As you know, we're in the middle of a big series on work here on the pod cast, which was a good time to point out that, even if you love your job, you will experience stress. However, stress does not necessarily have to be a bad thing can actually be something you harness to your own advantage to help you navigate stress this fall. We ve taken one of our most popular courses from the ten percent happier a course called stress better and we turn it into a meditation challenge. You will learn from a renowned stress researcher at columbia, university, professor majuba economic, and the amazing meditation teacher, seven selassie, but teach you how to use stress to your advantage. It's a seven day, stress better challenge and kicks on Monday September eleventh, and you can join over on the ten percent happier app right now. Every day, you'll get a short video, followed by a free, guided meditation to help you establish or reestablish your meditation habit to join the stress, better challenge, just download the ten percent happier app wherever you get

apps or by visiting ten percent dot com. That's all one word spelled out if you already have the option to open it up and follow the instructions to join if you're, not, already a ten percent happier subscriber you can join us by starting a free trial that will give you access to the challenge, along with everything else, on the app

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Every new potential higher can feel like a high stakes wager for your small business. You wanna be one hundred percent certain that you have access to the best qualified candidates available. That's why you have check out linkedin jobs. Linkedin jobs helps find the right people for your team faster and for free post, your job for free at link, and dot com slash acquire that's linked and dot com. Slash acquired opposed your job for free terms, conditions apply for maybe see. This is the ten percent happier podcast dan harris. Hello, hello. I recently at a rather challenging personal conversation with my friend and teacher seventy selassie she's, great meditation teacher of truth. miller with her she'd been on the show many times she's all over the temper. Some happier app really nervous salad met going into this conversation, because I care about this relationship a lot, and I didn't want us

to get notified. I didn't want to blow it in the end, though I was incredibly impressed with and deeply relieved by how sab handled the conversation, it's amazing to watch somebody he respected the teacher sir handle life's ups and downs in real time, and I was quite moved so, a few weeks later after that conversation where she booked said to come onto the show to talk about what I thought was a you know, an unrelated subject of hope and, to my surprise, she thought. Maybe we should publicly discuss that private conversation, because she argued- and I actually came to really agree- that the fact that the two of us who come from really different backgrounds could work out a potential conflict so amicably

that is truly cause for hope. We are, as you may know, in the middle of a two week series on the subject of hope, a concept we are trying to rescue from the realm of wrote, cliche and empty bromide. Our belief is that hope, when properly understood and practised, is not baseless optimism, more naivete. It is actually a powerful skill if you miss part one of the series which we post just a few days ago, on monday, with george mumford, I reckon And you go check it out. George is a former adding two went on to become a renowned meditation teacher. He worked with legendary athletes, did Michael Jordan and the late kobe bryant, like George seven, eight, has earned her capacity for hope. The hard way she has survived multiple rounds of advance, cancer she's. Also the author of an excellent book called EU belong and she is, as I mentioned earlier, one of the most popular teachers on the ten percent happier app add as part of the work. We are doing to train people

Skill of hope, right now said, has recorded some brand new meditations for the ep. If you're a subscriber just go to the singles tab inside the ep, to check out as meditations you'll also find a variety of other new meditations and talks, all of which revolve around the theme of hope. As a skill in this interview, sab talks about hope as it relates to buddhist concepts such as karma impermanence, any the eightfold path what it means to not be in contention with reality. The difference between life Can it be and letting go she explorers? What hope means in the context of the climate crisis, and as mentioned, we talk about that private conversation that she and I recently had it- was challenging and hope producing for both of us. Ok, what's diving now with seven selassie separate great to see you think we're gonna need

to see you down thanks for having me back every time we were taught him before. We start a role in here about hope, and you made a distinction. I think spree useful between hope and a big grand global sands and hope in a real local, individual sense, If I get you to just talk about that, a little bit that distinction here, I think when this idea affair and the serious first came up, I was thinking of hope to counter kind of that spare or the doomsday thinking that we can sometimes get into with all that is happening in our world and all that were made aware of witches. It's really intense and it's good to cultivate hope in the face of that kind of we're all had into our eminent destruction, sort of message saying that we might receive, but I was thinking about you know also the hope that I called debate just in my capacity

and how much that really buoys me anne and helps not only faced that bigger sense of hope. the face of all that is hard and difficult out their according quote, but also just the challenges of my day to day life and seeing that I can meet things that are difficult or uncommon. ball with Our ease with more ability- and I was saying before we started that you and I had an exchange recently that. They gave me a lot of hope and faith in relationship and intimacy, and it was not comfortable who is really really challenge and I have no great gratitude. You fair and of bringing it out because it was was really. You can appointing something out to me that no was not skilful rank being unkind, not seeing specks of how I was behaving. That was harming you and it was very

humbling and I felt, like my practice, really showed up make, is able to hear you and really open my heart and could I do of personnel meditation out loud of what I was experiencing in the moment, and we went to some really vulnerable places. I felt an am honest things. We've never sat in our friendship or relationship, and it was came out of it, like really hopeful- and I didn't think of it with in that term, like in terms of hope at the time reflecting back on it now. There was something very hopeful about it, hopeful that. when the rubber hits the road your practice can show up and you can handle whatever life throws out you with some ease and skip. Yes, that's one part of that hope and really hope, in the possibility of growing in it Lemme see with someone else

evading real friendship, which is said but his amidst the whole of holy life. You know that spiritual friendship is how we get through this, like actually how we're going to wake up and it was such living example of that was also hope and to people who are coming radically different and a lot of ways like born on different sites, if the planet grew up in really different circumstances and you're. Some of distance showed up in that difficulty in our relationship had to do with race ass, gender and new. Being in my like a rich white guy who's successful. You know, kind of dismissing some of your feeling and humanity in that process. and so I just also hope in building bridges

is and creating real sense of community too. So we could talk about the need to do said. You're comfortable can talk about this conversation and secondly, it sounds like this discussion that we keep Talking about not actually saying the details of ea checked both boxes, the big hope in a little yeah in a way it did yeah. I'm curious to hear you know how it was for you, but really I was sort of situating you as someone who I could characterize in a particular way. You know I wrote something about you that was simply funny, but it wasn't and it was kind of making fun of your social location, let's say, and where you're coming from and Canada. saying that you don't you might you might not have the shape that and you had feelings about it and and again, like big credit to you, for

dressing that head on with me and also like making space fur. We had to really make the space This wasn't like passing conversation. We set a date. We both clear calendar. We had time we really settled into like really exploring this. I have so much to say about this, try to show a little restraint How much do you want to say? Yes, a little bit already by way of background. I don't want to or did all out in a way that would make you uncomfortable so so how much you can do say what everyone totally and completely finds it so first thing say as at a high level, as I was just so impressed with you, it had made me laugh you even more to watch you. You know I came to you with a really difficult issue and

I didn't know I was gonna to go and I was so impressed with what I saw from you. So, rather than being a big tease about it. Let me just tell everybody what exactly happened here really was. It was kind of a small deal when people here the details of this, so I don't want to overplay. It. Wasn't some major rupture A major issue was more, like was, for me, at least you really through into stark relief. How important relationship is to me. So so there were a couple of at the most It was that I got an email from you was very thoughtful email. You don't look, I posted something! surrounded by the term wool, and your view is that that term could be quite dismissive, Actually I don't want to. I want to go to deep into what you said there. Maybe you could take over for just a second and then I'll pick up on the back end. But can you tell us a lot? but about what you were saying online about the term whew. This kind of saying it's not always

used in this way. But I've used it in this way, and I I know others have, there is a big response to it that we can use it to connect the distance ourselves from something that is not kind of scientific verifiable. It feels like a little out there, but that often those things, those practices believes come from indigenous wisdom from cleaners of color, and so there can be this taint of colonialism and a like colonized mind kind of thinking when we use that term, because we're kind of distancing ourselves from something that is not accepted by a dominant culture yeah. Actually that better point I really really with, and I think that on occasion I've been on the wrong side of street. Here I don't know that I actually used the term wu WU that much these days are ever. I am not sure that I've ever use them that much, but still and sam not really backing away from my personal desire for evidence, but I think

writing things off. Reflexively is something that I have a history with, and I I don't think that's a good thing as a europe, your and if you, the one you expressed on line, is something that I am sympathetic, but as a user. Is it an email say. Look I posted this thing and then there were a whole series of comments that followed on from that thing in some of the comments were quite pointed about you, dan and in the thread on instagram and and you you actually, a screen shot of somebody who sits in pretty so really harsh things about me an end, You showed me your response to that commenter and was very thoughtful response to what the person was saying and I remember reading in and I was first thing in the morning I open up my email I was reading through and when I the harsh words from the commenter. I of course went to a very defensive place because that's a very well developed muscle and in my

mind being defensive, and then, when I look at what you wrote it was it was that I was angry. It was was more like. I got a little sad and I think, scared, because in your response to the person who say something really he's quite harsh above you didn't in any way acknowledge like hey I know dad he's my friend and he's not a monster, and that's where I went with it in my mind at least, and then of course, I also went to this debate the place of thinking well, I don't even use the term wu WU that much, but my deeper response was that I was scared that somehow, that you're, not in any way sticking out for me might represent some. You know deep feeling on your end that you know you are unsure about me on some level, an end this important add because there's some context year. I mention this Here there are actually a few events. There was the email

we're talking about right now, but before that there were a few other things that you had written about me. That got me a little bit concerned of just wanted. One example is that in in your book, which is called, you belong and just a side note here to plug it. Everybody should read. You belong because it's an amazing book, but in in the in that book there is a quick reference to a little debate that you and I had had over the the white supremacy- and I remember the two of us were at launching we're talking about the word wiped super Z in- and you know, mention in the book that I had said that I was worried. you're using it, and then you made a kind of a tart comment about the fact that that I'm white and I kind of roma, with a conversation differently. Wasn't that I have a problem with the term white supremacy, but that I was just a little worried that some of the people who you most want to reach might yet triggered by

the term, so I remember my point being a little bit more nuanced than you represented it as and I haven't said anything tooth time, but it was on my mind when I read your email where you, where I felt that when this process adverse things about me. You didn't really defend me in any way and then and then just one last thing here that before that thing about me in your book, you actually wrote a book proposal. book ii years ago that you are sending out to publishers and you sent the book proposal for me to take a look at. Inside that proposal. There was at least one really pointed criticism of my work, which I I hadn't expected to see in there and for the record, I actually, the criticism had to do with some of the way that I kind of kind of reflexively reject some of the traditional ways in which buddhism is presented and, and your thought was that there might be some sort of implicit sexism in that

That is actually the point I really agree with. I was just surprised to see it there, and yet it wasn't something you had mentioned to me personally. So I guess I don't wanna answer is maybe going to make me sound like over defensive it. Wasn't it using anything in any of these places that I deeply disagreed with. It was more just I wondered You know the mind is a is a great story, telling machine, and I just added all of these events together and started to get paranoid. That may be said doesn't like me, which really scared me, because I really like you and I kind of soft fruit with it for a little bit and try to figure out what what if anything I was gonna do and I've. I've mentioned that

these guys on the pike s before I have these communications coaches, that I've been working with four by three years now and they really help me when I have difficult conversations coming up their buddhists folks, they kind of meld buddhism with communication skills. Their names are mood, data, mister damn clergyman- and I mentioned to them that I was sad about what happened, and I wanted to talk to you about it, and I wanted to not screw up that conversation, so we actually planned it out and and role played, which is what they too, because I saw word, I was there, and I was really it was really helpful. To talk to them is clarified what I wanted to communicate and with what became clear to me that, unlike so many times when I have a beef with somebody, and I go into the conversation you know wanting to get a pound of flesh that in this case I really wasn't and I was angry- is more that I was scared. I wanted to make sure that our relationship was ok, wherever the day we have to the phone call? We had like set a time on a weekend afternoon

really nervous and I cannot opened up with mine little slightly memorized opening message and your response was amazing. You displayed all of the skills that dan and would deter, teach without actually being a student of theirs. You did everything that they teach me to do, which is to, reflect back to somebody what they have said in your own words. to use your language to demonstrate that you understand what I had said and then you can have reported back to me real time what your feelings were. You talked about how you were obviously, and you felt badly. My heart was beating really, oh, yes, and there anyway, I've been thinking about this a lot and an assent. I've been talking Not right now sit bought, one is pause for a second and let you know, in and see if there are any holes that you want to fill to bring it back to her brain like were kind of pointing to the fact that its skill- and it's not like we're building the skill of hope

like that's a particular capacity that we have to build on its own we really building the cup ass city to be with our experience, and that means that we have had to practice right we're not bringing like all our bad patterns and habits into experience, we're really practising with ok. What happening right now. Can I see it clearly? Can I meet of kindness and care, like the very basic the mindfulness right and so other than could have go ricochet into defensiveness, which is definitely something that I lived with four years and had to unlearned the hard way and this kind of defended heart energy, where we're so afraid that we're gonna get hurt again as we have been over and over since we are little kids that we don't actually want to open to what's right in front of us and so. For me, this on a personal level is what we have to bring on, can have a collective level. Rain is to act

stay calm, to stay clear, so that we can have the rest on that is open, hearted, but grounded in our strength and power so that we can rest and accordingly, to what what's needed in the moment and I can say. You know there are many times or I do not respond that way in the past and those skills your communications? Teachers are teaching. You are really the skills of this practice like that, the skills of being a. to meet each moment in this way, with clarity with kindness, with wisdom with compassion, the dogs of bush worker working, I I really really with you about the two levels of hope and how this into action. Really, I wouldn't have thought of it. This way, till you

framed it. This way that it really does check by those boxes have made me feel like I can successfully communicate. Well, lot is on the line. Is that means a lot to me. I can communicate it away that doesnt destroy everything. I felt somewhat We hope in my ability to conduct myself well and then ice in watching you. I felt a greater hope and faith and trust, and just humanity like people who are very different, can talk to one another and use difficulty to get even closer. Yes, and that's it, the key that these are hardships and challenges I personally and collectively, and their opportunities rain too, one thing that I talked about in preparation. For this with many producers was, this idea of hope is really about trust.

not being in contention with reality like not resisting things how they are, and so much of that defended heart of what's happening in the world outside us or what's happening in our personal relationships. Is that fear of like this is too much well. This is really intense. How can I open up to all of this there's so much suffering, there's so much history there? So, yes, it's true, and we have to kind of give ourselves time to process that and digested and composting. We need time to understand things why Things are the way they are can be helpful to kind of have perspective and certain knowledge base, but is also an opportunity to not being contention with that to sail These are the causes and conditions that led to this moment. That's why things are the way they are. I don't need to think it's like a mist somehow heard, like you know, there's a certain energy we bring to it like it shouldn't be like this. Well, it is like this

that's where we find ourselves in this moment. How do we need it if our energy is like drained by like no, why can't believe like this. Why is it like this? I can't I can't stand it it's too much like it's a natural response when the first time are waking up, two particular issues or a particular situation or challenge, and this practice helps us ground, and compost and morn and understand so that then we actually meet at with again clarity and kindness. I love composting is, as a metaphor, her it's great. so how do we need it? As a teacher? What's your advice to people who you heard this story and the two of us talking and may be able to interpret it back in lives of small or large issues, global or local issues, personal or political issues where they haven't been

what kind of look to just open up into whatever discovered their facing? How do we do this? Obviously, we're gonna talk about practice because, We do here and so there's a certain level of commitment you have to make to cultivating this practice. this practice being the capacity to see what's happening and too our ourselves well and so to be able to see early. What our defences are, what our habits are, what our patterns are in some of those are deep. There really stuck and meditation might not make them all magically go away likely, not they didn't for me so it might also, if we're dealing with it in our personal lives. This like despair, that we're never gonna get out of these cycles with our family. birds or you know our friends or in our love relationship, so met work. We might need to

start looking out. Ok, what's my contribution to this amendment but to have hope if I can't start to shift my real dimity, irma activation, irma triggers rain, so that work is just on the coast as we say, to start jane like what comes up for us? What are habituated thought patterns like how is manifesting in the body and know how We come to some level or measure of beef, one thing there's no kind of balance we ever reach by really is like reckon I can. What throw us, often white techniques and methods and modalities help that it so might include me out there. B or a trauma, work or somatic work, said is really like unclear them micro level. For us, I've been real considering that, since these past four years ago,

constant barrage of what are called the bad news. I think we should labour news. Just bad news is, it is an expression in news Don't report on the plane lands safely? Yeah thou be amazing, like every plain that landed safely got like a headline you know, so there has to we also a discipline in what we do. in how we take things and so that we know we're staying informed, but we also know that it's our own compulsion. And our own incapacity to create boundary, that- is throwing us off balance and causing us lose that sense of hope for trust, present and in the future, really would you ever? a point of view on what kind of practice best equips

a person to be able to do what you're describing here, which is, you know, to generate hope in your own capacity to just be as cool as possible, with whatever happens in your life, in terms of the global new situation or in your own, you know back yard, with your immediate circle is hidden depositor, michaelmas practice where you sit and watch your breath and then whatever comes up, you make a note of it and go back to the breath or is it you know loving kindness where you know deliberately training be muscle of warps and care. Yes, that's what I thought: that's what I've we felt its yes, yes, it's both of those and, I would add, I'm a big proponent of integrating what I would call integrating study in practice. So wisdom is the fruition of this practice,

It is a perfection of wisdom. It said is the expression of compassion and when we to a clear under standing of the nature of reality to get like mystical and deep yeah. We will see things so clearly that will be able to have the appropriate response to everything. So that's it well maybe out there for people, but you know we need a little bit of wisdom to even get on the path like. We need a little bit of wisdom to start practicing. Your people come to practice. Could there like this? It is not working for me anymore right. if something else so people come because their suffering and they're. Looking for something different that takes wisdom, went that takes an understanding. There's gotta be a better way and combined with our practice are what we call insights. That's why this tradition is called insight. Is these? aha moments and you're so great.

and articulating man bringing people on to kind of disgust that like what is it that we are learning and then how to We can agree, incorporate that back into the practice and The they're, gonna key starting points and the path and in wisdom is right, understanding, wise understanding, like understanding that things the way they are under them umbrella teaching is basically everything like all the book teach things are in that concept. So we start. To understand, like oh yeah, things are in permanent. You know things arising us away, I'm not gonna be in panic for ever make sometimes we get panicked and we think this is never gonna stop I got this anxiety or this sadness, sir, this feeling of loneliness, but it's gonna pass just like everything else passes, including the so called in moments, rain and all in that wise understanding, is the teaching of what's called karma, which is really just a word that meets literally action and its

naming, causes and conditions right. There are countless causes and conditions that got us to this moment. So if you take something as like, seemingly hopeless the climate crisis, theirs reason why we are in this moment of clay, at calamity and all of these changes that are ding communities and really intense ways and seemingly no end to this destruction of the planet. Well, yeah that We really overwhelming and feel like. Why did happen you have, this should be the way it is. What is the way it is because we ve been doing these things that have led to this imbalance in nature, and so there, we can meet rather than again being tension with it are resisting it, but actually having, then the next step response. So for me, yes, the practice,

it's important, my training and meditation and training, and both mindfulness and loving kindness. So clearly but also meeting things with care and kindness. But it's also you know, really understanding the nature of things the nature of reality and actually using our practice to start understand that on a personal level and then applying that more deeply to everything does not make sense. Yeah. I think you're saying that acceptance as a first step, you're, not talking about a sort of quietude. Or passivity it seeing things as they are and then making wise decisions about how to help yeah and seeing things as they are is really seeing things. Clearly. You know, I I have told you about this retreat center, that I teach at out in new mexico and been going there for number of years now, and it's a wilderness retreat center. So it's really isolate up in the mountains. It's really beautiful can a wild nature and I went for a cup

of years in a row and it was really lush. high up even those in new mexico. It's the mountain sides forested, so there trees and wild flowers and grass, and then one year I went and they didn't get alot of snow that year they didn't get a lot of rain and it was true. I am I this feeling of like home hi. This is gonna be, destroy the eager for fire comes through your everything's gonna, be cod and just real like went into china, doomsday place and practiced with bad and just started to like appreciate, the cycles in nature. The next year went back like totally back to like lead, sean green and soften flower, everywhere. More than I ve ever seen. Actually and oh right, there's always change happen. Like when I fixed aid on it being one way and that that's what it is and there is no way out like I'm, actually not in tune with just the

nature of nature that things are always changing and things have always and changing, and what we pay attention to starts to help us really understand that, with a climate crisis, which you know you and I have talked about offline quite a bit, I do find myself shutting down. It's like just too big to computer too depressing to contemplate that I have. I have a hard time. You know like dedicating bandwidth, It does not sound familiar to you. Yes, I'm familiar as in. I have experienced it and familiar as in that something that, I think, is our real work. So I'm super interest stood this? As you know, on it's kind of where I am putting a lot of my attention personally and as a teacher and really cultivated, in our capacity to saw that out right what you're, too,

guy bang as current numbing or that's a similar funded heart energy that we might bring into our relationships is just to our relationship to nature and for me actually there's a part of my practice that tended to be very personal, and cut him solve cystic to vienna has for a long time, and maybe that was necessary to like start working those patterns of defensiveness and all these things that I couldn't see unless they really looked deep within and did a lot of therapy and that's important and then there's a part of my practice. It's really like human centric, so working in personal relations, absent my marriage or friendships, my community. yes and working on sangamo, she had seen on doing a lot of work around race and identity as you know, and gender to curb, cultivate better relationships amongst humans

Now I'm really looking at like what is my relationship to the natural world and to all nature, How does that also play a part in my trust in faith and softening that defended heart do recommend, as a teacher is meditation teacher keynote people like me, you have a hard time holding in mind with some balance, the magnitude of the- and I say this Somebody who's, your I travelled all over the world covering the climate gray had been in the amazon, met several times: I've, australia, upon the guinea oliver asia, africa- india, Oliver, this country, and so my job in many ways to report on this, but I find that it sometimes read a story about a real, as I haven't thought about this in weeks, because something is stopping mind from going there regularly cause it's just too painful or scarier

depressing or whatever? So what are the potential moves that we can make to be able to engage with it more consistently without vernon out. For me, it's the same process of start. within and realising what barriers I have within myself to this relationship to nature, just like I might have a barrier to our relationship to my fragile parts or to opening up to issues that people present to me. I'm a big proponents the mindfulness of elements practice which ten percent was brave enough to. Let me recall a few years ago, and I think a lot of people in the company thought of his oil out there, but it's a classical practice. It's there first foundation of mindfulness, it's right there with mindfulness of breathing and it's a really powerful practice because it starts to help us design those barriers and recognising are using these for claims.

Force for are experience, earth water? air and air. We start to realise that there is action. no separation between us and what we called everything else sylph. Can it really feeling, into that and using that as a jumping off Why, too, have relationships with things? Besides, you know our own thoughts and upset trains and our relationship with other people, which is usually about our own thoughts and obsessions cause? It's usually just projections rain and start to have relationships with animals. And now you have many I'd say you know that's starting place with plants and even if we're in the city in the world, rounded by nature, not to mention that the elements practice starts connecting us too, everything is nature. So fire in my stove top is also the element of fire, not just the sun rain or the water In my shower is also the water element, not just the and oceans? So we start to call

they like a really moment to moment capacity for work, does. It mean to be in relationship with nature, and that includes, like our surroundings. I know I gave you a book about trees to books to books about you, and you know, starting to like have a relationship to the natural world is, I think it doesn't make the climate crisis disappear, but it's done its tat, make it less just an abstract concept and surely a lived experience that we have also right relationship and responsibility in may from there. You know we might start making different choices. We make an active. There are all sorts of ways to get involved, but we can't sort of jumped the step into the collective or the global without having certain looked at this in ourselves. Ok, we're gonna, take a quick break,

first, though, if you are enjoying hearing from seven ay and want to try her meditations in the ten percent happier app but you're, not yet us driver, maybe now's the time in addition to getting immediate access to. Seventeen meditations in the hope, is a skill topic that we just put up on the up. There are tons of resources for starting rebuilding or going deeper into your personal meditation practice, just download the ten percent happier out today for free wherever you get your apps, ok, we'll take a quick break, as I said, will be right back with much more from seventeen selassie yeah I've heard about master class for years, but I'd, never actually checked it out, which is now making me feel a little bit stupid. The good news is the folks at master class are now

during this show, and they gave me a subscription- and as I look at this as I realise that this is a great place to feel a lot less stupid. The lineup on this is incredible. The people there recruited to teach it just kind of blows. My mind: they've got aaron sorkin on in writing- gordon ramsay, I'm cooking, also thomas Keller, they ve got anna win, tore on creativity jon kabat Zinn on mindfulness and meditation, which is probably interesting and attractive people who listened to the show? No, I'm chomsky on independent thinking, staff, curry, basketball. I could go on. I can't believe I've been sleeping on this app. As I look many of these videos there so well produced so informative and really really type so that you're not wasting a minute. You're just get these learning and a very attractive and interesting and entertaining way with master class. You can learn from the best to become or best anytime anywhere and at your own pace, annual membership started

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in one of the books you gave me it was just I've mentioned before on the show, but just didn't one of the best novels I've ever read, and I had never even heard of it before it showed up in my mailbox from you, the overstory by richard powers dr eliciting come on the show and it's a sensible novel about trees. But it's about humans in their relationship to the natural world and its extremely plotting unbelief. Really well written, actually capable of producing, in my opinion, the same sort of awe that one can feel looking at nature and feeling small. I thought I could feel reading the quality of this person's writing, like, I can't believe, a human being is capable of conjuring this kind of beauty. On page one sentence that comes to mind that I think

that a lot now that I've moved out of the city to be in nature more and there are no individuals in a forest and that just comes to mind as I'm just walking around this sort of exurban neighborhood, where my family and I now live in, and it does go back to a point you made earlier, which is as we're trying to boost our own capacity I believe you said earlier to like handle whatever happens in our lives, which kept in that capacity can become a source of hope practices. important but sort of overlaying it with study to they serve your working several parts of the mind at once like I can engage the prefrontal cortex, the reading books or articles that sub sends me, but I can also do the elements the switch, is speaking to a sort of maybe a different, deeper part of the mind are the brain or time it just came increase once capacity to like be able to handle stuff Yes, that's right! Yes, definitely- and you know, there's something

really important about relationship here again coming back to where we started that it's not kind of isolation there such a myth of individualism and doing this on our own, but its listening to part ass and talking about this with friends and loring the work of others that is so so central to cultivating that hope, and I think, would be very hard to cultivate hope in isolation. Unless you were, you know, in writing. De waken being already, I feel like it. I would be remiss if I let you get away with out saying more about the elements practice because you touch on nicely, but I for people whose curiosity may be pete. Obviously we can send them to the app if their subscribers to get those meditations boots were here now. This is a bank and buddhist practice I'll shut up again

pick it up from their just to say more about how we can actually do this thing tat when we talk about in a mindfulness we're talking about the teachings that are in what is called the subtle catana suitor, sir, a teacher hang on, what's translated as the foundations of mindfulness, and it said that there are four of them and the first his body and it moves on to working with the mind and emotions and sensations and our response to them and other things, but this for category a body is actually the biggest category and it's why we spend a lot of time there's because we really need to be able to be in our experience and yanked around by our thoughts before can really cultivate, true, mindfulness and its seeing that the elements are one of these foundations of body like mindfulness of body, and it's it's a really simple instruction to be aware of these facts, or elements in the body in your experience, so you're aware of earth. I really

is the model that's taught by venerable, because now yo, who sir translator and teacher eyes german turban monk, and he really instructs fer you to feel earth. As flesh and bone and fat and must also like the density and solidity of the body and You know dan. The instructions in the saute, a sitter for mindfulness, are to be aware, internally to be aware, externally or to be aware, bow internally and externally, and that's like a key part of the teaching that we don't often get taught that yes, we're experience these things within ourselves who are also relating to the rest of us, because this ultimately, a teaching in interconnection rain and with the elements it's really power, well because we consent the solidity of the body, but then we can so sort of reflect on the solid, did he all around us, like the earth underneath ass, the chair?

sitting on this desk the computer solid around me as also earth element as a metaphor, rain, and then we move to water, and so we can sense all the water nor body were actually mostly water worse than they are sixty or seventy percent water, which really doesn't make logical sense ray. We feel solid, but we a molecular early actually, like ninety nine point: nine percent water waters, a very small molecule, so there's a way more numbers of it and our body, and so we can el the saliva in her mouth. We can feel the moistening behind our eyes. We can feel moisture swear on the body or start to have sense into the fact that our boat, are actually even them. The hard part of our bones are like twenty five percent water, so again feel kind of the flu nature of the body, and then we can reflect exe. finally, that the planet is mostly water, even though

get it doesn't make logical sense. But that's why the saying water is life is so powerful because it's true and then to the fire element, which is temperature in the body, so he can feel heat and that kind of transfer emotional, energetic quality of fire, which is really powerful and relate that to the an end to the fire and he an energy all around us and because I like to think of it, until for change and true information and then finally, the air element, which were many of us, are familiar with from meditating with the breath, and that is like a really powerful one. For me, This ephemeral, like totally subtle experience like you, can't grasp error like you, can't feel at the way we feel even heat. You know freely really lie, and but it's so profound recur live without it and it's a thing that connects us we think we are literally breathing each other's air, not just contemporary

firstly like throughout time, because we pretty much the same oxygen molecule circulating around the planet throughout history so were written. The same error is the butter I must see if I can, this in some way. I really like this practice, given what we discussed earlier in the conversation about my noxious capacity to reflexively, reject anything that isn't you no scientific took me a while to get over myself and embraced this practice, but I'm gonna try to connect it to hope for a second, and it seems to me and I'll, try this out and see. If you think this is right, we ve talked about a number of ways of generating hope. One would a building. Your own capacity to be with whatever comes up. The other is improve your ability to be in relationships because doing things as a team is easier than trying to do it as an isolated ego. But another might be

back to that phrase of isolated egos, seeing how poorest the boundary is between you and everything else. Getting out of your head in that way can make sort of less tight in some way that I don't know counter intuitively it makes you less, This some lightness and hope that comes from feeling I don't know less central. I love that less. Central and also I love mystery and the poor. ability that is afforded to us when we dont think that all of our, why in all the solutions will come from come rational, logical steps, other need those but there's something also so powerful about courage staying in something we could say bigger than us or more than just these little egos, what came to me

and is the image of gandhi, I bring down the british empire with nothing but like his staff in his one, robe just doing simple. things like walk into the ocean and collecting salter? Refusing to eat, and so, when we kind of an again, a different possibility when we ve freed up our energy and feel that can. Action and feel that sense of truss like me new possibilities will open up to us. That's the realm of like invention and made he gathered a kid right now who is low to meditate, because they're brain mindfulness into schools and that kid It shall be the one. That's gonna invent the thing: that's gonna help us reverse the climate crisis. It free something up, so that were not constricted thinking that where doomed or sort of Condemned to the path that we found ross

I was on, we can actually find a different route, there's stuff the thing that somebody said to me once said this: I ve never shaken. I might have references before the shows her five of being repetitive, everybody. I apologise, but there is a period of time, whereas doing alive, hospice volunteering in was an elderly gentleman and who was able to get out of his bed. So he was not serve on death's door per se, but he was pretty close, pretty ill and I was talking to him and- and he was not particularly spiritual, but he had been a car professor and by setting scared- and he said you know- I asked my view shift- and I kind see myself as part of a larger system, so I don't feel that much fear anyway. This coming to my right now is somehow hopeful. Yeah yeah. We are part of a much larger system throughout.

what we call time, which einstein told us is an illusion and spain. cosmos and our ancestors survived pandemics and brutality and oppression, and they survived because we're here and so something very hopeful, to me and that possibility that cat freeze the energy so that, while we're here in the system, we can contribute to it in the ways that are most me. fall and really most beneficial to other comments are coming, my now that a right, I think, right on point from what you're saying there were one is out. There was a sum tumultuous period of american history. I can't remember what it was like: maybe two thousand and sixteen election or whatever. I remember, emailing or texting with with Joseph Goldstein, the great meditation teacher friend to both of us certain asking him? How are you doing in he said, I'm doing things. What is I'm take trading my news and taken

other ism sliding into geological time of jacqueline very helpful and the other covenants I mean the mind- is I've only heard it second hand, but the dalai lama went to a center for compassion at stanford university and spoke to the staff, and I think people were saying something like what the world is so messed up right now. You know how we but the view the effectiveness of what we're doing in light of all the horrible things he said getting caught. It made me think that it, the benefits, may not show up in your lifetime yeah. It makes me think of any. We talked about this before we came on that this sentence, phrase. Let it be and is paradoxical quality their such in both of them in what the dalai lama was pointing to injustice, pointing to there's this trust and patience, and a lot of

When we hear the meditation instructions, we might have heard the phrase let go and there are some teachers who give occur due to bad and say let it be because Let go still has this quality of like can this quality above a virgin or control to it, and so it's not that we're just. simply saying everything's, ok here we just have to That is how it is, because we see that changes need to be made. You know if we want to reverse the climate changes we we were going to have to make some choices and probably hard choices if we want to and racial injustice we're going to have to talk about changing systems and reparations or whatever we were working towards for that and let it be to me has this kind of paradoxical quality, because it is saying let it be like being contention with reality. Dont defend your heart tightened up, and just kind of clothes off because its to pay.

What to see here are hard to open up to, let it be like open to it, but it also has this kind of, like MR call, like incantation quality to it like let it be as also hopefully bringing something else into being I'd. Let it be so let it be different and so that balance of those two let it bees. I think, really speaks to white Joseph. and the dalai lama were pointing to it for me, so I can notice anger. Frustration, fear in the face of whatever is happening right now and I can not try to fight it or feed it Let it be- and I can also on another level- maybe envisioned, well. That is otherwise, let that be too well being to attach to making it happen tomorrow, yeah it. Then it's really that's the practice. Rags its moment to moment- and you know it might be,

leah version or anger arising. Let it be an let it be. I want a culture I actually kindness or in a love or care So it can be really simple on local and personal, and it can be let it be. Ok is how things are. We will live in the country that is reaping, centuries of injustice and inequality and violence and oppression that has brought us to this when I came- let it be, let me wrecking Is that an open myself to it? And let it be that we can have actually different society- that's built on the values of you, know, Haggerty and justice, and love and quality howard you applying all of these things tat we ve talked about here about you know. There are many levels of hope, as a skill. How are you applying that

where we are right now in this pandemic. Why we got interested at ten percent happier and hope right now, because it such in a precarious moment for hope, because seem to be gone reasonably? Well, we there's kind of light at the end of the tunnel. I guess But then you know their lots of things that could screw that up mutations, bad leadership in fighting in among the people, nation or various populations are in any number of ways. Things can go pear shaped at any time soon, How are you applying, or are you a flying everything we discuss two now here. You know. I really resonate with what justify saying that. I have to really be careful not to taken every piece of news and changes in situations I stay informed very much so, and I'm not a scientist

a doctor, I am not a policy maker. So how do I stop informed without kind of needing to micromanage what's going on out there without any actual power rain. So like having opinions about every aspect of things. I've really like she started to develop a gratitude practice towards politicians and policymakers and people who've taken this on, as it is a huge responsible in it always, but in this moment and people on washing and whatever. We think about them there, actually, the only ones who actually taken on the job to work together across the aisle across huge growing chasms of ideology, so so much appreciation and produce debating. As a citizen, where I can in my voting in my donations in my volunteering, whatever it might be, an. Recognizing? Actually, what I'm in control of in terms of hope about the future is my health health of those around me

king in on friends, even when I feel like isolating selecting orange kind of retreating to the bath or to a netflix marathon like committing the families zoom are kind of reconnecting certain folks whose scene to be dropping off like checking in with friends who live alone or isolated. You know, that's the hopefulness. I can connect as well as teaching you known offering my teachings to the level that feels manageable. For me that I'm not burning out, I am so grateful that I have away that. I feel that I can contribute and all of us can, but I often get the back that it is helping people and that's really like a privilege, I can confirm it, helps a lot of people, including the person you're talking to right now, your specific teachings so for sure, that's true, and I think there is something to be learned and applied for everybody there, which is that, yes, we are, none of us can control how these things are gonna go by

I can't control what we're doing in a moment to moment basis and yeah even little things that may not seem like they're going to put a dent in the universe of checking in somebody that actual is a noble legs and empowering and can be. The source of hope is that unreal list The reckless hope that yeah you're going to end the pandemic tomorrow by going shopping for your elderly neighbor, but it's hoped that yeah, you can feel useful and better right now and dig in, and it can give you hope in the fact that human beings have the capacity to be decent, both hopes, yeah yeah, there's something I've been connected to a lot lately as this kind. relationship between intimacy and imagination, because its The one sided, let it be in the other in a way and it becoming back to arc are started. This conversation that intimacy between us allowed for

like imagining the deepening of our friendship and were now planet to have like a little walking tour of my neighborhood, which have never been to and their sort of these possibilities that can only happen when we get intimate with our own experience and intimate with the experience of others. That is it does. Have to be this huge project. It can really start to open up in small and may be mysterious ways to that might be a beautiful place to leave it unless you feel like I've failed to ask a question that I really should have asked, or is there some place? You would would have liked to have gone that I haven't steered us to beautiful place to end yeah. Everybody should read not only the overstory but, more importantly, seventies book. You belong beside the book which I will plug for you and I love plugging anything else to mention if people are interested in learning more about you learning more from you, you, you don't think I'm gonna my website, seven ice last

our common I'm doing stuff. Then I'm on it de gram enjoy saying nice things about Dan yeah your needs, I feel like we're. Still friends, that's totally fine! Well, thank you for doing this. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me dan. It's always great. thanks again to sab and if you enjoy this conversation and learn more about how to practise what we talked about today, going count serbs brand new meditations that just dropped in the hope is a skill topic in the temperate happier app will include a link to the meditations in the show notes and you can download the app today for free wherever you get your apps. show is made by Samuel Johns, DJ cashmere kim bike. Maria were tell and jan point with audio engineering from ultra violet audio. As always a hearty salute. My abc news colleagues rank has

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