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 from the amazing meditation teacher. Seventy selassie, but teach you how to use stress to your advantage. It's a seven day, stress, better challenge and a kick

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Stick around specifically for the range of teachers and the deep wisdom these teachers have to import for anybody new to the app we ve got a special discount for you and, if you're in existing subscriber. We thank you for your support so to go. Claim your discount visit ten percent dot com, slash august, that's ten percent! One word all spelled out: dotcom, slash august, hello, I don't know about you, but I I grew up with that famous groucho marx joke. I wouldn't want to belong to a club that would have me as a member. it's one of the opening jokes and in the great movie, Annie hall, and it always resonated pretty deeply with me, as my grandfather would say. I resemble that remark, we all know that belonging to a tribe family. a group of any sort is a key part of human happiness. Science bears this out, we'll talk about it on the show many many times, but my guest. Today, seventy selassie

taking this concept of belonging to a much much deeper level to thee oneness with the universe level. That's obviously one of the world's greatest spiritual, cliches oneness, but in her do book Sab unpacked and defends this concept incredibly effectively. The book is called: you belong, it's great. I read it the recommended and sab with whom many of you will be familiar. She is a writer and teacher based in brooklyn she's, a regular on the ten percent happier app she's, also a great and valued friend. So I'm delighted to bring this interview to you here we go seventy selassie well. Let me start with congratulations. I don't think I said this you directly just because I just finished the book recently, but you did a great job with this book. It's fantastic thinking, Dan. That means a lot coming from you.

Really, it's compelling you gotta compelling theme, and you also got incredibly raw personal stories and a lot of practical advice. So it's tall it's the full package. Let's get to hear go ahead, let's talk about what you mean by belonging because of what I picked up the book. I thought. Oh, this is going to be a book about the importance of you know, having your people having interpersonal connection worth a place where you feel you can along, as that word is traditionally understood, and yes, that is in this book, but it's o wade deeper, much more holistic. View of the word. So can you just describe what you mean by it? yeah. I know I do mean kind of the two sides of eight year describing kind of a more personal, maybe mundane what sometimes called the relative

of belonging that it? We can connect other people and feel that sense of personal connection to our folks, but I am also talking about what sometimes called the absolute truth and but- the truth of our interconnection and the undeniable fact of our belonging to everything that actually nothing is separate and ancient wisdom, including, but as an tells us this, but also science, points to that that there is much more interconnection on an energetic level. Then we can really proceed with our ordinary senses. Interconnection and this is a user waters we applied on the show many times. I have always understood it, intellectually, but not really got me because I I always still come back to like I feel like I'll, be over here and you're. Not me. I feel connected with you in many ways, but have still me and in this book you did a better job of helping

We cannot understand that a one of europe's mechanisms. is the notion of paradox: can you talk about that a little bit? Yes, Knox is the truth of our reality, and this truth I alluded to it's called the two truths of the absolute truth and the relative truth is a central paradox of really all spiritual traditions and in, but as them itself that it's hard for our minds to grapple with r r, around the fact that we are interconnected. So science shows us. This physics has shown kind of the energetic truth of non separation that were all cut, vibrating energy, ana on a profound and deep level that we can perceive and that that is true at the same time

it's true, you are you over there and I'm me over here and I'm sitting on a chair and I'm sitting at a desk, and These are objects in reality, but it doesn't cancel the fact that there is an energetic interconnection at the heart of things and again You know this is kind of goes against. Our logical minded goes against our senses, so paradox is something that we have to accept a deep level. Why was this theme of belonging, so important to you to explore in the book. When I mentioned, the book than I wrote this book I'm over a year, but I've kind. then living the themes of this book. My entire life belonging became important, because I didn't feel it for so long. So I came to a spiritual search for it through the dark man through different practices, but really I felt it on a more relative or social level from.

A really young age emigrating here when I was three from africa from Ethiopia and growing up black White neighbourhoods and in I've been on this podcast before talking about what that's like that, feeling that you don't belong and iphone. Mentally believed that this crisis of belonging is showing up for many of us, regardless of whether we grow up and homogenous communities where we do look like everyone around us or not, because we can. be made to feel that we don't belong because were not successful and offers smart enough far. We have ideas about how we should look or seymour that are fed to us by advertising by the media, so this crisis of belonging, I expect instead a unique way, but I think all of us have greater or lesser experiences are degrees of it. You talk a lot about

in a very non savvy approachable way. This concept of loving yourself and what I took from that- and this may be just a straight lift- is if there are parts of yourself that you're at war with, then you ve got separation internally and that blocks you from feeling connected to people is that an accurate summation in some ways? Yeah. Definitely that's a really beautiful summation that delusion of duration only believe in one side of the paradox that were separate that were different, that we don't belong that plays out both in our sense of feeling connected to others, but it also can make us feel disconnected from ourselves and have parts of ourselves that we're trying to get rid of that we're trying to come the late changer or improve, and that doesn't mean that we don't have aspirations for growth and for transformation, but where

doing that in contention with the reality of who we are we're allowing ourselves to grow and kind of a more natural way that comes from this loving care and attention, and I I taka, I think, a few times about the contention with reality being kind of a a fundamental part of the teachings and a fundamental part of not belong, when wherein contention with whom we are, how we are that causes that sense of separation, our unhappiness and we are who we are because of what we ve been through. Why would we be any different? What are the parts of you that you find difficult. Oh my god, I dunno if we have enough time dan, but I'm asking this because you are very brave in the book in discussing this, so you can give us the abridged version, or we can do a little free therapy, article I'll always take therapy. You know

it's everything from the physical reality that and that started young. I had all sorts of things I didn't like about myself. As I started to be aware: of my body in ways that were being observed by others, so I thought my legs were too skinny or my nose was too big or my boobs are too small, or you know any number of physical attributes that I have contention with and then I started to get older, noticing parts of myself seeing patterns that I had and really being unhappy with those that have a lot of envy or I can. I have domini in tendencies it. So I can t to be in no at all I like to joke. I did joke with me remade of many years my best friend peter bird shut up peter that he was allowed to be right on tuesdays and that these thing show up in

it can have sometimes subtle way, sometimes not so subtle ways, but when I see them when I see them clearly it doesn't make me happy. I want I couldn't get rid of them and what practices What therapy and different self awareness techniques and teachings had taught me is to really see those clearly but then meet them with kindness, and that paradoxical transformative power of practice is that when we do that, when we make things have clarity and kindness if their problematic, they can start to dissolve. So what does it look like in practice how I'm listening at home and I wanna try this. What does it look like so I'll? Take one the need to want to be right, which shows that the law is my partner. My husband, frederick,

that for the early years and many years of our now twelve, your relationship, we would kind of battle because he has that tendency to so our conversations with almost feel like arguments and I couldn't really track energetically in. In my body, or in my mind that that was happening, I just lost in the pattern and then, as I started, to know risk that pattern and also explore out with him. I could catch it a little bit earlier in just feel Well, maybe mid! Not not an argument is in a fireman minutes in a very intense discussion, I could feel that. energy and just sort of observers and allow it allow it to dissipate and now more often than not, it doesn't even manifest into trying to out argue on notice that he says saying that it annoys me I disagree with and I can actually stopped before. I start this pattern

peter this habit of arguing and just allow it to dissipate and disappear, and sometimes it's not even showing up as often as it used to imagine. This is the fruit of formal meditation. it is in some ways a you enter the dough, Joe, the gym of formal meditation practice. You know, leaders. It or standing or lying down. As I know you like to meditate lying down and you watch your including the stuff that's hard, probably mostly the stuff, that's hard, and practice over and over again, instead of rejecting it, welcoming it with some warmth and some none lack of judgment so that when it shows up in that conversation with freddy about you know, what's the best french restaurant in your section of brooklyn or whatever you're able did not follow the impulse to say something, that's gonna. Have two hours of negative consequences for your relationship. That's almost exactly right, except that fredericks, italian and danish, and he wouldn't

I wanna go to french restaurant as you know it so true that what we experience on the cushion is gonna be ourselves in any moment. Most of our thoughts are not original a lot of the habit patterns that we witness when we're informal meditation, are the same habit patterns? We're gonna bring into our lives so for you, here's the one I meditated even on retreat. I would come to play out arguments in my head. I do not have an argument with that person on retreat. Who's been annoying me for the past few weeks of retreat, or I would ray imagine arguments I had in the past. Her invent that I might have in the future, so that argument method of nature of mine is part of my my pattering, it's part of my conditioning. So what we see in our formal practice is usually what we're carrying into our relational life.

work to our family dynamics. I'm a baby at this kind of weird if the lack of a less syrupy term self love, especially when compared with you but mindfulness practice- and this is just my experiences straight up. My voters practice through follow the breath or you know, you're, watching the breath coming in and going out and then every time you get stranded start again. There are other ways to do straight up my fulness practice, but that kind of practice didn't get me as far in this regard, as matter practice where you're using phrases may be happy, etc, etc.

In directing it toward a variety of beings, including yourself. Is that your experience as well? You know, I think, that there's parts of what you're saying that I can relate to especially towards myself, so it might be because I'm gendered this way or re size this way, but my matter towards other people, was maybe unhelpfully sober, quite developed in the sense that I was always taught to take care of other people and think about other people first but really what I had to practice since terms of matter was self matter, and I had a teacher actually assigned to me as my primary practice for six months. So I only did self matter for six months. This is after my first cancer diagnoses, and it was really challenging for me to make that my my full practice, but that I sound, really helpful, but I also think that there is a way in which,

modern mindfulness or them well. Turn mind approach to mindfulness forgets to view our mindfulness practice with that kindness and technically, as far as the classical teaching say, mindfulness always co arises matter. If it doesn't, it's actually just paying attention. It's not true mindfulness, and we ve talked about this before Dan, that that attention quality like paying it mention of mindfulness is really important, but that meeting with whatever we see with kindness and care is that matter that arises with mindfulness and in moments where I was just kind of applying the classic teachings of mindfulness have just bringing awareness, but I was doing it such a way that was very present very receptive me or not. imbued with my tendencies, striving or trying to get somewhere that matter

naturally arose it really that feeling of mindfulness that is all carrying spruce us to another paradox that you'd right about, which is that you have to study the self. I believe you said in order to forget the self to other right yeah that still again, so not me, asia master and originator of such a school of then so to study. The better way he said is to study the south and to study the south is to forget the south and to forget the south is to become one with mary. Had things with all things and that is a paradoxical kind of kalash saying, but in practice I think we can have glimpses of that- that when we

are fully present like that. I remember the first time I experience mindfulness as being imbued with this matter her loving kindness I was on retreat at. I am ass, an the moment of Full awareness, like embodied awareness of the present moment, and this feeling of kindness of carrying just kind of welled up and it wasn't about me just sort of permeated everything around me looked around me at the moment and looked at the hall and the other people on it just filled with so much care and in my awareness right, and so that is how we get to I'm just looking for you to correct. My understanding is that, I think, is how we, when we can start.

Seeing that we can heal whatever separations little wars we ve got going on internally, then that opens the door to this feeling of connection and belonging to the whole world. All of it yes on a deep level. Yes, and most of the time and our daily meditation practice. We might not be feeling that so we can- No, that is a possibility. We can recognise, may be small glimpses of it. It doesn't. Even to be only in formal meditation. It could be a moment of presence with our child or you know in nature, but we can start to be attuned to that possibility. One of the little and saw very little in my case, lose one of the wars,

that you identify that youth seen raging in your own mind that I see raging alot of my own is used this phrase, the pathology of productivity. Here, that's them at coach empire to tailor Davison it's her is- and you know when I heard it was one of those phrases that is like embarrassingly apt that I could identify with it so much, but I felt a lot of shame about that too, because I see him I can use productivity as a way to basically trying belong to and feel better about myself to try and feel like I'm making price. Press in some way in my life and my career in my meditation practice, whatever it is, but it does become a pathology It becomes the way I kind of measure how well

I am doing or not, and it's a big trap and I think, with all of us, can have more attached to our gadgets than ever. I know for me, and it's been creeping up a lot more. I have to take really concerted effort to make breaks and to create time where I'm not being productive, and that includes my meditation practice that that something the goal. Any advice is that this is a huge theme in my entire life. I've really have had to keep coming back to boundaries, especially with technology.

And it's so hard right now, because we are in another paradox that this is the thing that maybe is connecting us to teachings, connecting us too to others, giving us a place to practice or away to tune in to things that we find important. But it's such a slippery slope. Each of these devices can, as closer into just opening up another app or my tendency is to go on to instagram or twitter or the new york times home, page and so how do we create boundaries, while also using this technology, to support us in our aspirations to have more space and then sometimes we just have to turn it off. We just have to leave the phone in another room or go outside without your gadgets, and that can be fraught too because you know. Sometimes I think I we spoke about this on the episode about ray

three witnessed racial aggression and we couldn't documented between police and some black youth in our name. Head, because we had left our funds and homes. We were trying to create more space, so their choices to be made and consequences for those choices to how are you doing these days? And I know the sunday we ve talked about bullets a few months how you doing these days on feelings of belonging when it comes to america's racial reckoning. That's happening right now. You do it's definitely a process I have really relish the time to have spaces for people of color and for black people and to have specific spaces Actors together and process together- and I know you the catered for theirs, and there are a lot of white people doing the same and at the same, I am I

really value places where we're not only talking about these realities, and this is kind of how we can sway between those two paradoxes and they're, both true that we are different. We have these different realities, these different histories, come with issues of inequality and oppression and injustice, and we are all interconnected and not just humans were interconnected, with, albeit with with all of nature. We are nature and, depending on, where we're coming from What our tendencies are, what are versions and grasp things are we can work to lean towards one or the other. More so some people want to kind of calling to the heart of our we're all one. Do we have to deal with this difficulty and challenge, but we can also want to cling to kind of the complexity and the difficulty and get caught there, maybe because it's our work or calling, but I've had

sort of a longing fur, the practices and the teachings that really help me balance out all about complexity, indifference to so sometimes you want to engage in the complexity and be really be hashing. These issues out which are painful but also invigorating, and sometimes you wanna, be on a more placid something. the mental level were all deeply connected, and you want to be in that space yeah? And you know I don't even know if it's placid so much as the truth of non separation, it spacious to me more than placid and you it's it's real, It has a freedom about at that is

can feel really alive to it. Doesn't it doesnt nuts? I have to feel calm, but there is that truth of interconnection and again we really need to each of us look at where we tend to gravitate towards which we understand and which we may be don't, and it's that constant balancing you ve been using this phrase in talking about what's been happening for the last few months you ve been using this phrase. The revenue and will not be secularized. What do you mean by that? So in this book I do a bit of dive into our tendency, is moderns to hold up science as the the arbiter of all truth and dismiss thing.

That we are less verifiable in ways that were comfortable with and with that, I think we ve thrown some babies out with the bathwater So there are a lot of mysteries to these practices and to the truth of our enter connection. So even science, physics, being one, can't, really explain some things that are known to be true, like the fact that electronic separated, can experience the same realities of what affects one will affect the other far away and we're talking a few metres away or taken out thousands of miles away. There doing this experiments now and the truth of that kind of vibrating pulse of energy the source of all matter. The truth we all everything

in our universe, originated from a tiny, tiny point: that's infant hesitantly small. We can't even fathom so everything generated from nothing you know we're literally stardust. So all those mysteries are not explainable by Measurements or brain scans, and now the mysteries of the body of consciousness and in some ways this reliance on science and data pheromones, has infiltrated the way we think of our social reality to and how we're going to solve our problems. Is only through kind of logic and reason, and I believe that there is more to things like matter are hard practices which are basically like magical thinking

you know we we said and and wish well to other people who aren't with us, and we know this has a powerful effect on on our bodies. That's been able to be verified and studied, but Do we believe that maybe this is having a powerful effect on other bodies and other people in beings as well. So when you say the revolution I will not be secularized. Is that in any way a critique of the current be elam movement? No, actually, I think to be alarmed movement self, is well aware of this, and a lot of movements that come out of community of color enough. We always point to these. These sort of powerful leader is through time, like Martin luther king, Jr or gandhi or doesnt, to tune these are all spiritual leaders. They also happened to be people of color, so perhaps much are rooted in the truth of indigenous wisdom, which relies more than just

the terrible reality. So prayer and meditation, and this understanding of non separation is, has been the ground of many spiritual movements and and many people and parts of the alignment of very connected to that as well. Just picking up on. the strands from the last two answers of yours. You, the book, really mounts a compelling defence of what people like me. Sometimes I now see somewhat in appropriately right off as quorum quote: womb. Yes, so I could have goes a conversation about how we can question were will, and I use the phrase we were too it's not I'm not trying to police people's language that they. They can't use that, but just to notice when we use that what were dismissing and how often those dismissals run

well along the same lines as a lot of indigenous ways of knowing which often are very much through rooted in an acknowledgment of mystery and the great man stray as part of the understanding of our reality. So there's a real connection to this absolute truth of interconnection. That is not necessarily recognisable via our ordinary senses. So one of the things I can talk about really in the book it was happening, loves writing it back doing a lot of ancestral practices. One I was the book so every morning I would. I have a lot of ancestral but I have a main ancestor, alter with pictures. My mom My grandparents and other people have passed away.

and I was like candles and make offerings to that, alter before I wrote every morning and basically almost bully them into helping me I find that notion challenging in an interesting way, would do you reckon it did, for you to make offer things on an altar of pictures of your forebears, You know. A lot of creative people and writers have rituals, so part of it was just having a ritual that helped suit of frame my writing process and gave some structure to my processing wake up very early. I would make a cup of march I would come in. I would like some incense and, like the candles and sir say a little. Desperate prayer to them and then I would start writing and then, when I

a study blow block the candles, and you know that it's done so having that kind of ritual offer our particular processes, whether their creative or her just daily general life Think this helpful and then in a really exploring this truth, that our ancestors are with us if we don't believe it. I'm gonna Wu Wu, energetic they're all around us in another dimension kind of way. We know it on a scientific and fundamental level. Rights. Are we not only inherent are physical genetic material from our ancestors, so your ancestors are literally inside you because you have certain color, scan and eyes and certainty your body in, but I also know that epigenetic materials handed down, so certain experiences intended

these, including anxieties, but also our strength, are predilections and are ways of being are also inherited, and so in a sense our ancestors are here anyways. I guess one area where I struggle with the suggest personal, which is the more I know about my ancestors at least my serve the ones new and now have no more about. I looked back in my family trees filled with attics and crooks and cracks and like the idea of summoning them. I don't know what assistance they could provide you know we call on the best of our ancestors, so gaucho sometimes people say are wise. well ancestors, but I say the wisdom and wellness of our all our ancestors right, because you inherited, maybe some of those tendencies that were seem like and probably were unskilful behavior, but were probably ages

survival mechanisms and rain, but you also in here and a lot of great aspects. You know, you're a successful intelligence kind good person and some of those strengths came through from your ancestors swell because all of our ancestors survived. If we're here rain, our ancestors got far enough so that we are alive today, and that means they survived pandemics and intercultural. Dr and war, and all of the things we are trying to survive today, so we can call on that as well. I had a lot of great ancestors too, just for the record complicated ones. Somebody was telling me recently about a great uncle of mine used to drive around with a clergy sign in his window, so he could get free parking spaces? While you now suffice it to say a member of the clergy, we could say that

said that you got your cunning from him just so much more of my conversation, Seventy Selassie right after this you I've heard about master class for years, but I'd never actually check it out, which is now making me feel a little bit stupid. The good news is the folks over at master class are now sponsoring 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 screen Gordon Ramsay, I'm cooking. Also Thomas keller, they ve got anna. We on creativity Jon Kabat Zinn on mindfulness and meditation, which is probably interesting and attractive to people,

We've listened to the show Noam chomsky on independent thinking, steph curry, on basketball. I could go on. I can't believe I've been sleeping on this app and, as I look at many of these videos, they're show well produced so informative and really really tight, so that you're not wait in a minute you're, just getting these warnings and a very attractive and interesting and entertaining way with master class. You can learn from the best to become your best anytime anywhere and at your own pace. Annual membership start at ten dollars a month and you get unlimited access to every structure, thousands of online lessons, exclusive content, insights and much more get unlimited access, every class and right now, as a ten percent happier listener, you can get fifteen percent off when you get a master class, dotcom flush, ten percent, that's master class dot com, slash ten percent for fifteen percent, often annual membership master class dot com, slash ten percent.

They promised my group go to the wall from prime videos, the lord of the rings rings of power marrying, a special episode of whose amazing life it's a podcast for kids that lets you experience life, the eyes of someone who changed the world and you'll have to guess who it is: here's a hint. He has Insane. Musical talent is music extra, all around the world and his story is tat. You do that to me. His story in english or and if, by your play, listening to music, like on amazon or wherever you get your pop So, speaking of me, there is a little this little section in here. Were you write about a debate we had about the eu the term white supremacy. You wanna you wanna, say more about that yeah. I hope I helped

like that. Little shouted hammering out you cannot in the book the most flattering shut up a good, it's interesting, because I think a shared this with you that for the final passive, the book I had to change that part a bad, because you know the use of white supremacy has probably increase like a thousand fold in the past few months. What felt kind of daring to talk about six months ago is like old hat now that every corporation is treating black lives manner. So I started to in what's the final version of the book. you know really explore what it means to maybe be able to acknowledge white supremacy externally in institutions are in about white supremacist button. I really want to explore internally as patterns of thought or behaviour that are playing out consciously or unconsciously within us, just to be clear so that

I remember when you will you and I were sitting in rosa lexicon of assisted chain of mexican restaurants in new york city and you talking about white supremacy- and I raised the issue- this is way before you know the recent tumult this it before the pandemic before George floyd round a tailor. and I raised the question- and I think I've read an earlier version of the book than the one that's coming out, but I we're saying you know is: is there some risk to you to using the term white supremacy, because some of the people that you'd like to reach might get caught by that and or put off by that, and then you ve activated there amid the line, you won't be able to talk to them, yes, also back when we used to go to restaurant, yes, and it must, let's be clear its way: people were talking about, and I and I do address that directly. Sir

imploring the white reader and may be anyone else who is uncomfortable with the term to really stay with me and why this is really important to understand, because these structures of its supremacy and other policies are with in us and this process of mindfulness of really beginning to. Their understand, see clearly and meet with kindness, what's going on in our minds what's going on in our hearts, that is the process for releasing it, and we can't solve the issue of internalized oppression or white supremacy depending who we are and how we're experiencing it. If we can't see it clearly and naming it is, is the first step to seeing it a very helpfully. I mean this is totally consonant with just how you are and how I know you as a person but a definite comes through the book. You turn the lands on yourself in your own flaws in a week

incoming way in you I'll, let you tell the story, but you tell a story in the book about your older sister's doctor. Can you tell that story now yeah? So my my sister, who is intellectually to old, I'm her guardian was having surgery- and I had heard about this doctor that she was having performed the surgery because her house leader had told me about her and said she was really grade, and so I got to the hospital up in hudson waiting for this doctor. In the pre op room with the white doctors and nurses and technicians, except for one filipino nurse, and then the doktor walked in the surgeon and she was a black woman, a dark skinned black woman and I was totally shocked. I knew she was a woman because they refer to her ass. She. But I was assuming that I would mean a white person, and so I could see

I own biases, how kind of these messages of white supremacy? The doctors are white and often in the past. We would thank mail. had cancer infiltrated my own heart and mind. And you know embarrassingly for someone who teaches unconscious bias all the time to see that playing out for myself- and I dont know if I shared in the book, because in those cutting things for space, but the next day when finance was the hospital state overnight with her in the hospital. I was waiting for the it was at the weekend. So the surgeon was off and you told us another doktor was coming and I didn't. The gender or the race at this doctor, sir, I was just you know, I didn't know just knew the name, and that was also a black woman, and I also was surprised that moment Oh I'm not only slow, I'm super slow.

Let's talk about another area and again just staying with this theme of belonging, where one big aspect of it is having this healed relationship with yourself, so that you can be connected with other people cut its reminding me. I dunno if I've ever told the story in the podcast before I remember being like Twenty five years old, they even younger, and I was having vey dissolution- I have a relationship discussion with a about to be former girlfriend, and I remember her saying to me: you can't be with anybody if you're, not with yourself and that that was coming up for me as I was reading this book and one sort of

This may seem a little counter intuitive, but a really landed from me, but one area that you talk about here is dancing as a mode to serve get ourselves in this direction. How is dancing related yeah? We took this fast teaching in the classical teachings called sadie. We called it mindfulness, which in some ways is a great term in other ways. It makes us think that it's all about our heads so other things. I really point two and my own teachings and really trying practice is home. Embodied are dead. Inaction is and how we're only gonna become reconnected and free through these bodies. So dance is one place for me to really see how on free, I am some people and are called especially those of us who are more condition.

the dominant culture and white culture, we are not so connect the two are bodies and we have difficulty with dance like a lot of people, I'm uncomfortable or was much more so in the past, dancing in power, ok. Well, I didn't have a sense of my body dancing. I didn't grow up dancing and talk about kind of the colonial influences that lead that in my own family and my own lineage, but many people grow up in Churches in religious traditions, that kind of dismiss sir or discouraged saying and how that really disconnects us from our bodies and from a sense of belonging like how ridiculous is it remember. to be in my own body and moving my own body in front of other people. It sounds absurd when I stated that way, but I think that so a reality that many people again people who might be culture or influenced particular way by dominant culture, can feel that you know

Why not wanting to be the first person on the dance floor? Don't want anybody to look at them in and we see how different it is fair people who don't have that pattern in yet especially children. This is it not that I have not even begun to crack at me night watch. My son I have free is when he's dancing and last night. Actually we were with my brother. I have one brother and he and his wife have six kids beautiful kids had produced in credit. and there is after dinner, with the kids were dancing for us and we were dancing a little bit with them, but I notice that when it was my time to get up and dancer them, I felt very watched self conscious, but I want to be able to show.

That is why you and I have been talking for years. We haven't been able to get our act together, our mostly my fault for me to come out to brooklyn to do zumba with you, which we've been talking about for a long time and we're about to do. Actually, I think for it before the pandemic began, and I think we had a day yeah. We had a date to do this and so yeah. This seems like a really rich area of exploration. For me at least- well. First of all, I think we should film that when it happens and make a special video episode of the past, well then I won't be so. Is just all that you know it's like anything right, it's practice, and so often, we know we practice on our own, that's what we're doing in meditation we're trying to bring mindfulness. We eliminate the distract and we eliminate the extraneous realities to sort of practice, something so he could practice in your bed, and even bianca doesn't have to be there. This is on my

first and not on a long list of a short list of things that I aim to do in the not too distant future, you recommend a lot of practices. You wanna talk about a few that you think would help us. My favorite practice, and one that I am trying to spread is the practice of the four elements. So mindfulness of the four elements is a traditional and classical practice, its right in the first foundation of mindfulness, with mindful of breath with mindfulness of body, and it's not really taught a lot in common western mindfulness movements and to me it's such a beautiful metaphor fur. How we are her connected and how we are nature. We sort of talk about nature like It's out there in the woods, far away from the city, but we are nature and the simple metaphor of

fire water and air, which are the four elements we are mindful in our bodies. It's a metaphor: we're how we're made of the same stuff of everything around us and that we're not separate from that, and it it to me it's such a beautiful practice and connects us also to all these indigenous ways of knowing that have been dismissed have been kind of that or we will, because the elements are in every ancient tradition of every continent, so ancient greece, chinese Listen, I your vader, she gone, you have it in the indigenous teachings of the americas enough. in ancient egypt and in australia and so also away to come really into contact with that ancient. Knowing of our interconnection so- and I was so excited

a couple years ago. Ten percent happier, let me recording elements meditation which in seemed whew, probably back then, but we become the norm now this notion of we our nature has really struck me over the past couple of years, and I like to use it. The time, the idea, because it does dissolve the boundaries between me and the rest of the world But I'm pretty using it when I'm looking at the uglier or sillier, more craven aspects of my nature work. This is just nature to yes and those a craven aspects even can be elemental lie. There can be a fiery quality to some of our anger. There can be a watery quality tour depression.

We've been us, and so we don't even have to make it sort of personal or psychological. We can just see that these energies are moving through us all the time. What did I fail to ask? I would just want to encourage us all to explore this balancing. You know that we can tenders moderns again to dismiss the mystery that such a powerful powerful opportunity for us to feel into something that is true and sometimes inaccessible again. With our ordinary senses, and then we can also get lost in that and not want to deal with the complexities of our the truth of our social realities and so just encouraging people to always explore the balance between those two did. I give you enough of a chance to sort of state the central thesis the central thesis is that we are not separate, but we're not

saying. So we know that balance that we are interconnected. That's the truth, I'm a reality and we inherit the reality of our differences, and all that has brought over the centuries were not separate, but were not the same. So I'm not exactly the same as seventy selassie, but it is a closing off of reality that does harm to you and me from we think that there is no connection between us whatsoever. Yes- and you know that might be easier to acknowledge between us, because we're friends that can we why that saying. of awareness to the things that we want to feel separate from the people with whom we disagree, people with whom we have challenges. The current

mass of our political and social realities. We belong to all of us all of us. Actually, this is a good chance for you to tell you george w bush story. Perhaps how can this year feels like simpler time span? I was not happy with the presidency of george w bush was around the time of katrina and a friend of mine, suggested that I do matter for him, and so you I'd suitable worked through a lot of my own anger, a wooden encourage someone just go and do matter for someone else without can attending to their own pain are suffering, but I was her in loops of real, pointed hatred. So I decided to do got my own matter practice. I didn't want to do for the phrases. May you be well however, with him I really was trying to understand how it can connect to the truth of our interconnection at that point through me,

here's a practice. I knew that we were all wound up together, but it wasn't feeling that so I started this practice where I would every morning, and they did this for weeks. I would Go through george bush's life? Now. Imagine him as a foetus inside Barbara bush. But imagine him is a baby. You would imagine going to school on experience, what he did from what I knew of his life, his addiction issues, and then you know his political career, and I just kind of did this practice every day is a kind of a strange practice. It's not a classical practice. As far as I know, and a few weeks into it, I really understood not from a conceptual level, because I already understood if I lived george, His life I'd be george bush, but on a deeper and fundamental level, I realized. Oh, I would be george bush if I had left his life and it really helped me see how my contention with

People are kind of needing them to be different than they are to see things. The way I see things which you know again was a big career place of my contraction in argue and then I was sort of going against reality that There is a way in which I was creating suffering mice for myself by thinking that someone should be different than they are and that didn't solve all my problems. It certainly didn't resolve my political anger forever but there was a shift in that moment for me and how I kind of meet the political realities that confront that there's a way in which I can understand that when I expect someone to be different than they are theirs, also a level of the reality in my separation from them, as if somehow, if I were them, I would think differently, but

Does that neuter your ability to fight for change? No, because its being in hunton with reality of the present moment. It's not, solving my longing for something to change in the future. meeting the present moment reality without drawing my energy fer a better past, When were wishing for things to have been different for someone to be done then they are it's a drain of our energy. We can change the past. We can change who they are. We can't change their karma or their trajectory air conditioning All we can do is sometimes fight for and demand. And change in this moment of- could have given up needing people too different than they are, and what comes from that and I've experienced myself is the centre superiority and domination that that can kind of unleashing me when I need someone to

Be different than they are. It often comes out in the form of domination so belittling someone fur how they are or shaming people for how they are the sort of prevented me from that kind of behaviour, and so just two, ooh name, that this is kind of complex territory, and so it's not something we can explore, know sort of at the end of a podcast in a sound bite that this is something that the great spiritual, social justice leaders of our time have talked about. Ages and so exploring the teachings of martin luther king Jr, or we know some of the teachers of healing justice and social justice movements that are based in time

formation in abolition and true freedom that we have to dive into those explorations in those conversations to really understand it. Well, but I would just say: no and again, I know we're not going to be able to. You know doing a full exegesis of this, but isn't there some self interest and enlightened self interest, having our actions here.

Turning down the volume on superiority and separation might refresh us and and give us more energy to do the work we want to do. Yes, definitely, and it's also just the truth of the nature of reality right fighting against the truth. Is it saps your energy? It does, and it's also not seeing things clearly and that's what this work of dharma translated. Often as truth is that we are in a sense, our aspiration is to full wisdom, and it's that wisdom that clarity that liberates thanks you both for an excellent interview. Do you mind if I also ask a question yeah, so I'm just very interested in this topic, and it's been great to hear you,

A few things are coming up for me, for example, it may even before knowing your book, I've just started the process of the magical already of tidying up. You know Murray condo, so the bunch of journaling and literally what IRA was. I've never belonged in my life, and I just said I want to create a space where I belong. There could be so many reasons I dont know if its cause, I'm jewish or costs like my bomb, is an emigrant. Nor just I grew up in los angeles, which is not about belonging like it could be a thousand different things. It does it matter, but in this moment I want to create a space of belonging. I also live alone and were in a global pandemic, and I don't see many people, and so I also think the comparing mine can be just hyper activated because its constantly looking at other people are thinking about everyone, that's connected, and I'm just wondering if you can offer more, especially further like I know you,

is to be married and still feel lonely, but like what it looks like to belong in isolation in this time. Yeah you know, I I so appreciate you sharing that and the vulnerability of all of the reasons why we here. We dump along the ones that you highlighted, and you said I, ever belonged and the truth, is that you ve always belonged. You just have feelings, have not belonging, and that is a fundamental challenge for any of us, especially with all the messages we get from. The culture the society about the ways the only way we can belongs. If we look this way or act this way or have this much tougher, and so whether, where alone physically slated or with others. The practice of reconnecting too that truth of belonging is similar. It starts inside it's not about our external connections at first,

Right and it's interesting, you break up murray condo, actually bring her up in the book, because modern western interpretation of her has been kind of dismissing the power of what she's doing, which is actually very indigenous. Some asian americans and japanese books have pointed out that a lot of what she's doing is, you know, shinto wisdom that there's this way in which she honours every object and every experience that you're kind of going through as living as having a living presence, and so we're surround dead by belonging back were embedded in belonging, whether with we're with other people not, and she should have beautifully guides peoples whose very minds all very, have engaged process of acknowledging

the living reality of everything were coming into contact with that points to that fundamental belonging and truth. So I love that you brought her up. I really appreciate that. Thank you, marisa great question problem orissa. As always,

she was in our recent sex episode as well, is very cool, and so glad you didn't ask me about it, appreciate that and said love you thank you love it too. Thank you both so much. This is really great have a great evening, decent dancing, Dan, okay, bye. Thank you again to seventy and speaking of thank yous, my team, and I want to send a big thank you and shout out and gesture of support to the many teachers and others who work in education at this incredibly difficult moment and to recognize the struggles you're dealing with right. Now we want to give you free access to the ten percent happier app hundreds of meditations on there lots of other resources as well, including talks and courses, as if you want free

access go to ten percent dot com, slash care, that's ten percent! One word all spelled out dot com, slash care. Finally, is always much gratitude to the team who worked so hard to make the show reality. Samuel Johns is our senior producer. Marisa Schneiderman is our producer, sound designers, mac Boynton and on your sheik of ultraviolet audio things if both of you, Maria, where tell us our production coordinator and of course I want to thank everybody from t v h who weigh in on what we do, including Ben Rubin, gent point nate, Toby and Liz Levin, and I would be remiss if I didn't think my htc news, comrades, ryan, kesler and Josh Cohen, we'll see you on friday for a bonus, a prime members. You can listen to ten percent happier early, and ad free on amazon, music, downloading

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