10% Happier With Dan Harris

Today we’re talking to a renowned psychologist who has come up with five strategies for cultivating hope. Dr. Jacqueline Mattis is a clinical psychologist from Rutgers University, where she is also a Dean of Faculty. As you will hear, she did not start her career wanting to study hope. She started out studying spirituality and religiosity, specifically doing lots of field work and interviews in African American and AfriCaribbean urban communities. She wanted to know why people living under high-stress conditions so often choose to be good and compassionate. That research eventually led her to hope.  This the final interview in our two-week series on hope. The three previous guests approached the topic from a Buddhist perspective. Today, Dr. Mattis will talk about hope from a scientific perspective. How does hope work? And what are the benefits? What she does have in common with our previous guests is that she sees hope as a skill, not as a complacent state of unfounded optimism.  If, after this interview, you

Buddhism can get a bad rap as being hopelessly pessimistic -- in no small measure because one of the Buddha’s first principal pronouncements was, “Life is suffering.” But if you listen to the rest of his spiel, you will hear that the Buddha acknowledges that life can be hard, but then goes on to say that we can make it better. He then spells out a bunch of practical techniques for doing so, which makes Buddhism essentially hopeful. We’re now in week two of our two-week series on hope, where we’ve been positing that hope isn’t just some vague, rosy state of mind -- it is, in fact, a skill.  Today’s guest is Oren Jay Sofer, a Buddhist teacher who has been meditating for nearly a quarter century. He holds a degree in Comparative Religion from Columbia University and is the author of Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication. Oren’s view of hope starts with the Buddhist notion of impermanence. Everything is changing all the time. That doesn’t necessarily mean things are always guaranteed t

As you may know, we are in the midst of a two-week series on hope – a concept we are trying to rescue from the realm of rote cliche and empty bromides. Our belief is that hope, when properly understood and practiced, is not baseless optimism or naivete, but a powerful skill.  Today’s guest, Sebene Selassie, has earned her capacity to hope the hard way, surviving multiple rounds of advanced cancer. She is also the author of an excellent book called You Belong, and is one of the most popular teachers on the Ten Percent Happier meditation app. And as part of the work we are doing to train people in the skill of hope right now, she has recorded some brand new meditations for the app. If you’re a subscriber, tap on the “Singles” tab in the app to check those out, or click here: https://10percenthappier.app.link/HopeIsASkill. You’ll also find a variety of other new meditations and talks – all of which revolve around the theme of hope as a skill. In this interview, Seb talks about: hope as it relates to Buddhist con

Spring is here. Vaccines are entering arms. But for many of us, hope can feel slippery and fleeting. Even with the pandemic seeming to abate, there's still a lot of uncertainty and suffering. That’s why, starting today, we’re launching a special two-week series on hope: what it is, what it isn’t, and how and why to cultivate it. The word “hope” might feel vague, or gauzy–or even, given the current state of the world, misguided. And if you’re using the commonly understood definition of hope, that might be true.  Many of us think about hope as wishing for some specific outcome or result: a raise, a promotion, a romantic entanglement, or a return to an exact replica of pre-pandemic living. We can get attached to these outcomes–and then get disappointed when they (inevitably) don’t work out exactly as we’d hoped. But there is a way to hope wisely. And over the next two weeks, both here on the podcast and in the Ten Percent Happier app, we’re going to teach you how. We’ve enlisted an all-star slate of Buddhist tea

To inject a little sunshine, perspective, and wisdom, we thought it might make sense to repost one of our favorite conversations of the last year. This is a straight up meat-and-potatoes meditation talk from the one and only Joseph Goldstein. In this chat, we explore three profoundly useful meditation strategies: mindfulness of thinking, awareness of rushing (a deeply ingrained habit for many of us), and the genuine insight that can emerge from everyday activities. For the uninitiated, Joseph is one of the founding teachers on the Ten Percent Happier app. He's a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society, and is the author of several books, including the recently reissued The Experience of Insight: A Simple and Direct Guide to Buddhist Meditation.  Also: Next Monday, April 12, we're launching a two-week series about hope. As we head into spring and vaccines go into arms, we’re going to argue that hope is a skill – one you can get better at. And not only are we exploring hope on the podcast, we will also hav

Today’s guest is at the forefront of understanding human emotions: what they are, why humans evolved to have them, how they’re different from feelings, and what science says about how to manage them (rather than get yanked around by them all the time). Dr. Lisa Feldman-Barrett is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, with appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. She’s written several books, including How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain and Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain. In this conversation, we talk about how we can “deconstruct” our own emotions, and the overlap between her research findings and Buddhism. And one more order of business: Next Monday, April 12, we're launching a two-week series about hope. Hope was perhaps one of the cruelest casualties of the coronavirus pandemic. As we start to inch our way into a vaccinated world, there are ways we can skillfully engage with hope without setting ourselves u

The great meditation teacher Ram Dass once said, “If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” My guest today comes with tools to help you keep your cool when interacting with family -- or anyone else. We’re going to talk about a kind of meditation practice known as “relational dharma,” or “insight dialogue.” It’s a way of taking meditation off the cushion and into the crucible of conversation.  My guest is Bart van Melik, who teaches veterans and children in juvenile detention centers. He’s co-author of a book called Still, in the City: Creating Peace of Mind in the Midst of Urban Chaos. He graduated from the Spirit Rock/IMS Teacher Training and Community Dharma Leader Program. He’s based in New York City, but he’s currently in his country of birth, The Netherlands. In this conversation, you will hear lots of tips about how to actually practice relational meditation and insight dialogue, which Bart calls a “pressure cooker for insight.” Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcas

People in the mindfulness meditation world often note that what we’re teaching is not a breathing exercise; the goal is to just feel the breath as it naturally occurs (if you’ve chosen the breath as the thing you want to focus on). However -- and this is something we haven’t spent much time exploring on the show -- there is a ton of evidence to suggest that actual breathing exercises can also have powerful benefits, physiologically and psychologically. That’s one of the things we’re going to talk about today with Emma Seppälä, who is a Lecturer at the Yale School of Management and Faculty Director of the Yale School of Management’s Women’s Leadership Program. She is also the Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, and the author of a book called The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success. As the title of today’s episode suggests, we’re going to talk about three big takeaways from happiness research. One has

Too often, the process of looking at your biases can be presented like eating your vegetables. But one of the most fascinating and rewarding things I have attempted to do in recent years is to take a good, hard look at my own prejudices and conditioning, especially as a white man. I still screw up all the time. However, one thing that I think is often underplayed is that doing this work can be deeply enjoyable–and can also pay profound dividends.  One of my most important role models here has been John Biewen, host of a podcast called Scene on Radio. The show has had four seasons, but the seasons that have most impacted me are Seasons 2 and 3. Season 2 is called “Seeing White,” in which he explores white people and whiteness. Season 3 is called “Men,” in which he looks at sexism. I was not surprised to learn that John is a meditator, a practice which, he explains, has helped him as he’s done his work. Also: We're offering 40% off the price of an annual subscription to our companion meditation app–also called

There is a powerful scene in a novel called Lincoln In the Bardo, where President Abraham Lincoln has come to the cemetery where his young son, Willie, is soon to be buried. Willie had passed away at the White House where he had gotten sick. Lincoln is so distraught that he goes to the graveyard to get one last glimpse at his boy’s dead body. As the President is leaving, and in the grips of perhaps the worst psychic pain available to any human, he has an insight. His suffering, he realizes, comes from viewing his son as solid, when, in fact, they are both just “energy bursts” or “two passing temporarinesses.”  There is a reason this insight will be familiar to anyone with a passing familiarity with Buddhism, and that is because the author, George Saunders, is a practicing Buddhist. Lincoln in the Bardo won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for best work of fiction in English. Saunders has written ten other books, including the newly released A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, which is about how to become a better reader a

Today we’re diving into a concept that is simultaneously one of the oldest contemplative cliches and one of the most profound head scratchers — oneness. Can *you* be one with everything if *you* don’t really exist? And, even if we manage to grok this idea, what are the practical ramifications? Actually, this is just one of the many riddles and paradoxes we’ll be exploring today.  My guest is Roshi Norma Wong. She was recommended to us by frequent guest and friend of TPH, The Reverend angel Kyodo Williams. Roshi Norma is a Zen Master, a life-long resident of Hawaii, a former State legislator, and abbot of a Zen temple called Anko-in. In this conversation, we talk about: • Understanding -- and experiencing -- oneness • Removing the binary between relaxation and focus • Why she thinks we need to cultivate pride and humility simultaneously • Why she thinks that before we try to solve the world’s problems, we need to become better people • And why our current moment of compounding global catastrophes presents us w

We all remember that fateful week, almost exactly a year ago, when it all seemed to sink in for so many of us–when Tom Hanks got sick, the NBA suspended games, and the (now former) President addressed the nation in primetime. The big question now is: When and how will this plague end?  My guest today has a clear vision for how things are likely to play out from from here. His name is Dr. Nicholas Christakis. He’s a physician, sociologist, and director of the Human Nature Lab at Yale University. He’s written a number of books, but there are two that we will discuss in this episode. His latest is called Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live. The other book we’re going to talk about is on a related subject. It’s called Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society. In it, Christakis argues that human beings are fundamentally good. In fact, as you will hear, it is our goodness that the virus exploits.  One more order of business: when COVID began affecting our

To mark the first anniversary of the week in March 2020 when Covid fundamentally altered our lives, we’re launching a special two-part series. Today, we’re going to be talking about anxiety, which has been spiking during the pandemic. My guest is Dr. Jud Brewer, a psychiatrist and deep dharma practitioner who argues that anxiety is a habit–one that you can unwind. Then, next Monday, we’ll talk to Nicholas Christakis, who is not only a doctor but also the head of the Human Nature Lab at Yale, about when the pandemic will end, and what this ordeal has revealed about our species. But today it’s anxiety with Jud Brewer. Some of you may know Jud from the Ten Percent Happier app, where he teaches a mindful eating course. He’s also been on this show several times. He is the Director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center at Brown University. He’s got a number of apps that use mindfulness to treat addiction, including Eat Right Now, Craving to Quit, and Unwinding Anxiety. He also has a brand new book, c

Before we dive in, a warning: this conversation includes descriptions of abuse and violence. As you may know, March 8th, the day we’re dropping this episode, is International Women’s Day. We have a story today about intimate violence, which has long been a problem for women around the world, and has only intensified during the pandemic. My guest is Tanya Selvaratnam, a writer and artist who I’ve known socially for many, many years. I was truly shocked when Tanya’s name surfaced in the media three years ago, in connection with the case of Eric Schneiderman. Eric was the celebrated Attorney General of New York State. He was also a regular on the local meditation scene. I knew Eric and Tanya were dating. What I did not know was that, behind the scenes, Eric was allegedly physically and emotionally abusing Tanya. She has now come out with a book, called Assume Nothing, which goes into searing detail about not only the alleged abuse, but also about how she flipped the script, regained her agency, helped bring her

I know you guys, and it is pretty clear you love deep dharma episodes. Today we’ve got a dharma episode that is quite timely. As you all know, we live in a time when most people are getting their news from carefully curated information silos. As a result, we often create very specific views— about public figures, current events, our fellow citizens — and we can cling pretty tightly to those views. Today we’re gonna talk about how useful and even pleasurable it can be to dig into the roots of these biases and dismantle them— to pop our bubbles of delusion. It can be a relief. It can be eye-opening. It can change the way you relate to yourself and to other people. My guest is Andrea Fella. She is the co-teacher at the Insight Meditation Center and the Insight Retreat Center in Redwood City, California. She has been practicing Insight Meditation since 1996, and teaching Insight Meditation since 2003. She is particularly drawn to intensive retreat practice, and has done a number of long retreats, both in the Unit

We’re all creatives, whether we think of ourselves that way or not. In so many aspects of your life, from planning your future to planning a meal to curating your social media, you need to be able to both envision and then execute. And how you work with your mind in these moments is key. Today, we are going to hear from a master creator -- the mind behind brilliant Pixar movies such as Inside Out, Up, and the recently-released Soul -- about how to run a creative process at the highest possible level. (I have a six-year-old, and, in my opinion, one of the worst parts of the job of being a dad is sitting through insipid children's entertainment. But the aforementioned films have been both thrilling and moving to consume, for both me and my son.) My guest today is Pete Docter, who directed all three of those films. He is the Chief Creative Officer of Pixar. He is also a meditator and a practicing Christian whose films are each motivated by a big, pressing question he is posing to himself about his own life. In t

The stereotypical depiction of fighting addiction makes it seem highly unpleasant: White knuckling, sweating it out, detoxing, going cold turkey–you get the picture. This applies to classical addiction, and also to the less dangerous (but nonetheless nettlesome) unhealthy habits and compulsions that we all wrestle with. My guest today takes a very different approach. She aims to harness the pleasure centers of the brain as a way to handle addictive habits—and, controversially, she doesn’t believe you need to go cold turkey on alcohol, which is the main intoxicant she has targeted. Her name is Annie Grace, and she is the author of a very popular book called This Naked Mind. (Shout out to my friend and colleague Steve Baker, the executive producer of Nightline, who has gotten a lot out of Annie’s work, and turned me on to her.) This episode is the second in a two-part series we’re doing this week on addiction. If you missed it, go check out Monday’s episode with Buddhist teacher Kevin Griffin, who has worked to

This is an episode about our craving, grasping minds. Whether you have struggled with a classic addiction or not, we all have addictive tendencies; we all wrestle with desire. I often think about a provocative question once posed by my friend, Dr. Jud Brewer, a Buddhist practitioner and addiction specialist: Are we all addicted? The implied answer is yes.    My guest today thinks about addiction in a similarly broad and compelling way. He talks about addictions to substances like drugs and alcohol, but also addiction to self and addiction to racism. Kevin Griffin is a longtime Buddhist practitioner and 12 Step participant, and is one of the founders of the Buddhist Recovery Network. He has trained with many of the legendary teachers we have interviewed on this show, including Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein. He has written many books, including One Breath at a Time: Buddhism & the Twelve Steps. His latest is Buddhism & the Twelve Steps: Daily Reflections: Thoughts on Dharma and Recovery.   This is

Today we’re going to talk about a massively useful acronym, which can be used both on the cushion and in your free-range living. The acronym is RAIN -- R-A-I-N -- and rather than explaining it myself, I will leave that to my guest, who has become one of RAIN’s primary proponents. Tara Brach is an author, therapist, and meditation teacher. She has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, she founded the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, and she has written several books, including her latest, which is called Radical Compassion. We first posted this interview in January 2020, shortly after that book came out. In this conversation, we talk about: What RAIN is and how to apply it in many areas of your life, including relationships; a Buddhist list called The Eight Worldly Winds; and whether most people harbor a suspicion that there's something fundamentally wrong with us. But we start and end the conversation with a touchy subject. In my first book, I made fun of Tara a little bit, which didn’t go down that well

We’re now almost a full year into the era of Covid restrictions, and I suspect that many of you, as I am, are starting to internalize the fact that, notwithstanding the vaccines, there’s likely a ways to go yet. And the mental health issues are piling up: The depression, anxiety, and addiction. Moms, people of color, and elderly people who can’t see their families are among those getting hit especially hard. To inject a little sunshine, and perspective, and wisdom, we thought it might make sense to re-post one of our favorite conversations of the last year. Pema Chödrön has seemingly been trying to prepare us for this pandemic for years, through a series of popular books, with titles such as When Things Fall Apart, Welcoming the Unwelcome, and The Wisdom of No Escape. But as you will hear, she is anything but gloomy. Like all of the great meditation teachers I’ve met, she has a lightness and a sense of humor about her. She was born Deirdre Blomfield in Connecticut. She lived a conventional life, going to UC B