This episode is a mix of the technical, the practical, and the delightful. We’re talking about a meditation technique that can impact relationships, your biases, and how you handle things such as lying, sex, alcohol, and social media. The key word here is the ancient term "vedana." And it involves, literally, any feeling state we experience. Basically, everything that comes up in your mind has one of at least three feeling tones: pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. When you’re mindless, a pleasant...
Aug 19, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 275
The virus has exploited so many weaknesses of our culture. But having exposed the weaknesses, such as inequities and reckless individualism, could the current crisis lead to a fundamental shift for humankind? That may sound utopian, but our guest today believes it’s genuinely possible. Dr. Jonathan Salk is an adult and child psychiatrist at UCLA. He’s been thinking about the future of the species for about 40 years, starting when he co-authored a book called A New Reality with his father, Dr. Jo...
Aug 17, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 274
Today we have a master class in resilience. My guest is George Mumford, who has overcome some towering difficulties in his own life, including an addiction to drugs. He went on to become a legendary meditation teacher who has worked with athletes such as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. We talk about how we can all develop the skill of resilience through meditation. Just like the Buddha did, George loves to teach using lists. You’ll hear him discuss the Three C’s, the Four A’s, and the Five Super...
Aug 12, 2020•56 min•Ep. 273
This week on the show, we’re exploring the interrelated themes of grit and resilience -- both massively resonant and relevant issues in the era of Covid and BLM. Today, my guest is Angela Duckworth. She’s a psychologist who was deemed a “genius” by the MacArthur Foundation, and she is perhaps best known for popularizing the term “grit,” which she defines as “a combination of passion and perseverance for a singularly important goal.” She’s written a bestselling book called Grit: The Power of Pass...
Aug 10, 2020•55 min•Ep. 272
At a time when work has become more challenging than ever, we’re going to explore one myth and one revelation. The myth -- which many of us, myself included, have consciously or subconsciously incorporated into our lives — is that we need to grind ourselves into dust through faux “productivity” in order to achieve professional success. The revelation is that the more effective -- and cleaner burning -- fuel is that potentially sappy notion of finding your purpose. My guest is Leah Weiss, who has...
Aug 05, 2020•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 271
In this episode, we take a simple, useful, and down-to-earth stroll through one of the most confounding -- but liberating -- concepts in Buddhism. On the one hand, Buddhists tell us the self is an illusion: “You don’t exist!” On the other hand, they tell us, “Well actually, on some level, you do, of course, exist.” So which is it? The answer is: both. But this concept -- call it not-self, selflessness, egolessness, or emptiness -- doesn’t have to be some hopelessly esoteric riddle; it is actuall...
Aug 03, 2020•53 min•Ep. 270
Buddhists don’t tend to shy away from talking about body parts -- but usually it’s more along the lines of meditating on things like spittle, defecation (otherwise known as poop) and the inevitable decay of the body. So where do sex and sexuality fit into this mix? Bottom line: how can we use sex to wake up? In this episode, I talk with dharma practitioners Devon and Craig Hase. They’re not sexperts by any stretch, but as a married couple who recently emerged from a year of monastic vows (which ...
Jul 29, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 269
I don’t know about you guys, but my sleep has suffered quite badly during the last few months. Today’s guest really got me thinking about this issue in a whole new way. First, he normalizes the sleep problems many of us are having. If you’re sleeping poorly right now, he says, don’t freak out; it is natural and normal. Second, he has a bunch of tips for how to deal with insomnia, some of which I had never heard before and am already starting to operationalize in my own life. His name is Donn Pos...
Jul 27, 2020•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 268
How do you optimize your performance when life is utterly disrupted by a pandemic? Are optimism and confidence trainable skills? Can we get over our fear of other people’s opinions? These are some of the questions we tackle in this episode. We have two guests. Pete Carroll is our first interviewee who has a Superbowl ring. He’s been the coach of the Seattle Seahawks for ten seasons. He’s also the co-author and co-founder of Compete to Create, which is many things: a firm that works with companie...
Jul 22, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 267
At a time of multiple, mutually-reinforcing dumpster fires, meditation can seem counterintuitive. Instinctively, many of us might prefer to rush to the barricades, or Twitter, or the fetal position. But there is immense value in “doing nothing,” and we are going to explore that theme in this special episode. We’re bringing on two amazing meditation teachers, Jeff Warren and Sebene Selassie, to take your questions about the value of meditation in this difficult time. We discuss: how to work with ...
Jul 20, 2020•44 min•Ep. 266
In Buddhism/meditation circles, desire or wanting is often considered a no-no. But is this line of thinking sometimes taken too far — or simply misunderstood? Can we turn our desires — for food, sex, etcetera — into areas to apply our meditation practice? Today we’re going to explore that notion with Cara Lai. She is a mindfulness teacher, psychotherapist, and artist. She is also a coach on the Ten Percent Happier app. (Side note: shout-out to all the coaches on the app. The fact that we have th...
Jul 15, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 265
Today we’re going to nerd out about what enlightenment (or, if that word is triggering, let’s just call it “high doses of meditation”) can do to your brain — and, more practically, how we can derive these benefits even if we don’t plan to spend decades living in a cave. My guest is Rick Hanson, Ph.D., psychologist and author of the new book Neurodharma. We go into the deep end, yes, but we also get very down-to-earth, talking about how anyone, including you, can “reverse engineer enlightenment,”...
Jul 13, 2020•42 min•Ep. 264
"Mindfulness" has become a buzz phrase. There are books on mindful parenting, mindful lawyering, even mindful sex. But what does the word even mean? And how do you actually do it? In one of his most famous and foundational discourses, the Buddha was said to have laid out, in great detail, four ways to establish mindfulness. In today's episode we’re going to walk through these four "foundations" of mindfulness with Sally Armstrong, who started practicing in 1981, began teaching 15 years later, an...
Jul 08, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 263
It’s easy to think of racism as a virus that lives in your head. But my guest today makes a compelling case that it also lives, in very profound and often unseen ways, in your body. Resmaa Menakem is a therapist and trauma specialist based in Minneapolis. He’s also the author of an excellent book called My Grandmother’s Hands, which people in my life have been recommending to me for years. Resmaa’s work is all about healing our bodies -- and, by extension, our nation -- from racialized trauma. A...
Jul 06, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 262
Faith is a loaded word in some circles, but in this episode, Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel makes her case for it - in ways that might surprise you. We also discuss: what she means by the phrase "being realistic," the power of exploring open questions, and how sitting like a log is the new activism. She's been practicing for 35 years in the Tibetan tradition. She is the retreat master of Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado and has spent over six years in silent retreat. She’s the author of The Power of ...
Jul 01, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 261
In this episode, at this fraught moment in history, we're bringing on a leading scientist to help us tackle one of the most pernicious misconceptions that humans have ever fostered. The very roots of the word "happiness" reflect our assumption that happiness is something that happens to us, rather than something we can cultivate. "Hap" is the same root of words such "hapless," or "haphazard." It implies luck. But again, happiness is a skill that we can cultivate. Emiliana Simon-Thomas helps peop...
Jun 29, 2020•58 min•Ep. 260
What can you, as an individual, do to help break the cycles of rage, pain, fear, and violence that continue to grip America - and many other parts of the world - relating to the issue of race? Even though our guest this week was shot at by white police officers at the age of 11, and later had his house firebombed by racists, he is hopeful that now is a moment of true potential- an opportunity to transform what he calls "America’s racial karma," and, by extension, ourselves. Dr. Larry Ward is a l...
Jun 24, 2020•53 min•Ep. 259
Do you find yourself overeating during this stressful time? Maybe drinking or smoking more than you would like? What about shopping or gambling? And how's your relationship to your phone these days? Our guest this episode, Dr. Judson Brewer, is an addiction psychiatrist - with a special interest in how mindfulness can help. He says we all sit somewhere on the spectrum of addiction. And when you add stress into the system- in this time of pandemic, recession and racial strife- many of us move the...
Jun 22, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 258
I had always known Harriet Tubman as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, repeatedly risking her own life to lead slaves out of the South. But in this episode, my friend, the great meditation teacher Spring Washam, draws the link between Tubman and the Buddha, who also made it his business to lead people to freedom. Spring is teaching a new, five-week, online course called The Dharma of Harriet Tubman, through the East Bay Meditation Center. In the course, and in this interview, she uses sto...
Jun 17, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 257
In this episode, we go there. All the way there. All those horrifying little thoughts that white people might have - eg: Have you ever felt superior to, or suspicious of, black people? - let's drag them out of the subconscious and look at them. We don't need to submerge them or swat them away. But here's the thing: can we do it with some semblance of mindfulness and even friendliness? This isn't an exercise in ritual shaming; guilt and shame are just self-centeredness cul-de-sacs. After all, we ...
Jun 15, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 256
We have spent the past few episodes talking with black and white Americans about race. But for this episode I wanted to get the view from outside. So I called up a man on the other side of the planet who is widely recognized to be one of the world's greatest living meditation masters. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is the author of such books as The Joy of Living and In Love with the World. He’s only in his mid-forties - which is young by my standards - but as the child of another great meditation mast...
Jun 10, 2020•52 min•Ep. 255
Many, if not most, white people don't think of themselves as racialized. Race, we might tell ourselves, is an issue for people who have different skin colors than ours: black people, Hispanic people, Asian people, indigenous people, etcetera. But, of course, white is a racial category. (Important side note: race, for the record, is not a biological thing; it's socially constructed.) Sadly, the white people who seem to have most clearly grasped that white is a race are white nationalists. But now...
Jun 08, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 254
Many of us come to meditation for comfort. But, especially for white people, right now is a time to embrace our discomfort. Lama Rod Owens encourages me to step way out of my comfort zone in this conversation, and I am grateful to him for it. Owens is the author of the soon-to-be-released book, Love and Rage. As it says in the bio on his website, his story sits at the "cross sections" of so many aspects of American life "as a Black, queer male, born and raised in the South." He was officially re...
Jun 03, 2020•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 253
There is fury in America's streets - and we, as meditators, have the opportunity to use our practice to do the hard work of seeing things clearly (including the ugliness in our own minds), and responding wisely. I'm incredibly grateful to my guest, meditation teacher Sebene Selassie, for agreeing to come on this show on short notice (like, two hours beforehand) to discuss such a painful subject. This episode is in response to the protests that have broken out nationwide in the wake of the case o...
Jun 01, 2020•59 min•Ep. 252
How do we handle pandemic-induced anxiety or grief? What does a spiritual guru do to relax while on lockdown? We put those questions - and more - to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The man needs little introduction. He's the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, and a global cultural icon who has been featured in an Apple ad, a Martin Scorsese biopic, and in a classic Bill Murray scene from Caddyshack. We spoke to His Holiness from his home in Dharamsala, India. Also on the line: Richard Davidson...
May 27, 2020•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 251
Pema Chodron has seemingly been trying to prepare us for this pandemic for years, through a series of popular books, with titles such as When Things Fall Apart, Welcoming the Unwelcome, and The Wisdom of No Escape. But as you will hear, she is anything but gloomy. Like all of the great meditation teachers I've met, she has a lightness and a sense of humor about her. Notwithstanding her chipper demeanor, she has worked hard to point out to her readers and students that groundlessness and uncertai...
May 25, 2020•46 min•Ep. 250
Roshi Joan Halifax is definitely not arguing the pandemic is a good thing, but she also believes we shouldn't let this crisis go to waste. It's a wake-up call, she says - a chance for us to really take a beat and ask ourselves what actually matters, both individually and as a culture. Roshi Joan Halifax is a buddhist teacher, zen priest, anthropologist, and pioneer in the field of end-of-life care. She is founder, abbot, and head teacher of Upaya Institute and Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico....
May 20, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 249
Rest assured, this is not an episode where we're going to argue about politics. Instead, it's about how to maintain our happiness, calm, sanity, generosity, and compassion in the face of an increasingly ugly political dynamic that impacts all of us during this pandemic. Ezra Klein is the founder and editor-at-large of Vox.com, host of the Ezra Klein Show podcast, and author of the new book, Why We're Polarized. In this episode, we talk about the roots of what he calls the "Coronavirus culture wa...
May 18, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 248
Why are so many of us having such weird dreams these days? How do we successfully interact with family members while on lockdown? Are we all experiencing some sort of trauma? These are just some of the questions with which we grapple during this discussion with Dr. Mark Epstein. It is no exaggeration to say that Mark has played a pivotal role in my life. My then-fiancé (and now wife), Bianca, gave me one of Mark's books (called Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart) back in 2009, and it genuinel...
May 13, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 247
This pandemic is a colossal test of our patience - from dealing with family to interminably long wait times on calls with the unemployment office to just wanting this whole nightmare to evaporate so we can go back to the movies. We've got a special, two-part episode this week. In the first part, we bring on a pair of researchers who study patience. The good news: they have found that patience is a quality we can train and develop through meditation and other strategies, including cognitive reapp...
May 11, 2020•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 246
