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Anxiety, Overthinking, and Overwhelm: Buddhist Hacks For Changing Your Mind | Joseph Goldstein
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Joseph Goldstein
Foreign
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Dan Harris
this is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody. How we doing? This is an episode for overthinkers, worriers, the anxious, basically everybody. In this conversation I talked to my longtime friend and meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein about some time tested hacks he has for overthinking, anxiety, overwhelm and the like. For those of you unfamiliar with Joseph, he is the co founder of the legendary retreat center the Insight Meditation Society. He's also written such books as One Dharma and Mindfulness. This episode is part of an occasional series we've been running with Joseph where I interview him about the various teaching phrases he uses. Let me explain what I mean by that. Joseph likes to teach using pithy little mottos. Buddhist earworms that weasel their way into your brain and surface just at the moment when you need the most. These are incredibly helpful little mantras that I use all the time in my own life. And by the way, the eventual goal of these interviews is to turn them all into a book. A collection of Joseph's phrases. So this is a great episode. You're going to love it. Speaking of Joseph, by the way, you can learn from the man himself in his outstanding seven module meditation masterclass over on my newish meditation app 10% with Dan Harris. From sensations to thoughts and emotions, this series gives you all the tools to build a practice, choose a focus, or simply begin again. In addition to Joseph's Meditation Masterclass, the app also includes a growing library of meditations from a bunch of world class teachers ad free access to this podcast exclusive live stream events every week with me and my many amazing meditation teacher friends. And one of the coolest things about it is we've got a robust, supportive, non judgmental series of discussion threads where you can ask questions, share tips and struggles and connect with our team and one another. There is a free 14 day trial if you want to try. Before you buy, check it out@danharris.com we'll get started with Joseph Goldstein right after this. I made a new friend recently and
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Co-host / Interviewer
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Dan Harris
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Dan Harris
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Co-host / Interviewer
happier hello again, Joseph. All right, so I have compiled a bunch of phrases that I think, and it's possible that I'm you'll have to correct me that I'm misusing the phrases, but I think these phrases all have to do with a noxious trio of overthinking, overwhelm and anxiety. And I've put the overthinking phrases, I front loaded those. So one that has been really helpful for me, and this is I think I've heard you use it as a specifically as a meditation instruction, but I think in my own life I've used it off the cushion and it is up and out.
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Joseph Goldstein
So there's an interesting backstory to this phrase, as there is with almost all of them, because they came out of kind of the lived experience of trying to put all this into practice. So this goes back to my early practice days in India. So I was quite young, my 20s, really getting into long term intensive meditation in India. After the beginning period when my mind had really settled in as kind of in the flow, all of these ridiculous memories started flooding my mind, like reseeing old TV shows that I had seen as a kid, like Father Knows Best, which you're probably too young to even know of, that I've heard of was just, you know, one of these early family sitcoms and the fact that they were still in my mind, unbeknownst to me, you know, those memories, but in the course of sitting they just started coming and coming and coming. And there were a lot of things like that when the mind gets a little more calm and collected and mindful and concentrated and all that, and still it seems like it opens the door to the emergence of all of these memories, images, thoughts that we've been carrying around have been carried in the mind over all these years. And some of them were just so ridiculous. Why are these coming up to the mind? But that's when I began to get the sense, oh, yeah, it's all in there. And now I really have the belief that everything we've ever experienced is stored somehow in this mystery called memory, which is kind of a mystery how all that works. But it's all in there. And when we make the space, it just all starts coming up. And that's what up and out. Because over time it felt like a cleansing in a certain way. So they came, came, came, and then they stopped coming. And then some other memories. So it was like that. And that feeling of allowing things to come up, be with them, be mindful, and out. Sometimes it's about very unimportant things like reruns of Father Knows Best. But sometimes it can be, you know, even difficult memories or sometimes even traumatic memories, you know, that come up with practice. And over time, if we can develop a kind of equanimity in being with them and seeing them, it deconditions the power they have in the mind because we're learning to see them without reactivity. So that's another example. Okay. Up and out. I found that over these many years, it really has freed the mind from a lot of these situations in the past that were difficult or some kind of emotional struggle involved. And in having them come up in the meditation and being with them in an equanimous way again, it was up and out. And I think that's what creates that sense of more space in the mind and more ease and more freedom.
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Co-host / Interviewer
The way I have used it until now. It may be a somewhat limited deployment of the phrase, but when I'm bird dogged by particularly persistent thoughts that are no longer useful, I'm just. It's just a rehash. Up and out. Up and out.
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Joseph Goldstein
Yes.
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Co-host / Interviewer
It's not hostile. It's just like, let's move it along, kids.
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Joseph Goldstein
Yes, yes. No. It's a phrase that can both suggest to us, but also reflect what's happening, that it's a way of letting go. It's just a way of letting go of whatever attachment or identification with them was there that keeps them lodged in. So I think it could be used to describe on a lot of different levels how that process happens.
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Co-host / Interviewer
It seems key to me. This is an error I've made many times. It seems key to me not to have a creeping aversion.
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Joseph Goldstein
Absolutely. There's one principle in, I think in meditation and in life that when we have aversion to something, it's actually feeding it, it's strengthening it. And so not only is aversion itself an unwholesome mind state, it's also counterproductive in terms of relating to whatever it is that we have aversion to. It's actually strengthening our connection to it in that negative way. But I think often we don't see that if we have aversion to something, yeah, I want to get rid of this. I wish this would go away. And all the time we're feeding it. So it's really interesting to watch that.
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Co-host / Interviewer
How do we make sure we're not feeding it well?
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Joseph Goldstein
Through mindfulness and equanimity. We have aversion to things because in one way or another we feel them as being unpleasant. We generally don't have aversion to pleasant things. So as we've spoken in previous episodes or discussions, Vedna or the feeling tone, when we're not mindful of it, conditions reactivity. So pleasant conditions, desire, unpleasant conditions, aversion. So if we can be equanimous with the unpleasant feeling of whatever it is, then we're with it, but without aversion. And that's how the mind stays free and more effective in seeing. Okay, well, what's the best response here without off feeling it?
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Co-host / Interviewer
Just to fill in your refresher on Vaden, that in the Buddhist view, everything that arises in the mind, everything you notice, or even the things you don't notice, physical sensations, thoughts, etc, has a so called feeling tone, a kind of valence to it. It's either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. So we either want it, don't want it, or we don't care. And aversion arises when the feeling tone is unpleasant. Often our thoughts, especially when we're overthinking, are unpleasant. And we may be tempted to use a phrase like up and out with hostility. You're saying one way to not have this process backfire with some unseen aversion is to be mindful of the feeling tone and the underlying thought process. In this case, I often find that I'm using up and out to kind of usher things along when I feel like I've already processed it. I've already sat with my ancient resentment of the bullies in seventh grade and I don't need to run through a big process of being mindful of it, investigating its feeling tone. This is more like, oh, I know what that tape is. I'm just gonna kind of pleasantly move things along. Am I saying all of this correctly?
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Joseph Goldstein
Yes, except for one thing that I'll clarify, please. No, that's basically it. And so then you're really using that phrase. It's just in a way an acknowledgment of what's happening. Yeah. You're not using it to have it happen. You're just noticing, oh, yeah, this is what's going on. This is coming up and out, which I think is. Can be helpful because it reinforces the understanding that that kind of awareness will result in that letting go of it. Just the one slight refinement about Vedna or the feeling tone. Sometimes people may think that the quality of pleasant or unpleasant inheres in the object, but the feeling tone reflects how we are experiencing the object. So two different people may experience the same thing. One may find it unpleasant, another may find it neutral or perhaps in some cases even pleasant. So that's an important distinction because in some way it's giving us agency in the process of working with it, of realizing that even on that basic level of how it's experienced as being pleasant and unpleasant is a result of our own conditioning. It's not about the object itself. Does that seem clear?
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Co-host / Interviewer
It does seem clear, yes. Let's step back and say you have a bunch of phrases that are really helpful for overthinking, but let's just sit back for a second and talk about a phrase that I feel is more descriptive of thinking generally. And this is a phrase that you actually referenced in one of our earlier episodes in this series on. On the phrases. And it is tiny dictators. Can you talk a little bit about that one?
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Joseph Goldstein
Just to clarify, I use the phrase little dictators.
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Co-host / Interviewer
Oh, little dictators. Okay, my bad.
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Joseph Goldstein
Little dictators.
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Co-host / Interviewer
I want the listener to note how often you have to correct me. I don't know who they're going to feel bad for, you or me.
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Joseph Goldstein
So what was the question about this phrase?
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Co-host / Interviewer
Just the derivation. And what you mean by little dictators.
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Joseph Goldstein
The phrase came to mind when I realized that when we are really investigating the nature of thought as a phenomenon, this is what we've talked about. We see they're little more than nothing. And yet when we look at our lives, and when I look at my life, when I'm not seeing thought in that way, it's like all these thoughts will come. This is an example that goes way back, but it shows the point. I remember one time I was teaching. This is when Naropa University was first starting in Colorado, this new Buddhist college, and then university So I was teaching there in the opening summer sessions. And I had a little apartment, you know, that they were housing me in. And I remember one evening, I'm just sitting comfortably in my apartment, and the thought comes, oh, pizza would be nice. And it's like the thought lifted me up, took me out the door downtown to get a pizza, started eating it burned my mouth. So I just went on a. Where did all that come from? It came from that one little thought which in itself was little more than nothing. And that's a trivial example of what happens so, so often in the course of a day. And so the contrast between seeing its essentially empty nature when we are aware of that and how much power thoughts have in our lives when we're not aware and we don't have the space in that moment to discern, is this worth going for? Do I really want the pizza? So it's not to say we should never act on our thoughts, because of course we do and we need to. But most of the time, it's automatic. Being not mindful of thoughts gives them this tremendous power in our lives. And as we are aware, it just opens up a lot of space for wise discernment.
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Co-host / Interviewer
I have a question before I ask you the question, just to insert. If anybody heard Joseph say their empty nature in reference to thoughts, we have a bunch of episodes on what emptiness is. But very, very quickly, a sentence meaning, in this case, empty of inherent substance. There is no. You can't find your thought. It's a mysterious little quantum burst of energy with no inherent substance. And it is not yours.
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Joseph Goldstein
Yeah.
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Co-host / Interviewer
By the way, there's also no. You check out those other episodes if you want to hear about that. Anyway, my question is, how do we know which thoughts, which dictators to obey in which to organize a coup d'? Etat?
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Joseph Goldstein
Well, first to say that when we are in that mindful space, they're no longer dictators. We might think of them as suggestions because we're aware. Oh, yeah, this is just a thought. Okay. Is it helpful? Is it not helpful? So it's lost. It's lost its dictatorial powers. I mean, there are lots of frameworks by which through which we can assess. You know, is this good thing to do not a good thing to do? A very basic one. Within the Buddhist context, the foundation of the meditative journey, and really the foundation for wise living in general, is framed in terms of the five precepts. Five ethical precepts. And that's pretty fundamental in the Buddhist teachings. And just to reiterate what they are it's reframing from killing and stealing and sexual misconduct and unskillful speech and taking intoxicants that just confuse the mind. So that's just a very broad framework in terms of ethical behavior that we can see. Okay, is this action that's being proposed by a thought, is this in alignment with those precepts or not? That's one framework. Another framework could be just a very kind of ordinary assessment of if I act on this thought, will it actually be effective in achieving my aims? Sometimes we may have ideas of what we'd like to accomplish, and a whole range of thoughts can arise about accomplishing them. But some may be effective and some not. It just gives space for this discernment, for this assessment. Another very general framework stems from the Buddhist understanding that wholesome and unwholesome actions could say wise or unwise actions or skillful and unskillful actions can all be traced back to three roots. The three roots of unwholesome actions are greed, hatred, and delusion. So this is the Buddhist framework of understanding that. So that could be another assessment. Is this just more greed that this thought is, or is it aversion? If it's delusion, we're probably too deluded to even know that it's delusion. And likewise, the wholesome non greed, generosity, or non version, hatred, love, non delusion is wisdom. So that just having in mind, even in a general way, kind of in the background of our mind, do we check in with the motivation, you know, and the quality of the motivation? So there are many. There are many ways of assessing whether we should act on the thought or not.
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Co-host / Interviewer
That was very helpful. Nice job, Goldstein. Just a teaser. We're not going to talk about this phrase now. You talked about evaluating the thought in terms of does it help me with my goals, my aims? There is a great phrase to help one clarify one's goals and aims, but we're not going to do that now because we're going to stay with overthinking. What I have found to be a very useful tactic strategy suggested by you for specifically with self criticism, is to count the thoughts.
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Joseph Goldstein
Yes, I love this one. A very common pattern in people, and it comes up very clearly on meditation retreats or even for oneself just sitting at home. And if we're paying attention to our thoughts and the kind of thoughts that are arising, the judging mind is just so prevalent. It could be judgments of others, could be judgments of ourselves. Just as an example of this, again, I was on one retreat at ims, you know, really being as mindful as I could go into the dining room for lunch. And on this one day I noticed that my mind had a comment about everyone I saw, about what they were wearing, how quickly they were moving, how much food they took from the lunch camp. It was ridiculous. And it was just this run. They weren't loud in my mind. They were kind of soft background thoughts, but it was ridiculous. So this is a little, aside from the counting, which I'll get to, but what I found very effective in that regard and it might be applicable in different life situations. When I saw just what my mind was doing, I started investigating, well, why are they coming? And I realized they were arising in the mind because I was seeing, in this case all the other people unmindfully, I was not mindful that I was seeing. So when I saw that for a while, every time I went into the dining room, all I would note, seeing, seeing, seeing. From the time I walked in, getting the food, bringing it to the table, seeing, seeing. The judgments were gone. And it was such a good lesson in how we have to really practice being mindful at each of the sense doors. And for some reason, even in the way we teach some reason, we underplay being mindful of seeing. We talk a lot about hearing, body sensations and movement and thoughts, but actually seeing. For most people with working eyes, vision is the predominant sense field. We're wandering around in the field of what's being seen. And if we're not mindful and we can observe this very clearly, we're continually reacting to what's being seen. I like it, I don't like it. Judging, commenting. And it's all because we're simply not being mindful that we're seeing. So that in that situation was the antidote to all those judgments. But sometimes it's not from seeing. Sometimes we're just sitting with our eyes closed and all these judgments and often self judgments coming up. So at one point when there was just a run of them for whatever reason, I just started counting them. Judgment 1, Judgment 2, Judgment 538, Judgment 10,000. And at a certain point one just has to smile. One sees how ridiculous it is. And as soon as we can smile at them, they lose their power because it goes back to what we were saying just before those judgments are fed. Either because we believe them and are identified with them, or we have aversion to them to the fact that they're arising. And it's pretty easy to understand. Oh yeah, if I believe them and are identified with them, that's going to feed them. But often people don't realize that our aversion to them equally strengthens them. So that's why the sense of humor and the smile, that's just the magic key. But how to get to that place? I found the counting really helps because it just makes it so obvious how ridiculous it is. So humor is a huge aid as we're watching our minds.
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Co-host / Interviewer
Well, here's a funny phrase along those lines. The thought of your mother is not your mother.
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Joseph Goldstein
Yes, yes. That was something my teacher, Manindraji would say very often to remind us it's just a thought. But we invest so much in the thoughts when we're not seeing that it's just a thought. And again, I want to reiterate, I'm not suggesting that thoughts aren't useful. Thoughts can be a powerful force in our lives for the good. I mean, people have gotten enlightened just hearing certain teachings, which is a thought process. They're hearing teachings, we're understanding them through our thoughts. They can be a direct pointing to the deepest truths. So it's to be clear that I'm not suggesting that they don't have value. We just have to be a little more discerning. And that discernment only comes when we're aware that we're thinking. So it's all a package.
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Co-host / Interviewer
Does the phrase painted tiger feel apropos?
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Joseph Goldstein
Probably so. It's apropos, particularly with regard to the thought of your mother is not your mother. It's a thought. So there's a Zen story. It's probably apocryphal, but it's a good story. It's about the Zen monk living up in the mountains in a cave. And he was a great artist. And for whatever reason, he was using painting as his practice. So he's up there in the mounds in his cave years, painting this tiger on the wall of the cave. And he was a really good artist, and he spent all this time. And so by the end of it, he looked at the tiger, the painted tiger, and got frightened. And so a good mental note with regard to thoughts might be, painted tiger. There was no tiger there. It was just a painting. Whatever we're thinking about is not the thing itself. It's just a thought. And so I find that just, again, another slightly humorous way of reminding ourselves not to simply believe every thought that comes into the mind. Because many of them, they're all painted tigers in some way, because they're not the thing itself, but particularly with thoughts that are not helpful. But for whatever reason, we're believing them. The painted tiger.
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Co-host / Interviewer
So there's some phrases here that I have found provide perspective in the face of overthinking or rumination. One of them is, consider your sila. Does that line for you?
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Joseph Goldstein
Yeah. So I was. This was a time when I was in Burma for a couple, two, three months tense of practice with Saido Banditsa. And my practice was just in the doldrums.
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Co-host / Interviewer
Just to say Burma was home to a meditation master named Sayada Upandita with whom you were studying.
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Joseph Goldstein
Yes, yes. And this is. I. I had already been practicing many, many years, but still, there are always ups and downs in the course of the practice. That's normal. So I was just going through a phase of kind of indulgence. I kept sitting and walking, but it didn't feel like anything was happening. So it wasn't so much being down on myself. It was just wondering. Not that I'm putting it all as, you know, effort in intensive meditation. And it just felt flat. So after a few days of my recording, this Sairo Bandita said, reflect on your sila. And sila here means ethical behavior. So my first reaction when he said that, oh, no, did I do something wrong? That was my very first reaction. I came to realize that he was saying it as a way of encouraging the mind. If we reflect on Asila and realize I've been practicing ethical behavior as a way of uplifting the mind and encouraging the heart. The principle here, in a way, is sometimes reflecting on one's wholesome activities, you know, and wholesome actions, skillful actions. People might think, oh, that's just an ego trip, which done in the wrong way could be. But that kind of wise reflection on, yeah, that's, you know, I've been doing something wholesome here. Been doing something skillful, beneficial. That's not an eco trip. That's reinforcing faith. It's reinforcing wisdom. It's reinforcing kind of an appreciation for the value of the path and what we've been doing. So that's really what contemplate your sila was about as a way of uplifting the heart.
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Co-host / Interviewer
Well, let's talk about whether this is applicable to a regular person who's not in the middle of a meditation retreat, you know, contemplating your sila. Some of us might be fraught because maybe we are not living in alignment. However, I could also imagine it in the way I've used it to the extent that I've used it is a kind of cousin to gratitude to. Yeah, I spent a lot of time Reflecting on my terrible behavior or flaws. But let me just take a second to think about. Oh, yeah. You know, if I think back at this. Yeah. On this very day, I did a, you know, a bunch of good things. Yeah.
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Joseph Goldstein
Yeah. So there's an interesting connection here to the loving kindness practice because it said that the condition or the cause for Metta lovingkindness to arise both towards other people and towards ourselves is appreciating the good qualities in others and in ourselves. And when we think of that and contemplate that, there's a natural, almost spontaneous, friendly feeling that arises. And it's very instructive to see how often with other people and with ourselves, we don't focus on the good qualities. We focus on what we don't like. We focus on the bad qualities. And just realizing it would be helpful to see that pattern and the way of coming out of it would be just as you said, but to use it as a way of appreciating the good qualities in ourselves, appreciating the good qualities in others, and it changes. It changes the dial.
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Co-host / Interviewer
Here's another phrase that I think is perhaps more center of the bullseye that can jar you out of a state of rumination and kind of give you some perspective. It's not fill in the blank.
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Joseph Goldstein
Yes, this is something I've used forever, but especially, especially after I began teaching and working with people and I extended it from just applying in my own practice as a teaching tool. If people are struggling with some difficulty and really caught up in the struggle and they don't have perspective on it. So I'll use a reference to whatever current situation is happening at that time. And so for a long time, I would say it's not Bosnia, it's not the Sudan, it's not Gaza. And just reminding people of the situations where the suffering was a much, much, much greater magnitude than our little struggle. Now that has to be used also wisely because if people are really involved in something, for example, that's deeply traumatic, that would not be inappropriate because it might feel like those situations because of the intensity of the suffering. So this is useful for more mundane run of the mill suffering entanglements, kvetching about one thing or another,
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Co-host / Interviewer
kvetching for the non Jewish or non Jewish adjacent is Yiddish for complaining, a phrase that was used a lot on me when I was a boy.
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Dan Harris
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Co-host / Interviewer
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Dan Harris
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Co-host / Interviewer
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Dan Harris
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Co-host / Interviewer
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Dan Harris
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Dan Harris
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Co-host / Interviewer
This expression that I'm going to propose to you next feels really apropos to me. The wisdom of the non toothache. So to my understanding is the wisdom of the non toothache is, can you appreciate when things are going well, when you don't have a toothache? To me, that can put my obsessive thoughts into perspective. Does that make sense?
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Joseph Goldstein
Yes, it does make sense and you've expressed it perfectly. Yeah, it's actually right in line with, with some teachings right from the Satipatthana Sutta, the discourse on the foundations of mindfulness. So the Buddha actually addressed it directly, but not using toothache as an example, but in the third foundation of mindfulness, which is mindfulness of the mind. One of the categories is be mindful when, for example, the hindrance is one of the hindrances, like desire, aversion, restlessness. Be mindful when they're present, be mindful when they're not present. And it's interesting that it's much harder to remember to be mindful when they're not present, because when they are present, they make themselves known with a lot of fanfare when they're not present. There's nothing strikingly obvious about it unless we pay attention. And so that emphasis on being mindful when things are going well, when the mind is calm, when the mind is peaceful, when there's not a lot of suffering or any in the mind at that particular time, as you said, to acknowledge that is really helpful. And we have many more moments of that in the day than we realize. So again, it's encouraging to be including the non toothache in our field of awareness.
- [39:26]
Co-host / Interviewer
Here's another phrase that I've heard you use that is quite useful when one is caught in a. Like a thought storm which can, you know, can last. These can last years, really. And I remember the first time you used it with me, I was a little pissed off because I didn't really understand what you were saying. I remember we're standing on a street corner in New York. It's very early in our friendship, and I was just describing the fact that my wife and I were in the middle of a long infertility struggle and you were very sympathetic. You did not dismiss it at all. But toward the end of the discussion you said, if it's not one thing, it's another. And I didn't really take it in the spirit in which it was intended, but it's something I've thought about a lot since then. So what do you mean by that phrase?
- [40:19]
Joseph Goldstein
That phrase relates to another phrase which explains it perfectly. The other phrase is what I think is a fantastic expression of the First Noble Truth of the Buddha's teachings, like core foundational teachings of the Buddha. And this is across almost all Buddhist traditions are the teachings on the Four Noble Truths, the truth of suffering, dukkha in Pali, the cause of suffering, which is craving, the end of suffering, which is coming to the end of craving, and then the Noble Eightfold Path, which is the way to accomplish this aim. So that First Noble Truth, the truth of dukkha, the definition of dukkha that I came across and I thought was just so brilliantly succinct, Taduka, is the inevitability of unwanted experiences. And I think that's something everyone can relate to in their lives. There's no one who goes through life free of unwanted experiences. At times they are inevitable. So that's really what if it's not one thing, it's another. If it's not one unwanted experience, there's going to be another one, because they are inevitable in this conditioned world. And I love that because it normalizes the fact that it happens and that it will happen inevitably. So it's not a mistake that they're happening. And so once we see it in that broader perspective, I think it helps us have a perspective on what the particular unwanted experience is. And if we have a broader perspective, I think we can better see how to address it. Is there something I can do about it? Is there not what would be the right course of action? So all of that can be considered, but that's very different than thinking it's a mistake or getting worked up with a lot of aversion to the fact that it's happening because we think it shouldn't be happening. So another example of this, and again, this touches into basic teachings of the Buddha, and we may have talked about this a little bit before, I'm not sure the Buddha suggested certain reflections on the inevitability of unwanted experiences. The Buddha suggested that we reflect on this daily when he said, what has the nature to grow old, will grow old, and I am not exempt. What has the nature to become ill will become ill, and I am not exempt. What has the nature to die, will die, and I am not exempt. So it's interesting to me, as I reflected on this and have it come to mind, the first part was quite obvious. No one has the nature to grow old, will grow old. It was the tagline of I am not exempt, which even though, of course, intellectually I knew that I am not exempt, I could often detect an underlying feeling almost subliminal. Well, I should be exempt of somehow framing it as why is this happening to me? So that why is it happening to me? Is a reflection of some holding to the idea that I should be exempt from what is this completely natural unfolding. And this is all about coming to realize the first noble truth.
- [44:46]
Co-host / Interviewer
So to me, these feel like a sweet s u I t e of interrelated phrases when you're in. Or when I'm in a woe is me state. So the inevitability of unwanted experience. I mean, this is just the truth of things. Unwanted states are going to happen. I am not exempt. I would just say as a sidebar, and I am not exempt. The contemplation of your mortality is not a bad way to jar you out of overthinking to great bolus of perspective. And then finally, if it's not one thing, it's another. You know, we live. I have lived much of my life, and I still do this with the lie that if I could just solve this problem, or maybe this suite of problems, Elysian Fields, like, it's all good, but of course there's going to be another thing. And so it just kind of just settled back into the situation with a little bit more sanity and patience. Let me just deal with this problem because I know there's going to be something on the other side. And then I would add. I know I said finally. I would add maybe one other phrase that we haven't discussed yet. As the fourth in this little package. Anything can happen anytime.
- [46:04]
Joseph Goldstein
Yes. It's all a package of phrases addressing this issue. So do you want a little backstory?
- [46:10]
Co-host / Interviewer
Please, please.
- [46:12]
Joseph Goldstein
This again goes back quite a few years. I was teaching a retreat for social and environmental activists at this wilderness retreat center in northern New Mexico. Beautiful place. Vayacitos Mountain Refuge. Beautiful. In the middle of Carson National Forest. 9,000ft Alpine stream running through it is beautiful. So during the retreat, and then on the last day, we did a hike on the very last day of the retreat, there was a small river running through the property. And so we were hiking up along the small river and kind of scrambling over the rocks, you know, crossing back and forth. It was fantastic. On the way back, it had rained the night before, so some of the rocks were a little slippery. In walking back, I slipped on a rock and hyperextended my knee. And I knew something. An unwanted Experience had just happened. Anyway, I make it back to the center that evening I was giving the Dharma talk and I had the thought, oh, don't sit cross legged. This won't be good. But I overrode the thought. I didn't listen to it. Sat cross legged. At the end, I couldn't get up. I had to be carried back to my room, which was very embarrassing. First, I'm 63 slung on. I forget how exactly I was carried. Anyway, I carried back to that whole night. I had a busy summer schedule planned. And I just kept thinking, how am I going to manage this? I couldn't even walk from the meditation hall to my room. So a lot of thinking and worrying and anxiety. And then at a certain point, and it took most of the night to come to this, at some point, the thought came to my mind. Anything can happen anytime. Completely unexpected, with ramifications for how the rest of my summer was going to unfold. Anything can happen anytime. But surprisingly, some people might hear that and it might think that, at least to a kind of paranoid state, you know, fearful, say, oh my God, anything can happen anytime. We have to be on the watch out. It was exactly the opposite. It was the acknowledgement of the truth of it. And it just led to this quality of acceptance in my mind, the inevitability of unwanted experiences. Anything can happen anytime. So if we're aware of that and realize, yes, this is the truth of how things are, then when these things happen, we can deal with it with much more equipoise. We deal with it as best we can, but it's from a much more peaceful place of mind. And my mind did become peaceful in it. And then I just took care of it as best I could and things were fine. This is an aside not only fine so that I was scheduled to teach in Germany that summer anyway. Managed to go with a lot of accommodation, you know, for my knee. Taught this course in Germany. At the end of the course, the Donner Biscuit, there were two of us. Some guy put in two $50,000 checks in the dime. He had just. He came from this super wealthy family. Parents had just died. I think he had inherited his fortune. And I had had to thought, oh, maybe I shouldn't go. So sometimes anything that happened anytime can be on the good side as well. That was an amazing model.
- [50:13]
Co-host / Interviewer
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [50:18]
Dan Harris
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- [50:19]
Co-host / Interviewer
he was telling me that his wife
- [50:21]
Dan Harris
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Dan Harris
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- [52:11]
Co-host / Interviewer
Just to reset I think, you know, we started this conversation talking about dealing with overthinking specifically, and we're moving into an area that kind of is inclusive of overthinking, but also of just how to navigate a complex, chaotic world more skillfully in the face of the non negotiable truth of change flux. There's another phrase that's coming to mind that I find really beautiful and it comes directly from the Buddha becoming otherwise.
- [52:44]
Joseph Goldstein
Yes. So I came across this phrase in the texts. And to reiterate just a point I made in a previous discussion that I've been in the practice now of listening to the teachings rather than reading them, because I must have read that phrase many, many times and it didn't impact me. But when I heard it in the Buddha's description of change of things always becoming otherwise. When I heard it, it really struck me in a completely new and vivid way, because it's a bit unusual in English. It's not a typical way we would talk of change and impermanence. And because of that, we could say everything changes, and it's kind of flat. It's so obvious when we say it that way that we don't really appreciate what it's saying. But things are always becoming otherwise, as a phrase for me made it very immediate. Like, in every moment, things are always becoming otherwise. I have found it to be a really good reminder at times. For example, I might be going for a walk, and then I have a little twitch in my knee or my back or something. Oh, becoming otherwise. So instead of, oh, no, what just happened? You know, and do I have to do something? And all of that. Oh, just things becoming otherwise. So it reinforces our awareness that this is the nature of things. And again, it doesn't imply that in certain situations we do want to do something about it, but it frees us from that reactivity of why me? Which is really helpful because even though we may not even articulate why me? To ourselves, very often we're thinking it silently. There's some flavor of it in our minds. And just things becoming otherwise. This is just the nature of things. So I find that a very helpful and usefully pointed phrase to highlight that.
- [55:07]
Co-host / Interviewer
I find it really helpful in my relationship with my parents. I have a very clear visual of the first time I think, that you met my parents. We were in the backyard of my childhood home. It was our first meeting to discuss launching a meditation app in, like, 2014 or something. And my parents were still living in my childhood home, and they were healthy and active. They were both academic physicians at Harvard. And really, for me, my whole life, the kind of my alpha and omega, I heard this beautiful phrase, not from you, of there was some writer talking about some other important person in his or her life, and he or she said, they are the theater for my actions. Nothing felt real unless my parents knew about it. And they're now living in an assisted living facility near me in suburban New York. And my mom's pretty sharp, but my dad is, you know, he has become otherwise. He's still lovely, loving, I think, quite happy person. But, you know, he's had a lot of health problems, stroke and a Parkinson's, like, diagnosis. And I felt so unmoored by their transition and still do at times. But, yes, it's just things becoming otherwise.
- [56:20]
Joseph Goldstein
Yes, yes, it's so Interesting that I don't know if resistance is right word or just delusion, that somehow with something so obviously true that we don't take it in, we don't live as if it's true. So that's quite mysterious and also kind of a reason why the practice of mindfulness and awareness is so liberating. Because we're just giving ourselves a framework for investigating what is so obviously true, that we have been overlooking true and
- [57:03]
Co-host / Interviewer
painful at the same time.
- [57:04]
Joseph Goldstein
Yes. Although in opening to the truth of it, some dimensions of the pain are eliminated, which is our reactivity and our.
- [57:14]
Co-host / Interviewer
Yes, I think I'm less resistant and more tuned into. More sad. The poignancy, yes.
- [57:23]
Joseph Goldstein
But for me, the emotion of sadness, there's a certain soft beauty to it which distinguishes it for me from unhappiness, that you can be sad and not unhappy. To me, that's just a useful understanding. Because many situations in our life are sad, even when we realize their inevitability, that's fine. None of what we're talking about implies that we become emotionally flat. But there are certain emotions which are afflictive, which really causes suffering and are not particularly helpful. But other emotions which may be acknowledging the same situation are quite natural and even have a beauty to them.
- [58:11]
Co-host / Interviewer
The first time you said that to me, I did not like it or I didn't get it, but it makes sense. When you think about the term bittersweet, They've combined bitter and sweet for a reason. Where this leads me in my mind in terms of having an ongoing flow in the conversation as I'm sitting here feeling sad, talking about my parents, you have a phrase that has been very helpful for me with all kinds of emotions, whether they're afflictive or not. And this is going to sound simplistic, but it's not. And the phrase is it's okay.
- [58:48]
Joseph Goldstein
As with many of the others, there is a story. There is a story. And I think the story will help to elucidate what that really means. So for many years earlier on in my practice, the strongest afflictive emotion was fear. So fear would just come up in so many different ways. But on some retreats, you know, I was really practicing intensively. So things get magnified in that context. Fear would be coming up, and it would come up so strongly. There were times when I was afraid to go from sitting to standing. So it's completely irrational. Completely. I mean, it doesn't make any sense at all. But somehow that was the energy that was coming up for whatever reason. And I Have no idea why that was so strong. So it's just to say I was working with this emotion over a long time, over many years, not at that intensity mostly, but was still there. So on one retreat a couple of years after that intense experience, I was doing walking meditation, and I could feel different aspects of fear arising in the mind. And then something shifted in my mind. I could feel the shift. And it was expressed in the phrase, if this fear is here for the rest of my life, it's okay. It's okay. And I realized that that was the first moment in these years of practice that I genuinely accepted it. And this points to another really important distinction in meditation, the difference between recognition and mindfulness. Because in all those years, I recognized what was there. I knew it was fear, and I could name it as fear, but it was always through the filter of not liking it and wanting it to go away because it's a very unpleasant emotion. So I was looking at it through the filter of aversion, which, as we just discussed earlier, aversion feeds the very thing we're averse to. So unknowingly, I was keeping it going through my aversion to it and through the delusion of thinking I was being mindful, when I was not. I was just recognizing it. So in that moment, if this fear is here for the rest of my life, it's okay in that acceptance. It was amazing. In that moment, in that shift, the whole ball compacted ball of fear washed through and just my heart relaxed. It's okay. And it's not to say that fear never comes again, because it does at times. But relationship to it is now completely different. When it arises. It's okay. It's okay to feel the fear. It's okay to feel unpleasantness. We don't have to default to aversion towards it. And in that acceptance, everything becomes more workable and lighter. We're letting go of that strong identification with it. So it's okay has just. I call it the magic mantra, you know, it's okay. It's okay to feel it. And again, it doesn't mean that we never do anything in response to what may be happening. But when we're coming from the place of it's okay to feel it, then our response will be more effective, wiser, more skillful.
- [62:52]
Co-host / Interviewer
Right. Passivity is a. Is a misunderstanding.
- [62:55]
Dan Harris
Yes.
- [62:55]
Co-host / Interviewer
This is about not being at war with reality first.
- [62:59]
Joseph Goldstein
Yes.
- [62:59]
Co-host / Interviewer
And then responding wisely.
- [63:02]
Joseph Goldstein
I like that. I like your phrase at war with reality.
- [63:05]
Co-host / Interviewer
I stole it from somebody, I'm sure. But this phrase, it's okay, I think, reminds me of at least two other phrases that I've heard from you. Both of them, I think, are borrowed. One is a borrowed from a poet and the other is borrowed from your next door neighbor, Sharon Salzberg. The one from the poet. I think it's Robert Frost is the only way out is through.
- [63:28]
Joseph Goldstein
I don't know where that comes from.
- [63:30]
Co-host / Interviewer
Oh, so you may have said no.
- [63:32]
Joseph Goldstein
No. I'm sure that I read it someplace. Doesn't quite sound like Robert Frost, but maybe. I have no idea.
- [63:40]
Co-host / Interviewer
I don't read poetry other than yours. I don't read poetry.
- [63:43]
Joseph Goldstein
Anyway, it's a good phrase, whoever first coined it. So what's interesting is unpacking a little bit is what through means. The only way out is through because you could get through by bulldozing your way through, which may create its own problems. Or the way out is through through a mindful acceptance of what's there, seeing its impermanent, empty nature, so that we're not contracting in response to it. We're staying with whatever it is in a balanced, mindful, aware, equanimous way. And then we do that leads us through in a very skillful way.
- [64:30]
Co-host / Interviewer
Another phrase, the one from your next door neighbor is, well, I'm not going to say the phrase. I'll just have you tell the story. And the phrase is the punchline. It harkens back to our discussion of your struggles with fear. You were on a retreat with Sharon where it came up. You want to tell that story?
- [64:46]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah. This was during those years when I was really working with it and had not yet come to. It's okay. So I was still trying to figure out. We were teaching together in Texas, and after lunch we were just going for a walk together. And I was going on complaining about all this fear. And, you know, because I was building a whole superstructure of self on top of this emotion.
- [65:11]
Co-host / Interviewer
This is the way I am. I will always be this way.
- [65:13]
Joseph Goldstein
Exactly. And so I was just going on and on about this. And at a certain point, Sharon turned to me and she said, joseph, it's just a mind state. And, you know, sometimes it's just the right moment to hear something. That was one of those moments. All right, this is just a mind state. And I'm making up this whole big self story about it. And that really helped to reframe the whole thing. It's just a mind state. It was really helpful. Just a reminder.
- [65:49]
Co-host / Interviewer
Well, I hear it not only as useful in terms of it maybe taking a few of the Django pieces out of the structure of self, the superstructure of self, but also the relief in knowing, yeah, this is a mind state and like everything else, it will pass.
- [66:05]
Joseph Goldstein
Yes, yes, that is how I heard it. Also, the meaning of it's just the mind state includes that.
- [66:13]
Co-host / Interviewer
Yeah, I want to get one phrase in because I kind of teased it earlier. Might be in the ballpark of a non sequitur, but earlier we were talking about how to, in the face of our constant flurry of thoughts, how to figure out which ones to listen to, which ones not to listen to. And you said being mindful of them is really step number one. There's a phrase that has been helpful for me, once I'm mindful of my thoughts, to pick and choose a little bit more carefully. It's a lens, a pair of goggles that has been really helpful for me. And at first it sounded a little anodyne to me, but it actually has. As with many of these phrases, the more I've sat with it, the more meaning it has accumulated. And it is what matters most.
- [66:58]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah, I'm always interested as you give the build up to the phrase and I don't really know what phrase you're leading to. I'm always waiting with excited anticipation, you
- [67:12]
Co-host / Interviewer
know, and I'm always sitting here thinking, is he going to shake his head at me disapprovingly and say, what are you talking about? Nothing to do with anything which has happened in the course of these recordings.
- [67:25]
Joseph Goldstein
Just to say, so what's the phrase?
- [67:29]
Co-host / Interviewer
Are you asking that seriously what the phrase is? What matters most?
- [67:36]
Joseph Goldstein
What matters most? I think the use of that phrase just really is a way of just in the moment, stepping back from whatever the decision is that has to be made and just taking a moment. And it can be quite intuitive. I don't think this requires a lot of thinking. I think we would know quite intuitively and quickly if we take that moment to step back. Does this really align with my values? Is this in alignment with what I value most? I think it's a very intuitive thing, but very illuminating. I think we know if we're about to do something and it's just really being motivated by greed. And it couldn't be a big greed, it could be a little greedy. But often in the course of the day we're kind of on autopilot. We're just going through the day doing what we do, reacting and doing this and that. And I think we often don't take the time to just have in the background of our Minds, the framework of what is most important of what our values really are. So even occasionally, to start with, if one could remember before doing something, to ask that question can be really helpful. We've talked in earlier sessions about a right speech and some papalapa, the useless talk and all the other kinds of right and wrong speech. That's such a good, very simple arena. Oh, is what I'm about to say, does it really align with my values? Does it unite people or divide people? Just some very simple things. And as I say, I'm not suggesting that we spend 10 minutes trying to figure out our values and does this align or doesn't align? I think it's a much more intuitive process that would come quite easily if we just practice taking that moment to allow for it.
- [69:59]
Co-host / Interviewer
I agree it is an intuitive process. I would only add that I have, especially when I'm working with my team and, you know, I'm in the process of, you know, an early stage startup, it's very helpful in order to define or discern your values, to ask the question, what matters most?
- [70:17]
Joseph Goldstein
Yes. And in that situation, there could be a whole process, a whole reflective process of actually sitting down and writing down, okay, what are my values in this situation? Ethical values or service values, compassion values, whatever they may be. So in certain situations, I agree that it could be helpful to expand it beyond that momentary intuitive sense to a real reflection and examination of what our values actually are.
- [70:56]
Co-host / Interviewer
It's been a great conversation, in my view, on sort of. We started with overthinking and moved into sort of how to manage an anxiety producing world and anxiety itself. Before we take a break, anything you feel like getting off your chest, anything else coming to mind? He's looking at me and I can read his mind. What he's thinking is. There are a lot of complaints I have about you, Harris, but they may not be relevant to this conversation. Am I reading you correctly?
- [71:22]
Joseph Goldstein
No, no, no.
- [71:24]
Co-host / Interviewer
Okay.
- [71:24]
Joseph Goldstein
Not in the slightest. It wasn't even in the bullpen.
- [71:29]
Co-host / Interviewer
You had that mischievous look on your face.
- [71:31]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah, no, but the look was. I was thinking of an example of that reflecting on values. So it might have been a little quizzical look. I wasn't sure whether it would be worth adding to it or not. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about your.
- [71:51]
Co-host / Interviewer
Now that I brought it up,
- [71:57]
Joseph Goldstein
I rarely have the thoughts that you ascribe to me. Just enough so you can relax. I mean, that just doesn't. It's not a strong pattern in my mind.
- [72:09]
Co-host / Interviewer
No, I know you met Even if I had been guessing correctly, I was guessing that you were going to say it from a standpoint of humor.
- [72:16]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah. Anyway, let me give that little example as an example of a situation where reflecting on one's values could be really helpful. And it's something I suggested to this friend. He's in quite a senior position, you know, in a company and was thinking about the next step or possibly moving on to a different position. And there were a lot of pros and cons to the different opportunities that were presenting themselves to him, which involved, you know, perhaps moving or dealing with the school's first kids. Just a lot of, a lot of considerations. But there were situations which might have afforded him more a higher position, something like that. So as we were talking, he was just talking it over with me and I suggested to him, I think you and your wife together should sit down and just look at. Okay, in your life now, what is it you most value and then consider these different opportunities in the light of those values. Because I think it's very easy to become seduced by the glitter of some possible outcome and ignore other values that we might have. So I think it can be a really helpful way to navigate through life so that we, as much as possible are doing things in alignment with what we value rather than being caught up in, as I said, the glitter of some possibility and overlook them.
- [74:03]
Co-host / Interviewer
Yes, Reverse engineer from the first thing.
- [74:10]
Dan Harris
Thank you so much to everybody who works so hard to make this show. 10% happier is produced by Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the the great folks 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 great indie rock band Islands wrote our theme. Also, one last thing before you go. Remember to sign up for my new app which is called 10% with Dan Harris. You can sign up over@danharris.com on the app you'll find a growing library of meditations from world class teachers. Ad free access to the full expertise of our podcast guests. Meaning you'll get this podcast. No ads, exclusive live stream events which we do weekly, sometimes twice a week. Robust discussion threads to connect you with our team, with our teachers and with one another. There's a free 14 day trial if you want to try before you buy.
- [75:04]
Co-host / Interviewer
Peace.
- [75:11]
Joseph Goldstein
Foreign.
- [75:16]
Dan Harris
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Dan Harris
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