Stop Being Hijacked By Anxiety, Grief, and Anger — A Buddhist Approach | Sebene Selassie & Jeff Warren

On regulating emotions, ending the war with reality, and feeling more alive. Sebene Selassie https://www.sebeneselassie.com/ is an author and meditation teacher. She writes the popular newsletter remind me to love https://sebeneselassie.substack.com/about and her first book is called, You Belong https://www.sebeneselassie.com/mybook. Jeff Warren https://jeffwarren.org/ is an author and meditation teacher. He writes the popular newsletter Home Base https://www.homebasewithjeff.com/ and is the coauthor, along with Dan, of a book called Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics https://jeffwarren.org/books/meditation-fidgety-skeptics/. And he is the co-host of the mind/bod adventure pod https://www.mindbodpod.com/. Join Dan, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18. Grab your in-person spot here https://www.eomega.org/workshops/meditation-party, or sign up to livestream here https://www.eomega.org/workshops/meditation-party-livestream! In this episode we talk about: The 5 hindrances (a classic Buddhist list of everything that goes wrong when you sit down to meditate) Why your brain keeps wandering, numbing out, or picking fights with reality The difference between being tired… and just not wanting to deal How to catch yourself before you go full autopilot The "five recollections" of aging, sickness and death, and why they're actually grounding The comparing mind How to step back and watch your thoughts instead of immediately buying into them Why the people in your life might be confused by the new, slightly calmer you Join Dan, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18. Grab your in-person spot here https://www.eomega.org/workshops/meditation-party, or sign up to livestream here https://www.eomega.org/workshops/meditation-party-livestream! Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here https://app.danharris.com/membership Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here http://www.danharris.com/ Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent — LLC formation, registered agent service, and free business resources at https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/Happierfree BetterHelp — Online therapy, matched to your needs. Get 10% off your first month at https://www.betterhelp.com/happier Wix — Build a fully functional website with AI in minutes at https://www.wix.com/harmony Warby Parker — Prescription glasses with virtual try-on. Buy one prescription pair and get 20% off additional prescription pairs at https://www.warbyparker.com/happier To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Dan Harris?

  This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

• 0:19Dan 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, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren. Seb is the author of an awesome book called You Belong. She's based in Brooklyn, New York.

• 1:03Dan Harris?

  Seb and I recently co-authored and co-recorded an audiobook, 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 Canada, and he's got his own podcast called The Mind Bod 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. We've got another one coming up, 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

• 1:46Dan Harris?

  take your questions. There's plenty of time to relax. However, it's not super intense. You can go take hikes, get massages, play pickleball, whatever you like to do. 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 is 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,

• 2:29Dan Harris?

  you can also sign up virtually. All right, we'll get started with Seven Acelasi and Jeff Warren right after this.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  We work with veterans every day. Caring about people isn't the same as knowing how to help. Safeguard Veterans gave our team free online on-demand training to better understand military culture, recognize when someone may be struggling, and connect veterans to support and resources. It's practical, flexible, and our staff actually use what they learned.

• 3:27Speaker 03

  Get started at safeguardveterans.net. Click on Community Organizations. Safeguard Veterans is a 2026 pilot research program funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

• 3:39Dan Harris?

  We're talking about problems that emerge in meditation. Let's talk about, this has come up a little bit, but you sit to meditate and often there are all these problems you have. And so the Buddha, who was a compulsive list maker, made a list of five of them. 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...

• 4:12Dan Harris?

  Desire, I don't know if I'm gonna do this in the right order, but the first is desire, which is, you know, wanting, often it's 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. So that's one of the principal hindrances, desire. The second is aversion, just 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. Seb feels aversion when we make inappropriate jokes.

• 4:56Dan Harris?

  So that's another of the principal hindrances. The third would be boredom or restlessness. I'm not sure exactly, I'm sure Seb could correct me, but I'm not sure, or educate me, I'm 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 a delusion. Restlessness is also something I'm very, very familiar with, because I apparently have restless leg syndrome, the dumbest syndrome, why can't I get a dignified syndrome? 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 device that just makes

• 5:40Dan Harris?

  you feel like gross, that for me is restlessness, this ants in the pants, or as my Jewish grandmother would said, would have said, spielkis. That, that's another problem that can emerge in meditation. Another is 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 the teachers say as commandment, or inarguably true. That's just healthy skepticism, which I would encourage as a journalist, and one of the reasons why I like the Buddha, is he encouraged skepticism.

• 6:23Dan Harris?

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

• 7:06Dan Harris?

  Or, one of my favorite techniques for sloth and torpor 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 liberation from the fatigue. So, let's do a little bit of meditation. 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 gonna just give you my general orientation to dealing with all problems, both on the cushion and off,

• 7:51Dan Harris?

  which is to develop a kind of, what Joseph calls an inner Dharma coach, or what Kristin Neff, who I think is a historically amazing figure, and the progenitor of something called self-compassion, she just talks about talking to yourself the way you would talk to a good friend. I just wanna check in again, like, I'll start with you, Seb. Like, what's up with you?

• 8:15Speaker 04

  You know, what came up for me with the hindrance practice is, first of all, you can have like, multiple hindrance attack.

• 8:20Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 8:21Speaker 04

  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 could be a soup. And so, really slowing the mind down and being with, okay, what's happening right now, can be really helpful. 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...

• 8:48Speaker 04

  Choice making 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. So desire can be turning towards and aversion can be turning away from things that are good for us or bad for us. Doubt can be discernment and knowing what's right or wrong for us. Restlessness can be energy, right? And sleepiness can be relaxation. So we don't want to make any of these general qualities bad. It's when we are doing it unconsciously.

• 9:30Speaker 04

  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'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, connection.

• 9:55Dan Harris?

  Clarity.

• 9:56Speaker 04

  Clarity. There are a lot of good C words. I don't want to hear any of the bad C words right now.

• 10:03Dan Harris?

  I was not even thinking that.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  Don't do it.

• 10:10Dan Harris?

  Jeff was thinking it.

• 10:11Speaker 04

  I know.

• 10:11Dan Harris?

  He's the problem.

• 10:14Dan Harris?

  Canada. The C words are remembered.

• 10:21Speaker 04

  But yeah, so there is this way of making things really conscious so that we're creative in our response. No, we're not reactive, we're really responsive to life. And so the working with the hindrances in that way is really such a good training because we're usually lost in these reactive patterns of the hindrances. Not just in meditation, just in our lives.

• 10:46Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 10:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was thinking about what a deep practice it is, actually. It was like, it's such a profound insight practice, the hindrance practice. And it reminded me of like, early on in my 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'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.

• 11:30Speaker 05

  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 gonna 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 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 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 think about your problems or whatever, but it can also be very nice to think about the insight you just had.

• 12:15Speaker 05

  You know, anyone have that, like, oh wow, that's really cool, oh, really interesting, I'm gonna 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, and 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 what you realize is... What I realized 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 gonna go to this place or I'm in a social situation. I'm gonna just, my safe place is to be off over here, like not dealing with the intensity

• 12:58Speaker 05

  of what 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 Joe said, 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.

• 13:43Speaker 05

  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?

• 13:51Speaker 04

  Yeah. So we're gonna switch gears a little bit now and explore a different teaching. You know, I think every year we've sort of offered a different practice or a different teaching, because there are so many within the classical Buddhist teachings and they're so rich and deep and profound. And so I was just kind of talking to Jeff about this one. I was like, why did we choose this one? It was my suggestion.

• 14:28Speaker 04

  Because it is, it is, it's an intense one, but I feel like it's a, it's a very powerful teaching for these times. So we're gonna 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, or the Five Recollections, or the Five Remembrances. And many people chant it every day. I chanted it every day for years. I know Dan has been practicing, you've been practicing with it daily for a while now, too. And it's really a teaching on equanimity.

• 15:13Speaker 04

  And equanimity is often used interchangeably with awakening or nirvana. So upeka, equanimity, and nirvana are often seen as synonyms. Because there is this capacity of equanimity 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, death, impermanence, and karma. This is why we call it meditation, karma.

• 16:03Speaker 04

  And what these recollections help us to be is more at peace with our reality, the realities of life, which is so counter-cultural. 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 just massive amounts of stuff, and that's okay for ourselves and the planet. And that there are no consequences to our actions, right?

• 16:47Speaker 04

  But these teachings are the exact opposite. And 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, 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." "I wouldn't change my experience, even though I've had a really rough time of it. I love my life." And it's that equanimity, it's that practice to recognize, you know, not "Why me? Why not me?" There's plenty of suffering in the world, but I can also place my attention on the gifts of my life

• 17:32Speaker 04

  and the gratitude I can have for all the blessings in my life. So these teachings sound like downers, but they're not. They're the exact opposite. 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 the truth of pain, and we can not live in suffering. Sometimes the modern equation is, "Pain times resistance equals suffering."

• 18:17Speaker 04

  Or, "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional." And this, again, these teachings do not promise no pain. They invite us into letting go of the suffering that we add to it. So there are a chant that is chanted in Pali, but I'm gonna chant it in a little bit in English with kind of the Pali intonation.

• 18:49Speaker 04

  And they basically take us through these subjects. So they invite us to remember, I will grow old. I will sicken. You know, I will grow old if I'm lucky. Right? 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 unwellness 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.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  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. And then the trickiest one is the karma, one to understand. 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. So I was born into a particular body with a particular ancestry.

• 20:11Speaker 04

  And so it came with some genetic information, including epigenetic, 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 volition over, that has a consequence. So causes and conditions are causes and consequences.

• 20:39Speaker 04

  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 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 flaps its wings in South America and a tornado happens in Texas.

• 21:22Speaker 04

  You know, 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 chant about kama is it says, "Whatever karma I shall do for good or for ill, of that I will be the heir." Because sometimes we think karma and we only think bad karma, like my bad karma that I have these two. Kidding.

• 22:07Speaker 04

  My very, very good, fortunate karma that I have them in my life, right? So we are not looking at this only as a negative. We're looking at this as really understanding the reality of life, that 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 meet what is with some measure of ease or at least presence so that I can respond accordingly. And my hope and my goal is that I'm responding

• 22:48Speaker 04

  with some measure of freedom and joy and love. So I hope that's a good enough framing of these teachings that we're not gonna, they're not gonna bring us down, but really buoy us so that we can be in our lives with more presence.

• 23:07Speaker 04

  Let ourselves feel what we feel. Yeah, and let ourselves feel what we feel, exactly.

• 23:14Speaker 04

  I'm gonna 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.

• 23:35Speaker 04

  Okay. I am of the nature to age. Second recollection. I am of the nature to sicken. This third recollection.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  I am of the nature to die. This fourth recollection. I will lose what I love.

• 23:59Speaker 04

  The fifth and final recollection. I am the heir of my actions. In truth that there are causes and conditions to all 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.

• 24:26Dan Harris?

  The Buddhists know how to have a good time.

• 24:30Speaker 04

  I used to do a lot of chanting. And, you know, I should say, there are a lot of really beautiful, buoyant chants as well that are about the positive qualities in ourselves and the world. And so it's not all a downer, but...

• 24:45Dan Harris?

  You just didn't want to bring those here.

• 24:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:48Speaker 04

  You know, I think that it comes back to that perspective of equanimity that, you know, I am Miss No News Before Noon, so I'm all about guarding the sense doors. And it's not about hiding

• 25:02Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 25:03Speaker 04

  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.

• 25:13Dan Harris?

  Yeah, I mean, the joy and the enjoyment. End of life emerges directly from the clear seeing of what the truth is.

• 25:20Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 25:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:22Speaker 05

  It's like I found, I didn't find it a downer at all. I mean, I found it sobering. But the soberness of it, where does it land you? Boom, right here, because what the fuck else is there you're gonna do? But just then, live right here, live now. I mean, it's like, you're sad to see your picture, you're 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? You're just such a reminder of that, but you need that sobering because you see how much you've been in your fantasy about something.

• 25:53Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 25:54Speaker 04

  And how much we're running away from it, running away from the reality of

• 25:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:59Speaker 04

  of aging, of sickness, of death.

• 26:01Speaker 05

  Big time.

• 26:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:02Dan Harris?

  I sometimes think about like, what is the logic of boredom in the face of these remembrances? Like, what a waste of time to be bored, you know? Or to be, just to be running on the lie, like that this is gonna go forever.

• 26:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, and you know, there's, there's strategic checking out.

• 26:25Dan Harris?

  Self-protective checking out.

• 26:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:27Dan Harris?

  For sure.

• 26:28Speaker 04

  That, that is a kind of skillful use of distraction or boredom that I think is part of the way we regulate, you know, our, our

• 26:39Speaker 05

  Totally.

• 26:39Speaker 04

  our Netflix shows or our certain habits or proclivities that harm no one else, but allow us to just soothe. And then there's the sobering part of, you know, what do we do? How do we respond?

• 26:58Dan Harris?

  Yeah, I wasn't saying that the logic is that 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.

• 27:13Dan Harris?

  It's just that the logic of, of especially boredom or disaffection or, you know, blasé-ness kind of goes out the window a little bit. My experience when you're starting to view the world through this lens.

• 27:36Dan Harris?

  Coming up, we answer some audience questions, including a really interesting and thorny question about how you hold two things in your mind at the same time. One, everything's impermanent, everything's changing all the time, and also, you still care deeply about the people you love.

• 27:57Speaker 06

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  We work with veterans every day. Caring about people isn't the same as knowing how to help. Safeguard Veterans gave our team free online on-demand training to better understand military culture, recognize when someone may be struggling, and connect veterans to support and resources. It's practical, flexible, and our staff actually used what they learned.

• 28:47Speaker 03

  Get started at safeguardveterans.net. Click on Community Organizations. Safeguard Veterans is a 2026 pilot research program funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

• 28:59Speaker 04

  So should we open it up? We would love to hear your responses to working with thoughts and emotions, also working with the recollections. Hi, I'm Hannah.

• 29:09Dan Harris?

  Hi, Hannah.

• 29:10Speaker 04

  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.

• 29:28Speaker 05

  Forget that. Uh, no.

• 29:31Dan Harris?

  For now.

• 29:34Speaker 05

  Great question. Yeah. Right, 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, what is exactly true in this moment? And there's a kind of, there's a sobriety and embracing quality. And that's the kind of equanimity 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?

• 30:18Speaker 05

  That's like, bam!

• 30:24Dan Harris?

  Well said.

• 30:27Dan Harris?

  Do we have anybody over here? Just got a question.

• 30:29Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm Katie.

• 30:30Dan Harris?

  Hey.

• 30:32Speaker 04

  I have a question about how to be present with somebody in the very advanced ages, stages of dementia. How are you? And Dan, I've heard you talk about looking for sweetness.

• 30:44Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 04

  But I haven't been able to get to sweetness because I get stuck in the anticipatory grief.

• 30:49Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 30:50Speaker 04

  So how, how do you be present with somebody but be with very painful feelings?

• 30:54Dan Harris?

  Yeah. Well, unfortunately, this is an area where I have some experience.

• 31:02Dan Harris?

  I mean,

• 31:06Dan Harris?

  what is grief if not love anyway, right? So,

• 31:12Dan Harris?

  I think that's what my friend Josh, who in his twenties 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 gonna be, there will be diapers. There will be..."

• 31:38Dan Harris?

  The shattering of your sense of security in this world because of my, I had good parents and so the fact that they are so diminished is, you know, it's paradigm shifting, tectonic plate shifting in a really, in a way that can, that leaves me feeling unmoored often. So try to find the sweetness in it. It wasn't like, it's gonna 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 fade and knowing where this is headed, like what's under that is that I

• 32:18Dan Harris?

  love my parents. Also for me, just, and again, this might be a little gendered. I don't think men, certainly not men in 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 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. But

• 32:59Dan Harris?

  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 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 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.

• 33:42Speaker 05

  Good luck with your continuing.

• 33:44Dan Harris?

  Doing work, it's not easy. The other thing I've learned about dementia is don't argue with them. Like, when I was volunteering in a hospice, like, people would ask me for 20 bucks for a cab, and I'd be like, "Yeah, here you go, dude," you know.

• 33:59Dan Harris?

  You just don't argue with them. Let them have their reality.

• 34:04Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 34:07Dan Harris?

  Who else has a question?

• 34:10Dan Harris?

  Hi, I'm Lillian. 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? I, as the Tin Man, will defer to...

• 34:33Speaker 04

  As the what?

• 34:34Dan Harris?

  Tin Man.

• 34:35Speaker 04

  Tin Man. I think you are the perfect person to talk about it.

• 34:40Dan Harris?

  I think it's the stuff we... I do want to hear what you both have to say, but I... In my experience, it's the...

• 34:50Dan Harris?

  The Dharma has these practices like loving-kindness meditation. I suspect many of you are familiar with it. 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, I sometimes joke, it's Valentine's Day with a gun to your head. It's like, really? And, and like, as I 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 shit up and putting it back down.

• 35:35Dan Harris?

  But why are they doing that? Because we know that the cardiovascular system and the muscular skeletal system can be trained. Well, the same is true for the brain and the mind. And so, our innate capacity for warmth...

• 35:52Dan Harris?

  For compassion, these are just skills that can be trained through practices. And 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 simultaneously. Or, you know, my case, my wife's had many serious health problems. So I've done many, many trips to the hospital. So you just, that's like, you're either gonna let that shut you down, or you're gonna like rip your pirate shirt off on the prow of the boat and like, go for it.

• 36:44Speaker 05

  I'm sorry.

• 36:47Speaker 05

  I'm so, so sorry.

• 36:48Speaker 04

  You're not sorry.

• 36:49Speaker 05

  I'm not sorry. I'm gonna be the owner of that karma.

• 36:55Speaker 05

  I also think that it might be useful to expand what we're talking about when we talk about love here, you know? Because quiet is love too. Getting quiet and still, I remember I asked this, 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.

• 37:40Speaker 05

  And there was this pause, she's like, yeah?

• 37:45Speaker 05

  That is peace, dude. And 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 training is to hold you. But the wonderful thing is, that's also part of being in love, is just giving yourself that and noticing how generative it is. I mean, yeah.

• 38:23Dan Harris?

  I know you probably have something to say, but just to pick up on that, like, you talk about the banality of evil. Well, there's a humdrumness of love, too. Like, it doesn't... Or Joseph Goldstein often says that there's no hierarchy of compassionate action. Like, it's more newsworthy if you run into a burning building and bring out a kitten. But it's pretty cool if you text... Call your mom or text a friend who's in need or hold the door open for somebody or whatever. This... There's... It's such a... And I think I might have said this last night. It's such a... Given what a dumpster fire it is right now on the planet,

• 39:08Dan Harris?

  like, it's a target-rich opportunity for doing good. And the doing good does you good, you know? And like, there's a real virtuous spiral available to all of us if we take advantage of it.

• 39:28Speaker 04

  Hi, my name is Kathy, and my question is, how do you use your practice meditation to not compare yourself to others?

• 39:42Dan Harris?

  That's my question, too. What do you guys think?

• 39:45Speaker 05

  I don't know. I'm comparing myself right now mentally to Seven A, and I'm thinking she'll probably have a better answer.

• 39:55Speaker 04

  You know, sometimes I feel like we fetishize meditation as the answer to everything. And meditation, in any culture, in any context, is 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 this tradition, in the Theravada tradition, is around this thing called mani, M-A-N-A. And it's often translated as comparing mind. Its etymology is measurement, it means

• 40:37Speaker 04

  to measure. And it's both, or it includes the comparison of better than, lesser than, but also equal to. So, any kind of comparison is really separating ourselves from others. And the most powerful part for me of this teaching is that it's there until the very end, like until full enlightenment, which I don't think, and I'll speak again for myself, I have not achieved.

• 41:11Speaker 05

  Please, gather round. Allow me to impart the wisdom from a fully enlightened being.

• 41:21Speaker 04

  I don't know what my karma is that I get to play straight man to two straight white guys.

• 41:37Speaker 04

  It's like the opposite of that Sound of Music song, "Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good."

• 41:48Speaker 04

  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.

• 41:59Dan Harris?

  Yeah, seeing the pain of it.

• 42:01Speaker 04

  Seeing the pain of it, seeing, seeing our judgment of it. You know, that, that it is there. I struggle a lot with envy. 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, 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.

• 42:35Dan Harris?

  Another Josephism, we're talking about Joseph Goldstein, who's a meditation teacher, who's been very important, at least for the two of us. He doesn't like Jeff, but.

• 42:43Speaker 04

  He's never met Jeff. He'd love Jeff if he met him.

• 42:47Speaker 05

  We've emailed him. We get along.

• 42:49Dan Harris?

  He would love, you guys would really would get along. But another Josephism 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 to check it out. And over time, you can kind of disincentivize the indulgence of that. But it's still going to, of course, as I've had, said, it's kind of comforting to know it's going to, it's going to be with us until the end.

• 43:20Dan Harris?

  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 how do you work with powerful emotions like anger in real time?

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  We work with veterans every day. Caring about people isn't the same as knowing how to help. Safeguard Veterans gave our team free online on-demand training to better understand military culture, recognize when someone may be struggling, and connect veterans to support and resources. It's practical, flexible, and our staff actually use what they learned.

• 44:25Speaker 03

  Get started at safeguardveterans.net. Click on "Community Organizations." Safeguard Veterans is a 2026 pilot research program funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

• 44:38Dan Harris?

  Hi, I'm Jennifer. Dan, I've heard you mention being behind the waterfall. And I don't know what that means. Yeah, neither do I. Can you explain it?

• 44:51Dan Harris?

  So it's from John Cabot-Zinn, who is another of the really senior teachers here in the West. And what he means, or what I understand, is that if you think of the mind as like a non-stop, a stream of consciousness, mostly me, me, me thoughts, just rushing all the time, there is, 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

• 45:36Dan Harris?

  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, I wonder if they'll have pastrami at lunch, or whatever it is, they won't.

• 45:52Dan Harris?

  Whatever it is, then you are in that little nanosecond there behind the waterfall. You're not caught up in the contents of your consciousness. You're seeing it with some, hopefully, nonjudgmental remove. So my, does that make any sense, what I'm saying? How does that relate to non-attachment? Well, here's, I'd be curious to hear from the more experienced teachers on the stage about that. But in that little glimpse...

• 46:23Dan Harris?

  Where you're just watching it instead of inhabiting it, you are not attached.

• 46:28Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 46:29Dan Harris?

  As Jeff said in the meditation for the one little part that I was awake for,

• 46:36Dan Harris?

  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 like watching, hopefully with 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. It's just a little glimpse of, oh yeah, I could just let that be there. And then you're right back in it. And then you're, and then you're free again. And that, that kind of ebb and flow that Jeff has compared,

• 47:18Dan Harris?

  he, he didn't use it this time, but he has sometimes compared that to the tide. You know, it's so, it's those little moments. How, how am I doing now? Does that make any sense? Yeah?

• 47:28Speaker 05

  If you can notice it, you're not fully in it.

• 47:31Dan Harris?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 47:34Speaker 05

  And that's very different than being fully in it. Because 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 begun 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, popping out more quickly, realizing that there's more space and, and that's the, that's kind of one of the measures of, over time, that grows.

• 48:03Dan Harris?

  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. Like, bro, that is, that's not a, you are seeing stuff. And that's, that just gets, that can, that skill gets better and better over time.

• 48:20Speaker 05

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

• 49:02Speaker 05

  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 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-talk. It's some conviction that's gathered to fill up your whole body. It's like, it's getting, I sometimes describe it as like, you know, those old, this'll date me, those old transparencies from the classroom where that you put the transparency up. 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 nail underneath it and pull it up. That's what it's like at the beginning.

• 49:45Speaker 05

  It's like this perfect transparency and you can't get any space around it. Cause you don't, cause you, 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...

• 50:00Dan Harris?

  Our references are so Gen X. So Gen X.

• 50:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:07Dan Harris?

  Okay. So Jonathan again. You know, a lot of teachers say something happens and that's grist of the mill. Work with that, right? I don't know what that means. I don't know how you do that. So if I see anger arising or I see something like that, I try to kind of figure it out. Which I think there's better ways. So I'm just wondering what you do when that's being taught? And then the other question I have with similar related to it is, you know, I think my heart's closed.

• 50:48Dan Harris?

  And other than Metta, is there any other practice you would recommend to kind of open the heart? Well, there's some good drugs for that.

• 50:57Dan Harris?

  I already do that. Okay. Okay. Maybe you can tell me where to get some. Let's talk later. Yeah. You holding, dude?

• 51:07Speaker 05

  You'll see Dan at the back of the dance party, all sweaty, hanging out pills.

• 51:13Speaker 05

  No, that's not gonna happen.

• 51:18Dan Harris?

  I'll take a first crack at that and then see what you say. So the instruction, as I understand it, when something comes up, like anger, let's just take anger.

• 51:30Dan Harris?

  You said you try to figure it out, and I understand the instruction to be, check it out. So one of my favorite ancient expressions in the insight or vipassana 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 a, not only monolithic, but personally monogrammed. This is my Jonathan's anger. When in fact, if you look at it mindfully and carefully, oh, no, it's actually a bunch,

• 52:14Dan Harris?

  it's more like a meteorological phenomenon, because it consists of a bunch of changing constituent parts. So maybe a rumbling in the chest, or a burning in the ears, a starburst of thoughts. And if you look at it, if you investigate it 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 shit you would have done.

• 52:52Dan Harris?

  In the throes of it, you can respond wisely, as the cliche goes, instead of reacting blindly. You just sit with it. Sit with it.

• 53:03Speaker 05

  And see what comes up. You welcome it.

• 53:05Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 53:06Speaker 05

  Hello, Anger. Thank you for being here.

• 53:08Dan Harris?

  Yes, exactly. I actually, I'm gonna talk about this later. He was off mic, Jonathan was, 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 not that experienced as a meditator, but in my experience, the move from just a clinical investigation, which is what I spent the early years of my contemplative career doing, toward more of a welcoming, plus the investigation, is really where you start to get toward okayness and equanimity, and not being so yanked around by it.

• 53:53Dan Harris?

  How's that sit with you, Seth?

• 53:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, beautiful. And I like to make a distinction, kind of going back to these three centers, which are metaphors. You know, 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 belly or the body and sensations, we can be with sensations in a particular way. And then the heart and feeling and emotions, we can be with 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.

• 54:39Speaker 04

  And one of the most powerful practices I've really benefited from for working with strong emotions is called RAIN. It's an acronym. It was created by an insight teacher, Michelle McDonald, but it's been really kind of proselytized by Tarra Brock. So if you want to look it up. But just briefly, RAIN stands for recognize, allow, investigate.

• 55:02Speaker 04

  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 Pema Chodron, the Tibetan teacher, 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. Allowing it, welcoming it as you're describing, and then parsing it like Dan is talking about investigating, okay, what is really here?

• 55:46Speaker 04

  But even the first two steps, that could be the whole practice. Because that recognizing and allowing without getting lost in story, but actually feeling it in the body, because that's where emotion is. It's a it's a physical, and you mentioned the heart, you know, and that closed sense is because those feelings are so strong, they're usually rooted in our trauma, maybe childhood experiences or our adult trauma. 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.

• 56:29Speaker 04

  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, whatever the strong emotion is, it's just this desire to feel safe and connected and okay. And then we nurture that, you know, we really just allow for that. So 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, whatever we feel emotionally is probably also happening to us physically. So actually, literally, opening the heart is helpful.

• 57:15Speaker 04

  I have one of those big balls, you know, those exercise balls, and I just lay on it, open my chest. I have 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 I do a lot of literal opening because it is so helpful for my emotional regulation as well.

• 57:37Speaker 05

  And you know another really great practice is? Just telling people you love them. Anyway, I love you.

• 57:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, let me take some of these, Ebony.

• 57:45Speaker 05

  I love you, I love Dan. I tell my friends I love them. I'm like, I love you dudes, I love you, I love you, I love you. I'm like, I don't care.

• 57:54Speaker 05

  See, ridiculous, but it's like, that's helped open my heart. Because I did not have, mine was like,

• 58:00Speaker 05

  "You will never come close to me." And it's like, now I'm like, ah, fuck it. Life is short, I love you, I love you. Just try it out, try it out, try it out.

• 58:11Dan Harris?

  It's great instruction. And I'm glad you brought up raining too as a really practical approach here. I don't know if you guys know, but I have a podcast. And 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. 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.

• 58:37Speaker 04

  And she guides it. She has also on her website many versions of guiding the practice.

• 58:42Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 58:43Speaker 05

  We have one more?

• 58:44Dan Harris?

  Thanks. I wonder, what can you do, if anything, to counter the resistance sometimes of others to the changes that you're trying to achieve?

• 59:04Dan Harris?

  I love that. I am...

• 59:09Dan Harris?

  I'm just laughing because so many people in my life find me so annoying.

• 59:16Dan Harris?

  It's like you decide to get into meditation or whatever, and the people in your life did not sign up for it, so...

• 59:29Speaker 04

  What's helped?

• 59:31Dan Harris?

  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 proselytizing 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 shit and that generally is a good way to learn if, you know, not fun, but good way to learn.

• 1:00:13Dan Harris?

  Funny later, actually, when you talk about it at a, with a microphone. The, so I would just think about not trying to, oh, the cartoon I often think about is 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." 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...

• 1:00:54Speaker 05

  Can I ask a clarifying question?

• 1:00:55Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:55Speaker 05

  Did you, were you asking about that, about...

• 1:00:59Dan Harris?

  No.

• 1:00:59Speaker 05

  Or talking, yeah. Yeah, I thought so. Yeah, so I, you were asking if you're trying to make change somewhere and you're getting resistance from people, is that?

• 1:01:10Dan Harris?

  Thank you, Jeff. Bro, I'll get that mic taken away from you.

• 1:01:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:17Dan Harris?

  So you mean, people want you to go back to being a dick?

• 1:01:20Speaker 05

  No, no, you're making, like, in the context of like, a company, in the context of work.

• 1:01:24Dan Harris?

  Not go back, by the way, just stay where I am.

• 1:01:27Speaker 05

  What's the context there?

• 1:01:29Dan Harris?

  Well, without getting too personal, I mean, it's just a matter of, you know, the, you know, emotional and, and behavioral changes that, I don't know.

• 1:01:43Dan Harris?

  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 I'm 60, so people have known me for a long time as the asshole. Now, I'm not putting you at the asshole. You called me, you kind of called me one, that's all. It wasn't, it came off. Miles. You guys are taping me in the mic room. I can say whatever I want.

• 1:02:20Dan Harris?

  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, because 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 changed. 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 your desire.

• 1:02:44Speaker 05

  That's their problem.

• 1:02:45Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:46Speaker 05

  For real.

• 1:02:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:48Speaker 05

  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, 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 may be received well, it might not be received well, it might be received terribly, but you do it anyway. Because that's the way, you know, not to say there isn't a place to have a convers- 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 in your, in your power. You can, your power is how you're going to be. You know, that's mine.

• 1:03:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:29Dan Harris?

  We were having a full team meeting for my little company the other day and, uh, our CEO was here, Tony. She, I heard her say to somebody, "Yeah, Dan practices what he preaches about 60 to 70% of the time."

• 1:03:48Dan Harris?

  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.

• 1:03:57Dan Harris?

  Have we still not answered your question?

• 1:04:01Dan Harris?

  That was great. Thank you very much. Such a diplomat.

• 1:04:09Dan Harris?

  Big thanks to Seb and Jeff. I love doing these meditation party retreats. As I mentioned at the top, there's a link in the show notes if you want to come to our next retreat coming up 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 an introvert. 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 in person, you can just 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. You can go to my website,

• 1:04:50Dan Harris?

  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 and A sessions 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.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:06:09Speaker 02

  We work with veterans every day. Caring about people isn't the same as knowing how to help. Safeguard veterans gave our team free online on-demand training to better understand military culture, recognize when someone may be struggling, and connect veterans to support and resources. It's practical, flexible, and our staff actually use what they learned.

• 1:06:29Speaker 03

  Get started at safeguardveterans.net. Click on Community Organizations. Safeguard Veterans is a 2026 pilot research program funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs.