Buddhist Strategies For Reducing Everyday Addictions (To Your Phone, Food, Booze, And More) | Sister Dang Nghiem

A Buddhist doctor/nun on how we're all addicted to something—and how to reduce craving. Sister Dang Nghiem, MD, ("Sister D") was born in 1968 in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive, the daughter of a Vietnamese mother and an American soldier. She lost her mother at the age of twelve and immigrated to the United States at the age of seventeen with her brother. Living in various foster homes, she learned English and went on to earn a medical degree from the University of California – San Francisco. After suffering further tragedy and loss, she quit her practice as a doctor to travel to Plum Village monastery in France founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, where she was ordained a nun in 2000, and given the name Dang Nghiem, which means adornment with nondiscrimination. She is the author of a memoir, Healing: A Woman's Journey from Doctor to Nun (2010), and Mindfulness as Medicine: A Story of Healing and Spirit (2015). This episode is part of our monthlong Do Life Better https://www.meditatehappier.com/podcast-playlists/new-years-2025-do-life-better series. We talk about: Sister D's Buddhist version of the 12 step program, which is a combination of two canonical buddhist lists: the 4 Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path How willpower doesn't fit into the Buddhist path of understanding and working with addiction How to change addiction at its root Practical applications of mindfulness Self-compassion The importance of social support Her thoughts on our relationships to our phones And more Related Episodes: Do Life Better https://www.meditatehappier.com/podcast-playlists/new-years-2025-do-life-better This Episode Will Make You Stronger | Sister Dang Nghiem https://www.danharris.com/p/this-episode-will-make-you-stronger-365 The Science Of Manifestation | James Doty https://www.danharris.com/p/the-science-of-manifestation-can-05e Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD Our favorite playlists on: Anxiety https://spoti.fi/3Qa8kMT, Sleep https://spoti.fi/3MjtMxF, Relationships https://spoti.fi/3QvyA5J, Most Popular Episodes https://spoti.fi/3QxZASc

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

• 0:05Dan Harris?

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

• 0:19Dan Harris?

  Hello, everybody. How we doing? Today, we're talking about Buddhist strategies for reducing your everyday addictions to your phone, food, alcohol, and more. As always on this show, and as always, within a Buddhist context, when we talk about addiction, it doesn't just mean full-blown addictions, although, of course, it does include those, but it also means our everyday cravings. One technical definition of addiction is continued use despite adverse consequences. And think about it, how many things in your life fit the bill for that? In this episode, we've got a Buddhist nun, who's also a medical doctor, who's going to use her combined training to help us turn down the volume on our everyday addictions.

• 1:03Dan Harris?

  This is part of our ongoing New Year's programming. Every week during January, we are identifying one of the major resolutions that people tend to make this time of year, and then we're approaching that resolution with our signature mix of ancient wisdom and modern science. This week, it's addictions. If you missed it, go check out Monday's episode with Dr. Jed Brewer, my old friend, who's a neuroscientist and addiction specialist. Today, though, it is Sister Dang Niam, who goes by the name Sister D, which is obviously easier to pronounce. Sister D is a nun in the Plum Village tradition founded by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. This is her second time on the show. I'm going to drop a link in the show notes to her first appearance, which you do not have to have listened to in order to listen to this one, but I'm dropping it into the

• 1:48Dan Harris?

  show notes because if you're curious about her, she's got this incredible personal story, which she tells in that initial interview. She was born in Vietnam during the war to a Vietnamese mom and an American soldier father. She lost her mom at the age of 12, immigrated to the United States, ended up living in foster homes, and then ended up getting a medical degree from the University of California in San Francisco. There are lots of twists and turns in her story. Anyway, we're not going to get too much of that today, but if you want her backstory, you can go listen. Having said all that, here's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about Sister Dee's Buddhist version of the 12-step program, which she made by cobbling together two canonical Buddhist lists,

• 2:31Dan Harris?

  the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. How Willpower Does Not Fit Into the Buddhist Understanding of Working With Addiction, How to Change Addiction at Its Root, The Role of Self-Compassion, The Role of Social Support, Her Thoughts on Our Relationships to Our Phones, and Practical Applications of Mindfulness. One last thing to say on this score. Speaking of mindfulness, Sister Dee did create a special and bespoke offering exclusively for subscribers over at DanHarris.com. If you check out DanHarris.com, you will find it. Okay, my conversation with Sister Dee coming up right after this. If you care about supporting independent media, and if you care about being a node of sanity in an insane world,

• 3:16Dan Harris?

  there are a few quick, easy, and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for. One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching right now. That really helps. Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low-stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit. And not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds, and they really do help. You will be supporting me and my team and our mission. And I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at DanHarris.com.

• 4:00Dan Harris?

  It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. If you care about supporting independent media, and if you care about being a node of sanity in an insane world, there are a few quick, easy, and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for. One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe. To the show, wherever you're listening or watching right now, that really helps. Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit. And not for nothing, it also helps us grow.

• 4:43Dan Harris?

  And all of these things take about 30 seconds and they really do help. You will be supporting me and my team and our mission. And I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com. It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. Real progress starts with action. As the executive director of the Honold Foundation, Emily Kitesworth works to expand access to solar energy in communities around the world, supporting locally led projects that bring reliable power, greater independence and opportunity where it is needed most. On the podcast Planet Visionaries, professional climber and Honold Foundation founder Alex

• 5:24Dan Harris?

  Honold goes beyond the headlines with Emily to explore practical solutions for a more equitable future. In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts.

• 5:40Dan Harris?

  Sister Dee, welcome back to the show.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Hello, Dan. Thanks for being there.

• 5:45Dan Harris?

  Thank you for being there. So we're talking today about addiction. And it's interesting because the way you talk about addiction, most of us, when we use the word addiction, we think of hardcore addiction. But you have argued that we're all addicted to something. Am I stating your position correctly?

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Yes, we are all addicted to something. And something that we have in common is that we're all addicted to suffering. Or at least many of us are addicted to suffering. We have wrong views about suffering. We deal with it unhealthy way. We have. Negative coping mechanism unknowingly. And so it inevitably leads to addiction. And addiction is not only to hardcore drugs, but addiction to suffering, to our emotions, physiologically, biologically, mentally.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Also addicted to, you know, people, to shopping, to YouTube, to electronics. Now we have electronic addiction, also known as eye addiction. You know, the small eye, like iPhone, iPad. So yes, we are addicted to our views. Different kinds of addiction.

• 7:08Dan Harris?

  When you say addicted to suffering, can you say more about that? I don't quite get it initially.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Well, I learned this through myself and through my interactions with many people. So as human beings, inevitably, we sooner or later, we are in certain situations that cause unpleasant feelings or excruciating pain physically or emotionally. And we try to cope with that. And we can share more deeply about the different coping mechanisms that are known, such as fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses. So we try to cope with them. But many of us, because we are not equipped

• 8:00Speaker 01

  with the practices, so we try to cope as children, as young people, in such a way that actually, it may help in the beginning to block out a certain experience, for example. But after a while, it becomes a habit and a personality. And for example, a person who has PTSD or of trauma or more severe PTSD, it's a reaction to the situation. But then as we rehearse those thoughts and those actions that we've been exposed to, we've been experienced directly or indirectly, now they become a part of our mind.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  And what was once an experience, now it becomes like a belief. And we keep thinking about that and we identify ourselves with the experience. So for example, I gave a consultation to a beautiful young woman. And she said, "I'm so ugly and I'm worthless." And I asked her, "What have you gone through in your life that made you think like that?" And she shared that as a child, her older cousins got her to play this game where they stripped her and, you know, touched her and did sexual things to her.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  But one of the cousins said to her, "You are so ugly, you are lucky that I even touch you." Now it's very painful for a child to hear that, to experience all of that abuse. But now it has become a part of her. When she told me, "I'm ugly and worthless," she didn't say, "My cousins said I am ugly and I'm worthless." It's, "I am ugly and I'm worthless." And it becomes entrenched in her thoughts, in her perceptions of herself. And thus in her behaviors towards her body and her relationships.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  And it's so convincing, it's so real, it's so true to her. And she will resort to that kind of thinking, self sabotaging, negative way of thinking, instead of getting out of it, thinking that, "No, I am worthy, I am beautiful." And that was somebody else saying. So that is an addiction because now it has become us and we believe in it. And actually, we refuse to believe otherwise. Even if I try to tell her, "No, you're very beautiful," she won't believe in it. It will take her a lot of time and practice to see it for herself,

• 10:53Speaker 01

  that she is beautiful and she is worthy.

• 10:57Dan Harris?

  I want to say a word to the listeners and then I have a question for you, Sister Dee. The thing I want to say to the listeners is that some people get hung up on the term "suffering" because in English generally, suffering, as I often say, we think, when you hear that word, you think of something extreme, like you're tied to the rocks and crows are pecking out your innards. But in the Dharma and Buddhism, suffering is a much broader term that just is a reference to all of the ways in which we make ourselves unhappy day to day. But so my question, having said that to you, Sister Dee, my question is, so for me, I don't have any trauma that I'm aware of, capital T trauma, that is. But let's say I have the habit of mind of ruminating on my resentments,

• 11:42Dan Harris?

  nursing my grudges. I can become addicted to that because I identify it as my anger. It becomes in some way a key part of my identity. Even if I don't like it, it's a part of my identity that I in some perverse way cling to. It becomes a habit of mine that is hard to break. So am I describing your conception of addiction to suffering accurately through that example?

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Suffering, in the original term, the Buddha talked about dukkha. It's a sense of ill-being, of disease. And we translate as suffering. But modern terms can be known as stress, as trauma, as PTSD. You know, a different levels of severity. Yes, it's the addiction we usually think of something, we're addicted outside, but...

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Eventually, we internalize it. And it haunts like all the different symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. There's that rumination and that craving, that obsessive compulsive element to the addiction, to a behavior, to a thought that keeps repeating itself. So, yes, no, it's not just an object they were addicted to, such as drugs or alcohol or, you know, to movies or pornography, et cetera. But whatever that is repetitive and intrusive

• 13:23Speaker 01

  and uncontrollable in us, it becomes a kind of addiction.

• 13:29Dan Harris?

  In your view, the steps one would take to break or reduce an addiction to something like alcohol or your phone or shopping, are those steps similar to the ones you would take in order to reduce your addiction to suffering? You know, my habit of ruminating on my resentments, for example? Is it the same path?

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Yes, I see that eventually it comes back to the mind. Because in the Buddhist practices, we see that everything originates from the mind. The mind is the painter. So the root of addiction, it comes from the mind. And whatever is perpetuated is the mind that perpetuates it. So we learn to be aware of the mind, of the working of the mind, so that we can learn to transform and heal the negative way of thinking or the wrong perceptions that we have. So, for example, in the Buddhist teaching, the Four Noble Truths, you know,

• 14:35Speaker 01

  the first noble truth is there's suffering. We need to acknowledge that. Many of us actually are in denial. And I learned that what denial can be an acronym for, don't even know I am lying. Yeah, so many of us, we are in denial. So it's very courageous to say, I am addicted.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  To work, to sex, to my negative way of thinking, to the trauma of my childhood, to my resentment, to my jealousy, to my discrimination or biases, prejudices. So I am, I have rehearsed it so much that now it has become me. And the second noble truth is that there are causes and conditions to them. We didn't just were unborn addicted, except for like children who are born to, you know, where they have alcoholic syndrome from mother who use alcohol or cocaine babies. They are physically, physiologically addicted when they are born,

• 15:47Speaker 01

  but that's through the consumption of the mother. But causes and conditions go way back in our own life, but also in our parents and ancestors and also society. For example, the eye addiction or electronic addiction now is most prevalent and is so socially acceptable. But it's like the hypodermic needles of our time and accessible to us 24 hours a day. And children from the age of one, two, up to the elderly, we can all be addicted, you see? So it's socially acceptable, but it's just as damaging, if not more invasive and addictive.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  So when I learn about the noble truths and the third noble truth is the way out, the cessation of suffering. So they go hand in hand with actually the doctor's diagnosis because I was trained as a doctor. We also have the chief complaint as the first noble truth. I have an addiction, I have a problem. The second noble truth, there are causes. A doctor would ask for a history. How long have you had it? You know, what are your symptoms, et cetera? And then the third one, is it curable? Is it treatable, right? And the fourth noble truth is that, and also the diagnosis, we need to come up as the third. And the fourth one is the treatment.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  And we have the A4 noble path for that. So one day, as I was working on this and I saw all the four noble truths, we add with the A4 noble path, that's 12-step program for addiction. We have this 12-step program in the Buddhist approach, and they go hand in hand with the 12-step program for Alcoholics Anonymous and other kinds of addiction. So yes, Buddhist practices help us to heal and transform our addiction in the same way.

• 17:51Dan Harris?

  I want to talk about your brilliant 12-step program idea in a little bit more depth in a second. But one of the things you've said is that in the Buddhist concept of addiction, there isn't this idea of willpower as a way to break the addiction, that the path is quite different. Can you say a little bit more about that?

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Well, when I read the 12-step program, it talks about we are powerless to our addictions. And also, we look to the higher power to support us, but also to remove our weaknesses and our habits. And that's the difference in Buddhism is that we see that higher power is innate, is within us. Like in the Noble A4 Path, it starts with right mindfulness, right concentration, which leads to right view and right thinking.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  For us, right view, you know, is that higher power. Right view is higher power to us, that wisdom, that insight. In Buddhism, we talk about Mahaprasna or Prasna Paramita, the heart of perfect understanding. And Mahaprasna, the great, is understood as the mother of all Buddhist. So our understanding, our insight into our condition, this is because that is.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  This addiction is because of all those causes and conditions. And this addiction is perpetuated because of certain social structure, system, you know, the cues, the context, the environment perpetuate them. So when we learn to recognize all of those conditions little by little, and that's we gain right view and right thinking. So to us, understanding is our high power. Because when we are lost in suffering, in addiction, in trauma, in PTSD, we lose wisdom, we become victims.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  We are victimized first by the perpetrators, but then by our own wrong views about ourselves, about what is. I see that's very liberating. So we are not powerless in that sense. But we just have not tapped in our true power of understanding, of insight, and through the practice of mindfulness, like right mindfulness as a part of the noble truth, right concentration instead of dispersion of paying attention to our other stimuli that are negative and destructive. We pay attention to what is more nurturing, more healing, transformative for us.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  And we slowly, we gain the right view and right thinking, which will help us to change our behaviors.

• 21:03Dan Harris?

  Let me see if I can restate some of this back to you just to make sure that I get it. So as you said before, you've kind of done a Buddhist version of the 12 steps. The first four steps are the four noble truths. There is suffering is number one. The second is a cause of that suffering, which is a kind of a thirst, a desire to cling to things that will not last in a universe that is characterized by impermanence. The third noble truth is there is a way out. And the fourth is the way out, the eight steps, what is called the noble eightfold path. So the first four of your Buddhist... Dharma twelve step and then the then the eight actual folds of the path, which start with right view and we will go through each of the entries on the noble eightfold path. Those make up the rest of the twelve steps.

• 21:47Dan Harris?

  And so you made a reference to the fact that in a traditional twelve step program, there's this reliance on a higher power. And your argument here is that the first entry on the eightfold path is something called right view, which one could understand in part, and this is where you may need to correct me if I screw up here. But one can understand in part right view as understanding that everything happens for a reason. Not in the kind of rote cliche sense of that, but more that in a karma sense of it. It's the law of cause and effect. Everything that's happening right now rests on an ocean of prior causes and conditions that have all brought us to this moment. And if you can understand that your addiction or addictions, because many of us have plural,

• 22:32Dan Harris?

  if you can understand that your addiction is the result of many, many deep causes and conditions, that in and of itself is the higher power that resides inside of you and can be the first step in starting to dismantle this addiction. Am I close to being able to accurately restate your view on this?

• 22:51Speaker 01

  That's wonderful. I can give like a concrete example. For example, I met this brilliant scientist and it turned out that he's addicted to sex. And he watched a lot of pornography whenever he went on, you know, to conferences. That's what he did. But as I learned more about him, as a child, he witnessed a lot of suffering from his parents. And his parents had affairs, both of them extramarital affairs and all. And he saw one of his family members watch pornography and he was just a child. And he was undergoing a lot of stress and confusion.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  So he learned to watch pornography as a young teenager. And that was his coping mechanism, how, you know, he was losing his. Parents, they were divorcing. There was a lot of confusion and disturbances in his family. So that was how he soothes himself, how he escaped the painful situation. But as he grew older, it became his way of life. And it brought into his relationships, you see. So now, if we look at him and we can judge him, oh, you are a prominent scientist and you are a sex addict. We can have a lot of judgment on this person.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  But if we have the right view, and not the right view here, I would like to emphasize is right view of interbeing. When you look at the yin yang sign, you know, like a circle, half of it is black, half of it is white. And half black has a white dot and a white half has a black dot. It explains in the black, there is the white and in the white, there's a black. In this person's addiction, there's the suffering of his parents that he was exposed to as a child. So that's the right view is that he is not in a separate entity, but his parents and

• 24:59Speaker 01

  his, you know, the social condition, the upbringing brought him to that. So this is the yin yang. You know, so we see this black dot is in the white half and this white dot is in the black half, for example. So, so yeah, so that's right view. Right view is, and it's about the right view of interbeing. This is in that and that is in this. His suffering, his parents are in him, their habits are in him. And now he manifests them and he has rehearsed them over the years.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  And so right view of interbeing can help us to not feel so isolated, to put judgment just upon ourselves, but to see we are because our parents are, because our society is, because of all of these feedings that have nurtured, watered our seeds of suffering and of addictions.

• 26:04Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Sister Dee will keep digging into the Eightfold Path. Keep it here.

• 26:16Dan Harris?

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• 28:44Dan Harris?

  That all makes complete sense to me, and I can imagine people listening and saying, "Okay, well, that sounds like a good first step to understand why this has arisen and not to be so judgmental of myself, to see that it's the result of causes and conditions, including my interbeing with my parents and the larger culture." But that will only get me so far, which brings us to the next seven steps in the Eightfold Path, which are the final seven steps in Sister Dee's Twelve Steps. So after right view, there's right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Let's walk through these and maybe you can spell out how these can help us be less addicted to whatever we're struggling with.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  Traditionally, it starts with right view, but through my practice, I see that it starts with right mindfulness. Not everybody will come with right view right away. So we learn, and we also have wrong or right. In this sense, we can also translate as unbeneficial, because we are all mindful, by the way. But what are we mindful of? We are mindful of what's really going on in us and around us, or are we mindful of more of negativity in us and around us? You see? So it's important what we are aware of and we pay attention to.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  When I was reading this book about, it's called Magic Mind by Dr. James Doty, and he talked about the default mode network. So in our brain, that is circuitry, that is an inner critic. It criticizes. Itself, us, you are ugly, you're worthless, you fail, you're just an addict, you're nobody. It keeps going like that. If we are aware of that and we feed it, that's also mindfulness, but that's unbeneficial mindfulness. So in our practice, when we have mindfulness,

• 30:52Speaker 01

  we learn to be aware of what is, not the judgment, aware that I have my eyes, I can still see, aware that my body is still healthy, I can still walk, that I still have loved ones who try to help me, for example, that's right mindfulness. And as we learn to pay attention to our breathing, to our steps, we are more in touch with our body, that's right mindfulness, you see, it will bring to right concentration. We are constantly bombarded by information. And in this book, Magic Mind, Dr. Doty, he talked that every second, the brain is

• 31:34Speaker 01

  bombarded by six to ten million bits of information, six to ten million bits of information every second. And yet, the brain can only consciously process fifty, five, zero bits of information. So that goes ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine-five percent of the information that we are bombarded, we are not aware of, you see? But whatever that we are aware, actually, we are aware of the negativity that's going on in our

• 32:14Speaker 01

  mind. And that's like a lens that we look at the world through that lens of negativity. So to practice right mindfulness and right concentration will help us reduce all of that noise going on inside of us all the time, self judgment and all, and to be able to touch life as it is in this moment, there are birds singing, there are children smiling, laughing, there are loved ones around us. That will bring to right view, right view about interbeing. You see, I'm still alive and that my suffering is not my own, but also the suffering of my parents, of my society, of many people around me.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  So when I take care of myself, even to sit still, to say loving, you know, to direct love towards myself and encouragement towards myself, I'm also doing that for others in me and around me. So that's right view. When we see that, it will lead us to right thinking. Right thinking, like instead of thinking I'm ugly, I'm worthless. So you know, I'm beautiful. I have one, for example, I have this Chinese character too, I want to show you. This Chinese character is for enough, okay? You see, this is a mouth, or it can represent a head. This straight line down, vertical line, can stand for the body.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  The horizontal line, that's the arm. And then these two legs at the end. Most of us, many of us, suffer from this not enoughness, illness. I'm not enough. I don't have enough. That's wrong view, at least the wrong thinking. I'm nobody, you see? But if we are mindful, we have right mindfulness and right concentration. I ask the teenagers, the children, do you have a head? Yes. Do you have a body? Yes. Do you have an arm? Yes. Do you have two legs? Yes. Then are you enough? And they say, yes. I say louder. They say, yes, I am enough. I have enough, you see?

• 34:27Speaker 01

  So when we learn to be aware of what we have, not what we have not or what we have lost, but what we still have, we feel wow, we are so rich, we are so blessed. And that helps us to have the right view and right thinking. More positivity, more encouragement, more positive attitude towards ourselves, about ourselves and others. And that will lead us to right speech instead of saying things like, I'm not good enough. I can't do it. Then we can say, I love you. Thank you for being still alive. I tell that to myself every so often. I use loving speech and deep listening to myself.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  And I say, "Thank you, I'm still alive. Thank you for all the efforts you've made all your life. Thank you for being here." With Dan Harris, for example, this morning I wasn't feeling so good. Usually after breakfast, my blood pressure is a bit low. So then after a meal, I feel even more tired. So I just lay down on my bed, scan my body part by part, and just say, "I love you, I love you. Thank you, thank you for trying every single day. Thank you." You see? And that's love, that right speech, right speech to myself.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  And if I can practice right speech like that, very simple words, "thank you," or "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I hurt you" with my negative thoughts. "I'm sorry I hurt you." By thinking, behaving, and speaking so harshly, so cruelly to myself, that heals. It heals a lot. The wounded inner child in us heals little by little when we are able to express appreciation and regrets like that. You see? So I just share about right speech.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  And then the next one, the sixth noble on the A4 path, the sixth one is right action. When we have the right thinking, the right view, it will lead to right speech, right bodily actions. Some of us, when we are stressed, when we are in pain, we may practice cutting, especially young women would cut our wrists, the ankles, or we consume drugs.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  We just consume different things to numb our pain, to escape our pain. But those actions will accumulate to even more, more trauma in our life. It cripples us. We cannot function normally in our family, in our relationships, in our society, at work, etc. So when we have the right thinking and right view, it will lead to right action. We will learn to care for ourselves, simply like by instead of sitting there and watching pornography

• 37:53Speaker 01

  or doing drugs, even if you just go for a walk in your backyard.

• 38:00Dan Harris?

  So I think we were at right action and you were going to continue with the rest of the Eightfold Path?

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and after the right action, we have the seventh treatment. It's a right livelihood. It's how we, our profession, our work, that makes it right livelihood. And a lot of time when we are heavily influenced by our circumstance, by our addiction, it will hurt, it will affect our livelihood. Are we able to hold a job? Are we able to get a job? So in that way, we may compromise and do some other work

• 38:51Speaker 01

  that actually perpetuate our suffering and addiction. Because we're not able to, to find the right kind of work, the right livelihood that will bring about positive support and self.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Confidence and a meaning in our work. And I want to add that because in the noble A4 path, we don't have right living condition. So maybe under the right livelihood, we can add to that. Right living environment is very important, especially for us, for those of us with addictions. For example, just electronic addictions. If our bedroom, you know, we have our computer, our iPhone, our iPad, all of these electronics in our room, we cannot really rest in that room, right? For sleep hygiene in your bedroom,

• 39:49Speaker 01

  there shouldn't be those electronic gadgets. Should be peaceful, should be non-distracting so that you can just simply rest. So those cues will make you, oh, you're just lying down and you hear the sound of the notification, you immediately check your iPhone. So then your sleep is really disturbed. So that's a very practical example. But for those of us who do hard drugs, who have others, so living in the ghettos, you know, living in a poor and a negative environment, that would just perpetuate our addictions. Even if we have a desire to get out of that hole,

• 40:33Speaker 01

  you're pushed into that hole again and again by yourself, by your own craving, but also by others around you. They remind you of your addiction. So in that way, to have a positive or right living environment is also very positive. And I think that requires a lot of help, a lot of courage from us to ask for help, but also a lot of patience and compassion from our loved ones, but also society need to help. For me, it's so disturbing that we can spend trillions of dollars to support a war so quickly and so easily,

• 41:17Speaker 01

  promptly, and yet we don't invest.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  Enough or much at all to education, to rehabilitation, elevate people who suffer from racial and economic inequalities. And so in that way, they're put in a hole, they're born into that hole. And it's so hard for them to find the right living environment. They are not equipped to get the education or to get the good job to get out of their environment. And I'm speaking this from my direct experience working at Youth Guidance Centre in YGC, Youth Guidance Centre in San Francisco. When I was trained as a medical student, I volunteered there.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  And I knew the kids who were born in the ghettos. This young man, Eric, at nine, he already learned to pump gas, to make money, to feed himself and his little sister. And one day, he saved five dollars. And while he was sleeping, his mother stole that five dollars from him to get her fix. You see? So very soon, when he was 11, he delivered drugs for somebody so he can get more money. You see? And then he did a little more, a little more. He ended up in Youth Guidance Centre since he was 11 or 12 years old. So that is a life that many of us are also condemned to.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Because of course, the conditions immediate, but also from social conditions that is very hard to get out of. So we need a lot of help from that. So we have the right livelihood, but also right living environment. And the last one is right diligence. And of course, you were saying that right effort. And in our tradition, we translate as right diligence. Again, we are all diligent. Watching movies all day long, that's diligence, but it's very unbeneficial. Checking your iPhone all the time, that's definitely very diligent, but it's so distracting and stress-producing, right? So how to have beneficial?

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Diligence. And in Buddhism, we actually have the four kinds of diligence under this right diligence. The first two deal with positive seeds. If they manifest, try to keep them there. If you feel happy, be aware that you're happy. Look around you, see the conditions of happiness. So that you can strengthen that seed of happiness in you, of gratitude in you. And if that seed has not manifested, bring it up. Say, "Oh, I still have a body and I can still walk, I can still talk, I can still do work." Yeah?

• 44:19Speaker 01

  So you bring it up. So that's the second kind of diligence. Invite the positive seeds to arise in you. And the fourth diligence, deal with the negative seeds. If they arise, well, don't water them. Bring them back to your store consciousness or your subconscious. For example, if you're watching a movie and you see people doing drugs in the movie, or having violent scenes or sexual scenes that pick you, remove yourself from that environment. Walk out of that room. Walk away from that situation, from that conversation. So you don't water the seed of craving in you, of addiction in you. You see?

• 45:02Speaker 01

  If you see a negative seed arises in you, saying you, "Why try? Because you're gonna fail again." Well, breathe and smile. Let go of that thought and give rise to gratitude. "I'm still here and I still want to take good care of myself." You see? So, don't water the negative seeds. And the last one is that the negative seeds that have not manifested, don't invite them up. The things that we do, the things that we expose ourselves to, are the billboards, the notifications, the pop-ups. Many of them actually, they carry negative messages of violence, of craving, of fear, of hatred, discrimination.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Don't bring them up, don't water them. And those are the ways to be diligent that can help heal our habits, our addiction.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Our personality, because you see, an action that is rehearsed, it becomes a habit, AKA addiction, if it's so entrenched. And that habit or addiction becomes our personality. I'm an addict. That's who I am and the way I behave. And that personality will lead to a destiny. So when we learn to change our behaviors, our thoughts and our views, little by little, we can change the addiction at its roots. Our personality, the bright, the shining, the positive person in us,

• 46:40Speaker 01

  the innocent child in us can shine more and more each day, which will change our destiny. We don't just have to be an addict for the rest of our life.

• 46:53Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Sister Dee talks about how exactly these 12 steps can change addiction at its roots. Specific mindfulness practices to help with this and her thoughts on phone addiction.

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• 48:11Dan Harris?

  How exactly can these 12 steps change the addiction at its roots? That's the phrase you use. You just told us about a lot of steps we can take. How does all of that add up to the uprooting of this craving that so many of us deal with, whether it's shopping or having too many glasses of wine or whatever?

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Well, all of these steps interare. They are not separate. Like I was saying, if you have right view, it will lead to right thinking. It will lead to right speech, right actions, and you will find a better environment for yourself. And you will be more diligent in a beneficial way. So, like that. So, they interare, first of all. And also, how does the practice of mindfulness, and so then it will lead to all these steps in the Noble Eightfold Path, help heal the addiction? Again, the roots of our addiction come from our wrong perceptions,

• 49:13Speaker 01

  our wrong views about the situation. And from that, we have the negative coping mechanism that is perpetuated over time. You see? So, I have right here the Chinese character. I love these when I discover them because they eloquently express the teaching and also in a very succinct way. So, this is the Chinese character for perception. And it has three smaller characters. On the upper one, there's the Chinese character for tree. Next to it is the Chinese character for eye.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  So, you see a tree standing next to the eye. The eye or the eye looks at the tree. That's the sign of a tree, right? So, when you look at a tree, the sign is the tree. But underneath these two characters is the character mind or heart.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  Which makes the whole thing perception. Your eye look at the tree. But if in the past, you had a positive experience with this tree, then you say, "Oh, it's a beautiful tree. How lovely it is." And you have a positive feeling towards that tree. But now, in your mind, you remember that there was a branch that fell on your head, almost killed you, or somebody, it hurt somebody in your family. Then, when you look at that tree, you think, "That tree is very dangerous. We should cut it down." You see? So perception is the tree. But one person sees it as a beautiful tree.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Another person sees it as a dangerous tree. It's the state of mind will determine what we see, the view about ourselves, our worldview, how to approach life. That state of mind, all the experiences we went through, what we were taught in school by our parents, what we were exposed to, will come to these views. So, everything, the foundation of our actions, of our addiction specifically, based on wrong view. "I'm just an addict. I'm unworthy." So, when we practice these noble A4 paths, starting with right mindfulness,

• 51:46Speaker 01

  we start to change that view. We start to see reality more and more as it is. And when a perception is changed, the thoughts, the speech, and the bodily actions will change. So this is why we say we change it at the root.

• 52:06Dan Harris?

  And what is the correct view of addiction? So we know wrong view is, "I'm just an addict." What is right view of addiction?

• 52:16Speaker 01

  Interbeing. Again, this addiction is the tip of a branch. What is the root of my suffering? What has brought me to this day? What has come to be? What has fed it? What is perpetuating it? So we see all these causes and conditions, entangled, enmeshed.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  And strengthen over the years. So we need to see these conditions and causes more and more clearly through meditation, through mindfulness, and unravel them little by little. And to breathe with them, breath by breath, to walk with them mindfully, step by step, so that we don't rehearse these negative, wrong views. Because the more we rehearse them, the stronger they become. And we literally have neural pathways, neural networks in our brain. When you see something, for example, if I'm a drug addict, I just see a needle.

• 53:26Speaker 01

  My brain, my mesolimbic circuit, will be triggered. Dopamine will be released instantly, and the craving becomes very, very intense. So we have neural pathways in our brain that are very strong and easily activated. So when we learn to see things as they are and we breathe, we avoid the situation, but when we see, immediately we just breathe. Come back, close our eyes, relax the body. May you be well, may you be safe, may you be free, and you remove yourself. If you just do a little bit of that every day,

• 54:11Speaker 01

  you build a new neural pathway, a new neural network. It's more mindful, it's more kind, more true to your aspiration. And if you water, you rehearse these mindful neural pathways more and more. They will become strong. And if you don't tread the old neural pathways of addiction, then they will also become less strong. Like a trail can become a freeway, you see? So addiction is now a freeway in us. But mindfulness trail can also become a mindfulness freeway, and it can override the addiction trail.

• 54:58Dan Harris?

  What I was gonna ask, and it really just builds on what you were saying right now, is about specific mindfulness practices we can do to help us follow this eightfold path, or the 12 steps, inclusive of the Four Noble Truths. In your talk on this, you mentioned things like mindful breathing, body scan meditation, loving kindness meditation. I don't think we have time to talk about all three, but maybe talk a little bit about, pick one of these practices and talk about how it can help.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Right there, we can do enough. I am enough meditation, okay? Do it as often as you can throughout the day. Wherever you are, when you're in a toilet stall, driving, or lying in bed, just scan through your body. I still have a head. My mind is still clear. I can still think. I can still be aware. I still have eyes. Hello, eyes. I'm grateful for you. Even if I have to wear glasses, I'm grateful for my glasses and for my eyes, you see? Do I have a body?

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Yes, I have a body, and I'm very grateful. I don't just have one arm, like in the Chinese character. I have two arms and 10 fingers. Yeah, I have two legs. I am enough. I'm more than enough. Because besides that, I have liver, heart, yeah? Spleen, all the internal organs that are there, still functional. Some may be sick, yeah? Some are not fully functional, but they're still there, doing their best. So, I am enough meditation, actually, I think can be very self-empowering for us.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  And it involves body scanning. And we practice mindful breathing as well. And I love the Chinese character for mindful breathing, for breathing also, because...

• 57:08Speaker 01

  The upper case is the character for tuk or for, which means from or itself. And the lower character is mind. The breath, Chinese character for breath, means the breath is from the mind or the breath is the mind itself. So mindful breathing is very scientific because you learn to see that your breathing pattern reflects your emotions, your state of mind. When you're angry, you breathe differently. When you're sad, when you're craving, when you're sick, you have all different breathing pattern that corresponds to your state of mind.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  So when you learn to be aware of your breath, you can be more aware of your mind. Suddenly, you feel you're like, you're breathing heavily, you're, you have short of breath or you're uncomfortable. Maybe there are certain social cues or contacts that are triggering, you're activating your craving. And you come back to your breath. You look down or close your eyes, you breathe, you can actually calm your mind. You can self-regulate. So that instead of being swept away by the craving, you come back and self-regulate, calm down your heart rate, your breathing rate, relax your body. And your mind becomes clear.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  Then you can walk away from the situation as soon as possible, you see? So mindful breathing helps. Body scanning, you can learn to be more aware of what's going on in your body and take care of it promptly. Because most of us, when we suffer from addiction or from depression or from anxiety, we are not aware, but the body shows everything about our situation. But the thoughts, the craving, can be so overwhelming that we are poor under. But if we can focus on the body, that's something more concrete, you see? If you feel you have shortness of breath, you can put your hands on your chest.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  You feel the rise and fall of your chest or the rise and fall of your abdomen. That's something you can concentrate on. And just take your mind away from that craving that is arising or that is very strong in your mind. Or you can hold your own hand or you can massage your feet, you know, your head. So being more in touch with the body will help remove you from those negative thoughts or thoughts of craving.

• 59:59Dan Harris?

  Another thing you talk about as being helpful in terms of dealing with our many, many addictions is self-compassion. Can you say a little bit more about that?

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  Yes, I have learned to be much kinder, more accepting and loving to myself. Growing up without parents, coming to the US, living with foster parents, and I suffer a lot of trauma in my life. Verbal abuse, physical abuse, and also sexual abuse. So I had this inner critic in me that always put me down, always thought the worst of myself. But as I learned to be more mindful of what I still have and to be grateful,

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  then now I can confidently say that I never say or think anything negative towards myself. If I do something not so well, I can acknowledge it. Oh, I can do better. I'm sorry, I thought that or I did that to somebody or even to myself. I'm sorry, I can do better. That's what I would say. But I would never say, "You're stupid. Why did you do that again?" You know, it's just hopeless. I never think like that about myself anymore. You see, I learned to say, "Thank you.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, and I love you throughout the day." That's self-compassion, my dear.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  And every little thing you do to help yourself in that moment, even to hug yourself, to massage your face, to go for a walk, to pray, please help me to heal. Please help me to live a life that I can be at peace with, that I can be proud of. You say that to yourself, the God in you, the Buddha in you. That's compassion right there.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  And all of that is right view and right thinking, my dear. Because I have practiced the past twenty-four years to heal myself. And you know what? The mother in me, who disappeared when I was only twelve, who verbally and physically

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  unkind to me when I was a child. She also heals in me. I can think of my mother now with so much gratitude and understanding that I didn't have before. I make peace with my mother, even though she passed away thirty-something years ago. So we can make peace with the ghosts in our life. They are in us and they haunt us. And that's why we do things that are destructive. Somebody hurt us and now we have become the perpetrators. We continue to hurt ourselves and our loved ones and many others out of pain. Hurt people, hurt people.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  When we are hurt, we hurt others. And if we see that interbeing, we don't judge ourselves harshly or each other so harshly. But we see all their causes and conditions and we do our best to help ourselves and each other heal from that. That's compassion, true compassion. And it all comes from again, from that deep understanding of interbeing. This is because that is. This is in that and that is in this. And this is not because that is not. You see? That is the mother of all Buddhist. Understanding inside wisdom. And it helps free us little by little.

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  It's the guiding light for us to have right thinking, right speech and right bodily actions.

• 1:04:13Dan Harris?

  That's beautiful. Let me ask you about one last practical technique for managing our addictions from a Buddhist perspective. And this is very much backed by evidence from modern psychological science as well. And that is the notion of social support. Can you talk about that a little bit, please?

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  Thank you for asking that. We very much believe in the collective energy. Social support, community, family. We need that because through the power of interbeing, the energy of interbeing. As a community, for example, we sit together. I've been a nun for more than 24 years. But when I sit with the community, that's how I learned to sit also. Actually, I never really practiced meditation before I became a nun. I sat next to my partner, but just to wait him, wait for him to finish his meditation session. And he was a meditator. Bless you, dear John.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  I'm grateful for his practice now that he passed away already. But his practice continues to be in me and I continue him, you see? But to be with the community, to sit with the community in mindfulness, to do walking meditation with the community, the energy is strong because we are all energy fields. You say you walk in a room and if you see somebody peaceful, that person doesn't have to say anything, but you also feel the peace in the room and in the person, and you feel more at ease. You walk into a room and you see somebody all red and all, you know, angry. Your nervous system registers that.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  You feel that person's anger in your own body. So we are all energy fields. We very much feel each other's emotions. And that is why each one of us, as we practice, we affect each other. We affect those around us, those who know us and those who don't even know us, who don't even talk to us, just the way we move, the way we sit, the way we talk. Can affect each other. I love that the 12 step program have all these meeting groups. And friends will go every week or even every day. I know friends who go to, you know, alcoholic anonymous groups every single day. For example, that gives us the support, feeling we are not alone.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  Because of the nature of interbeing, we're not ever alone. But when we suffer, we always think, the wrong view is that I'm all alone. I'm the only person who suffers this, but it's not true. Many, many people suffer very similar situation that we were going through. And also, it's important that that support group has practices so that we can uplift each other. We can look at the problem, but we also see the way out, you see? And that's important. And that brings to my writing, the four books that I've written. Now, I studied in college and I got a degree in creative writing.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  But as I looked at my writing before, it expressed the suffering more. There was some aspiration, some desires to transform, but I didn't know how. But as I became a nun, I see there are specific practices such as I'm enough meditation, body scanning, deep relaxation of the tension in my body with mindful breathing, moment to moment, not just once in a while, but I do that throughout the day. You see? So there's healing. So in my writing, now I address the suffering, but I always share about the way out of suffering.

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  As we practice and we see the way out and we do that moment to moment through our speech body, the actions, the behaviors and the thoughts, we regain the trust and confidence in ourselves. Because for those of us who succumb to a particular addiction or addictions, we feel helpless and we lose the trust that we We can take care of ourselves. That's the worst of all. I cannot be there for myself. That's why I have to escape, try to escape all the time. You see, I'm not worthless. I'm just an addict. Society condemns me and I condemn myself a hundred thousand times more frequently.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  So we lose that trust and confidence in ourselves. But as we practice mindful breathing, mindful walking, self-reflection, positive speech, loving speech, deep listening towards ourselves, we gain that self-confidence and trust. I can be there for myself. I can breathe through the waves of craving. I can relax my body. I can discern and see a situation and not enter it or walk away from it. I can speak up for myself. I can reach out for help. That is trust and confidence, very deep within.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  That's very empowering and it will help lead to other more positive behaviors.

• 1:09:45Dan Harris?

  Incredibly helpful, Sister Dee. You made reference to the fact that you've written four books. I do want to mention that you've got a new book of poetry that's out and we'll put some links in the show notes so that people can go check out your books if they're interested. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention before I let you go here?

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  About electronic addiction. So I learned that an average American spends ninety-one waking days a year on our smartphones. That's three months of our waking hours. Because after twelve years, think about it, we already sleep a third of it. So we have only eight months and we spend three months on our phones. So then we really have just five months to live. If you think it, are you really, out of that five waking months a year,

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  how much of that time are you aware, mindful? Are you fully there for your life?

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  If you say half of it, that's a lot of confidence. But actually, we're not mine for half of our time. So that's two and a half months, maximum. Out of twelve months a year. Two months, two and a half months at the maximum. So really, we don't live our life fully. And then, you know, we get lost in these addictions of negative thoughts, negative speech, negative behaviors. So, on the one hand, we are so afraid of death. We will grasp for life.

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  When we are diagnosed with an illness, when we are at deathbed, we will grasp for life. But really, we are losing life every moment. We don't live our life, so we don't know what it means to live and to die. We all constantly look for ways to escape and to distract ourselves, our mind. This dichotomy of afraid of living, but also being so afraid of death, causes us to really be in this limbo. It's very painful.

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  So for me, to be able to live a life of practice, a spiritual life, not religious. I'm not religious in any way. I hope through my sharing, you don't see that I'm religious. But I'm a very practical, pragmatic person. But I see that I'm in touch with my life. I learn to live moment to moment as fully as possible. I learn to heal and transform my addictions to suffering, to negativity, so that I can be kinder, more generous, and free in my own life and help others to do that. We all can do that in our own capacity.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  Ten percent happiness, definitely. When you practice as a practitioner, you know how to generate happiness. Anytime, just give a thought, I'm still here. Thank you. Thank you.

• 1:13:22Speaker 01

  Or you should say, "I'm sorry, I didn't know that." That is already a great happiness, when you can say, "I'm sorry." Instead of waiting for somebody to say, "I love you," and you don't believe it, because you don't love yourself, how can you believe somebody who can love you, right? Just say it, "Help me to love you, my dear. Help me to heal you, my dear wounded child. I'm here for you. I love you. You are precious. You are beautiful." Learn to do it, like you do yoga, like you play basketball. You do it a long, many times, you get good at it. Addiction, because you have rehearsed it so many times now, it's strong in you.

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  Now do it in a mindful way, in a beneficial way, in a loving, compassionate way, and you will also get good at it. And that 10% happiness is guaranteed, and it becomes a lot more than just 10%, okay? Every moment you are kind to yourself, encouraging to yourself, is a moment of happiness, and it's long-lasting and self-generating. That's what I really want to share with you, my dear ones. We are all together, okay? Your practice is for all of the rest of us, and I practice for you, and I love you, and I believe in you,

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  because I have learned to love myself and to believe in me, so I have that confidence in you. Just do it step by step, okay? One step at a time. Do the 12-step as diligently as you can, okay?

• 1:15:08Dan Harris?

  Thank you, Sister Dee.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  Thank you for listening to this program, and I hope the Buddhist 12-step can really help you. And learn more about our practice. We do have many talks online. We have three monasteries in the U.S. that you can find out about our Plum Village tradition, and friends come to our monasteries. Throughout the year, and you can stay, you can come on a Sunday, or you can come for the whole week. So you deserve this investment, my dear. You deserve healing and transformation, and you do need help. So there are many of us out there who are doing that, and so you don't have to do alone. Okay. Thank you.

• 1:15:55Dan Harris?

  Great job, Sister Dee. Thank you.

• 1:16:01Dan Harris?

  Thanks again to Sister Dee. As mentioned earlier, I dropped in the show notes a link to her first appearance on the show, which I highly recommend. Her story, her personal story is incredible. I also dropped a link in there to the episode I mentioned during my conversation with Sister Dee here about the prior episode I did with Dr. James Doty. By the way, Sister Dee is such an awesome guest. Not only did she agree to come back on the show, but she also made a special exclusive offering for subscribers over at danharris.com. It's available today over at danharris.com. And thanks to everybody who worked so hard to make this show a reality. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager.

• 1:16:45Dan Harris?

  Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

• 1:17:03Speaker 03

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