Lust, Addiction, and Ambition: Why Your Desires Are Wired to Disappoint You | Joseph Goldstein

Why you'll never find happiness where you're looking for it–and where to look instead. Joseph Goldstein https://www.dharma.org/teacher/joseph-goldstein/ is a cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society https://www.dharma.org/ and the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/, both in Barre, Massachusetts. He is the author of many books including, most recently, Dreamscapes of the Mind http://give.dharma.org/JGpoetry. In this episode we talk about: Why desire and wanting can keep us stuck in cycles of dissatisfaction The difference between momentary pleasure and deeper happiness A practical way to watch cravings arise and pass without reacting Why "not wanting" can feel surprisingly relieving The Buddhist framework of gratification, danger, and escape How to think about contentment and the question: how much is enough? The difference between guilt and wise remorse How desire, lust, and craving can distort judgment 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 Additional Resources: Dharma Seed https://dharmaseed.org/ - freely offered talks from Western Buddhist Vipassana teachers This episode is sponsored by Function Health — 160+ lab tests a year for $365, with the ability to dive deeper into your results through Function's connections to platforms like ChatGPT and Claude. Join at https://www.functionhealth.com/happier or use code HAPPIER25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. 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.

• 0:18Dan Harris?

  Hello, my fellow suffering beings. How we doing today? I have this memory, and this will be a brief story, but I have this memory from many years ago when I was sitting at dinner with a very smart friend who described his life strategy as accumulating as many pleasurable experiences as possible as a way to avoid looking into the abyss. And that's kind of an extreme articulation of what is, I think, an MO consciously or subconsciously for many of us. We're all trying to collect as many dopamine hits as possible in order not to think about the fact that we're all gonna die. But from the Buddhist POV, we're really looking for happiness in the wrong places. While the Buddha was

• 1:00Dan Harris?

  in no way anti-pleasure, he didn't say that, you know, we shouldn't sip lattes or eat pizza or go to parties or anything like that. But he did describe this kind of pleasure as being like licking honey from the edge of a razor. It's dangerous psychologically because while we can derive pleasure from these experiences, they are fleeting and they cannot provide lasting fulfillment. The good news is that the Buddha recommended a kind of, and you'll hear me use this phrase in this episode, a kind of counterintuitive upgrade, methods for finding happiness in other, more reliable sources. Here to do that is my old friend and meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein. He's the author of books such as One Dharma.

• 1:45Dan Harris?

  He's also the co-founder of the legendary retreat center, the Insight Meditation Society. This episode, what you're about to hear, is part of an occasional series we've been running with Joseph where I interview him about the various teaching phrases he uses. Let me explain what I mean by that. Joseph likes to teach using these pithy little mottos, these Buddhist earworms that kind of weasel their way into your brain and... Surface at the moments when you need them the most. By the way, the eventual goal of these interviews is to turn them all into a book, a collection of Joseph's phrases. So you're really getting a chance here to eavesdrop on our process. This is a great episode. You're gonna love it. I do want to say, though, while I'm on the subject of Joseph and meditation and Buddhism

• 2:29Dan Harris?

  and the Insight Meditation Society, one of Joseph's longtime friends and collaborators and co-founders is Sharon Salzberg. Many of you are familiar with her. Sharon just signed up to collaborate with me and my team on a very cool project. This summer, every Sunday from July 12th through August 30th, Sharon will be doing live events over on my app, the 10% app. It's going to be an eight-part live video lecture series where Sharon will break down one of the foundational Buddhist lists, the Eightfold Path, which you can think of as the Buddha's cookbook for human happiness. So every week Sharon will talk about one aspect of the Eightfold Path, everything from

• 3:11Dan Harris?

  how to meditate more successfully to how to deal with other people more successfully. Oh, and she will also guide us in meditation and take our questions throughout the live sessions. So if you want in on this, head on over to danharris.com and sign up for the app. All right, we'll get started with Joseph Goldstein right after this.

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• 4:32Dan Harris?

  Let's talk about that design flaw in the human operating system, desire.

• 4:38Dan Harris?

  You've got a bunch of phrases.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  I'm very familiar with this. The old greedy type.

• 4:45Dan Harris?

  When you say you're a greed type, what do you mean?

• 4:48Speaker 03

  I mean, the basic characteristic of that type has to do with my mind going to what's good, what's beautiful. It's like the description of the different types. You go into a room and the greedy type will see what they like. The aversive type will see what's wrong. The deluded type won't notice anything.

• 5:14Speaker 03

  It's just so classic, you can just see it play out. There are some people whose first reaction is no. My first reaction generally is yes. In terms of a persona, it's not about greed in the classical connotation of the word. But it goes to what one enjoys or what one likes or what's good. You know, each one has the positive side. The positive side of the greed type is faith. It'll work out, no problem, whatever it is, it'll work out. The aversive type, it's not gonna work out. There's this problem, this problem, this problem, this problem. But the positive side of the aversive type is discrimination.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  So it's good to have both. Because often aversives are seeing stuff, the greed type is not seeing.

• 6:07Dan Harris?

  Just to put this in a little bit more perspective for anybody who's new to Buddhism and Buddhism.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  Oh, I didn't know we were. I didn't know we were going, I thought there was in some of the green room.

• 6:18Dan Harris?

  You're always being recorded.

• 6:21Dan Harris?

  For anybody new to this stuff, in the Dharma, they talk about the three.

• 6:24Speaker 03

  Personality types.

• 6:25Dan Harris?

  Yeah, but even before that, the Buddha talked about the three poisons, you know, in the mind, the greed, hatred and delusion. And so it's often discussed that we all kind of have one that we, that is a magnet for us, that we are drawn to. And for you, it's greed, I think for me too, for some people, it's aversion. And then for some people, it's delusion, meaning that they're just a little bit spaced out or don't fully know. What's the upside of delusion?

• 6:49Speaker 03

  Equanimity. Because they're just not reacting to whether it's pleasant, whether it's unpleasant. We love to talk about, oh, are you greedy type, angry type, deluded type?

• 7:02Speaker 03

  It's just more fun in a way, but we don't want to forget that each one is just half of a pair of that quality. And so each of those qualities has the positive manifestation of them.

• 7:14Dan Harris?

  And we all have all of them.

• 7:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, all three.

• 7:17Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  But often one is predominant. But one of the things that's helpful about it, besides it just being a fun personality game, is it really helps to depersonalize a lot of behavior. So for example, at an IMS guiding teacher meeting, we have classic representatives of each type. And it's just so, first, it's amusing. You can just totally predict what somebody's response is going to be to a proposal. Right? So as I said, my response will almost always be, yeah, that's a great idea. We can do it. No problem. Let's go.

• 7:58Speaker 03

  And the aversive type, they'll list all the reasons why it's not a good idea. And the deluded type will own have an opinion about it. But what helps in the discussion, then depending on the energy with which each person is presenting their viewpoint, it just depersonalizes. You realize, oh, yeah, that's just the aversives doing the aversive thing. And I'm sure they're saying that about, oh, that's just Joseph and the desire type doing its, you know? So it makes the discussion a lot less fraught.

• 8:29Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  Because we're not personalizing it. It's kind of fun to play with it.

• 8:34Dan Harris?

  It's helpful, actually, because I've been in the experience of personalizing it and it doesn't usually go well.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 8:41Dan Harris?

  So let's talk about some of your phrases in the sphere of desire or greed or wanting. In no particular order, one that really sticks out to me, and this comes from the Buddha, is the terrible bait of the world. Can you talk about that one?

• 8:57Speaker 03

  I love, it's part of a longer quotation, which I don't remember at the moment. But I love that phrase because.

• 9:09Speaker 03

  Okay, basically, there are six kinds of bait: decis and sounds and smells and tastes, and bodily odors, bodily sensations, and mind objects. So that's what's referred to as the bait of the world. It's basically the five senses, six senses, including the mind. I love that image because it reminds me, obviously, of a fish biting on the bait. But within the bait, there's a hook. And to see ourselves, our own minds, just biting on the tape, on the bait of all of these sense impressions, mind included,

• 9:52Speaker 03

  and the biting on the bait, the terrible bait of the world, has to do with our reactivity to them. So we bite with greed, you know, trying to hold on. Or we bite with aversion, trying to get rid of it. So we're often in reactive mode. And so that's the terrible bait of the world. And of course, the practice is learning to see the bait without biting on it. So the analogy or the metaphor may break down a little bit because it's not about not experiencing these things, which would be impossible. We're alive with sense apparatus, so we'll always be experiencing these six objects.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  But are we biting on each one in a reactive mode? Or are we just experiencing them in that moment? And they come and go, and the mind's not disturbed by it? But I love the image of the fish biting because I can just, it's like I can almost imagine my mind biting like a fish for the worm.

• 11:04Dan Harris?

  For the average person, desire, wanting, it doesn't seem like that big of a problem, right? I mean, our whole advertising ecosystem is filled with getting us to want stuff.

• 11:21Speaker 03

  You just conflated a couple of things here that don't go together. The world of advertising, with this is its whole mission, and the statement, it's not a problem. Because I think that world is contributing to a lot of problems, you know, feeding this endless wanting.

• 11:42Dan Harris?

  I'm not playing devil's advocate here. I'm just arguing that the average person, people haven't been exposed to spiritual traditions like the Dharma, may not think that wanting and desire is such a big problem.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, on certain levels, it's not a big problem. I was just reacting to your bringing in the advertising world.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  I don't think they're conditioning our minds in a very helpful way. To illustrate my point, one advertisement that just comes to mind, it was an ad. Back in the days, it's not used so often now because it was advertising cigarettes. And so there was this beautiful couple, beautiful woman, handsome man, this beautiful surroundings, holding some cigarette in their hands. And the caption was, nothing stands in the way of my pleasure.

• 12:36Dan Harris?

  Except for lung cancer.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  So in terms of what advertising is doing to our minds, this kind of feeding

• 12:44Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  that idea that different sense pleasures will be ultimately fulfilling. That's the problem.

• 12:55Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  You know, obviously, there's nothing wrong with that just ordinary way of living and enjoying in a reasonable, moderate way, the different pleasures that happen in our lives. But so many people equate happiness with the accumulation of sense pleasures. And that's really not where happiness is to be found, because.

• 13:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, they certainly give momentary pleasure, you know, or even sustained pleasure sometimes. But they're not ultimately fulfilling, mostly because of the great truth of impermanence. They're there for a while and then they're gone. And so then we need another and another. There's a nice little story of the Sufi teaching figure Naziruddin. So a lot of stories about him. I'm kind of a mythical figure in the Sufi tradition. Half saint, half wise man, half fool. That's the halves, but that's like Naziruddin. He has three halves.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  There are many stories. So one is outside his house, scrambling around in the ground, you know, under a lamppost. And he's looking for his house key. He lost his key. So he's looking, looking, looking. Can't find it. And so his friends come on. You know, what are you looking for? House key? Where did you lose it? Oh, I lost it someplace in the house. So I said, why are you looking here? He said, well, there's more light here. So we're looking for happiness in the conventionally obvious places. So that's the analogy of there's more light here.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  Conventionally speaking, yeah, we get more and more pleasurable things and that'll make us happy. But it doesn't, as is very obvious when we look around, even at people who have every resource, every kind of sensual happiness. It's very clear that it does not guarantee happiness because it's not really where happiness is to be found.

• 15:18Speaker 03

  There's nothing wrong with kind of the way we just live our lives in an agreeable, pleasant fashion, going on nice vacations, having nice food when we can and all of that. But it's not going to fulfill our aims if our aim is happiness and fulfillment and peace, because it's a never-ending, because they don't last. So that's always then looking for the next one and the next one and the next one. So our lives are never in that state of fulfillment. And this is where a spiritual practice really can offer us something.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  But these kind of pleasures can't. So it doesn't make them wrong. It just, they don't fulfill their promise of bringing happiness. And that's why the Buddhist teaching, particularly for laypeople, monastics have their own framework of renunciation. But for laypeople, the Buddha acknowledged that worldly happiness is a source of a certain kind of happiness. But he showed us that there is a much more fulfilling path. And I think for people who have some experience

• 16:45Speaker 03

  in this kind of meditative practice, I think it's not uncommon for people to at least get a glimpse or a taste of the more genuine kind of happiness that's available. So as laypeople, we find the balance. You know, we're living our normal daily lives, enjoying life as we can, but also dedicating some time and energy to a deeper pursuit.

• 17:15Dan Harris?

  As part of that deeper pursuit, you mentioned a word, renunciation. Now, we did talk about this in one of our earlier episodes in this series, but I think it's worth going back. Renunciation is, as you've often remarked publicly, not in the modern or Western mind particularly attractive. And you like to reframe it, and this is another of the key phrases I think that we'll include in this book. You like to reframe it as non-addiction. Can you hold forth on that?

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Yes, so addiction can take many forms and many levels of intensity. So we can just get addicted to certain habits we have as an example of this. And again, this goes back to having a certain sense of humor of our one's mind. So I was on one self-retreat. And when I got up in the morning, first thing, I like my cup of coffee. It's almost what gets me out of bed. So I'm on retreat, come down to the kitchen. At that time, I was grinding coffee beans, making the coffee and just, it was all quite meditative, just having that quiet time.

• 18:28Speaker 03

  One morning I go down, the coffee grinder was broken. And the first genuine thought in my mind was disaster. And it felt like a disaster in that moment. So even ordinary habits of mine, which normally we don't even think about, can have an addictive quality. It's not that profound because within about 10 seconds, I started laughing in my mind. That's why I say there's a wide spectrum of addictions.

• 19:08Speaker 03

  Of course, in the extreme cases where people are really addicted to alcohol or to drugs or whatever it may be, the suffering of that is very apparent.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  But this whole question leads to another really interesting and in a way profound insight that comes out of meditation. And so this would be a little meditative exercise for people. Particularly in meditation, you know, it can be seen clearly. When we sit and maybe the mind's caught up in some desire, for whatever, it could be for food, for sex, for whatever. And so we're caught up in the wanting, the wanting mind. Often it's felt as pleasurable, you know, because we're anticipating, all of this is in our minds, of course, but we're anticipating, you know, what it would feel like.

• 20:04Speaker 03

  And it's about a pleasurable experience, which is why we're wanting them. Okay, so if we're paying attention to the mind that's wanting and even experiencing noticing the pleasurable aspect of it, then just to watch, watch, and at a certain point, the desire is going to go away because everything is impermanent. So it'll be there, be there, be there, and it's no longer there. To pay attention to the quality of the mind in that moment of transition where it goes from wanting to not wanting. My experience, and I think this is quite common, when it goes to not wanting,

• 20:47Speaker 03

  there is a dropping back into a quality of peace and ease. It feels like it's being let out of the grip of something. When we're in that wanting mind, it's like being in the grip of that desire. And even though there may be a pleasurable aspect in some way, when we're actually paying attention to the energetic field of it, it's a tightness. So we don't have to accept this because somebody says it. We can actually look in our own experience in just the way I suggested. So we watch the feeling of the wanting mind, and then when it ends...

• 21:30Speaker 03

  It becomes so apparent that even when it's pleasurable in some way, not wanting is a greater pleasure. Not wanting is a greater ease. But this is something that most people are not familiar with because they're just not paying attention to their minds in this kind of precise way. Just one other example. I've seen this so many times. But one time I was in New York, walking down, I don't know, either Fifth Avenue or Madison Avenue, one of these high-end areas in New York with these shops with all these fantastic things in the windows. And I was walking down, looking in the windows,

• 22:12Speaker 03

  and I could just feel, you know, my mind leaning into the window metaphorically. Oh, that would be nice. Oh, I'd love to have that, you know, going on and on. And at a certain point, I realized what my mind was doing. And then I did the equivalent. I didn't do this literally, but it was, it was equivalent to just noting seeing. I didn't actually note seeing, but I dropped into that space where I was just seeing. And then I was walking up the street, just seeing.

• 22:44Dan Harris?

  Mindful of seeing.

• 22:47Speaker 03

  Mindful of seeing, but not in a heavy, like not noting, seeing, seeing, seeing. But I was in that relaxed space where my mind wasn't wanting. And it just felt so much more easeful and enjoyable. And then I was still seeing the same stuff that I had been, but without that wanting, grasping mind. And again, the felt experience of that is just so much lighter and so much more easeful. You know, at one point, the Buddha talked of seven different kinds of happiness. And the happiness of sense pleasures, which the Buddha acknowledged,

• 23:32Speaker 03

  does bring a kind of happiness, but it's the lowest of the seven.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  So there are just experiences of happiness that are much greater.

• 23:44Dan Harris?

  What are the other six?

• 23:46Speaker 03

  The next one is the happiness. The second one, most people probably don't have the experience of. But in the Buddhist cosmology, you know, there are many planes of existence. So there's the human plane, below us, the animal plane, and above us, different heaven realms. Right? So earthly sense pleasures are the first level of happiness. The heavenly sense pleasures are the second level. But the third level, which we can access and experience, is the happiness of concentration.

• 24:23Speaker 03

  So when the mind is well and deeply concentrated, there is a happiness and a ease and a peace that is so far superior to the happiness of sense pleasures. And that's why people who have developed some degree of concentration could sit for hours in that state because it is so easeful and so fulfilling in a certain way. Now, is there a sense pleasure that you could think of? And in fact, one of my teachers was a great masterwoman called Deepama, who was one of our great inspirations in practice.

• 25:07Speaker 03

  She had amazing abilities, both in concentration and in wisdom. She could go into a concentrated state and sit for three days, all absorbed, absorbed in that state. Could you eat for three days? Could you listen to music nonstop for three days? Could you have sex nonstop for three days? Sense pleasures don't have that capacity at all.

• 25:39Speaker 03

  And yet, this is a capacity of our own minds. The level I'm describing now, like a deepama, that's unusual. But we can all taste that. Might be for an hour at a time, or two hours at a time. That's not outside the range of ordinary people's capacity. So we really can experience that level of happiness for ourselves. Higher than that is the happiness of insight. We were not absorbed in the object, but we are attuned in a very complete way into seeing the flow of impermanence,

• 26:23Speaker 03

  the rising and passing of phenomena where it's all happening by itself. At that point, when the practice becomes effortless, and we're just abiding in that flow, that's a greater happiness because that really has the taste of freedom. Whereas with deep concentration, it's a fantastically satisfying state, but it doesn't have that flavor of freedom.

• 26:47Dan Harris?

  By freedom, what do you mean?

• 26:49Speaker 03

  Well, the mind free of various defilements, like greed, or hatred, or delusion. But also, one might call it kind of the flavor of wisdom. So it's having the mind free of defilement, but with understanding. So for example, in the concentrated state, there could be temporarily a state of the mind free of defilements, but the mind is just absorbed in that state. So there's not necessarily the wisdom component, the understanding component. In insight, in deep, deep stages of insight,

• 27:33Speaker 03

  the freedom of non-clinging.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  Is very apparent. That's what comes to the forefront. At different stages, sometimes it's exhilarating, and sometimes it involves a profound equanimity, where the mind is just not reactive. It's just in a state of peace as phenomena keeps happening. It's not like being absorbed in a concentrated state where one is not even aware necessarily of other things. Here, we're completely open to everything, but in this place of non-profound non-reactivity, pleasant, unpleasant, doesn't matter. So that's a kind of happiness.

• 28:22Speaker 03

  That state is likened to the mind of a fully enlightened being. We're not yet fully enlightened, but we can reach that kind of equanimity along the way. And I find that interesting that that's how they describe the mind of someone who is fully enlightened, and they just abide in that. We visit it. So that's a fourth kind of happiness. And then there are three others, which are a bit esoteric, which just have to do with the experience of nibbana. Nibbana is the Pali word, nirvana is the Sanskrit word people are more familiar with. So then there are just descriptions of that.

• 29:07Speaker 03

  So there are all these kinds of happiness, and the happiness of worldly sense pleasures. There is the acknowledgement that they do bring a kind of happiness, but they're at the bottom of the heap. So why not? And my teacher, Manijaya, he said something great and really inspired me. He said, "If you aim for the highest, all the others will come along on that path."

• 29:33Speaker 03

  So then, why not aim for the highest? We're not giving anything up in the sense, yeah, we'll still have worldly sense pleasures. We'll develop the concentration, the insight, maybe even a little visit to the heaven realms along the way. It's expanding our vision of what's possible for us as human beings, because often we have just a very limited view of what brings happiness and peace. So that's what's so beautiful about the teachings.

• 30:04Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Joseph talks about why there may be nothing to want in the end. A simple Buddhist framework called gratification, danger, and escape. And why letting go can actually feel better than getting what you think you want.

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• 31:25Dan Harris?

  So a few minutes ago, you gave a very practical meditation instruction, which could be done in meditation or just in our free-range living, to let a desire pass, to watch it pass, come and go, which, by the way, I think is another phrase. But there are other meditation instructions that I've heard you deliver that I think might be worth talking about. One of them is a phrase that you've already uttered in the course of this conversation, but I've heard you describe it as a thing we can do in our practice. And the phrase is not wanting.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 32:01Dan Harris?

  How can we use that practically?

• 32:03Speaker 03

  So that first came to me, again, on retreat. So this is also a plug for people when they have the opportunity and interest to actually come on retreat. Because periods of intensive meditation practice, they deepen our concentration, they strengthen our mindfulness, so they do all these things. But it's also where tremendous amount of learning about our own minds take place because we're just devoting some period of time to watching it. As my teacher, Manindraji, said when I first went to India, looking for a teacher, I met him, he said something so basic, it hooked me, it completely hooked me, he said, "If

• 32:48Speaker 03

  you want to understand your mind, sit down and observe it." I laughed it, there was nothing to join, no ceremony, no ritual. How else could we understand our minds except by observing? So, this is a plug, a little plug for retreat practice. There's just so much that we discover. So I was on the self-retreat, and a phrase came to mind that's found in the Buddhist texts often, very simple phrase, but one with tremendous implication, and according to the stories in the texts, people sometimes would hear the phrase and get enlightened.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  So Dan, here's your chance. "Whatever has the nature to arise," which is everything, "will also pass away." Whatever has the nature to arise will also pass away. So I was sitting, I was sitting meditation, quite deep into my practice, and that thought came to mind, but it wasn't a thought that would happen like if I were reading the text, where I would, "Oh yeah, everything's impermanent," and we kind of just acknowledge and pass over it. But because it arose in my sitting, it really felt like that phrase entered the very process

• 34:15Speaker 03

  that was going on in me, so it felt very internalized. "So whatever has the nature to arise will also pass away," right in the midst of my just being with the flow of changes. So then my mind, in seeing, in being in the lived experience of that phrase as it came, and the obvious truth of it, so then my mind just thought, particularly in the context of meditation, "Therefore..."

• 34:48Speaker 03

  There's nothing to want, because whatever I want will also pass away. And it was amazing. So just in that moment, that thought came, whatever has an itch to rise will also pass away. Oh, therefore, there's nothing to want. In that moment, I could feel my heart and my mind relax back from a subtle wanting that I didn't even know was there. It was just that we've talked about this before, that subtle leaning into the next moment. And that leaning could be kind of a wanting for more concentration,

• 35:31Speaker 03

  or wanting more calm, or some wanting. But, huh, therefore, there's nothing to want. And I could just feel that dropping back, which is really the nature of mindfulness. It's not wanting, it's just being present and letting things unfold. And so now, sometimes I'll just drop that phrase, "There's nothing to want," just in the middle of my sitting, that comes to mind. There's nothing to want. And very often, I'll feel the same dropping back, because that wanting can be super subtle, as I said, where we don't even know it's there.

• 36:13Dan Harris?

  I have found it useful, too.

• 36:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:15Dan Harris?

  When I remember to do it, it's like a relief.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  Yes. So there are all these little, I don't know if this is the right expression, meditative hacks, just these little reminders of profound things.

• 36:28Dan Harris?

  Yes. It's the whole spirit of this book we're working on.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 36:31Dan Harris?

  What I'm about to say could represent a faulty memory on my part. But I have a memory of being on retreat with you and you telling me about some words from the Buddhist texts, maybe even words from the Buddha himself, that could be used as a meditation instruction. And those words are gratification, danger, and escape.

• 36:55Dan Harris?

  Is that ringing a bell for you?

• 36:56Speaker 03

  Doesn't ring a bell that I told you that, but the phrase rings a bell.

• 37:00Dan Harris?

  Okay, so could you describe what those words mean and how we could apply them in our minds?

• 37:05Speaker 03

  Those words have been the subject of an hour-long Dharma talk. So this is gonna be a very compressed version.

• 37:14Dan Harris?

  Okay.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Of it. And in fact, I have talks on that, which people could listen to.

• 37:19Dan Harris?

  Let me just put in a plug for that. Dharmaseed.org, D-H-A-R-M-A-S-E-E-D.org. I will put a link to that in the show notes if you're driving. There's a website that has compiled thousands of so-called Dharma talks. Those are the talks that are given during the evening on meditation retreats. And you can search by subject matter and by teacher. It's an amazing resource. And if you want to listen to Joseph talking about gratification, danger, and escape, or anything else, really, check it out. Okay, go ahead.

• 37:52Speaker 03

  So gratification is the Buddhist acknowledgement that we do have gratification, as we were just talking a little bit earlier, from ordinary sense pleasures.

• 38:04Speaker 03

  There is a level of gratification and pleasure that comes from them. And the Buddha said, "It's because of the gratification that beings are enamored of this world."

• 38:18Speaker 03

  There is the acknowledgement, yes, that's, this is part of our lived experience, that things do bring us pleasure, you know, and a certain level of happiness. So it's not denying that. So that's the gratification part in brief.

• 38:34Speaker 03

  The danger is that when we cling to them, we suffer.

• 38:42Speaker 03

  Because if we're clinging or attached to something which in its very nature is going to change.

• 38:50Speaker 03

  The result is some kind of distress. So, an image that actually a meditator came up with, we might have talked about this previously. He used the image inscribing his own experience of rope burn. You know, so if you're holding on tightly to a rope that's being pulled through your hand, the tighter you hold on, the more rope burn you're gonna have. Well, we do this a lot in our lives unknowingly. Whenever we're attached to something, to the rope, which is inevitably being pulled through our hands, things are changing in their very nature. The tighter we hold on, the more we suffer.

• 39:35Speaker 03

  So that's the danger. So there is a gratification, but it's not without its danger. The escape is to free the mind from the clinging and from the attachment to just our momentary experience. So it's not thinking we shouldn't have these experiences. We can't, I mean, that's impossible. You know, we're a being with six senses, mind included. So sense experience is gonna be happening all the time. But the key issue is whether we get attached and cling or not, or just stay open in our experience of them without, without that grasping. So that's the escape.

• 40:20Dan Harris?

  The escape, again, just to put a fine point on that is, essentially, it's just the ability to be mindful of whatever our desire is, whatever our clinging is.

• 40:33Speaker 03

  Right, whatever we're clinging to.

• 40:34Dan Harris?

  Yes, and just to watch it come and go. It kind of goes back to the letting the desire pass.

• 40:40Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 40:41Dan Harris?

  So how would we use this phrase, gratification, danger, and escape in our practice?

• 40:48Speaker 03

  Well, one is just as a kind of reflection. You know, either when we are beginning to obsess on some level about the gratification we're either having or anticipate having from a sense experience, just reflecting on the three phrases. Okay, right, yes, acknowledge there is a gratification, but watch out for the danger. You know, it's like having like a sign on the beach, dangerous undertow, something like that. There's a potential danger and danger means it's just another word for suffering.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  The Buddha is just reminding us, be careful here. There is a gratification, but if you get attached and the stronger the attachment, the more suffering there will be when things change. I think it's more kind of a reflection than practicing not holding on, practicing the escape from the danger.

• 41:55Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  This goes back to what we were just saying before about how much more easeful it is, the state of not wanting than wanting. So we think we're giving something up, taking away our happiness. That's just the product of advertising.

• 42:12Dan Harris?

  Right, it's a counterintuitive upgrade.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  That's a good expression.

• 42:16Dan Harris?

  So there are a couple of words that the Buddha uses that I've heard you repeat approvingly in this regard that are, actually, this is really just totally in line and apropos of the counterintuitive upgrade because these are words that we do not generally use in a positive way, but the Buddha does. Disenchantment and disillusionment.

• 42:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, I love those words.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, usually when we hear those words, somebody is disenchanted or disillusioned, we think it's a downer. They're no longer in a good space or in an uplifted space. But if we just look a little more carefully at the actual word, disenchantment means waking up from the spell of enchantment. There are a million fairy tales about this, you know, of the wicked witch or somebody coming, casting a spell on whoever, and then they're in limbo until, well, they turn them into a frog or something, waiting for the prince charming

• 43:22Speaker 03

  to come and give them a kiss. They wake up from the spell. So disenchantment is totally freeing. We're waking up from being enchanted by delusion. I'm just not seeing clearly what's happening. And disillusionment is the same thing. Why would we want to live in illusion? Well, we really see what the word means. It's good to be disillusioned so we can see things accurately. Disillusionment, in its very essence, the word, doesn't mean

• 44:04Speaker 03

  despair, or withdrawal, or apathy, or doesn't mean any of that. It means seeing without illusion. So I guess there could be some people who would argue with that, but it's hard to see why. Of course, we want to see things without illusion. So that's why I love those words.

• 44:26Dan Harris?

  Well, in the same spirit, another thing the Buddha said that I've heard you also repeat very approvingly is, what the world calls suffering, I call happiness. What the world calls happiness, I call suffering.

• 44:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's all in the same mode. It's like that Naziruddin story, where we're looking for happiness in the wrong place.

• 44:47Speaker 03

  Because it's the conventional place to look. But there's more, seems to be more light there. We can see potential happiness more easily. But it's the wrong place. It's not where genuine happiness is to be found. So it would be good to be disillusioned of the belief that it is to be found there. And to be disenchanted with the experience of it. And to wake up to greater potentials for happiness. The Dharma is so straightforward. None of this is super esoteric. And it's all testable.

• 45:31Speaker 03

  And this is one aspect of the Buddhist teachings, which attracted me from the beginning. It was never a question of you have to believe this or dogma or blind faith. It was always just come and see for yourself, test it out. That's what our practice is, is testing all these teachings in the laboratory of our lives.

• 45:56Dan Harris?

  Those were the words the Buddha used, come see for yourself.

• 45:58Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, come and see.

• 46:00Dan Harris?

  Come and see. Ahi Pasako. Yeah, those were the words in Pali. Come and see, not come see for yourself.

• 46:05Speaker 03

  Right, come and see.

• 46:10Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Joseph talks about this very powerful question. How much is enough? We also talk about why contentment might be the real form of wealth and the difference between guilt and wise remorse.

• 46:29Speaker 02

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• 47:32Dan Harris?

  Okay, here's a practical thing.

• 47:35Dan Harris?

  And this is an exercise you have recommended I do, because I'm your most hard-headed student, to ask the question. And I think you recommended it. It was at a moment of career crisis. And you recommended I discuss it with Bianca, my wife, just how much is enough?

• 47:57Speaker 03

  Yes. That's a great question to ask because, again, it goes back to kind of the nature of our society and culture, which is, in so many ways, you need more. Whatever you have is not enough. You need a better car, or a bigger house, or this, or that. Have you ever seen an ad that says, "You have enough"?

• 48:26Speaker 03

  I think we should have that campaign. "You have enough."

• 48:30Dan Harris?

  For "You are enough."

• 48:31Speaker 03

  Or "You are enough," even better. And of course, this is not to say that there are not people who don't have enough. So, we want to acknowledge the full range of human experience. So, we're talking about situations here where people do have genuinely enough. They have enough food, they have enough shelter, they're just the basic

• 48:56Speaker 03

  needs to lead a reasonably comfortable life. So, it's not about that. But once those basic needs, even including basic level of an enjoyable life...

• 49:09Speaker 03

  To have that and to hold that question, well, how much is enough? Can really free the mind from that kind of unhealthy and stressful, ambitious striving for more and more and more. Because that's just more grasping and more clinging. And it does not create happiness in our lives. The Buddha said, "The highest wealth, the greatest wealth is contentment." And that's really a beautiful statement. Because we always think of wealth as accumulation instead of wealth as a state of mind.

• 49:54Speaker 03

  Right? So if the mind is contented, there is tremendous wealth. It's enough. Have everything I need. And when it's not contentment, no amount is enough. So again, it's just these very simple, simple truths that we can come and see for ourselves whether it's true or not.

• 50:22Dan Harris?

  Yes. As I'm listening to you, I'm experiencing these like curly cues of truly deluded thoughts. Like, I know these thoughts are stupid, but I'm gonna say them out loud because I suspect I'm not the only one who has these kinds of thoughts. This is, this gets tangled. I was just thinking about, so I used to be a news anchor and then I retired. And, you know, I think there were probably people in my industry who raised an eyebrow. You know, you walked away from, I had like a pretty good job. Walked away to be a fucking meditation guy, you know? And so just say, none of this works out, right? I do this thing where I project myself into their minds, looking back at me, thinking, what would they think of me?

• 51:04Dan Harris?

  And so sure, I could live in a very simple way with my wife and son. I'm quite sure I could largely be happy with that, even though I would be, you know, my late capitalistic mind state would have to get updated a little bit. And, but then I think about, what would other people think of me in those quote unquote degraded circumstances? Do you see where I'm going with this?

• 51:26Speaker 03

  I do. Pretty deluded.

• 51:33Speaker 03

  First, there are a few threads here. One is, one thing when Ninja told me years ago, it has saved me so much suffering, said, "You can't take responsibility for other people's minds. You can take responsibility for your own, which just relieves such a burden. People are gonna think what they think about you, and you have no control over it. It may be accurate, it may be inaccurate, they can have all kinds of thoughts, or projections, or whatever. If you're clear in yourself, and you're leading an ethical, good life, why do you care what other people think? You can't control it.

• 52:18Speaker 03

  And what does it matter? That's their mind, that is their challenge to deal with their mental viewpoints.

• 52:26Dan Harris?

  Yeah, in this case, it's even dumber than that, because this is me projecting into other people's... I don't even know what they're thinking. They might be envious.

• 52:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, whatever. Whatever they think, the key to unhooking from even projecting what you think they might think is to realize, who cares what they think? It's important, I have to qualify that, if the people we're talking about we respect as having wisdom and understanding and balance, we might want to really listen, because wiser people than ourselves can often be a tremendous help. And of course, that's the great benefit of being with wise people. And the Buddha emphasized the value of hanging out with wise people

• 53:19Speaker 03

  as opposed to unwise people. So in that regard, it would be valuable to care what they think, because it can be helpful. But I'm talking in a more general way with people not in that category. So just another example of you have already experienced the wealth of contentment. It's like when you or I'm on retreat, could be living in a simple room with a bed, a chair, maybe a desk. That's it. Like when you go to a meditation center. Very simple, simple living.

• 54:03Speaker 03

  When I was in India, even more basic, or much more basic. They were some of the happiest times of my life. I was so happy to have a place where I could practice. The physical surroundings, first one just gets used to them and it's not even an issue. And they were irrelevant. Conditions were, were pretty bad. It didn't matter at all. I was so happy. So we can learn, and we do learn in situations like that, that happiness is just not dependent on what we think it is.

• 54:46Speaker 03

  And that's a great thing to reflect on. And even without going to India, or you're living in a one-room meditative cell or whatever, we don't have to go to that extreme. But just realizing in whatever we have and we're content is just an ease and a peace. And we get off the treadmill of always wanting more.

• 55:10Dan Harris?

  Can I go back to something you said a minute ago? That is slightly off the theme of this episode, but this is interesting and probably worth saying a little bit more about. You talked about like, why care so much what other people think? With the important asterisk that we should care about what some people think. It reminded me of a Buddhist concept. I think it's called hiri or otupa. It's like a healthy shame.

• 55:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 55:36Dan Harris?

  Shame generally is not so helpful, but there is a kind of healthy shame. Can you just say a little bit more about that?

• 55:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the Buddha talked about these. The Pali terms are hiri, otupa, and they're two different related mind states. The classical translation, which is not a very good one. So moral shame and moral dread.

• 55:56Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 55:56Speaker 03

  But you could call it healthy shame or healthy fear or just a sense of conscience. That's a more positive way of expressing moral shame. If our conscience, conscience, if we're sensitive to it and it's developed, then when we do something that's unskillful or causes harm.

• 56:21Speaker 03

  There is a feeling of shame, you know, or realizing that wasn't good. And so there's a wise remorse in that. And also the others, like fear of wrongdoing. So again, the words sound a little maybe harsh or, but actually it's just that sense of wise reflection that, oh yeah, if I do this, it's going to cause harm to myself or others. So there's an inner, we could say fear or reluctance or restraint from doing that action. And the Buddha called these two the guardians of the world.

• 57:01Speaker 03

  Because if people really lived with hiri otapa, we would be very sensitive to times when we do make mistakes, when we do things that are not wise or skillful. So instead of being blind to that and just going ahead out of these habit patterns, we really see the consequences of it. And sometimes it's this process of making amends, if it's possible, but, but at least recognizing it is. And then it becomes part of a restraint in the future, I won't do that again. So all of that comes from a wise reflection.

• 57:42Dan Harris?

  You may have said this and I missed it, but is any part of hiri otapa worrying about what wise people might think like?

• 57:50Speaker 03

  Yes, it is. That is one of the descriptions. Can't remember which of those two it's linked to, whether it's the wise shame or the wise fear of wrongdoing. It's probably the second, you know, and reflecting on what the wise may think of what we've done.

• 58:12Speaker 03

  So once I was in a monastery in Burma, there was just this one line, I was on the wall someplace. And it wasn't this exactly, but in a way it summarizes it in a really simple way. It said, "Avoid doing what you will later regret." And I thought, that's such a simple expression. If one can imagine regretting something that one has done, why do it? But to have that in mind before we act. And, you know, we've all had experiences. It's just part of our human life. We've made mistakes, you know?

• 58:55Speaker 03

  We have done things that were wrong, harmful, whatever. But there's a learning from that if we're open to seeing it. So then we really learn. It's almost part of the process of purification of mind, purification of our heart, it's by seeing the mistakes. We're the kind of wise remorse, now that was not good. Yeah, and learning from it. So then there's growth in understanding and growth in ethical behavior. It's always good.

• 59:29Dan Harris?

  Purification can be a tough word for, at least for me. But you're not saying we're going to be pure eventually. And maybe if we become a Buddha, but purer than we were six months ago.

• 59:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, I never used to use the word purification because I had some of the same kind of intuitive reaction just to the word in English and maybe, I didn't know what associations. But if we just step back from whatever conditioning we have about it, if we think of just, we are in a process of purifying our minds.

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  From greed, from hatred, from delusion, from all the causes of suffering. And yet, it's a whole path. But then we can see, no, this is a good thing. Why not purify our minds of those forces? It's a gradual process.

• 1:00:22Dan Harris?

  Yeah, I mean, maybe a less triggering for some way to say it is just training the heart and the mind.

• 1:00:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:28Dan Harris?

  I think we have either wisely or inadvertently teed ourselves up for the last phrase that I want to ask you about, which is back on theme, but also related to this whole shame or remorse or regret thread that we've just kind of might have seemed like a tangent, actually, will all come together, I think, with this last phrase. Lust cracks the brain.

• 1:00:49Speaker 03

  So the story behind that phrase is I was sitting in a retreat with my Burmese teacher, Saya Arupandita, who, as I've mentioned at different times, is a great meditation master. And very, he was like a fierce Zen master. You know, he's a very demanding teacher and also a very caring one. You know, he really wanted us to understand things. So one time he was giving a Dharma talk in Burmese. There was a translator and he was going on and on, maybe for 10 minutes, talking Burmese. And then the translator translated everything he said in these four words.

• 1:01:32Speaker 03

  Lust cracks the brain, which I thought was just a brilliant translation. I don't know what was said in Burmese, but I think we all know this because when our minds are filled with lust, we go crazy. First, to remember how obsessed the mind can become. It just is such a powerful energy, you know, in the body, in the mind. It's powerful, powerful force. And it can lead us to do so many things as we could open any newspaper any day.

• 1:02:13Speaker 03

  And see the harmful results of lust cracking the brain, where people just crimes of passion and all the forms that could take. We just can easily start doing really harmful things. How many relationships have broken up because lust cracking the brain of one partner or another, and then going off and doing things that are so damaging to the relationship? There are just a million examples of this. So the point of the phrase and the power of it is to remind us,

• 1:02:53Speaker 03

  because these feelings, the feelings of lust, are certainly going to come up in the course of a lifetime. Happily, I can say that as one gets older, it gets less. So that's the good news about aging. But there's certainly times I remember it's an energy that's coming to us all. So this phrase is just a reminder, when this arises, pay attention. Really try to become mindful of it and not be caught in the obsession of it. And to really watch our actions when this energy is very strong and present.

• 1:03:38Speaker 03

  So it doesn't mean never acting on, for example, sexual desire, which is just part of the human condition, but is it within bounds, within the bounds of morality, of ethics, of non-harming or not? Has that desire cracked our brain enough that we don't care about those boundaries anymore? So it's just a reminder to take care, because it is such a powerful energy. And we want to acknowledge that.

• 1:04:11Dan Harris?

  And in this case, was lust only about sexual desire or just strong greed for or desire for anything?

• 1:04:19Speaker 03

  I don't know what he said in Burmese.

• 1:04:22Speaker 03

  We could certainly apply it to anything.

• 1:04:24Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:25Speaker 03

  But I think it's most vivid. In sexual desire, we're all familiar with that becoming at times a really powerful force, but people have lust for a lot of different things, big lust for food.

• 1:04:41Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:41Speaker 03

  Or lust.

• 1:04:42Dan Harris?

  Power.

• 1:04:42Speaker 03

  Power, yeah, fame.

• 1:04:44Dan Harris?

  Money.

• 1:04:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, all of those things. So I think it applies across the board.

• 1:04:50Dan Harris?

  We've just had a great conversation about what you might call desire, lust, greed, wanting within a Buddhist framework and how to work with these energies more skillfully. Just before we close here, any closing thoughts from you?

• 1:05:05Speaker 03

  I just want to add something to one of the topics we touched just before.

• 1:05:09Dan Harris?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:10Speaker 03

  When we were talking about wise remorse. And so I'd just like to highlight the difference between guilt and remorse. Because as I said, we all do things at different times that have been unskillful, you know, and cause suffering that we feel guilty about. So I had this experience once again on retreat, and I was remembering something. And now I don't even remember what it was about, but I remember having just real attacks of guilt for having done whatever it was. And guilt is, it's a terrible feeling. It's

• 1:05:48Speaker 03

  a self lacerating feeling with a huge amount of self judgment. And so I was experiencing that. And at a certain point, I just got interested. What is going on here? Why am I so hooked by this feeling? Or what's sustaining it? Or I was just trying to understand. And then at a certain point, I realized that guilt was a trick of the ego. Because in guilt, there is a lot of selfing in a negative way. I'm so bad. I'm this terrible person. How could I have done this? I, I, I, I. All negative.

• 1:06:36Speaker 03

  So when I saw that, when I reframed guilt as a trick of the ego, then in my mind, I used this other phrase, which we've talked about in earlier episodes. Mara, I see you. Yeah, and that's, I think I had mentioned this. I added to it, wagging the finger at Mara. So I did that with the guilt. That's where that first came. Oh Mara, I see you. And then I realized there was a better alternative to guilt, because guilt was an unskillful response to something that we actually did. And that's what generally fuels it.

• 1:07:20Speaker 03

  Because it's not free-floating guilt, although there are conditions like that as well. But when it's in response to an actual action, we justify the guilt to ourselves. Because, oh yeah, I really did do something not that great. But when I saw it as a trick of the ego, I realized a much more helpful mind state is something I called wise remorse. And that involves the acknowledgement, yeah, that action was not good. Caused suffering, caused harm. So we're taking responsibility for our actions, but without that added self-laceration.

• 1:08:03Speaker 03

  We just see and we learn from it. As I said a little earlier, maybe make amends for what we did if we can. But in that wise remorse, there's kind of a built-in understanding, a wisdom of impermanence. You know, that all these things arise and pass away. And there's also, in some subtle way...

• 1:08:26Speaker 03

  An element of self forgiveness in that feeling of wise remorse. We're no longer caught in that ego trap of I'm so bad or I'm such a bad person. So it's very freeing.

• 1:08:42Dan Harris?

  Yeah, oddly, there's less self and self forgiveness than there is in self laceration. And by the way, more room in the forgiveness part to make amends and then think about the other people you may have harmed as opposed to be stuck in your story.

• 1:08:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I think that was a very useful discernment that really helped me a lot.

• 1:09:04Dan Harris?

  Yeah, it's helped me. Well, this was great. Thank you.

• 1:09:08Speaker 03

  You're welcome.

• 1:09:15Dan Harris?

  Thanks again to Joseph. Always awesome to talk to him. Don't forget to check out my meditation app over at DanHarris.com. Joseph guides lots of meditations over there, including an on-ramp to Buddhist meditation, an excellent series of meditations designed to like ease into the deep end of Buddhist meditation practice. And you can do these practices whether you're a rank amateur or an experienced practitioner. If you head on over to DanHarris.com, you can sign up for the app. There's a free 14 day trial if you want to try before you buy. And of course, if you sign up, you'll be included in Sharon Salzberg's eight part Sunday evening video extravaganza where she's going to walk us through the eightfold path. Lots of good stuff happening on the app. DanHarris.com.

• 1:10:00Dan Harris?

  Join the party. Thank you very much to all the people who work so incredibly hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vassili. 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.

• 1:10:31Speaker 02

  Looking for a new way to take control of your health? If diet, exercise, and willpower alone haven't gotten you where you want to be, visit OrderlyMeds.com to learn about GLP-1 treatment options. With a convenient virtual process, you can connect with licensed medical providers from home and see if treatment may be appropriate for you. Visit OrderlyMeds.com today. That's OrderlyMeds.com. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.