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10% Happier with Dan Harris
A Buddhist Compass To Direct You Toward Happiness | Beth Upton
01:01:29
The happiness recipe from ancient Buddhist psychology. has been teaching meditation since 2014. Before that she spent ten years as a Buddhist nun, five of them in Burma under the guidance of Pa Auk Sayadaw. She currently leads in the caves of...
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- [00:00]
Beth Upton
Foreign.
- [00:05]
Dan Harris
This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, everybody. How we doing? Today we're going to do one of my favorite things. We're going to nerd out on the Dharma, but in a way, and I want to assure you of this very, very early, in a way that is relevant and practical, which Buddhism pretty much always is. My guest today is a former Buddhist nun who underwent some of the most rigorous training possible over in Burma. She hit some elevated rarefied states of consciousness and her job now is to teach the rest of us unenlightened worldlings how we can get a little taste of what she tasted our own lives. She's going to dive into a section of the Buddhist teachings known as the Abidharma, which she describes as particle physics for the mind. Specifically, she's going to focus on a concept called kusala. Now, there are a lot of translations for that word kusala, and my guest will get into all of the various translations. But basically what you need to know is that kusala mind states are happy mind states. They're what we all want. And today my guest is going to give us the recipe for achieving the aforementioned kusala mind states. My guest is Beth Upton, who's been teaching meditation since 2014. Before that, she spent 10 years as a Buddhist nun, five of them in Burma under the guidance of Pa Auk Sayadaw, a renowned Buddhist master. Beth also spent many months doing long solo retreats in various caves and forests. I had a lot of questions about that, as you will hear. And she currently leads the Sanditika meditation community in the caves of Almeria, southern Spain. I'm probably mangling the pronunciation of both of those words, Sanditika and Almeria. Almeria, I guess. Anyway, there is a bespoke companion meditation that comes with today's episode. It focuses on the cultivation of gratitude, which is part of the aforementioned recipe for kusala mind states. And that meditation comes from our teacher of the month, Don Mauricio. As a reminder, we're now doing guided meditations for every Monday, Wednesday episode in July and August. If you want them, you gotta sign up over@danharris.com paid subscribers also get regular live meditation and Q and A sessions with me. They get ad free versions of this podcast, plus much more. Danharis.com check it out. We'll get started with Beth Upton right after this. So I've got a meditation retreat coming up and I am actually going to be staying at an Airbnb for part of the meditation retreat. It's a long story, but I'll be staying for part of the retreat at the Insight Meditation Society on campus. But for part of it, I needed to get an Airbnb in Barrie, Massachusetts, and it has been such a pleasure. It was so easy to find the right spot close by. Cozy, very easy to correspond with the owner of the home. And I'll be staying there with one of my best buds, Josh, for a couple of days before we move onto the campus and learn directly from the great Joseph Goldstein. But it's just another example of why I love Airbnb. So next time you're away, maybe you should put your home on Airbnb. You can make the most of your space. You can make some extra cash. Feels like a smart thing to do. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much@airbnb.com host summer's now officially here and my favorite part of this whole deal is having friends over and sitting by the pool in our backyard these long, languorous afternoons and early evenings with our friends. It's such a great way to get to know people. Hanging out in nature, watching our kids beat the crap out of each other in the pool. It's so much more intimate than what my friend Zev calls the dinner industrial complex. Not that I don't like going out to restaurants, but chilling in the backyard is huge. And of course while you're doing that, you want to be comfortable. You want to be sitting on a nice couch, you want a good grill. You want nice patio tables that are solid and can hold all the snacks that you're putting out. You want lounge chairs, day beds and umbrellas. And the place to go for all of those is Wayfair. They've got fast and easy shipping. It's never been easier to get ready to party. So however you kick back out back, go to Wayfair for effortless entertaining and game filled guests gatherings. It's a great selection and the website is super easy to use. Get big stuff like patio sets, gazebos, hot tubs, outdoor dining sets and more shipped for free. Head to Wayfair.com right now to explore a huge outdoor selection that's W a y f a I r.com w a y-f a I r.com Wayfair Every style, every Home Beth Upton, welcome to the show.
- [05:03]
Beth Upton
Thank you. Nice to meet you.
- [05:05]
Dan Harris
Likewise. I'm excited to talk to you. I don't usually do this with meditation teachers, but your story is very intriguing to me, so I would love to start by just hearing a little bit about how and why you became a Buddhist nun. And I see here that you practiced and continue to practice in caves. So, yeah, I would love to hear some of your backstory before we get into the meat of the discussion. When and how and why did you ordain as a Buddhist nun?
- [05:32]
Beth Upton
I was 25 when I ordained. I mean, there's always sort of loads of reasons that will lead somebody to take that decision. It's never just one thing. But in my case, I'd done a lot already. By the time I was 25, I'd exhausted a lot of avenues. I'd learned a lot of things that weren't going to make me happy. And it was like the next thing that I was trying. So I had been working in Sri Lanka, so sort of post Tsunami Sri Lanka, doing some international development work, and found out about meditation there. Not found out. I'd heard about meditation before, but I started meditating regularly there. And it just struck me as a different way of going about my quality of life, like a fundamentally different orientation, rather than seeking things outside of myself, sort of to do something on what's happening on the inside. When that chapter in Sri Lanka ended and I was thinking about what to do next, going deeper into meditation was one of the options. It ended up being the winning option. And then I wasn't particularly attached to the idea of ordaining. I just went around Southeast Asia looking for places to meditate long term. Eventually I found the monastery that I ended up ordaining at. And I was just impressed by the quality of practice there, the amazing things that people were doing with their minds. I couldn't believe. It blew my mind that these things were possible. And I decided I wanted to stay there until I had learned what they are teaching. The majority of that community were ordained. It made sense to me to ordain in that context. And I loved ordained life. I think when I die, I will look back on it as some of the best years of my life.
- [07:15]
Dan Harris
What blew your mind? What were people doing with their minds that blew your mind?
- [07:20]
Beth Upton
Where to start? There's so much amazing stuff in the world of meditation, enough for several lifetimes. And most people don't know. Most people think of meditation as something that you do each day, like go for a jog, basic maintenance or something. But if you go deep into meditation, there's a whole universe of incredible advanced practices there. Maybe some of the things that are easiest to talk about for people who don't have a lot of technical knowledge. Of advanced meditation. Things like people discerning past and future lives and causality over lifetimes. Some of the really advanced samadhi states. I remember one of the first group interviews I was ever in. So in the monastery where I trained, only ever had group interview. It means if you wanted instruction, you were in a group setting and you asked your questions and received instruction in front of a group. One of the first ever group interviews that I was in, one of the nuns was describing her experience of the seventh jhana, which is the base of nothingness. And she was like this. And the teacher said to her, was it peaceful? And she said yes, yes, Bandu was very peaceful. And he said, for how long could you maintain your seventh jhana? This is a state which is like exquisitely refined. Free from any thought, free from any distraction. No awareness of the body, no awareness of time. And she said for two hours, Bante. And he said, bit short. This is like one of my first days there. Bit short. And she was like, okay, you know, to go off and do this amazing thing for even longer. I had had like a pretty good education in the UK and I arrived there and was like, there's so much that nobody even ever told me was possible in this human experience. There's so much on the menu that nobody's even ever mentioned to me that will do me so much better than the things that I've already been taught. And so I committed to stay there until I had learned what they were teaching.
- [09:35]
Dan Harris
I have so many questions.
- [09:37]
Beth Upton
I mean you can go if you want, Dan, like go and do it if you want. It's still there. Monastery is still there.
- [09:44]
Dan Harris
Yes, I know, I know and I have a lot of thoughts on that. But I'm gonna keep myself out of it for a second. I just want to define two terms for people that you used. Samadhi, which is the poly term. Poly being the now dead language that the Buddhists teachings were written down in. But samadhi is the poly term for concentration or focus. One pointedness of the mind and jhna states J H A N A are these eight interconnected rooms in the mind. I can only speak of them theoretically because I've not accessed them that are apparently on offer. Where as your samadhi gets really refined, you access these eight levels of. It's just amazing to me that the, you can see consistently over time that the mind, something about the human mind has this access to these states of being, states of mind that are described for millennia that we can experience if we do the right Kind of practice and get our mind focused in this way. You're describing a scene where on your first day, one of the other nuns is like, yeah, I'm on level seven for two hours. And the teacher is like, yeah, well, see if you can up that to three or four. Which is incredible.
- [11:08]
Beth Upton
Yeah, yeah.
- [11:09]
Dan Harris
But the other thing you said in there is about past and future lives, which you kind of just mentioned and moved along. And I guess my question to you is, if I were showing up as a 25 year old at this monastery, the 25 year old version of me would never have done that because he was an idiot. But If I was 25 showing up at the monastery and somebody was saying, yeah, you can get the mind to the point where you can discern past and future lives, I would have said, I'm out. This is a cult. There's no way that's true. What about you allowed you to believe that was a thing that could be done?
- [11:45]
Beth Upton
Well, the whole of the nature of the Dharma, when it's being well taught, is what we call elements ehi pasika, which is another Pali word, and it means come and see. So like, ehi, come pasika to see, come and see. So it's inviting your investigation, it's not requiring your blind belief. And there is a systematic practice by which you can come and see. Is it really possible or not? And that really appealed to my scientific side. I had like a scientific education. And so I was skeptical and open and enthusiastic. You know, I was willing to come and see. And I went through that method with a fine tooth comb, searching for the mistakes. But the community there is like around a thousand people. And of those a thousand people, not all of them are in those very advanced practices. A good chunk of them are breaths going in, breaths going out. But a good number of them are in those advanced practices. So just out of humility, I think it's worth not immediately discounting that as everyone's just in a cult and embracing this attitude that is praised by the Buddha of like, okay, let's see, let's see if it's possible.
- [13:09]
Dan Harris
What did you find when you went and saw?
- [13:12]
Beth Upton
I saw is possible and beneficial. There's a lot in this life which is possible but not beneficial. And the beautiful thing about this training is, yeah, it's possible. And when you do it, you feel the benefit to your quality of life.
- [13:32]
Dan Harris
What is the benefit of having some insight into your past lives and future lives? How does that help? Because I would just be thinking about telling past versions of myself to Buy Apple stock.
- [13:48]
Beth Upton
Yeah. So I think like any tool, you can use it for benefit or not. And the way that you just described wouldn't be beneficial. So in the Dharma, we understand that at the root of everything which makes us suffer is identity. There's some me or mine. And all of the suffering crystallizes around that, right? So we've already got enough me and mine in this life to be causing our suffering. The danger when we see our past lives is that we just increase that amount of me and mine. And it's not only I suffered in this life, but woe is me. I also suffered in the past life and so on. And I also didn't get this. And if we discern our past lives like that, leaning into the identity, then it can just increase our suffering and there isn't really any benefit in it. It can also increase our pride. Look at me and what I can do. And I was this and I was that. So that would be the wrong use of the tool. The way that we use it for benefit is the opposite. And it's to deepen our understanding of non self. So in order to use this practice to deepen our understanding of non self, what we do when we discern the past lives is essentially ignore the concept. The concept is like, oh, I was an elephant, or I was a human, or I was a deva in my past life or whatever it might be. And instead we discern that past life as to bring us here into the Abhidharma. We discern that past life as momentary phenomena arising and passing away. So it's moments of consciousness arising and passing away one after the other, and particles of materiality arising and passing away. And then what we discern is the causal relation between that momentary phenomena in the past life and the momentary phenomena that is happening now. And so what we can see is that every moment of experience that is happening now is conditioned by momentary phenomena in the past and momentary phenomena in the present. But what we have is impermanent moments conditioning other impermanent moments. And when we see that, we understand even more vividly there's no me and there's no mine in the center of this. It's all just a momentary causal process. And that gives rise to a great unburdening. We could say a great renunciation. A great unburdening.
- [16:29]
Dan Harris
I'm going to do my best to restate that to you. And please, at the back end of my.
- [16:35]
Beth Upton
I mean, it's a lot. You've really, like, you dived right in there.
- [16:42]
Dan Harris
That's my job also. Part of my job is to see if I can understand what my guest is saying as a proxy for the audience. So I'm going to see if I can restate it and please correct me. On the other side, at the heart of the Dharma is letting go. And one of the hardest renunciations is this very natural identification we have with the self. I am this, I am that. I have an Instagram page, I have a resume, I have dentist appointment, etc, and all that is true on one level. You're Beth, I'm Dan. In consensual reality, that's all true. But on an ultimate level, it's all just impermanent arisings within consciousness, which is itself also impermanent. And so what's the point of looking at your past lives? It's not to reify your identity. It's not to concretize some sense of, look how good a meditator I am or look how I was in my past lives. It's to see that everything that was and everything that will be and everything that is now are just these blips arising in consciousness, these impersonal, impermanent objects arising in the mind. And each arising is conditioned by this vast, incomprehensible gumbo of previous causes and conditions. And so understanding who and what you were in past lives, it's not to show off, it's to deepen your understanding that you are less solid than you think you are.
- [18:23]
Beth Upton
Yes. That was pretty good. That was pretty good.
- [18:29]
Dan Harris
Thank you. I feel much more I am in this moment because you're inflating my ego.
- [18:35]
Beth Upton
Because of the pride it gets us, doesn't it?
- [18:37]
Dan Harris
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's an amazing thing to hear. And. And I want to point out that I don't know if you know Nikki Mirgafori.
- [18:46]
Beth Upton
Yeah, I've never met her, but I know of her.
- [18:48]
Dan Harris
Yeah. So she studied at the same monastery, to my knowledge, in the same school. There's a renowned Buddhist monk in Burma, Pa Auk Sayada. I'm probably mangling his name. And he was her teacher and your teacher. And Nikki was on this show a couple years ago and talked about her own work in this style of practice. So I will drop a link to that in the show notes. But I'm saying all of that to get me to this guy, Pa Sayada, because his way of teaching is renowned to be incredibly rigorous, where you, if memory serves, you really go through the jhnas before you even do the what most of us are doing. On a daily basis, which is mindfulness or insight practice. So I'd be curious to hear more about, like, how your mind encountered that level of rigor and, you know, whether it's for everybody.
- [19:48]
Beth Upton
Well, I would describe the part training as being systematic and detailed. I guess you could say rigorous, but when you say rigorous, it makes it sound like it's hard work. And my experience at PARC wasn't so much that it was hard work, but it is detailed and it's systematic and that's sort of reflective of the personality of Pa Arc Sedor, whose name you pronounced very well. He is a very detail oriented man and he sort of delights in the detail for its own sake, what can be known, what can be discerned for its own sake. And so there's a lot of detail in the practice. As for the Jhana training, we can think of the direction of progress in meditation as moving from more coarse states to more subtle states. At first, when the mind is full of coarse objects and distraction, we're not able to know very subtle things. We're only able to know relatively coarse things. Later, like you said, the direction is letting go. So when we've put down some of those more clunky, more coarse things, we're able to stay with more refined things for longer. And so we can imagine that that Jhana training is essentially habituating the mind to be with very subtle things for a long time and not to get distracted by more coarse things, not to pick them back up. So a lot of the really interesting practices involve being with very subtle things for a long time. Discerning your past lives and causality across individual mind moments is subtle by its very nature. And so we do that training first to incline the mind towards subtle states by inclining the mind towards subtle states is complex in and of its own right. It's not just like, be with that subtle state, get on with it, do it till you can do it. In order to be with something subtle for a long time, we need to along the way be building awareness of all of the clunky things that we're holding onto and why, what emotions can't we put down, what objects of attention keep on drawing us in. And so it's all included, even though it might sound rigorous, involves a lot of love and a lot of kindness and a lot of getting to know yourself and all of these things that people are doing when they are calling it, let's say, a mindfulness practice.
- [22:25]
Dan Harris
So it's even if you're on a POW AK retreat, or you've ordained in that tradition, you're still noticing some of the same things that we notice in meditation, us civilians, like hunger, desire, anger, ancient resentments, et cetera, et cetera. You're working with a lot of the same raw materials, but over time, you're getting down to levels that are really subtle.
- [22:49]
Beth Upton
Yeah, you can't not see those things. I think it's maybe a meditation myth that you can just bulldoze your way into a samadhi state or into a jhana state. You can't. You have to see all of their things which are coming into your attention. You have to see your habits of mind. I think what we notice with the Paul training is sort of different. Traditions have had to define their usp, if you like, sort of what they're leading with. And the Pa' alg tradition is really emphasizing those more refined ends of the practice. And so that's where all the vocabulary picks up. That's what the culture is built around. It's a magnet for people who want to practice at that level. But nobody gets to skip over dealing with hunger and irritation with the sound and feeling sad, and nobody gets to skip over that. We all have to learn how to deal with those things.
- [23:46]
Dan Harris
What's the deal with the caves?
- [23:49]
Beth Upton
What do you want to know about it?
- [23:51]
Dan Harris
Why? Why not just stay on the monastery? Why sit in a cave?
- [23:55]
Beth Upton
Yeah. So I had been at Palk at that time for like, just over five years. I had practiced my way through the meditations that they were teaching. And I think what I really needed at that time was a little while to practice outside of the institution. Not because there's anything wrong with the institution, but as you or anyone will know, if you've spent a long time living full time within an institution, there's just like, the way of doing things. There's the cultural blind spots, there's the bad habits that you pick up within that institution. There's the ways in which you're not challenged because you know everyone's doing the same thing. So after those years, I just wanted a place to practice that wasn't within the monastery, where I could go over everything that I've learned in my own time, in my own pace, digest it. And I found it a surprisingly difficult need to get met. To be honest, as a monastic, I wasn't using money and I didn't have money, so paying to go and be in a retreat center wasn't an option for me. A lot of other monasteries were happy to have you. If you practice in the way that they wanted, so sort of re. Institutionalize yourself into their institution. Some monasteries wanted you to disrobe and reordain in their tradition, which I didn't want to do. And so after a bit of a search, I just said to my mum, like, can you put me on a bus to southern Spain? And my idea was, it'll be warm enough to sleep. Outside is southern Spain and it's Europe. Like, I'm not going to get skinnier and skinnier and starve to death on the side of the road. Someone's going to feed me, you know. And so that's what I did. I didn't know that the caves were there when I left. And the first little while, few nights, I was just sleeping on a park bench and begging my food in the local market, and then little by little, finding slightly more comfortable places to stay until I ended up in the caves. And then I was there for about 15 months the first time I was there. And then later I went back and we turned it into a meditation community. It was a great time. Really, really great time.
- [26:19]
Dan Harris
You're a badass. I love this. This is awesome. So I promise I'll move off the biographical questions in a second. But you said earlier that you loved being a monastic.
- [26:29]
Beth Upton
Yeah.
- [26:30]
Dan Harris
But then you did decide to disrobe in 2018, so what was that about?
- [26:34]
Beth Upton
I think it's more of what I was just saying. So I moved out of the institution. I was still ordained when I was in the caves and I was doing my own practice, just as an ordained person living in those caves. And then as I felt more into my practice, I realized that the things which still destabilized me, let's say, were all things that I was avoiding by being in the ropes. So when you're an ordained person, for example, the way that people tend to interact with you, even strangers, there's a certain quality to it which is very samey. And so my relational life was lacking diversity and challenge because everybody was relating to me first and foremost as a monastic. There were also sort of parts of myself that never came out to play because I was a monastic. And so I couldn't really apply wisdom to those parts of myself because I never saw the light of day because I was always being a nun. Another big one was money. So I had this rule not to use money. My university degree had been in economics, and it was very convenient for me to be not using money because I had taken a huge dislike to money and the financial system. And then I just could keep my Hands clean. And I was at a stage where I was realizing I was going to start picking up more responsibility in the Dhamma, maybe doing some teaching, and very much needing other people to deal with money. And yet secretly I was holding some avoidance, judgment, aversion towards the whole of the world of finance. That and a few other things. Basically, I realized I need to get my hands a bit dirty, go and do a bit more living, go and let some of these other parts of myself out to play so that I could apply my wisdom to those things and integrate it into my practice. The other thing also is it was around the time that I was starting to teach others in a very gentle way. And I was very aware that being ordained at par arc, I'm also representing them in the way that I teach others. And I think as a layperson, the way that I teach is very loyal to the tradition in which I trained. And if I had forced myself to conduct myself at all times to that standard, it would have been so stifling for me because everything, the way that you sit, the way that you talk, the way that you eat, the way that you. So I think I just wanted to not misrepresent them in my humanness and also cut myself a bit of slack by not having this pressure, this institutional pressure to teach in a way that is exactly by the book.
- [29:30]
Dan Harris
Yeah, yeah, that makes complete sense.
- [29:32]
Beth Upton
Yeah.
- [29:32]
Dan Harris
Back to what you were saying about wanting to engage with parts of yourself that were quite naturally suppressed by the monastic lifestyle. As I was listening to you speak, I was remembering those Zen ox herding pictures. I'm sure you're familiar with them. They're these series of Zen images comparing enlightenment to ox herding. And.
- [29:57]
Beth Upton
I don't know.
- [29:58]
Dan Harris
Okay, well, I don't remember all the different. I'm probably mangling this in a thousand different ways. But the punchline is the final image is going to the market.
- [30:09]
Beth Upton
Yeah. Right.
- [30:10]
Dan Harris
So you can get enlightened, but the point is to then re. Engage with the world, to integrate.
- [30:16]
Beth Upton
Yeah. So another sort of, like, hackneyed simile is the child learning to walk. You know, when you're teaching a child to walk, you do want to make it easy. You don't want to put them in the middle of the street. But we don't always, in our practice, want to be making it as safe and sterile as possible. There's the right time for challenge and integration. That's really at the heart of why I disrobed. But I still. I've got such a soft spot for monastic life in my heart, I love it. But in this chapter, it's not. It's not the right context for me to grow.
- [30:51]
Dan Harris
Thank you for your patience with my personal questions.
- [30:55]
Beth Upton
My pleasure.
- [30:59]
Dan Harris
Coming up, Beth Upton talks about the Buddhist Abhidhamma, which she calls particle physics for the mind. She talks about why she's interested in the broader teaching of Kusala and practical ways to design your life to get more Kusala. So I've got a meditation retreat coming up and I am actually going to be staying at an Airbnb for part of the meditation retreat. It's a long story, but I'll be staying for part of the retreat at the Insight Meditation Society on campus. But for part of it, I needed to get an Air Airbnb in Barrie, Massachusetts. And it has been such a pleasure. It was so easy to find the right spot close by. Cozy, very easy to correspond with the owner of the home. And I'll be staying there with one of my best buds, Josh, for a couple days before we move onto the campus and learn directly from the great Joseph Goldstein. But it's just another example of why I love Airbnb. So next time you're away, maybe you should put your home on Airbnb. You can make the most of your space. You can make some extra cash. Feels like a smart thing to do. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much@airbnb.com host summer is now officially here and my favorite part of this whole deal is having friends over and sitting by the pool in our backyard. These long, languorous afternoons and early evenings with our friends. It's such a great way to get to know people. Hanging out in nature, watching our kids beat the crap out of each other in the pool. It's so much more intimate than what my friend Zev calls the dinner industrial complex. Not that I don't like going out to restaurants, but chilling in the backyard is huge. And of course, while you're doing that, you want to be comfortable. You want to be sitting on a nice couch, you want a good grill, you want nice patio tables that are solid and can hold all the snacks that you're putting out. You want lounge chairs, day beds and umbrellas. And the place to go for all of those is Wayfair. They've got fast and easy shipping. It's never been easier to get ready to party. So however you kick back out back, go to Wayfair for effortless, entertaining and game filled gatherings. It's a great selection and the website is super easy to use. Get big stuff like patio sets, gazebos, hot tubs, outdoor dining sets, and more shipped for free. Head to Wayfair.com right now to explore a huge outdoor selection that's W a y f a I r.com w a y f a I r.com Wayfair Every style, every home let's talk about the thing you wanted to teach today in your conversations with Marissa, our senior producer, Marissa Schneiderman, who is quite a serious Dharma student herself. In those conversations that you had with Marissa, you said that you wanted to talk about the Abhidhamma. Many people might not know what that is. Can you just describe and define, if you would?
- [34:04]
Beth Upton
Yeah. So just to clarify a little bit, because of the way I trained, I spend a lot of my teaching life in these very sort of technical conversations with people my teaching life inclines to. People who are very dedicated to the practice would probably say it's the most or one of the most important things in their life. They're doing long silent retreats with me every year, and it doesn't come naturally to me to think about aspects of what I have learned that I can give to a broad audience. My natural strength is sort of attending to the person in front of me, if you like. And so when I was thinking about, or I am thinking in general at the moment, more about of this knowledge base, what things can I take that would be beneficial for anyone? Not just the dedicated meditator in front of me, but anyone? One of the answers that I landed on is this topic of, again, another Pali word, kusala. Kusala is like a quality of mind which has a group of mental qualities that always co arise. It's like the beautiful thing that the mind can do. And it's essentially just one thing. But in order to understand it well, we need to lean into the Abhidhamma. And the abhidhamma, to answer your question, is the side of the Buddha's teachings which breaks everything down into its building blocks, into its smallest possible building blocks. So it's like the essence of what's really happening when you break it down as much as you can. And when we break things down into their building blocks, we find that it's all momentary. So this is what we were speaking about before with the past life practice. For example, when we go as subtle as we can go, we see that things are momentarily coming into and out of existence. And what the Abhidharma deals with is what are these momentary building blocks of reality? And then it classifies them and Defines them in lots of different ways.
- [36:19]
Dan Harris
I'm going to do my re restating.
- [36:21]
Beth Upton
Go on, you, you guys.
- [36:25]
Dan Harris
I'm going to reverse the order of what you said. So the Abhidhamma is my friend Dr. Mark Epstein, who's a Buddhist psychiatrist. I believe he wrote his master's thesis or his senior thesis on the Abhidhamma, and he has described it as the table of elements for the mind.
- [36:45]
Beth Upton
Yeah, that's right. Like particle physics for the mind.
- [36:48]
Dan Harris
Yes, yes, yes. It's the aspect of the Buddhist teachings that really breaks down this whole system of mind, body, heart, whatever you want to call it, to its most fundamental and subtle elements.
- [37:03]
Beth Upton
Yeah. The bit which is better than it being an elementary table is that it's not only for the physical world, it's that also for the mind, which is completely non physical.
- [37:14]
Dan Harris
Yes.
- [37:15]
Beth Upton
So that's where we trump science or.
- [37:19]
Dan Harris
You'Re ahead of science and science may catch up.
- [37:22]
Beth Upton
Let's hope so. I really want that to happen, Dan. Make that happen.
- [37:26]
Dan Harris
I'm doing my best. I mean, you could think of it as its own science.
- [37:29]
Beth Upton
It's more scientific than science. Yeah. I would love, love for science to integrate more of the Abhidharma understanding. I'd love it. I'd love it. Yeah.
- [37:44]
Dan Harris
My suspicion is that it will happen. And not having anything to do with me, it's just that I see so many neuroscientists and just plain old scientists who are operating in the world today who are really interested in the Dharma. I have a sense that that momentum exists within Buddhism and within the Abhidhamma. One of the really important concepts, as you said earlier, and now I'm continuing with my restating thing here, is kusala K U S A L A, which according to my notes here, can be translated as skillful, intelligent, expert, good. Right. Virtuous, meritorious, beneficial, lucky, happy, healthy, prosperous. Depending on the contexts. The opposite of kusala is a kusala, a K U S A L A that is in Pali, often you have a concept and then the opposite of the concept, you just put an A in front of it. Kind of like atheist or theist, probably where we get it from. And so that's my full reflection. Yes. We have the Abhidhamma, which is a detailed deconstruction of the mind. And kusala is a concept that comes up within the Dharma and within specifically the, The Abhidhamma. And so why, if I'm correct about all of that, what about kusala is attractive to you as a broad Teaching.
- [39:08]
Beth Upton
I spend a lot of my time teaching the technical things. And when I am in that work of taking somebody up the meditation mountain, for example, I'm very much thinking about what is beneficial to to them for their next step in terms of the technique and the balance of their mind and everything. If I step back and I'm like, what is beneficial to everybody wherever they are on the mountain, to take one step up the mountain? The answer is. Kousala. The name of your podcast is 10% happier. What do you do if you want to be 10% happier? Do more Kousala. What do you do if you want to take one step out of your depression? Do more Kusla. What do you do if you're suffering from anxiety and you want to ease it one step? Do more Kusla. What do you do if you want to improve your parenting? Do more Kusla. What do you do if you want to get on better with your boss? You do more Kusla. What do you do if you're in chronic pain? Do more Kusla. It's the medicine that everyone can take and get benefit.
- [40:13]
Dan Harris
So how do you do more Kusala?
- [40:16]
Beth Upton
Well, I think this is where the Abhidharma really helps because as you just said, like in your definition of that word, it doesn't translate easily into English. And we have words like skillful, beneficial, wholesome, good, and they are vague. And so we think about, okay, how do I be more skillful? Well, if I knew, you know, so. So it's difficult to put into practice when we understand what's happening on that Abhidhamma level. So on this atomic building blocks level, I think it becomes much more actionable and very unifying as well. So what we need to know about Koussala is that it is a collection of qualities of mind that always co arise. It's a law of the mind that these things come together. You can think of them like best friends that are handcuffed together. And so if you invite one of them to the party, they all come along. These qualities of mind are faith, which is not the same thing as blind belief. It is our confidence that what we're doing is good. Right? So our faith, mindfulness, which I'm sure you will have spoken about a lot, our non greedy, which is our renunciation, letting go, generosity, contentment. Our non hatred, which is our acceptance, loving kindness, welcoming, embracing our morality, which is like our conscience, doesn't want to harm ourselves or others, wants to do the right thing. Basic mental balance, like nothing in too Much excess. On a course level, we could think of this like no drama, nice and balanced, nice and even keel tranquility, a softness, lightness, flexibility. And then we have a proficiency, which basically means this Kousala mind is good at its task. So a type of proficiency. And then the last one is an uprightness, which we could think of as authenticity, integrity, a truthfulness, but not just in speech, in the way that we conduct ourselves, straight and true uprightness. When we know that we're dealing with this collection of mental qualities, then to do more Kusla, we can pick any one of them and we'll be doing all of them. Let me be more generous today. Who could I give a gift to today? And without trying. You're already more tranquil, you're already more loving, you've already got more faith in the goodness of humanity, you're already more mindful, you're already more in line with your conscience. Alternatively, you could sit and think, what's weighing on my conscience? Where have I transgressed my own ethics? Let me make amends for that today. And you're already more loving, more generous of spirit, more faithful, more tranquil, all of the good things coming along together with it. And again, whatever is your context, whatever is your life situation, you can pick any of these, you can do any of them, lean into any of them, you get all of them together as a like added bonus and you will feel better.
- [43:46]
Dan Harris
I'm picturing like an abacus with rows, horizontal rows, and some sort of bead on each row. If each of those beads is one of the component parts of Kousela, all you have to do is move any bead. So it could be the mindfulness bead all the way to the right and automatically click. All the other beads are in place. As soon as you're paying attention in a non judgmental way, I. E. Mindfulness, uprightness, faith, all those other beads click into place alongside it. In a true moment of mindfulness, all those things are there. And it's kusala.
- [44:28]
Beth Upton
Yes, that's right. Even in that, that you just said mindfulness, I. E. Paying attention in a non judgmental way. So even in that you're conflating two of those different mental factors, mindfulness and non judgment. You notice they come along together, but they're actually two different things. They're two best friends handcuffed together. The part which is mindfulness is not forgetting what you're doing, not forgetting to stay with your object of attention. And the non judgment is the non hatred mental factor that Comes right along with it. Hang puff to it. The part where your simile breaks down just a little is that although all of these mental factors come along together, they can vary slightly in their predominance. So, for example, if you're practicing loving kindness meditation, you'll be leading with non hatred and it will be the predominant one in the group. They'll all be there, but one of them is making the most noise. If you do prostrations to the Buddha, you're leading with faith, it will be the loudest one. All of them will be there, but that one will be the strongest.
- [45:36]
Dan Harris
So it's as if when the beads click onto the right side, they each inflate or deflate based on which one is in the lead.
- [45:46]
Beth Upton
Yeah. Or like maybe instead of they're connected by a rod, they're connected by an elastic or something. We could work the simile. But yeah, you're basically. You're right. You're right.
- [45:57]
Dan Harris
I do appreciate when you correct me and I would encourage you to keep doing that.
- [46:01]
Beth Upton
Pleasure.
- [46:02]
Dan Harris
The point here is not for me to be right. The point is for the people listening to this to understand. Okay, so you're saying if the goal is Kusala, to have a healthy, wholesome state of mind, which will help us be 10% happier, 10% less depressed, 10% less addicted, whatever it is. So we all want this. We all want Kusalasa. There are, I can't remember how many factors, maybe it sounded like about 10 that are non negotiable kus, Component parts handcuffed together that arise co. Arise in any Kusala moment of mine. We can pick anything off that menu. Uprightness, non hatred, generosity, mindfulness. And just focus on that and we will get happier.
- [46:50]
Beth Upton
Yes. Don't you think more people should know? It's like a basic law of how everybody's mind works. It's happening in everybody. It's like a law of the mind. And we don't know. To me, that's a tragedy. That's a tragedy.
- [47:08]
Dan Harris
Well, you are remedying that.
- [47:11]
Beth Upton
With your help. With your help. Yeah.
- [47:14]
Dan Harris
We're both in a Kusala mind state right now.
- [47:16]
Beth Upton
We are. Yeah.
- [47:18]
Dan Harris
Let's go a click more practical. If I'm listening to you, Beth, speak about this, tell me more about how I can design my busy life. Because a lot of people are listening to this while driving or washing the dishes and they don't have a ton of extra time. How can I design my busy life to get more of this Kousala thing to which you Keep referring.
- [47:40]
Beth Upton
Well, when I'm speaking to meditators, I often suggest that we sort of break our day down into different sections. So one section might be time where you're really just not doing anything. And we tend to fill that with scrolling our phone or distracting ourselves or whatever we do. But really you're not doing anything and there's nothing particularly useful for you to be doing. So my advice to meditators at that time is meditate. But if you're not a meditator and you're not inclined to meditate, it's worth making an inventory of those times and committing rather than filling them with distraction and junk. What kind of kusala piqued your interest? Would you like to do a gratitude practice? Would you like to do a generosity practice? In the last relationship that I was in, we had a kusala hat where we put people's names in the hat. And if we had some downtime, we pick someone's name out and we plan a little Koussala that we could do for them, like something nice that we could do for them. So that's the time of the day when you've got nothing useful to be doing basically, like meditate or make a list of different types of kusla things that you would like to do and do them at that time. Another chunk of the day, like the second chunk to work with is all of the things that we do in a day sort of on autopilot, so it's not requiring much active attention from us. But you've got to be doing those things. You know, you've got to be doing the laundry, you've got to do your commute, you've got to chop the vegetables, you know, whatever it is that you've got to do, you've got to answer the emails. And so for those activities, usually what I suggest to meditators is that you train yourself to do those things with your attention on whatever is your meditation object. Because realistically, there's enough space in the mind to be with your breath or be practicing loving kindness or whatever meditation you're doing, mindfulness of the body alongside doing these kind of autopilot activities for people who aren't meditators. Again, you could just think, what Kousala, can I bring to this activity? Can I chop the vegetables as a service to the people who will eat them, or with gratitude for the people that planted the vegetables or, you know, whatever it might be when I'm on my commute, Can I do well wishes to the other people? On the train, you know, whatever it might be, because you know that you're going to have to do those things every day. So if you start to build into your habit to do it in a Kusala frame of mind, then it's going to compound over time because the habits will become sort of like snowballing, reinforcing themselves. And then we've got the things that we have to do each day which do require active engagement. For example, now I'm doing this podcast with you and it's requiring my full attention or, you know, whatever we have to attend to in our work life or our parenting or whatever it might be where we do need to be fully engaged with the activity in those cases. First of all, I would suggest people to have a look at. Are there any of these things that you are having to give your full attention to that, you know, it's almost impossible to do it with a Koussala mind? You hate it. And if that's the case, then gradually, obviously, we can't just immediately change our lives, but we are responsible for our lives. We are the captain of the ship. And if there are things we're consenting to every day that just completely drain our Koussala, we want to gradually start to steer our lives away from having to engage in those kinds of things, the things that we really can't get out of. Again, we want to ask ourselves, what beautiful quality of attention can I bring to this activity? If I need to do emails for two hours a day, can I make each email an act of service, for example, or an act of patience or humility or renunciation? Or if I need to do a lot of parenting, can I make this my act of loving kindness? Or again, patience, can I bring in more tranquility, whatever it might be? So what one or more than one of these beautiful qualities of mine can I bring to this activity that I must do?
- [52:15]
Dan Harris
Coming up, Beth talks about the beautiful qualities of mind that all co arise in a moment of Kusala. They are co activating these states of mind. She talks about how we get tripped up in the realm of the unwholesome and how she, Beth, navigates Kousela and Akusala. So I've got a meditation retreat coming up and I am actually going to be staying at an Airbnb for part of the meditation retreat. It's a long story, but I'll be staying for part of the retreat at the Insight Meditation Society on campus. But for part of it, I needed to get an Airbnb in Barrie Massachusetts. And it has been such a pleasure. It was so easy to find the right spot close by. Cozy, very easy to correspond with the owner of the home. And I'll be staying there with one of my best buds, Josh, for a couple days before we move onto the campus and learn directly from the great Joseph Goldstein. But it's just another example of why I love Airbnb. So next time you're away, maybe you should put your home on Airbnb. You can make the most of your space. You can make some extra cash. Feels like a smart thing to do. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much@airbnb.com host summer's now officially here and my favorite part of this whole deal is having friends over and sitting by the pool in our backyard. These long, languorous afternoons and early evenings with our friends. It's such a great way to get to know people. Hanging out in nature, watching our kids beat the crap out of each other in the pool. It's so much more intimate than what my friend Zev calls the dinner industrial complex. Not that I don't like going out to restaurants, but chilling in the backyard is huge. And of course, while you're doing that, you want to be comfortable. You want to be sitting on a nice couch, you want a good grill. You want nice patio tables that are solid and can hold all the snacks that you're putting out. You want lounge chairs, day beds and umbrellas. And the place to go for all of those is Wayfair. They've got fast and easy shipping. It's never been easier to get ready to party. So however you kick back out back, go to Wayfair for effortless entertaining and and game filled gatherings. It's a great selection and the website is super easy to use. Get big stuff like patio sets, gazebos, hot tubs, outdoor dining sets and more shipped for free. Head to Wayfair.com right now to explore a huge outdoor selection. That's W a y f a I r.com w a y-f a I r.com Wayfair Every style, every home in her own daily life. Can you go over the menu again? What are the beautiful qualities of mine that all co arise in a moment of acousela moment.
- [55:10]
Beth Upton
Yeah, I'll go over them just quickly. So we've got faith, mindfulness, non greed, non hatred. I think non greed and non hatred are very boring translations for these two very powerful mental factors. But anyway, non greed, non hatred. Our morality, like our conscience, mental balance, tranquility, lightness softness, flexibility, proficiency, and uprightness.
- [55:39]
Dan Harris
What's proficiency again?
- [55:41]
Beth Upton
Proficiency is a type of good at what it does. So if you imagine a mind that is angry, for example, it will be rigid. And if you try to turn it to a task to get a job done, it's not going to do it very well because it's an agitated, unstable mind. So if you are angry and you were trying to chop the vegetables, for example, you're more likely to cut your finger or make a mistake. It's not established in proficiency, but when the mind is well established in Kusla, you can direct your attention. Do this now, do this now. And it will do it well, because it's established in Kousera.
- [56:22]
Dan Harris
So when I hear proficiency as you describe it, I'm thinking a little bit about flow states. Yeah, I don't get into flow that often, or at least I don't know enough about flow to know whether I'm in it often. But there are things that I do in my daily life where I am pretty proficient. I can play the drums, I can write an introduction to this podcast, and when I'm in those states where I'm fully absorbed and I know what I'm doing, it feels good to do it. That is Koussala.
- [56:53]
Beth Upton
You notice that other Kousala comes along with it. So when you lean into proficiency and you're not thinking about it, you're not controlling anymore, then you notice, you become tranquil, you become naturally mindful, you become surrendered. The hate goes away. Right. They all come along together. So you're right there. And in that flow state, we have proficiency predominant, but we also have that flexibility and softness predominant, that there's no rigidity, there's no control in that flow state. Right.
- [57:26]
Dan Harris
I'm trying to think of the right simile or metaphor for what it is you're laying out here for us, because you can think of it as a recipe where if you get one ingredient, you get all of them. So it's bargain shopping in that way.
- [57:41]
Beth Upton
Yeah, it's like a happiness cake.
- [57:44]
Dan Harris
Yeah. But it's also kind of like a compass. I think I'm making this up. But it's like if you have this lens on life, let's boost our Kosola quotient for as many waking moments, or even if you're sleeping and you're a master meditator and you can meditate in your sleep for as many mind moments as are available to you. If that's your North Star, if that's the direction, well, then you're practicing all the time.
- [58:16]
Beth Upton
Yes. And the truth is, sort of, aside from the force of habit, which is a very strong force, there is no reason why you can't be practicing Kusala at any time. There is no circumstance or isn't that this isn't the right time for Koussala now. It's always the better option.
- [58:35]
Dan Harris
Let's talk a little bit about Akusula. The opposite. What qualifies? Like if I like to mindlessly eat some pretzels and watch sports with my son. So is that Akusela?
- [58:48]
Beth Upton
That is Akusula, Yeah. So whereas Koussula's just got that one flavor that now we've spoken about a lot. All of these factors that are chained together. Akhusala isn't like that. There's many, many different kinds of unwholesome things the mind can do. We can be angry or prideful or greedy or lustful or many things fearful, sad, loads and loads of different ways that the mind can be unwholesome. And at the core of the reason why we fall into Akusla is because we're addicted to that me and mine. So the aversive kinds of Akusla, to oversimplify, are sort of doing a protecting function for that imagined me and mine. And then the greedy kinds of Akusala are doing a nourishing function for that imagined me or mine. So you're like my body and my pleasure. Where are those pretzels? But there is no your body and there is no your pleasure. Right. So there's that wrongly imagined me and mine that we're serving through all of that ausula, which is what makes it a. Probably one of the main reasons that we get caught up well at the center is that me and mine. But on the level of habit, is because both Kusala and Akusala can feel good. Right? It feels good when you're eating your favorite kind of ice cream. It feels good when you're having those pretzels. It feels good when you're gossiping with your friend. It feels. There's lots of things in the realm of unwholesome that feel good for a little while. It's not as refined of a pleasure as you get through the kusala, but it is our habit, and it's sort of a more coarse form of pleasure that is somewhat addicting. So the Buddha famously said, if you want big happiness, give up the small happiness, give it up. We're addicted to this small happiness of the Akusala, which is like gratification to Our ego gratification to our senses. And so we keep on missing the opportunity to do the kusala. And when we do that, it's essentially a habit shift. And the habit is away from something slightly more coarse and again towards something slightly more subtle, but actually far more gratifying.
- [61:04]
Dan Harris
My meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein, who I've worked with for 15 years or whatever, he makes this attempt. And I find it doesn't always work for me. I can't always operationalize it in my life, But I do find it work for me intellectually. I think, to me, it's a winning reframe. I think it's possible to hear what you're saying about giving up these small forms of happiness, which is referred to within the Dharma as renunciation, which is not always the most winning term for Westerners. We don't love it, but Joseph tries to reframe it as non addiction, which I actually do think works for the Western mind. Because we know that it sucks to be addicted. So I'd be curious to hear if you have any thoughts on that.
- [61:43]
Beth Upton
I think it's a beautiful reframe. Yeah. The problem is that addiction to acoustic, if you want to put it in that way, addiction to this small happiness of ego gratification, seeking praise, accomplishment, achievement, seeking gratification to the senses in the ice cream and the pretzels. It's such a culturally normalized addiction, culturally praised in a lot of cases. It's the way that people connect and feel included with each other that I think it's probably quite a difficult reframe for people to maintain. Right. Because we're not walking around pointing out to each other that we're addicted. We're really encouraging each other. We're pulling people into this world of the small happiness again and again and again. And I think Joseph is right. At its core, it's an addiction. Yeah.
- [62:37]
Dan Harris
So how do we make this practical? I'm curious. Maybe the way to do this is talk about how you live as no longer a nun and what you recommend to your students. Like, do you enjoy ice cream once in a while? Do you ever allow yourself to scroll on your phone? You anti Instagram? Like, how do you navigate all of this?
- [62:59]
Beth Upton
Yeah. As I don't have social media, really, and I don't really use that as habit, but I do have ice cream, and I do like those things. We exist in a world where sense pleasure and sense pain is definitely going to happen because we have this sensitive body. So those two things are definitely going to happen. The solution isn't just avoid anything that might feel good with the body and only do things which feel painful with the body. The Buddha made that mistake. It's not the right way. The idea is that we can allow this body to experience both pleasure and pain. Where we are getting our gratification from is not that momentary pleasure. It's the kusala that we bring in our quality of attention. Right. So, oh, this pleasure and pain is happening. It's all the time changing. For example, is a type of mindfulness, which is a type of kusala. Or oh, this ice cream is here, let me be grateful for it or let me be in loving connection with the friends I'm sharing this ice cream with would be like a different type of kusala that we could be doing. So the idea isn't to like cut off the body from pleasure. The idea is that our well being is not rooted in that fleeting pleasure of the body. Right.
- [64:16]
Dan Harris
So I had a cinnamon roll last night.
- [64:19]
Beth Upton
We getting confessional?
- [64:20]
Dan Harris
No, no. I, I, I don't feel any guilt about it. Maybe I feel a little guilt about it. But anyway, I had a cinnamon roll last night and it was awesome. And I don't know if my eating of it was if my mind was in a kusala or a kusala state, but one way I could imagine making it truly kusala while eating the cinnamon bun is to notice how the pleasure comes and goes.
- [64:49]
Beth Upton
Yeah, that's one way. Exactly.
- [64:51]
Dan Harris
Another Buddhist term that we use in the west is a pejorative, but it's actually, there's a lot to it, I think in a positive way is disenchantment.
- [64:59]
Beth Upton
Yeah.
- [64:59]
Dan Harris
Like waking up from the spell. If you're really paying attention while you were eating a cinnamon bun, which I frankly wasn't. That's the confessional part you can see, okay, I get this big hit of dopamine. It's chewy and the frosting is really sweet. And there's suffering embedded in the happiness there, in the pleasure rather. And if you're paying attention, you really see that then it becomes this tasteless mush in your mouth that you then use this weird thing called a tongue to shove back down your gullet. And if you're really paying attention, you can turn anything into kusla.
- [65:33]
Beth Upton
That's right. And can you see in that example that you just gave, had you done that, you've gifted yourself in that moment a better happiness. You've not denied yourself anything. You've increased your quality of life by moving your framing to something kusala in that time, you've elevated your quality of life, Right? You haven't denied yourself anything. You gifted yourself a bigger happiness.
- [65:59]
Dan Harris
So if we use this compass, this Kousala compass, or if you want to use a different simile, the recipe for the happiness Cake, the happiness cinnamon bun, it's not living in a hair shirt, it's not shaving our heads and becoming a nun necessarily.
- [66:16]
Beth Upton
Do that if you want.
- [66:17]
Dan Harris
Yes. But we're not living in a harshly abstemious life necessarily. We're walking the middle path between total self denial and self mortification, as the Buddha did before he got enlightened. Yeah, and total sense pleasure, which will never actually get you anywhere.
- [66:36]
Beth Upton
Right. It's like I said, wherever you are on the mountain, if you're just starting out, taking your first step on the mountain, or you, you're caught up in thorny bushes, or you're sinking in a sinkhole, or you're like right near the top, do more Khusla. You'll feel better. You'll be on your way up.
- [66:52]
Dan Harris
Beth, this has been a huge pleasure. Thank you very much for doing this. It's so great to meet you. Really appreciate your time.
- [66:58]
Beth Upton
Thank you for having me. Dan.
- [67:03]
Dan Harris
Thanks again to Beth Upton. Awesome to talk to her. I believe I mentioned another student of the Burmese master, Pa Auk Sayadaw. That student is named Nikki Mirgafori. She was on this show several years ago. I'm going to drop a link to that episode in the show notes. She is astonishingly impressive, Nikki is. As a reminder, there's a guided meditation designed to go with this episode. It is all about cultivating gratitude, which is a Kusala mind state. So it's part of the the rest of recipe for the Buddhist Happiness cake that Beth was talking about. The meditation comes from Don Mauricio, who's our teacher of the month. You can get it if you go over to danharris.com and become a paid subscriber. Paid subscribers also get ad free versions of this podcast, plus transcripts of every podcast and a summary. And several times a month, live guided meditation and Q and A sessions with yours truly. So head on over to danharris.com finally, thank you to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the awesome people over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer, Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer, DJ Cashmere is our executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.