it's a it's a physical and you mentioned the heart you know and and that closed sense is because those feelings ings are so strong.

They're usually rooted in our trauma, maybe childhood experiences or our adult trauma. They c they can be so overwhelming. And so even just recognizing and allowing is regulating for our system. But then when when we are feeling more less lost in the story, more with the direct experience of it, first of all, it might dissipate and then we don't want to like kick it back up again. But if it's still there, even on a subtle level, we can start to get underneath it. We can say, you know, what's there?

Like what is this? And usually the deeper we get, we realize it's just a cry for love, you know, what whatever the strong emotion is, it's it's just this desire to feel safe and connected and okay. Um, and then we nurture that, you know, we we really just allow for that. So it's it's a beautiful practice if you want to try it out. And just with the heart thing and opening the heart, this is a physical reality too. You know what whatever we feel emotionally is probably also happening to us physically.

So actually literally opening the heart is helpful. helpful. helpful. I have one of those big balls, you know, those um exercise balls and I just lay on it, open my chest. I have a a lot of trauma. I think many of you know I have stage four cancer and so a lot of surgeries and treatments to my chest area and and I do a lot of literal opening because because it is so helpful for my emotional regulation as well. And you know another really great practice is just telling people you love them them them anyway.

I love you. I love you too. I love you said I love you. I love you Dan. I tell my friends I love them. I'm like I love you dudes. I love you. I love you. like I don't care. And I it seemed ridiculous, but it's like that's helped open my heart cuz I didn't know how. Mine was like, you will you will never come close to me. And it's like I'm like, ah, [ __ ] it. Life is short. I love you. Just try short.

I love you. Just try it out. Try it out. It's great instruction. And And I'm glad you brought up Rain, too, as a really practical approach here. I don't know if you guys know, but I have a podcast. Um, and um, and um, and um, if you just Google Tara Brock on my show, like she's been on several times talking about this and she explains it so well. Um, not that you need much more after what Seb just said, but if you want to go deeper, Tara is just such a great teacher on this stuff and she guides it.

She has on also on her website many um, versions of guiding the practice. the practice. the practice. We have one more. Thanks. Um, I wonder what can you do, if anything, to counter the resistance sometimes of others to the changes that you're trying to achieve. I'm just laughing because so many people in my life find me so annoying. uh it's like you you decide to get into meditation or whatever and the the people in your life did not sign up for it. So what's help what's help what helps me and I was having this conversation with somebody in the cafeteria today.

What has helped me is to not try to convince anybody to do what I'm doing and to really try and learn I've learned to like let my little obsessions not have any or really much impact on the people around me. So, and I've made I've learned that the hard way by making a lot of dumb decisions or proilitizing to my wife or, you know, getting so into meditation that I would commit so much time to it that I was taking away time from the family and like I just did a lot of dumb [ __ ] and that generally is a good way to learn if uh you know, not fun but good way to learn.

Funny later actually when you talk about it at a with a microphone. Um the so I I just think about um not trying to Oh, the the cartoon I often think about is the the two women having lunch in a New Yorker cartoon. One of them says to the other, "I've been having I've been gluten-free for a week and I'm already annoying." Um and so to just not you know oppress other people with your sudden interest in meditation better as it is often said it's better to be a Buddha than a Buddhist and um and um and um um can I ask a clarifying question did you were you asking about that about no or talking yeah yeah I thought so yeah so I you were asking if you're trying to make change to somewhere and you're getting resistance from people.

Is that Thank you, Jeff. Bro, I'll get that mic taken away from you, you, you, so you mean people want you to go back to being a dick or No, no, you're making like in the context of like a company in the context of of of go back by the way, just stay where I am. am. am. What's the context there? Well, without getting too personal, I mean, it's just a matter of um you know, the the you know, emotional and um and behavioral changes changes changes that I don't know if this applies to, you know, it applies to me.

My one my my purpose in adopting this practice is to uh is to is to alter how I view and how I react to to these things and pe I'm 60 so people have known me for a long time as the [ __ ] Now I'm not putting you at the [ __ ] You called me you kind of called me one as all. It wasn't that came off. You guys are taping me in the bathroom. I can say whatever I want. Um but so so it's like oh all of a sudden you're the nice guy and um and and and sometimes that's hard, you know, it's cuz I'm I'm not always going to be that way.

So so you can be nice for a few weeks and everybody's like, "Oh, wow. He's ch" and then you just something triggers and you do something and then you're back to square one with a lot of people because they don't kind of believe of believe of believe your desire. your desire. your desire. That's their problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For real. For real. For real. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's their thing, you know. I It's like you just be how you are. You own the new version of you and you don't be attached to to the result.

You know, that's the pro that's the kind of classic Indian teaching. You know, you are you do the thing because it feels like it's the right way to be right now. And it might be received well, it might not be received well. It might be received terribly, but you do it anyway cuz that's the way, you know, not to say there isn't a place to have a conver skillful conversation and all that, but I think that you can't manage how other people are going to receive this.

It's just that's not under your in your power. You can your power is how you're going to be. You know, that's mine. mine. mine. Yeah. We were having a full team meeting for my little company the other day and uh our CEO who's here, Tony, um she I heard her say to somebody, "Yeah, Dan practices what he preaches about 60 to 70% of the time." So like, yeah, do your best to do better. And um like it's not like nowhere is it written that you have to be perfect.

Have we still not answered your question? question? question? That was great. Thank you very much. Such a diplomat. Big thanks to Seb and Jeff. I love doing these meditation party retreats. As uh I mentioned at the top, there's a link in the show notes if you want to come to our next retreat coming up um the weekend of October 16th. It's a super fun event. Lots of different styles of meditation, lots of opportunities to meet new people, although you don't have to do that if you're if you're an introvert.

Uh lots of fun activities to participate in through the course of the weekend. We even do a dance party. It's really cool. And if you can't come uh in person, you can just uh sign up to do it virtually. Speaking of signing up for things, I've got a meditation app, as you may know, and both Jeff and Seb are teachers over on that app. Uh, you can go to my website, danharris.com to download the app and sign up. We do lots of cool stuff. We've got guided meditations from amazing teachers.

We've got courses from amazing teachers. We also do these weekly live meditation and Q&A sessions on on video. There's a free 14-day trial if you want to try before you buy. danharris.com. Join the party. Final thing to say here, thank you very much to all the people who work so incredibly hard to make this show. Our producers are 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 band Islands wrote our theme.