10% Happier with Dan Harris

Episode: How To Be Less Tense | GuoGu
Date: November 5, 2025
Guest: GuoGu (Dr. Jimmy Yu), Buddhist master and professor

Overview

This episode dives into the art and science of becoming less tense by exploring the Buddhist principle of "embodied experiencing." Host Dan Harris sits down with GuoGu (Dr. Jimmy Yu) – Chan teacher and professor – to explore how we habitually live in our heads, why that leads to suffering, and how getting into our bodies transforms our moment-to-moment experience. Through insights from Buddhist teachings and direct meditation instructions, they discuss the impact of words and perception, the role of curiosity and wonder, technical guidance on relaxation—even in pain—and, critically, offer ultra-practical advice for carrying mindfulness into daily life.

Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Problem: Living in Our Heads

• Dan Harris opens by describing how most of us spend our lives caught in "toxic recursive loops… poisonous curly cues of thought," often coloring our experience with negativity.
  • “If you're unaware of how your habitual, neurotic thought patterns are coloring your view, then, then you're completely owned by all of the nonsense in your head.” (02:55)

Embodied Experiencing: What & Why

• GuoGu defines “embodied experiencing":
  • Many students process teachings solely as information, through thinking, which keeps them disembodied and exacerbates suffering.
  • Embodied experiencing means tuning into your body, your senses, and especially what he calls the body’s "undercurrent feeling tone"—the subtle moods or attitudes shaping your world.
  • “[People] are so much in their head that they are disembodied. So I began to focus on embodied experiencing… so that one would ultimately be more in tune with the undercurrent feeling tone that actually shapes our experiences.” (07:14)
• Dan restates: “One way to get out of your head is embodied experience. To get in touch with what's happening in your body, which is always in the present moment.” (09:12)

2. The Role & Limits of Language

• Language as Double-Edged Sword:

  • GuoGu explains that while language helps us function, its inherent categorizing and compartmentalizing shapes and limits our perception and well-being.
  • “Words and language are not really the problem, but it's the ways in which we are dictated, shaped, and our whole… sense of well being is… shaped by the habitual ways we are conditioned by words and language.” (12:54)
  • He introduces the process for working with language and perception: Expose → Embrace → Transform → Let go.

• Terms Explained:

  • Apophatic language: Describing reality by what it is not ("no-self," "impermanence").
  • Cataphatic language: Describing in positive terms ("compassion", "Buddha nature").
  • Reframing perception in positive language can subtly shift our experiences.
  • “Framing things carries with them certain feeling tones. And these undercurrent feeling tones actually subtly, even subconsciously shape our experience.” (14:25)

3. Practice: Getting Out of the Head

• Discursive Mind’s “Slipperiness”:

  • Dan shares how, even after instruction, his mind quickly resumes labeling and judging. The ego is subtle and persistent. (10:21)
  • GuoGu encourages training the senses (especially seeing and hearing) to counteract this tendency.

• Wonderment & Curiosity:

  • GuoGu highlights cultivating "the practice of wonderment” as a remedy for the brain’s threat-seeking default.
  • “It's a kind of authenticity free from greed, hatred, ignorance, what the Buddhists called the three poisons… curiosity. And again, our brain is wired to identify problems and threats… when we feed into that… it just stresses us out.” (25:55)
  • This practice is aligned with the Zen principle of beginner’s mind and childlike spontaneity—with the key distinction that it's free from "the three poisons."

4. Progressive Relaxation: Step-by-Step Instructions

[Highly detailed practical segment: 28:42–42:46]

• Foundation is Key: Seated meditation begins with "priming" the body to set the stage for deeper awareness.
• The Technique:
  • Start at the top of the head, working down, intentionally tensing and relaxing key parts (e.g., between eyebrows, shoulders).
  • For sensitive areas, tensing before relaxing can help release stuck tension.
  • Release facial tension with a gentle smile.
  • Relax scalp, neck, shoulders, arms, torso, legs, paying special attention to areas likely to hold tension.
  • Support posture: back not pressed against a chair, upright but relaxed.
  • Sway gently side-to-side to find the body's natural center of gravity.
  • Pay attention to the felt sense of "contentment" as a foundation ("it's all good").
  • Only after establishing this baseline, commence with your meditation method (e.g., breath, loving kindness).
  • “So once the body's primed, heart content, then we avail ourselves to the meditation object so that shapes the whole experience.” (41:38)
• Dan’s response: “That was the best part of my day thus far.” (42:46)

5. Body Scan & Relaxation for Pain

(Technical Q&A: 45:32–57:01)

• On “Greed” in Seeking Relaxation: It’s not greedy to create conditions for relaxation—it’s practical and essential.
  • “Being relaxed does not necessitate that being greedy… if you want certain things to happen, you have to make sure the ingredients are there, right?” (46:12)
• Four Foundations for Effective Meditation:
  1. Body
  2. Breath
  3. Feeling tone
  4. Mind
• Dealing with Pain:
  • Use relaxation, stretching, self-massage pre- and post-sit to increase comfort and pain threshold.
  • When in pain, ground attention and isolate the sensation rather than letting it overwhelm the whole body. Avoid labeling it as “pain”—instead, become curious about its qualities.
  • “Pain is just a word. It doesn't actually refer to any particular experience… pain is made up of non-pain.” (53:50)
  • For chronic conditions, adapt posture and emphasize gentle body care.

6. Feeling Tones: The “Undercurrent” That Shapes Reality

• Feeling Tone Defined:
  • The subtle, often subconscious mood or attitude underpinning our experience; e.g., contentment, irritation, boredom.
  • GuoGu: “In modern language, it just means mood or attitude… that is the head honcho that dictates our experience.” (57:15)
• How to Work With It:
  • Regularly ask, “What’s the attitude in the mind right now?”
  • Aim for a feeling tone that is equanimous, not grasping or rejecting.
  • “Familiarizing ourselves with that, making sure that our meditation is not contaminated… by the three poisons.” (59:33)

7. Bringing It Into Daily Life: “One Minute Chan”

[Practical toolbox: 71:23–77:46]

• Principle: Practice isn’t just for the cushion. Real transformation happens at “the junctures of life”—moments of contact, tension, and change.

• GuoGu’s prescription (“One Minute Chan”):

  • Pick five ordinary daily activities—e.g., first bite of lunch, stepping on elevator, answering the phone.
  • For one minute, practice: Relax → Ground → Engage.
    • Actually feel your bodily contact with a surface, tap into “it’s all good,” and use body senses rather than thinking.
  • Stick with the same five for 1–3 months, then choose new ones—especially moments with built-in triggers or challenges.
  • “Do this for one month to three months and you'll see a change.” (71:23)

• The Effect:

  • Mindfulness infiltrates daily life, starting with small moments. Eventually, clarity and groundedness become the norm, and tension becomes easy to spot—and to release.
  • “If you bring yourself this one minute Chan into your daily life and that becomes the norm, then the tension, when it arises, you catch it earlier because that's like a thorn suddenly stabbed. Because most of the time you're grounded, relaxed and engaged.” (75:02)

8. Reframing Obstacles as Opportunities

• On Facing Life’s Junctures:

  • “At these junctures, it's really opportunity, because where we get caught up shows exactly where we are, how we have been reared, conditioned. So it's actually really good… that's the exposing.” (78:13)
  • “If you keep on saying, this is a problem. I hate this. …On a cellular level, every part of your fiber of your being is like, stress, stress, stress… So you have to train yourself, cultivate what we're talking about. First thing that I do, it's all good. It's all good.” (80:50)

• Dan underscores: This isn't toxic positivity; it’s a cognitive and experiential reframe to keep the body and mind open to growth—even in adversity. (81:29)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the Head–Body Disconnection:
  “Most people are so much in their head that they are disembodied.” (07:14, GuoGu)

• On the Subtlety of Ego:
  “Man, the ego or discursive mind is so slippery and so sophisticated in its ability to just suck you back into your… judgments.” (10:21, Dan Harris)

• On Language Shaping Reality:
  “Framing things… carries with them certain feeling tones. And these undercurrent feeling tones actually subtly, even subconsciously shape our experience.” (14:25, GuoGu)

• On the Practice of Wonderment:
  “The spontaneity is different than how ordinary people say spontaneity, like no filter, vexation just spread… It’s a kind of authenticity free from greed, hatred, ignorance… curiosity.” (25:55, GuoGu)

• On Pain and Relaxation:
  “Pain is just a word. It doesn't actually refer to any particular experience really, because the range of experience that people can actually have so many… pain is made up of non-pain.” (53:50, GuoGu)

• On “One Minute Chan”:
  “Pick five things, one minute each… do this for one month to three months and you'll see a change.” (71:23, GuoGu)

• Ultimate Reframe:
  “At the juncture, it's all good. IAG, it's all good. It's opportunity… To see obstacles as opportunities, to see where we get hung up as potential possibilities, possibilities for the better that will help ourselves and help the circumstance and other people.” (78:13, GuoGu)

Practical Takeaways

• Prime your meditation: Relax and ground the body before starting any meditation technique.
• Body scan for chronic tension: Use tensing and releasing for stubborn tension areas; supplement with stretching and self-massage.
• Isolate and get curious about pain: Don’t label or catastrophize—investigate its changing nature.
• Feeling tone awareness: Regularly check your mood/attitude, both in meditation and daily activities.
• Infuse daily life with micro-mindfulness: Choose 5 everyday moments for practicing relaxation, grounding, and sensory awareness for one minute each.
• Reframe obstacles: Train the attitude “it’s all good” at life’s stressful junctures—not as denial but as pragmatic resilience.
• Gradual integration: Over months, expand from “one minute” practices to more aspects of your day, letting presence become your default.

Resources

• GuoGu’s Books:

  • Essence of Chan
  • Passing Through the Gateless Barrier
  • Silent Illumination: Natural Awakening

• Articles: Find GuoGu’s work on Tricycle, Lion's Roar, BuddhaDharma, and more.

• Online: Search “GuoGu” for website & YouTube channel.

This summary provides a detailed, practical, and accessible guide through the wisdom of embodied experiencing, suitable for new and experienced meditators alike. For guided practices alluded to in the episode, subscribers can access supplemental content through Dan Harris’s website.