Buddhist Hacks for Anxiety and Overthinking | Joseph Goldstein

Today we're gonna talk about some Buddhist hacks for two deeply related and all too common ailments: anxiety and overthinking. Most of us have struggled with one or both of these, and one of the people who has helped Dan the most is Joseph Goldstein. Regular listeners to this podcast will be familiar with Joseph and his very direct, very down-to-earth style, but if you don't know – let us introduce you. He's one of the foremost Buddhist teachers in the west, he's been Dan's teacher for about 15 years, and Dan's recently convinced him to write a book together, using a collection of these little phrases that he's cooked up over the years. Dan's been keeping a list of around a hundred or so tiny, useful phrases – bite-sized wisdom for meditation practice and for daily life. The book won't be out for a few years, but we're conducting a series of interviews with him, each one covering a few phrases, and we'll be releasing those here on the podcast. The first installment of these interviews about Joseph's phrases just came out on Thursday, Jan. 1, and you don't have to listen to that episode for this episode to make sense, but they are useful together. Today, we'll be covering: The practice assessment tapes Whatever works Cowboy Dharma Dead end Is this useful And a quartet about walking meditation: sensations moving through space, walking through space, walking in a dream, walking through the mind Don't worry if those don't make sense right now – stick with us and you'll get a thorough explanation of where those phrases all come from and how they can help. 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 Thanks to our sponsor: LinkedIn:  Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com/happier http://linkedin.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.

• 0:04Dan Harris?

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

• 0:19Dan Harris?

  Hello, everybody. How we doing? So today, we're going to talk about some Buddhist strategies for two deeply related and very, very common ailments: anxiety and overthinking. I've been struggling with both of these ailments ever since I can remember. And one of the people who's helped me the most in this regard is Joseph Goldstein. Regular listeners to this podcast will be familiar with Joseph and his very funny, very wise, down-to-earth style. But if you don't know him, let me introduce you. He's one of the foremost Buddhist teachers in the West. He's been my teacher for about 15 years. And I recently convinced him to write a book with me using a collection of these little teaching phrases that he's cooked up over the years.

• 1:04Dan Harris?

  These are pithy, often very funny, phrases that Joseph uses while he's teaching people to meditate and to incorporate aspects of the Dharma or Buddhism into their lives. I have put together a list of about 100 of these useful phrases, which are really just bite-sized wisdom for your meditation practice and for your daily life. The book we're writing won't be coming out for several years, but I'm in the middle of conducting a series of interviews with Joseph, each one of them covering just a few of the phrases. And we will be releasing the interviews right here on the podcast in the long run-up to the eventual, who-know-when publication of the book. The first installment in this series of interviews with Joseph about his phrases came out just

• 1:49Dan Harris?

  a few days ago on Thursday, January 1st. If you didn't get a chance to listen to that, no big deal. This episode will still make sense. But if you're curious, you can definitely go back and listen. It's worth doing so. Today, we'll be covering the following phrases: the practice assessment tapes, whatever works, cowboy dharma, dead end, is this useful? And then a quartet of phrases that you can use in your walking meditation. Don't worry if these phrases don't make sense right now. Stick with us and you'll get a thorough explanation coming up. Speaking of Joseph, he will be leading our free seven-day New Year's meditation challenge, which starts tomorrow. If you want to sign up, just download my new app,

• 2:34Dan Harris?

  which is called 10% with Dan Harris. You can get it at danharris.com or wherever you get your apps. When you download the app, you'll get a free 30-day trial and that free trial will cover the seven-day New Year's meditation challenge. So it's a kind of try before you buy situation. The challenge is incredible. Joseph gives a kind of masterclass and on-ramp to Buddhist meditation, which is good for both beginners and experienced meditators. I was in the room with Joseph as he recorded the sessions and I got a ton out of it. In fact, I will be doing the challenge alongside all of you and then we'll be doing some live Q and A sessions throughout the course of the seven days so you can ask questions of me. Okay, so head on over to danharris.com,

• 3:18Dan Harris?

  download the app or you can get it wherever you get your apps. And we will be back with Joseph Goldstein right after this.

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• 4:23Dan Harris?

  So let's start with a phrase you use while you're teaching meditation that I, as is my wont, completely rejected for many years before I adopted it as if it were my own. And the phrase is taken from the Buddhist texts. And it is, "There is a body." I didn't like it because it sounds like something you say at a crime scene. So I just, it sounded weird and clunky, but can you just talk about why you found it so powerful?

• 4:54Speaker 03

  First to say, it is a little weird and clunky. So I had a similar sense of it. But I have found it really helpful.

• 5:07Speaker 03

  It's a phrase from

• 5:13Speaker 03

  the Buddhist discourse on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, which is the basic discourse describing mindfulness practice. It was a very central, core teaching.

• 5:26Dan Harris?

  Can I just jump in on that for a second? A discourse, meaning the Buddha is said to have given a bunch of talks during his time on planet Earth. And those talks were then memorialized at first through the oral tradition and then written down many hundreds of years later.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 5:43Dan Harris?

  So some of these discourses have become more foundational than others. And so one of the discourses is called the Satipatthana Sutta. And the way we translate it now is the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. In other words, four ways to establish mindfulness in your mind. So I'm just jumping in with your content.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. No, it's helpful. So this phrase, "There is a body," is found in this discourse. And the whole sentence is, "Be mindful." Of course, this is in the Pali language, so the English translation. So the phrase is, "Be mindful," and then...

• 6:26Speaker 03

  In the poly equivalent of quotation marks, there is a body. And then, to the extent necessary for clear knowing and continuous mindfulness. That's the whole phrase. But because that phrase "there is a body" is set off in the equivalent of quotation marks, it was Bikkun Alio, who is a German monk, great scholar, great practitioner. And he wrote a wonderful book about the Satipatthana Sutta.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  He highlighted the fact that because it's in quotation marks, it almost serves, it's like the, almost the equivalent of a mental node or a label, that the phrase can be used to acknowledge something in our practice. So I started, when I first read that, that's interesting. Because I had never used that before, or even highlighted that particular phrase. So when I started using it and applying it, "there is a body" as a way of beginning a sitting meditation, and then I extended it actually to the walking

• 7:53Speaker 03

  with some interesting outcomes. I saw that it did something very helpful in terms of being with the breath, for example, in a way that was very relaxed. You know, where we weren't manipulating the breath or forcing it.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  Because a common experience is that when people really focus down on the breath, if they get the instruction, "Okay, be with the in-breath, be with the out-breath", there can be, the suggestion is to narrow the focus just either to the nose or the rising and falling of the abdomen. But in that narrowing of the focus, that can often trigger a little over-efforting or manipulating or some way we're interfering with the natural rhythm of the breath. So what I found by starting with "there is a body",

• 9:05Speaker 03

  it like created a larger framework

• 9:10Speaker 03

  on which to rest our attention. So rather than narrowing to a particular point or a particular area in the body, this is taking the whole body, it's like the whole body awareness. "There is a body", so just as a sidebar, that phrase, it's not a metaphysical statement about "there is a body" or "there isn't a body", it's not about that. Although it does have some implications for that, which I'll mention later. So it's just, it's really just a

• 9:44Speaker 03

  way of guiding people as they're beginning a sitting

• 9:51Speaker 03

  to settle into a full body awareness, "there is a body", and then holding that frame

• 10:02Speaker 03

  and becoming aware of the sensations of the body breathing within the frame rather than narrowing the attention. So, "there is a body", we're feeling the whole body awareness, and then just within that easeful awareness of the whole body will automatically become aware within it of the sensations of the body breathing.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  That really can help be with the breathing

• 10:38Speaker 03

  without interfering, without manipulating, without over-efforting. So in that way, it just becomes a good way to start and settle into the process of mindfulness of whatever is arising. And then, within that same frame, the larger frame there is a body,

• 11:00Speaker 03

  we may become aware of sensations of the body breathing, but also aware of other sensations, aware of sounds, even thoughts or emotions can be seen to arise within

• 11:14Speaker 03

  that bigger framework. And it just creates a quality of ease and relaxation. And I'll just say that it's worth exploring, because for some people, that will be helpful. Other people may not have a problem with zeroing in on the breath in a narrow way. So if we can do that without manipulating or without over-efforting, that's also a completely fine and helpful way to practice. So this just provides an alternative and even

• 11:56Speaker 03

  possibly from time to time, we go back and forth, just intuitively seeing, okay, which approach would be most helpful now?

• 12:06Speaker 03

  With respect to the walking, I find that phrase really helpful and very interesting. So I would be walking

• 12:17Speaker 03

  and then just use the phrase, "There is a body", so that instead of zeroing in or narrowing the attention to the sensations in the foot or leg, it was just a whole body awareness, moving through space.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  Now, quite ironically...

• 12:39Speaker 03

  Using the phrase "there is a body in walking" in that way Revealed that there is no body Because the felt experience in that What it's just sensations in space That was the feeling of walking with that frame

• 13:00Speaker 03

  You know, we were just saying whole body awareness There's a body and then walking and then being with the experience It's just sensations in space happening And the form or solidity of the body disappears So it's kind of interesting, we're using the phrase "there is a body" To see there is no body In the way we think of body as being solid or fixed

• 13:24Dan Harris?

  There is no body and there's nobody

• 13:27Speaker 03

  But yeah

• 13:28Dan Harris?

  You're pointing to both, which is a deep question We'll come back to that in a second We'll actually come back to the walking in a second because Using "there is a body" in the walking actually birthed a few more phrases Which we will get to and I've made notes of them But let me just stay with the seated practice of using "there is a body" for a second Because I want to do my thing of repeating it back to you and making sure I've got it And by extension that the listener has it So I could sit, this is actually a full meditation practice in some ways I could sit and just use this phrase "there is a body" To gently attune my mind to

• 14:07Dan Harris?

  The, all of these sensations that are with me all the time That I'm mostly tuning out because I'm stuck in my head I'm stuck in the swirling stories of my head There is a body, I just, it opens the door For all of these sensations that are naturally happening Being these signals that are being sent North, if that's even the way the mind works From the body to conscious awareness But mostly are being tuned out again because I'm marching through my to-do list And then once you have that anchor, that frame Well, then actually you can start to kind of in a light way tune into almost anything from the the feeling of your breath happening, maybe at one specific point, or maybe the

• 14:51Dan Harris?

  whole the whole continuum of the breath from chest to belly to nose and back. Or emotions and thoughts might arise and from this home base of being anchored in body sensations, I can then turn my mindful attention to whatever else is coming up.

• 15:14Dan Harris?

  Again, is that close?

• 15:15Speaker 03

  Yes, yes. So another another metaphor to use. It's kind of the difference between a wide angle lens on a camera and a zoom lens. And to really begin to explore how both of those perspectives can be integrated in our practice. And so sometimes we practice with a wide angle lens, where we're taking everything in. And then sometimes we change, like we go to a zoom lens, where we zoom in on a particular object.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  And it's interesting just to learn how to trust the intuition really. You know, if we're in a wide angle lens and then the mind just begins spacing out and wandering a lot, maybe a little zoom lens activity would be helpful. If we're on zoom lens and we're getting a little tight about it, so then switch to wide angle lens. And so this is just an interesting way of exploring what aspect of attention would be most helpful at a particular time.

• 16:35Dan Harris?

  Again, we're going to get to the walking meditation in a second, but.

• 16:40Dan Harris?

  As you know, I'm coming into these interviews with a set of phrases that I've collected just from knowing you for 15 years. One phrase that I did not put on the list that's coming to mind that we may or may not want to include, but I've heard you say this. I remember you saying it at the very first meditation retreat I attended with you in 2010. Just play. You were giving me and others, I think I was in a small group meeting with you, with a bunch of other yogis or meditators, and you were saying, "Look, you could..." You weren't... I don't remember exactly what you were saying, but let's say you were talking about zooming in or having a wide-angle lens. And the instruction was, "Just play with it and see." You don't have to get too uptight about it.

• 17:24Dan Harris?

  Just play with it, see how it goes. Does that resonate with you as a possible phrase?

• 17:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's... Yes, I think it's really important. And it's... It's really just an expression of other words that one could use to mean the same thing. And maybe people respond to particular words and not others, but to play with it, to explore, to investigate. So all of those are truly saying the same. Don't be afraid to explore, you know, because I think this is how we learn in terms of understanding the many, many nuances of practice. We see what works for us, what doesn't, what works at a particular time.

• 18:13Speaker 03

  You know, and maybe it works well for a while and then it stops working. So this sense of exploration or play, I've just found really helpful for me. And it's possible that other people or some people might not find it helpful. And it's possible that instruction might just create confusion. "Well, play. How do I do that? I don't quite understand that." So for some people, it may be that very specific instructions. "Do this."

• 18:53Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  "Do this."

• 18:55Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  For some people, that might be really helpful. So I just want to say that there are lots of different skillful means.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  And the Buddha was, you know, known for his ability to give teachings

• 19:15Speaker 03

  that addressed the specific needs of the person he was talking to. And I like that understanding, so we don't get fixed that there's only one approach. There are many different approaches, depending on our own particular conditioning and what's helpful, and what's helpful at a particular time.

• 19:34Dan Harris?

  Yes, yes.

• 19:35Speaker 03

  Because what might be helpful at one point, maybe something else would be really helpful later on.

• 19:41Dan Harris?

  So this spirit of dogmatic, non-dogmatism

• 19:45Speaker 03

  Right.

• 19:46Dan Harris?

  is really reflected in a phrase that you actually used in that answer, but that is worth highlighting, which is, whatever worked.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  Yes, that has become one of my favorite mantras. Because we sometimes don't know exactly what will work, you know, but in the course of our practice, we, oh yeah, this seems to, this seems to address

• 20:10Speaker 03

  what's happening right now.

• 20:15Speaker 03

  And this, what I'm about to say, might be a little controversial.

• 20:23Speaker 03

  In my long experience in practice and with different teachers,

• 20:31Speaker 03

  sometimes I would hear teachers give a very specific instruction.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  And for where I was at the time, it just didn't work.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  But the teacher said to do this. And

• 20:52Speaker 03

  so given my personality,

• 20:58Speaker 03

  I went with whatever works.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  And I think generally, it seems like good advice if it's not working.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  Either explore why it's not working, which would be its own interesting investigation, or see if there can be some adjustment to whatever the instruction is about.

• 21:21Speaker 03

  So that it begins to work and begins to be effective for our own minds at that particular time.

• 21:29Dan Harris?

  So are you saying that I can ignore you going forward?

• 21:33Speaker 03

  No, but

• 21:37Speaker 03

  you can. But I would like a full report on why it didn't work and what you found more helpful. So then I can steal it back from you and start using it with others. Yeah.

• 21:54Dan Harris?

  This really does speak, and this is a digression, really does speak to a complaint that I get from listeners, customers, people that I'm giving speeches to, which is, you know, it really sucks if you're serious about meditation and you don't have a teacher to work with. I have this massive luxury and privilege of being able to work directly with you. That is not something the vast majority of humans have. So what to do about that?

• 22:24Speaker 03

  A couple of things. One is,

• 22:29Speaker 03

  given the technology these days,

• 22:34Speaker 03

  there are a lot of teachings online that, a vast amount of teachings. So I'll just give one

• 22:49Speaker 03

  simple example, but one could extrapolate from this. Suppose one is struggling with one of the hindrances, desire, anger, sleepiness.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  And you don't have a teacher that you're working one-on-one with, that you could discuss it with. But you realize, I don't have a handle on this yet. It would be very easy to go online. And just as a public announcement, there is a website called Dharmaseed. One word. Dharmaseed.org. And this is an organization which has the recordings of thousands and thousands of Dharma talks in the Vipassana tradition,

• 23:44Speaker 03

  insight meditation tradition, from many, many, many teachers. So it's a website where you can access all of these talks very easily, either by teacher or by topic. So for example, if one is having a problem with sleepiness, you know, or anger or whatever, one could go on this website, look for talks by topic, and listen to a whole range of teachers talking about how to work with that mind state, which is not that different than having a one-on-one with somebody. You know, because in these Dharma talks,

• 24:29Speaker 03

  there's often very specific suggestions for how to work with these different common problems. So I think there are ways of, for people who really are interested and want to take their practice deeper in these ways, I think the resources are there.

• 24:50Dan Harris?

  I think Dharmaseed is great. And yes, dharmaseed.org. You can just go in onto the website and search by topic. And there are all these talks there. Dharma talks, meaning that's the term of art in the Buddhist tradition, where every evening on retreat, one of the teachers will give a talk for an hour about aspects of the Dharma. How comfortable are you advising people to ask ChatGPT or some other LLM about problems in their meditation?

• 25:18Speaker 03

  You were reading my mind, Ed. And I was sitting here thinking, do I want to bring this up? I didn't know whether we were getting into frost territory.

• 25:30Speaker 03

  I have found ChatGPT and other AI platforms

• 25:36Speaker 03

  to be incredibly helpful

• 25:41Speaker 03

  with Dharma questions and Dharma responses. I've asked it a lot of questions, some, you know, very basic, just to see what it says, some rather esoteric Buddhist questions.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  And I've been amazed at how

• 26:01Speaker 03

  both accurate and clear and comprehensive the answers have been. So as

• 26:12Speaker 03

  all of these platforms say,

• 26:17Speaker 03

  the answers can sometimes not be correct. You should check it or in some way assess what it's saying. So just to have that in the background of one's mind.

• 26:33Speaker 03

  And so there could be an interesting interplay between getting a response from ChatGPT and maybe listening to a few Dharma talks on the same topics or reading, you know, about it. But my experience so far has been that it's pretty good and quite amazing.

• 26:50Dan Harris?

  Okay, thank you for humoring me during that digression. Okay, so let's go back to walking meditation. You, at the beginning of this episode, talked about how you started using the phrase, the phrase we started with here, which is there is a body. You started using it in your walking meditation. And I noted that there were a bunch of phrases that seem to have emerged from that experience. I'm going to list a few of them to you and we can take whatever ones or all of them if you want. You kind of said one of them earlier, which is sensations moving through space. But then there was also walking through space and walking through the mind. You want to attack these?

• 27:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So this was in a way, an offshoot of there is a body. And when those phrases came to mind.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  I wasn't particularly linking it to there is a body, but they are related. So I was on self-retreat, just doing walking meditation and playing, as I am wont to do. Probably to excess, so I must say that one does want to keep an eye out for when we're just really entertaining ourselves. But, so I was doing walking meditation.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  And for whatever reason, I'm not even sure why it arose,

• 28:16Speaker 03

  I just started feeling the whole body moving through space. And so the phrase was, oh, just walking through space. And then that actually became a little meditative instruction. So sometimes in my walking meditation, I'll just intentionally

• 28:38Speaker 03

  frame, okay, walk, just walking through space. So what that does,

• 28:45Speaker 03

  similar to there is a body, but even a larger wide-angle lens,

• 28:54Speaker 03

  is making space, just the visual space, you know, that we always have, making that the holding framework, rather than just the whole body being the whole framework. So it's walking, aware of the space

• 29:19Speaker 03

  through which we're walking. And so, once it's set up, it's not that one has to continually be thinking about this. As soon as you have that setup in the mind and play a little bit, just to get the felt experience of it,

• 29:35Speaker 03

  or just

• 29:37Speaker 03

  it becoming this space in which the walking is happening, it's really interesting. It's just a different experience of walking.

• 29:50Speaker 03

  With less identification with the body as being

• 29:59Speaker 03

  of us being constrained within the limits of our bodily form.

• 30:05Speaker 03

  I don't know if that makes sense, but I don't know, because awareness can actually be aware of the space as well as of the body. So walking through space just gives us a whole different perspective.

• 30:21Speaker 03

  So that was one phrase.

• 30:23Dan Harris?

  So what you're asking us to do with walking through space is we may have a sense of self that we have consciously or subconsciously lodged in the body. This is me, I'm me in this body. What you're saying is kind of like, and I'm using this tongue in cheek, like astral project that sense of self. And, and this is a leap and this is, we should all play with it. It's a little weird, but I found it actually to be very interesting to just get a sense of our awareness being lodged in the infinite space through which we are walking.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  Okay, first, just one little clarification. Some teachers do, I don't know if they're

• 31:10Speaker 03

  they're talking or teaching about this specifically, this little exercise, but it's in the ballpark. And they will use the term infinite space. I don't like to use that term.

• 31:20Dan Harris?

  Okay.

• 31:21Speaker 03

  Because when I'm doing this,

• 31:28Speaker 03

  how do I know if the space that I'm experiencing is infinite or not?

• 31:34Dan Harris?

  It kind of gets you into a either physical or metaphysical question, a physics based question.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, so.

• 31:42Dan Harris?

  There's some space here, let's occupy that.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. That just feels more, more down, more down to earth.

• 31:52Dan Harris?

  That it lands actually for me, makes sense.

• 31:55Speaker 03

  Okay, so this walking through space.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  And then, again, just in this, in this basic open attitude of

• 32:07Speaker 03

  interest and exploration. So I was doing that for a while.

• 32:12Speaker 03

  And then,

• 32:15Speaker 03

  again, quite spontaneous, it's just the thought came

• 32:20Speaker 03

  about lucid dreaming. And it's something that's, for lucid dreaming is when you, it's night, it's sleep. You're dreaming and there's the ability to be aware that you're dreaming as you're dreaming. And then you can manipulate. Well, that always interested me, particularly because, oh, boy, I could do a lot of interesting things if I can manipulate my dreams. So I've tried a couple of times, not, not very systematically. But I got some books on it. Yeah, I think learning this.

• 32:54Dan Harris?

  What was your goal, rob a bank?

• 32:56Speaker 03

  Whatever, fly into the air, or, you know, I could, you could do anything in a dream.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  That might be your fantasy.

• 33:04Dan Harris?

  Right, total projection, not even asteroid.

• 33:09Speaker 03

  So I started playing with it very unsuccessfully. I never got very far with it. But anyway, this thought came, oh, lucid dreaming. Oh, what would be like just walking as if in a dream? Because one, one of the phrases in these books on lucid dreaming suggested to use as a way of cultivating the ability was as you go through the day, just to repeatedly ask the question, am I dreaming?

• 33:44Speaker 03

  Just to kind of

• 33:47Speaker 03

  get more familiar with the interplay of dream state in the way.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  So then that took came to mind. Oh, maybe, let me just play. I'm walking in a dream. So from walking through space, walking in a dream.

• 34:04Speaker 03

  What was interesting was the shift of perspective, which is a little hard to describe in terms of what the shift was. But

• 34:15Speaker 03

  it was the beginning of having the frame be the mind rather than physical space. Right, if I, okay, if I'm, I'm just walking in a dream. So it's the dream state

• 34:30Speaker 03

  which became the frame. And I could just experience myself, whatever that experience was of walking, walking through a dream, walking in a dream.

• 34:43Speaker 03

  And then the third one was where I saw where this leading, I just ended up with, I'm just walking through the mind. And again, that was a very different feeling than walking through space.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  And I'm not suggesting any of these

• 35:04Speaker 03

  necessarily have any

• 35:09Speaker 03

  profound philosophic meaning. Although maybe they do, and I'm not even aware.

• 35:17Speaker 03

  For me, they were just different, interesting experiences

• 35:23Speaker 03

  that one can have as we change our perspective. That the particular perspective we bring to what's happening

• 35:34Speaker 03

  in one way or another

• 35:38Speaker 03

  is limiting because it's highlighting one perspective.

• 35:44Speaker 03

  Over the potential of

• 35:47Speaker 03

  many different perspectives one could take. So just by playing in this way, it shows that our usual perception, for example, of the body, our usual perception, which, you know, as you said, often it's our most basic identification, yeah, this is who I am. I'm the body. And we have quite a fixed notion of what that means. So playing in this way, it just, it's another, the same experience of walking can be experienced very differently, depending on the framework we're using. First, just starting, there is a body. And then, oh, walking through space,

• 36:32Speaker 03

  walking in a dream, walking through the mind. And each one had a very different flavor.

• 36:41Speaker 03

  And so we realize

• 36:46Speaker 03

  that our perceptions are always conditioned by the framework that we're bringing to the experience. So it loosens things up a little bit. And

• 37:00Speaker 03

  by extension then,

• 37:03Speaker 03

  this can really start to,

• 37:08Speaker 03

  we might say, unpack or explore the very notion of self. And as we've said, you know, a very strong sense of it is identification with the body. But it's also identification with thoughts or emotions. That the whole sense of self

• 37:31Speaker 03

  and the very central and profound teaching of non-self

• 37:36Speaker 03

  in the Buddhist teachings,

• 37:41Speaker 03

  we can begin to explore just what that means

• 37:46Speaker 03

  and begin to loosen some of the identification we have, whether it's with the body, or with thoughts, or with emotions, or even with awareness itself. Because that identification also creates a strong sense of self.

• 38:06Speaker 03

  By playing with these different perspectives, we loosen up our attachment to any one of them. Saying, no, these are just, these are just different angles on things. And so the core notion of a stable substantial self begins to dissolve a bit. And we realize our experience is always in flux and flow and morphs from one perspective into another.

• 38:38Speaker 03

  So this is just one help in loosening our attachment

• 38:47Speaker 03

  to the concept or strong view of a fixed self,

• 38:53Speaker 03

  fixed I, that's at the center of everything.

• 38:57Dan Harris?

  So would it be safe to say that this discussion around whether the self is quote unquote real or not, that's a whole long discussion. We'll probably do it on another podcast. But for now, the thing to know is that there are very practical and healing aspects of just learning to call this subconscious sense of a solid self into question. Because we so often have a thought or an emotion, and we think it's ours.

• 39:26Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 39:27Dan Harris?

  And it feels monolithic and personally monogrammed and, and non-negotiable and inevitable. But doing these exercises, as weird as they may sound, walking through the mind, walking through space, can jar you out of this habitual way of being. So that the next time you get angry, you might notice, oh, well, whose anger is this? And do I need to follow its shitty instructions?

• 39:49Speaker 03

  Yes, yes. Perfect, Ben. But I like the phrase. I just said something which I really like. I can't remember the whole phrase. About monogramming. What did you say?

• 40:01Dan Harris?

  Personally monogrammed?

• 40:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:02Dan Harris?

  Monolithic and personally monogrammed.

• 40:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Like with all our experience, we personally monogram each one. That's great. I'm gonna steal back from you.

• 40:14Dan Harris?

  Wait, so you're saying that one of my phrases could make it into this book?

• 40:17Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, I like it. I like it.

• 40:20Dan Harris?

  All right. I'll make a note of that.

• 40:23Speaker 03

  No, that's a good one.

• 40:24Dan Harris?

  Coming up, we'll talk a little bit. A bit more about Joseph's phrases for walking meditation. And then you will hear about a humiliating and very funny video that my son made imitating me.

• 40:37Speaker 04

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• 41:10Dan Harris?

  I want to make sure that we're working off the same list of walking phrases because I have four and you have three. You listed before, walking through space, walking in a dream, and walking through the mind. But I have one that goes before any of those, which is sensations moving through space.

• 41:31Speaker 03

  But that one was a result of the other phrase, there is a body.

• 41:36Dan Harris?

  Yes, but it's still a phrase. I, in my walking meditation, will often just note sensations moving through space.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I think one, once one has the experience of that through the phrase, there is a body, or not, you know, maybe some people just connect sensations in space right away. But I found as a setup for that experience, the phrase, there is a body, as one is walking.

• 42:08Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  Just leads one right into that experience.

• 42:11Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 42:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, so then, then you don't have to go through the whole, just the short end, sensations in space. Works well.

• 42:19Dan Harris?

  You think that's a shorthand for the other, for there is a body.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  It's a shorthand, it's a, it's just a direct way of getting to the experience without having to set it up to get to the experience.

• 42:32Dan Harris?

  I mean, everybody's mind is different and I'm, and we talked about this earlier with Whatever Works, everybody's mind is different and it's totally fine, listener, for one or many of these instructions not to land for you right now, consider it a seed planted that may flower in unusual and interesting and helpful ways later. But so every, every meditator is, and every mind is different and it's, and they're all constantly changing. But for me, sensations moving through space puts the sense of a self through a cheese grater. It's like, I feel like I'm damn walking, you know, as I know, one of the most humiliating

• 43:15Dan Harris?

  videos that my wife ever sent me is of our son, when he was four, marching around the apartment saying, "I'm important, damn."

• 43:25Dan Harris?

  And I just felt very seen and not in a good way. And so, but often as I'm walking around, it's, "I'm important and I'm more," you know, it's me. Sensations moving through space.

• 43:35Speaker 03

  Yes, there's no one there.

• 43:36Dan Harris?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 43:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 43:38Dan Harris?

  And so I find that a nice setup for then the cascade of, of walking through space, walking in a dream, walking through a mind.

• 43:48Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 43:50Dan Harris?

  And again, I just want to say to the listener, and I think you would co-sign on this, when I first heard of these sort of walking through space, walking through the mind, walking in a dream, I didn't know what to do. Many of your ideas, I reflexively rejected for years. And then I finally started doing them. So I, I just want to say to you, whoever's listening right now, to you specifically, it's all good. Just take it in and see what happens.

• 44:17Speaker 03

  Yes. And I keep hanging in there with you even though you're rejecting my, these pearls of wisdom?

• 44:25Dan Harris?

  I know, it's profane.

• 44:30Speaker 03

  I just want one little

• 44:31Dan Harris?

  Please, please.

• 44:32Speaker 03

  footnote too. I should maybe say that those three walking through the space, the mind. One is not going to find those instruction in Buddhist texts. These are my own just creative play, which I found helpful.

• 44:47Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  So just a kind of disclaimer there.

• 44:52Dan Harris?

  Unorthodox, quite literally.

• 44:53Speaker 03

  Yes, so I wouldn't want people to think, oh, well, I looked all through the discourses. I didn't see this anyplace.

• 45:01Dan Harris?

  Duly noted.

• 45:03Dan Harris?

  Okay, so let me ask you about a kind of very down to earth. People are tired of the whole walking through the mind and walking through a dream thing. A very down to earth problem that we meditators often have, which is striving. And constantly questioning, am I doing it right? How am I doing? Am I making progress? And so you have a couple of phrases on this that are really, really helpful, have been helpful for me. I'm going to start with a term you use a lot, which is the practice assessment tapes.

• 45:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 45:35Dan Harris?

  So in other words, this, are we running? Actually, I'm going to shut up. Can you talk about what you mean by practice assessment tapes?

• 45:42Speaker 03

  Yes. It is a very common tendency where we're continually assessing our practice. How am I doing? Is this right? I'm not doing well. I am doing well. Whatever. And the mind can really get caught up in this frequent evaluation of our practice as we're doing it.

• 46:06Speaker 03

  So I can just give two examples of

• 46:10Speaker 03

  this, one from my early childhood and one from more recent practice.

• 46:18Speaker 03

  So the early childhood story, I don't know, I was eight or nine years old. And I was planting

• 46:28Speaker 03

  my first and what turned out to be my last garden. But, you know, I was just a young kid and excited and, you know, and so I prepared the beds and I planted the seeds and and I was just a kid. I didn't, didn't really know what I was doing. But anyway, I do all this preparation, water it, planted some carrots. And then, you know, over time, you know.

• 46:55Speaker 03

  They began to grow and the kind of the green, I don't know what you call it, the green tops of the carrots pushed through the earth and they were coming out and they were growing bigger. And I just got so excited, I would pull them out to see how the carrots were doing, which obviously is not a great gardening technique. But it was like that, it was like, oh, how is it doing? How is it doing? So that was my first experience of that tendency. More recently in meditation. This goes back quite a few years. I was in Burma for a couple of months and I was doing intensive meta-practice, loving kindness practice.

• 47:40Speaker 03

  So that's what I was doing all day long. And, you know, as the listeners may know, one way of practicing this is by the repetition of certain phrases, may you be happy, may peaceful, whatever phrase is one, you know, selects. So I'm spending day after day, this was a couple of months, of just repeating the phrases. And I began to notice very often, oh, how am I doing? Am I feeling more meta? Am I not feeling more meta? Is the loving kindness growing? Is it not growing? And of course, that just interrupted the momentum of the practice and letting it grow organically.

• 48:24Speaker 03

  Organic vegetables, organic meta is a good thing. Let's go organic, letting, letting the process unfold. So it's just very helpful if people are noticing these practice assessment tapes where they're always evaluating how their practice is going.

• 48:47Speaker 03

  Just to practice becoming more cognizant of that. And if it really is a frequent arising in the mind,

• 49:00Speaker 03

  to really become mindful of it arising so that one is not caught up by it. And one can see it just, okay, there's thought arising and letting it go. Now, it's not to say that kind of practice assessment is never useful. Because, you know, at different times, we have talked about balancing right effort. So am I too tired? Am I too loose? So there are times when that that kind of assessment can just be a good check. Okay, do I have to tighten things up a little bit? Do I have to loosen things, relax a little bit more? So occasionally, just taking a step stepping back a bit

• 49:46Speaker 03

  and seeing the quality of the mind as we're practicing can be helpful. It's when the pattern becomes neurotic. And we're just over and over again judging the practice, judging ourselves. That's when it's really not useful at all and a hindrance.

• 50:06Dan Harris?

  How do you know when you've crossed the line between healthy assessment of how am I doing right now to neurotic?

• 50:15Speaker 03

  Two things come to mind. One is the frequency. If every five minutes you're, oh, how am I doing? If you're pulling up one carrot after another. So that could be an indicator. It's just, it's too frequent. Like that kind of assessment

• 50:33Speaker 03

  intermittently could be helpful.

• 50:38Speaker 03

  And one would just have to experiment and see as we're doing this,

• 50:48Speaker 03

  is it done out of interest?

• 50:54Speaker 03

  Rather than judgment.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  So there's a different mindset involved.

• 51:04Speaker 03

  And as I say, frequency of it happening, and noticing the quality of the mind with which it's done, you can tell pretty quickly,

• 51:14Speaker 03

  this is getting more to the neurotic side. You know, just an old pattern. And

• 51:22Speaker 03

  going back to something we discussed over time, just asking the question, is it helpful? We might find, yeah, at times it's really helpful, and at times it's really unhelpful. And so that would be an interesting thing to notice.

• 51:42Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Joseph's antidote to the practice assessment tapes and a thorough explanation of the meaning of Cowboy Dharma.

• 51:54Speaker 04

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• 52:23Dan Harris?

  Okay, well, now you've just brought us to another phrase. The first time I heard you use this phrase, actually, you used a slightly different word. I'll tell the story. My first meditation retreat, 2009, Spirit Rock Meditation Center on the West Coast, we're doing this interview at the sister center, the first center, the predecessor center, the Insight Meditation Society. But I met you when you were out in California teaching. And it was the second to last day, I think.

• 52:55Speaker 03

  I'm amazed that you can remember this.

• 52:58Dan Harris?

  Well, I wrote it down and this scene is in, is in my first book.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 53:02Dan Harris?

  So this is tattooed on the mind. You were saying something like you might notice, we're almost done. So we're on day nine of a 10 day retreat. You might notice your mind is returning to thoughts of things you need to do when you get home. But you, you said you try to let those go. Try not to follow that train. And I raised my hand from the back of the room and said, but don't I, you know, if I miss my flight, that's a real thing. Like, well, so shouldn't I think about that? And you said, on the 18th time, you're running through all the horrible eventualities of missing your flight. Maybe ask yourself the question, is this useful? You didn't say helpful. You said, is this useful?

• 53:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 53:47Dan Harris?

  And so what I think you're saying here is this question might be a good antidote

• 53:54Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 53:55Dan Harris?

  to the practice assessment tape.

• 53:57Speaker 03

  Yes. Yes. It would be very helpful, I think. And it generally is, it's a useful question, you know, because we can get so frequently lost just in endless thought loops about one thing or another. And we think it's important that we keep thinking about it. But at a certain point,

• 54:24Speaker 03

  it shows how ridiculous the mind can be. Because clearly, at a certain point, it is not useful at all. So I think that is a really helpful question.

• 54:36Dan Harris?

  I mean, it's a helpful question in circumstances, as you just indicated, that span way beyond whether you're running the practice assessment tapes.

• 54:45Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 54:46Dan Harris?

  Is this useful, is great for garden variety daily anxiety?

• 54:49Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 54:51Dan Harris?

  How much worrying should I be doing? And have I passed the point of diminished return?

• 54:56Speaker 03

  Yes. And what's interesting is how seductive certain patterns are, like worry, for example. You know, it's very common that the mind just starts worrying about potential eventualities of something or other.

• 55:17Speaker 03

  And we can get really caught, you know, and be living in that field of worry and anxiety and fear and and worry is one of the classical five Buddhist hindrances. So it's acknowledged as being a powerful and very seductive

• 55:37Speaker 03

  tendency in the mind.

• 55:41Speaker 03

  So in addition to bringing in the question, is it useful to really highlight

• 55:51Speaker 03

  being mindful of the worry thoughts as they arise and naming just as they arise first time. Oh, worry, worry. So that instead of being lost in it from the get go,

• 56:10Speaker 03

  we become aware of it as another arising thought. And it may not be right as it arises, but to practice becoming mindful of it much earlier on. So that's, that's a little different and a more immediate meditative approach to it. So we're not even going the eighteen times thinking the same thing. We're just learning to recognize worry as a particular thought pattern and keeping an eye out for it because

• 56:48Speaker 03

  to the degree that we practice that,

• 56:51Speaker 03

  then at those times when for whatever reason we are carried away for longer and we come back to, well, is this useful?

• 57:02Speaker 03

  If we've already practiced recognizing and letting go of the worry pattern, so then when we say, is it useful, it'll make it much easier. Okay, I let this go. So these two levels of working with it work together.

• 57:22Dan Harris?

  Okay, my mind is going in a couple of directions. One of them is a phrase that I think actually, another of your phrases that I think might be helpful for anybody who's interested in doing what you just said, which is catching the worry before the eighteenth time. I'll come to that in a second. So that's a sort of a more meditative, technical question that I think could be supported with yet another of your phrases. Before I get to that, though, I think some warriors in the audience-

• 57:54Speaker 03

  Warriors, not warriors.

• 57:55Dan Harris?

  Yeah, yes. Yes. So some warriors in the audience who think of worrying as their kind of warrior practice, like, "I need to do this." And I spent much of my life, and still have some vestigial feelings in this direction, that I spent much of my life believing that, as my father said, "The price of security is insecurity." And this is where this gets quite subtle, in my opinion. A certain amount of worrying, or you might just say, thinking carefully about the issues in your life, does make sense. It very quickly crosses the line from what I sometimes call constructive anguish and useless rumination.

• 58:39Dan Harris?

  And so what I find is that this question, is this useful? It's like a thresher separating wheat from chaff. And the wheat is a very small part of the plant. The rest is chaff. And so, yes, is this land what I'm saying?

• 58:55Speaker 03

  Yes, absolutely. I think it's not the worry aspect that's useful. I think it's the consideration of the situation and seeing what the wisest course of action is, is useful. And the Dalai Lama gave one teaching, and it may come from some classical text, I don't know, but I remember reading, where he's talking about the uselessness of worry. And he said, "If you're in a situation that needs addressing, and there's something you can do about it, why worry?"

• 59:39Speaker 03

  And if there's nothing you can do about it, why worry? You know, so the worry part is extra. Because the worry implies a kind of anxiety or fear perhaps.

• 59:57Speaker 03

  That's over and above just the bare facts of the situation. Oh, I need to get to the plane on time. Okay, what do I have to do to get there on time? One could address the issue potentially without worry. Just with a sense of, oh, this is what I do. And then you could even, oh, well, what would happen if kind of my taxi doesn't come on time? Well, in that case, I would do this and this. So I think that the mental quality of addressing the issue.

• 1:00:38Speaker 03

  We get caught in worry when, and commonly, so like we all do it at different times. But that there is another possibility of just assessing it in as clear a way as possible without that inner anxiety.

• 1:00:56Dan Harris?

  So we can think clearly and even get into contingency planning

• 1:01:00Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 1:01:01Dan Harris?

  without having the kind of anxiety goggles on that color the whole thing.

• 1:01:07Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:01:08Dan Harris?

  Make it fraught.

• 1:01:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. And to say that this would take some practice because the worry gene, I think we all inherited it, and so it's in there and common. So again, it's taking interest in just how the mind is working. You know, and beginning to parse out the different components of a particular situation and seeing what's needed or useful or helpful and what's not. And when we can get into looking at our minds in this way, we begin to see that, oh, yeah, maybe I could let go of some of the worry part and then just deal with the situation with clarity.

• 1:01:56Dan Harris?

  Okay, so we've just been talking about how to deal with worry or anxiety in a free-range way, like as you're moving through your life. But you also, before, were talking about a meditative approach to really tune up your mindfulness, so you're catching the worry before you're on the 18th time of wondering, how's my meditation practice? Or what's gonna happen if I miss this flight, et cetera, et cetera? And that brought to mind for me, one of my most favorite Joseph phrases, which is cowboy dharma. What does that mean?

• 1:02:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:02:36Speaker 03

  Again, I'll tell the background story to it.

• 1:02:41Speaker 03

  So this, this is something that happened,

• 1:02:45Speaker 03

  I don't know, maybe quite a while ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. I was on a two-month self-retreat with a couple of friends. We were, had rented this really nice house in Cape Cod, and it was beautiful. And each of us were doing our own self-retreat.

• 1:03:03Speaker 03

  And

• 1:03:05Speaker 03

  that was a time in my life when I was having periodic back problems.

• 1:03:11Speaker 03

  So as I was sitting, I began to feel my back going, just

• 1:03:17Speaker 03

  becoming really uncomfortable and feels like it was going out a little bit. So I thought, well, maybe I'll just go for a chiropractic adjustment, which outside of retreats, I had done, you know, intermittently when needed. And it always seemed to be really helpful. So I thought, I'll just go get an adjustment and then practice will go smoother.

• 1:03:39Speaker 03

  So I did.

• 1:03:42Speaker 03

  It turns out, for whatever reason, I have no idea why it happened, because it was just kind of an ordinary adjustment that I had many, many times before. For whatever reason, and it may have been because my energy system was so open, because I'd been practicing for a month already. That's the only explanation I can give for what happened, which was, I had this adjustment, and basically, my body went into shock and froze.

• 1:04:17Speaker 03

  It was terrible, it was just terrible.

• 1:04:21Speaker 03

  I knew something bad had just happened. So I go back to where we're staying, to the house.

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  I can't express how terrible it was. I mean, it was just, it's like my back had gotten locked into some really uncomfortable and painful situation.

• 1:04:46Speaker 03

  There was still a month left of the retreat, so I was trying to continue practicing in this way.

• 1:04:54Speaker 03

  But the thought pattern that kept coming up as I was sitting with all this and thinking about what had happened and the condition I was then in.

• 1:05:06Speaker 03

  The thought that kept coming was, Joseph, how could you have been so stupid as to go get an adjustment in the middle of a retreat? And because I was in the midst of the consequences of it, that thought felt completely justified.

• 1:05:25Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:26Speaker 03

  How can I have been so stupid? And then that thought would lead me down a half an hour of rumination. This was like my anguish retreat. Anguish was the word that best expressed what I was going through.

• 1:05:46Speaker 03

  But that thought kept coming because I was in the middle of it, in the midst of it. Oh, how could I have been so stupid? And then gone. So it took me a couple of weeks, I think. Can't remember exactly now. It's been years ago. But I think it took me a while to realize that thought.

• 1:06:10Speaker 03

  Was taking me down this trail of anguish. Because the thought was so seductive. Because it was true. If I gave it any airtime at all, I was gone. It so completely seduced me into believing and following and then ruminating. No airtime at all. So that's when I thought came. Which I just named afterwards. But Cowboy Dharma. In not giving it any airtime at all.

• 1:06:50Speaker 03

  It's like I had a mental image of just taking my six shooter and shooting it out of the sky. The first thought, how can you? No airtime at all. It really worked. I mean, it was amazing just that after some time, that thought would come. And I wouldn't give it airtime. And my mind settled back or still super uncomfortable and I knew, I knew this was something big that I would have to deal with. But my mind basically

• 1:07:34Speaker 03

  just settled back into a more peaceful state. And very interestingly, I had a dream reflecting that shift. Powerful dream, which still remember. It was just green hills and it's surrounding this pond or lake. And there was this beautiful horse in the lake.

• 1:08:04Speaker 03

  That in the dream, it leapt out of the lake onto the green grass and sunlit hills. And that's what it felt like my mind had leapt out of the murkiness of how could I have been so stupid? Into a more expansive, open...

• 1:08:29Speaker 03

  Okay, this is what happened. So Cowboy Dharma is when there are certain patterns that just are so seductive to us,

• 1:08:41Speaker 03

  we cannot give it any airtime at all. So that's when, take out your six shooter,

• 1:08:49Speaker 03

  shoot it out of the sky.

• 1:08:52Speaker 03

  And one necessary frame, it has to be done with a sense of humor.

• 1:08:58Dan Harris?

  Otherwise, it's aversion.

• 1:08:59Speaker 03

  Exactly. The image, to me, is a humorous image.

• 1:09:02Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 1:09:03Speaker 03

  And that's why it works. But that component is really important. Because if we do it with aversion, it's just feeding it.

• 1:09:09Dan Harris?

  If a six shooter needs to be a Nerf gun, it can't be, you know, you're trying to get rid of this thing. It's like, no, no, I'm just, I'm just being mindful. I'm just seeing it for what it is without being owned by it and inhabiting the thought.

• 1:09:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, it's a little more than that, I think. There's more an active sense

• 1:09:36Speaker 03

  of

• 1:09:40Speaker 03

  abandoning

• 1:09:43Speaker 03

  the thought.

• 1:09:45Speaker 03

  So abandoning doesn't imply aversion. It implies not being caught in it.

• 1:09:55Speaker 03

  The abandoning is letting go of it in a way. So for that period of time, it's not there anymore. It's not, it's not that we're just watching the thought from a more mindful place, which in a less seductive thought may work. But when it has that much of a hook, you really have to dissolve it in some way or abandon it in some way or have it disappear in some way. But it can be done with wisdom rather than aversion. So it's not, I hate you, I have to get rid of you.

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

  It's the wisdom mind, oh, this is so seductive. If I stay caught in this, it's just going to carry me away. So there's that sense of letting it go. Abandoning it in that way.

• 1:10:52Dan Harris?

  Yeah. The image that comes to mind for me, and this is maybe one generation below you and for sure, every generation below me, I like a video game.

• 1:11:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, exactly. Although I must confess, and it's something that had been on my bucket list for a while, but is no longer. I have never played a video game in my life. Eighty-one years old and I've never played a video game. And I used to think, well, I should just, you know, see what this whole world's about. But I've abandoned that.

• 1:11:31Dan Harris?

  The next time you come stay with us, I know an eleven-year-old who's going to want to show you.

• 1:11:35Speaker 03

  Okay, that could be fun.

• 1:11:39Dan Harris?

  Yeah, I had an experience here. So we're sitting in your living room, which is in your house, which is on the grounds of the Insight Meditation Society. And I've had a few meditation experiences here where the analogy I sometimes use is when I'm completely drowning in a thing, it's like I'm trying to water ski, but I'm actually like being dragged by my head by a motorboat through a lake. I'm the horse in the lake in this analogy. And then at some point, usually through Cowboy Dharma, at some point I get up on the water skis and it's like, oh, it's such, this word liberating or freedom is, it's a loaded word, but I mean, that, it's really what it feels like.

• 1:12:22Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:12:23Dan Harris?

  This thing has been tormenting me.

• 1:12:24Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 1:12:25Dan Harris?

  This doubt about whether I'm practicing correctly, or this, I want to get out of this retreat because I want to go play video games with my son, or whatever it is, whatever it is, it's been dogging me. And as soon as I can see it mindfully and abandon it, but, you know, with extreme prejudice, friendly prejudice, you're not in it anymore.

• 1:12:46Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:12:47Dan Harris?

  Massively.

• 1:12:48Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:12:48Dan Harris?

  So this notion of abandoning is kind of leading me to one last phrase. You actually quickly mentioned this phrase at the top of our first episode in this series. So at the top of the last episode we did together, and it is dead end. Does that seem apropos to you to talk about this phrase as a coda to this episode?

• 1:13:07Speaker 03

  Yes. So I, this goes back quite a few years in my practice, but I was going through a phase where there's just a lot of sensual desire and sensual fantasies, just coming up and, of course, on a certain level, they're very pleasurable. And so I was just getting caught up in them again and again. And I tried all my usual techniques, note, oh, desire, desire, wanting, but nothing was, nothing was unhooking me. And then at a certain point,

• 1:13:49Speaker 03

  when I realized what my mind was doing, I have this fantasy or thoughts, images would come up and just take me down, take me on this journey for some period of time. It's like walking down a long road. And then I realized, the road doesn't go anyplace. It's a dead end. I'll spend all this time in this fantasy.

• 1:14:13Speaker 03

  It's not that the fantasy will be actualized. It doesn't go anyplace, it doesn't lead anyplace. And then I just have to come back and pick up my practice again. So I started using the phrase dead end at the front end. So as soon as the desire, the first thought or image or fantasy would arise, as soon as it came, I would say, oh, dead end. Which was just a reminder to me that this does not go anyplace. It doesn't lead anywhere. And so it made it much easier to let go of it. And then just to stay with my practice, not to be seduced by it.

• 1:14:54Dan Harris?

  And I've found that dead end can be useful in meditation, but also in the rest of my life, but I'm just, I actually, just to tell a story that involves you. I went through a protracted business divorce, as you know. And I called you a lot to wine during this period of time. And at one point, you recommended to me, you know, the next time you're thinking about all of this, just dead end. It's a dead end. There's nothing more to think about. You've thought this all the way through, 75 times. Dead end. It's a firm, but gentle, and even a little loving and humorous

• 1:15:35Dan Harris?

  hand in the air, as if you're stopping a car that's gonna hit a kid or something like that. You're like, no, halt.

• 1:15:42Speaker 03

  Yes, yes. So just, yeah, I think it can be incredibly useful. And it points to kind of a larger principle or in practice. You know, so much of meditative language.

• 1:16:04Speaker 03

  Is about yes, acceptance, open, be with, basically saying yes to experience, which is a central part of our practice. We want this quality of allowing and but it's equally helpful to have in one's toolbox, a wise no, which is just what you just said. We see something that's coming up that is not useful. It's not going anyplace and to be able to say, no, I'm not going to do this. That no is as important in our practice as the wise yes.

• 1:16:49Speaker 03

  But it's not often talked about. I mean, the Buddha referenced it very much. You know, he talked a lot about abandoning unskillful, unwholesome mind states. It just reminds me of analogy. I have no direct experience of this and you do, but I think of, you know, raising kids. And if you never said no to anything, it'd be a little monster, you know? But the no is you can do the no if one is in the right mood. You can do it without anger, without it's a loving no.

• 1:17:27Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:28Speaker 03

  So that's that's the quality, a loving no.

• 1:17:31Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:32Speaker 03

  At certain times is really important and very effective.

• 1:17:38Dan Harris?

  Yeah, there are actually, there is a school of parenting that you never say no to a kid. But you're just using different language because if the kid's stepping into traffic, you're going to pull him out lovingly, hopefully without any anger. Although my son, I used to really piss me off. I'm a bad parent. This has been great. Should we, should we dead end this episode and go have some lunch?

• 1:18:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:18:02Dan Harris?

  Thank you.

• 1:18:03Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:18:05Dan Harris?

  Thank you to Joseph. Just to say, we recorded these episodes at his home, which is right near the Insight Meditation Society in Berry, Massachusetts. And we did indeed go have lunch as soon as we finished the conversation. Lunch is always a good idea. You know what else is a good idea? Joining our free seven-day New Year's meditation challenge led by Joseph himself. It starts tomorrow. You can sign up by downloading my new app, which is called 10% with Dan Harris. You can get the app by going to danharris.com or just going to your friendly neighborhood app store. When you download the app, you'll get a free 30-day trial, which will cover the seven-day meditation challenge, which again, starts tomorrow. It's a try-before-you-buy situation.

• 1:18:50Dan Harris?

  The meditation challenge is amazing. Like I said, led by Joseph. It's an amazing on-ramp to Buddhist meditation. Come check it out. Finally, thank you very, very much to everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Visilli. 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.

• 1:19:23Speaker 02

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