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- [00:00]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Foreign.
- [00:05]
Dan Harris
It's the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, everybody. How we doing today? We're talking about how to get past your past, how not to be owned by your personal history, and how doing so can have a massive impact on how you relate to other people. And a reminder, the research strongly suggests that the quality of your relationships is perhaps the most important variable when it comes to your happiness. So getting past your past and then relating more successfully to other people puts you on an upward spiral. So we're going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about lots of other things as well. My guest is the great Diego Perez, who you may know by the name Young Pueblo. He's an extremely popular author and social media presence. We had him on the show back in 2025 to talk about a book he had just released at the time called how to Love Better. And we're bringing that episode back today because it's really good. And I should say that Diego's got a new book coming out in the fall called Journey the year that changes everything. 365 daily reflections to build Self awareness and Inner Peace. And you can find him on Instagram and also on Substack. In this episode, we talk a lot about relationship skills, including avoiding blame, keeping an open mind, having compassion without being a doormat. We also take a deep dive into a fascinating list that Diego includes in his last book, a list of the 12 things he's learned after 12 years of serious meditation. I took a lot away from that part of the discussion. This is a guy who regularly does long meditation retreats, sometimes up to six weeks at a time. So he's really earned his place in the broader contemplative world. A few other things we'll talk about in this conversation. How to burn off your mind's conditioning. He'll explain what that means. The suffering that comes from clinging in a world characterized by relentless change. The liberation that comes from equanimity in the face of relentless change. Why being able to see perspectives outside of your own is actually a sign of strength and intelligence and much more. A few things before we hear from our sponsors. We've got this awesome new series launching soon on my new ish meditation app, 10% with Dan Harris. Many people ask me, how do I get started in Buddhism? How do I learn more about it? How do I go deeper? So we are now going to provide a solution. Every week this summer, for eight weeks every Sunday, the great Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg is going to host a live session every Sunday at 4, starting on July 12 at 4pm Eastern, then running for eight weeks. And every week she's going to break down one aspect of the foundational Buddhist list, the Eightfold Path the Noble Eightfold Path. This is the Buddha's cookbook for human happiness. It talks about how to get better at seeing the world clearly, how to get better at meditation, how to get better at dealing with other people, how to get better at work. It really is quite comprehensive and like I said, it is a great way to dip your toe into Buddhism. Or if you've already learned quite a bit about the Dharma, this is a great way to go deeper. Sharon during these eight live sessions will guide a meditation, talk a little bit about one aspect of the Eightfold Path and then take your questions. Of course, if you miss any of the live sessions, you can always watch them on demand. You can get all of this on the aforementioned 10% with Dan Harris meditation app. If you want to get the app, it's@danharris.com again that's danharris.com there's a free 14 day trial if you want to try before you buy. I hope you'll come check it out. We'll get started with Diego Perez AKA Young Pueblo right after this. We are big fans of Wayfair. At my house we've got lots of Wayfair stuff both inside and outside. This is the time of year though where you may be specifically looking to gussy up your outdoor space. It's very important that space feel like you. Wayfair is your one stop shop for home outdoor seating, grills, major appliances, storage, patio lighting, rugs, decor, installation and assembly services are available for a truly seamless experience. With over 20 million 5 star reviews, you can hear from real customers before you buy. I have been on the Wayfair website many many times. Their selection really is extraordinary and my wife, who is the person in our household who actually has good taste, has made some really cool selections from the vast Wayfair library of merchandise. Patio season is here and these deals won't last. Head to Wayfair.com right now to get your outdoor space ready for way less. That's W-A-Y-F a I r.com Wayfair every style every home Young Pueblo Diego Perez, welcome back to the show.
- [05:00]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Thanks for having me Dan. I'm really happy to be here.
- [05:03]
Dan Harris
I'm happy you're here. So in the beginning of this book you tell a story that I'd love to have you retell a little Bit here, which is that in the early days of your marriage, and this is not uncommon, things were a little stormy at times. Can you talk about that?
- [05:17]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah. I mean, a little stormy sounds nice. It more so felt like a hurricane. It was an interesting, really powerful magnetic connection between my wife and I where we really wanted to be together, but we just did not know how to care for each other. And we didn't even really know how to care for ourselves at the time either. So we felt a strong pull to be with each other, but we had very little self awareness between the two of us, very little emotional maturity. What we experienced was basically a constant blame game for over a six year period where we were together off and on. And it wasn't until we started meditating that ever so slowly did we start developing our individual self awareness. And we started seeing like, okay, this feeling to place this blame on you. Every single time that I feel some sort of discontent in my mind. It actually has a lot to do with me and I need to start taking ownership over what I'm feeling. And that created a whole new chapter in our relationship.
- [06:19]
Dan Harris
So meditation made a huge impact on the sort of tone and tenor of the relationship. Can you say a little bit more about the exact mechanism for that, how
- [06:27]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
meditating affected the relationship?
- [06:29]
Dan Harris
Yeah, yeah.
- [06:31]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
So I think, you know, we both went into meditating because we were interested in our personal development. I, I was particularly interested in my own healing. I had come out of this sort of a number of years of just abusing drugs and alcohol, pushing my body to the edge and doing that to really avoid sadness and anxiety that kept bubbling up inside of me. All of that led me to like a rock bottom moment where I almost lost my life from just overindulging in drugs and alcohol. And it was a wake up call. And I had started changing my habits, put away all the hard drugs, started really, you know, taking steps forward into a new life. But it wasn't until I started meditating that I started seeing very significant changes in the way my mind felt. Like my mind started feeling lighter. I started feeling a new ability to like, slow down and not just immediately react. And I went into meditating for my personal healing. And my wife felt that same sort of like internal push to, to go meditate as well. And what we didn't really expect was that it was gonna have such a big impact on our relationship. I went into it for healing, but I had so many positive externalities from it. You know, not only creativity started coming up, but I started seeing, accepting that My relationships were quite shallow. Like my relationship with my parents, my relationship with my friends, with my wife. They were very surface level. And that was because I was really disconnected from myself. And once that connection started growing, the ability to, like, listen to my partner more, the ability to really start owning the way I was reacting my mind, and realizing that it's not always her fault, you know, and so many other sort of emotional. The emotional skill set started building. And it really began with just being able to close my eyes and sit with myself.
- [08:26]
Dan Harris
What's coming up in my head as you're talking is. And I don't know if this will land for you, but I'm sure you're familiar with the satipatthana sutta in Buddhism. This is one of the most famous discourses of the Buddha where he. And now I'm not explaining this to you because you know what, I'm explaining it more to the listener. Some listeners may be unfamiliar with this speech the Buddha gave where he outlined four ways to be mindful. And I won't go into the list except to say that there's this refrain that comes up over and over, which is that you establish mindfulness internally, externally, and both internally and externally. Long way of saying meditation can help you be more self aware, but it also can help you be more other aware as well. And so it can have, as you said, positive externalities. And am I hunting in the right direction here?
- [09:15]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
I mean, absolutely. I love that you brought it back to the satipatthana. That polyline ata psampajano satima is one that, like, I'm always sort of leaning back on whenever, you know, when you're sitting there and you're meditating and whatever's coming up, it's like a line of clarity that can help you remember that, you know, you're coming back, back into the body, back into your awareness, and trying to maintain that awareness as long as possible. But what's really interesting is that you can develop these skills to become more aware of yourself, but they're not just for you. You can take them and you can easily transfer them to other aspects of your life. And I think in the darkness of the meditation hall, sitting and meditating for hours, I started seeing that I was developing a new ability to just feel my own emotions, to be able to sit with whatever turbulence or disharmony or whatever sadness or anxiety would come up. And that same quality that I was developing, that resilience, I was then able to take that and have more patience. Whenever we would have arguments right Because I could sit there and hold not just space for my own turbulence, but a turbulent moment that we were having together. And I think that was just a. A massive gift that I didn't expect from this meditation journey.
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Dan Harris
You're Mr. Meditation now. So am I, I guess. And I'm just curious because I know the answer for me, but do you ever screw things up in conflict with your wife? Yeah.
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Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
I have to apologize all the time. Yeah.
- [10:51]
Dan Harris
Okay.
- [10:52]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah, yeah. No, no, I'm not, I'm not. I'm not enlightened. I'm just. I'm just another person who's like, totally on the path. I love the path. I see the results. I'm really happy with the progress that I've made in the past 10 years. But, you know, I could use another 10,000 hours of meditation.
- [11:09]
Dan Harris
Yeah, yeah, same here. Just going back to something you said earlier about not blaming the other person as much. I can't. Yeah, I think that's the way you were saying, you know, you're in an argument and you're not. It reminds me, you know, I have these, I talk about these guys all the time. I have these sort of Buddhist inflected communications coaches. They come out of the same sort of meditative tradition. You and I are, are both Buddhist practitioners. You're. You're more out of the Goenka school and I'm out of the Insight Meditation Society, which, interestingly, they both have centers right near each other in Massachusetts.
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Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
I think of them as like sister traditions.
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Dan Harris
Yes, yes.
- [11:50]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Even in the time of U Ba Khan in Burma in the 50s, his center was very, very close to Mahasi center. They were just, you know, in the same town. So it's funny seeing that that similarity continues.
- [12:06]
Dan Harris
Yes. Just to put some meat on the bone for listeners who might be unfamiliar with all of this, but the. Back in Burma or now Myanmar, there were many famous teachers in the middle of the last century, and U Bakin is one of them. And he was the te for this guy Sn Goenka, who was an Indian guy, was in Burma, I think, on business and was learning meditation from this great master. And Goenka then went up and founded all of these centers all over the world in which you ended up getting trained. Am I? Am I?
- [12:36]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah, yeah, that's. That's pretty correct. Goenka is a Burmese of Indian descent. So he ended up growing up in Burma and he ended up hearing about, you know, U Ba Kin and then training with him and trained with him for, I think it was like 12 or 14 years. Another interesting thing to note, too, is that these traditions are so well respected. So in Lumbini, in the birthplace of the Buddha, I got to go there about a year ago, and there's a site where it said, you know, the place where the. Supposedly the Buddha was born. And in this. I don't even know what to call it, but it's almost like a giant park. There are also a lot of different Buddhist traditions there, and the Mahasi monastery and the Goenka Meditation center are the closest. For some reason, the people in Lumbini, when they were setting up that park, they allowed those two centers to be closest to where, you know, supposedly where the Buddha was born. I think it's almost like a sign of, like, respect for these two lineages because they've just affected so many people positively.
- [13:36]
Dan Harris
Yeah. Yes. Just to pick up on that, so there was the U Bakin, leading to Esengoenka, leading to you, this sister tradition to then the Mahasi school, which is Mahasi Sayada, who is this incredible Burmese master who then. Many of my teachers trained with that guy, like Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg. And then they set up the Insight Meditation Society, along with Jack Kornfield, who I know you're close with, and you've been on the show with Jack before. I'll put a link in the show. Notes to that. So, anyway, there are these two traditions that. There's a lot of discourse between these two traditions and my communications teachers, Dan Clurman and Mudita Nisker, their communications coaches, I should say, they both come out of the. The Insight. They're in that whole world. I met them through Joseph Goldstein. And one of the things they've taught me is that nobody makes you feel a certain way. You're the one making yourself feel. And so when you're in an argument with your spouse or anybody else, and, well, you made me feel this. You made me feel this. No, you're attaching causality inappropriately. People's behavior may be objectionable, but they didn't make you feel a certain way. Does that land for you based on the themes of your new book?
- [14:50]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
You explained it so clearly. And I think what I would add to it, too, is that the difficult thing is that someone can do something that's objectively harmful and wrong, but your perception and your reaction is happening in your own mind. And the intensity of that, of what you end up feeling, that turmoil, you know, very quickly, the mind likes to play games, and the mind wants to figure out, how can I jump through These almost like illogical hoops to figure out how I can make this solely your fault and not accept any responsibility. And granted, there are definitely times where you make mistakes and you should apologize. But what my wife and I started finding out when we started meditating was that anytime we would feel sort of internal discomfort, we would try to pick up some sort of old argument that may have been resolved or find some reason to figure out how I can point the finger at you and make this your fault. And it was a real, like, awakening moment for the both of us where it was like, wait, I'm actually not mad at you. I just didn't realize that I woke up and I didn't feel good. And my mind was looking for another reason to not only keep fueling that feeling of not feeling good, but trying to figure out, okay, how is this your fault? When really you have nothing to do with it. It's just my fault. I didn't sleep that many hours last night. I didn't take good care of my body because I was eating too much food the night before and I woke up not feeling well.
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Dan Harris
What's the practice for when you experience a big bolt of rage in the middle of a conversation with, could be your romantic partner, could be a colleague, your boss, a friend, or whatever. How not to be owned by it?
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Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
There's a few. A few things to understand. I mean, one, our understanding of the changing nature of emotions has really helped us not, like, fully identify with what's happening. So when we talk about, you know, I feel angry or I feel sad or I feel something, we don't really even use those words anymore. Now when we talk between my wife and I, you know, I let her know, like, oh, a lot of heaviness is moving through me. And sometimes it doesn't even have a name, or a lot of sadness is moving through me or I feel, you know, something moving through as opposed to saying, I am this. So one is understanding that, okay, anger has arisen, but it's not something that, like, you're always angry or you're always going to be X, Y and Z. So one is contextually understanding that this thing is passing through you. It isn't. It isn't you. And then the other aspect of it is just slow down. Literally being able to slow down and feel what's happening as opposed to just fueling it and letting it take over your actions is incredibly helpful because then you can honor the reality of the moment, like, honor what you're feeling, but then figure out, okay, am I Going to sort of follow through on this. Do I need to speak about it? What do I need to do to address the situation and just give yourself a little bit of time to act skillfully as opposed to just reactively.
- [17:54]
Dan Harris
Yeah, so you mentioned two things there. The second was just slowing down, slowing down the pace, the sort of toppling forward nature of, of the mind, especially when, when in conflict, inserting some breaks or space in there as a circuit breaker. And then the first thing you talked was about, and this is what I want to pick up on, is this kind of linguistic, it might be a little awkward linguistic shift. Instead of saying, I'm pissed to there's a kind of heaviness moving through. And you know, this reminds me of something. Joseph Goldstein, who we mentioned earlier, one of the co founders of the Insight Meditation Society, he talks about this too, which is with any powerful emotion, if you can just switch from I am fill in the blank, I am scared, I am pissed, whatever, to there is anger or there is fear, it's arisen, then you take the eye out of it.
- [18:45]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Right? Because we're just like, we're so prone towards attachment and clinging that whatever we see, whatever we feel very strongly, we want to just grab it. We want to grab it and we want to be it. And you know, I've noticed from meditating that emotions have this interesting quality where they try to expand themselves. Whether it's, you know, if you're feeling joy, if you're feeling happiness, you want to share that with others, you want to, you know, let your peace permeate. And the same thing when you're feeling angry, when you're feeling heavy, when you're feeling anxious, like that permeates outward. And sometimes it may even become an invitation for someone to join you in your anger. Like, you know, either you say something that makes them upset or you explain to them why you're upset and you want them to also be angry on your behalf against another person. And I think it's quite difficult to just, you know, you want to feel your emotions, you want to honor the fact that they're there because you don't want to be running away from yourself. But at the same time, you have to introduce yourself to subtlety. And there is the subtlety of being able to feel the emotion, observe the emotion without just letting it dominate you.
- [19:55]
Dan Harris
Yeah, there is something extra magical and powerful to taking the letter I out of the scenario. Because as soon as it's not your anger, it's just anger as like a passing weather meteorological phenomenon totally and it's just another thing.
- [20:12]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
And that's something that the training, you know, for meditating has taught me is like, just embrace the truth of impermanence. Don't work against the universe, work with it. Everything is constantly changing. Everything is changing at the atomic level, the biological level, the cosmological level. The whole universe is just flowing forward like a river. And if I cling, if I attach to things, then I'm working against the universe and things are going to hurt because I'm literally moving against the flow. So I can control what I can control and I can communicate as well as I can in a relationship. But yeah, there are still going to be difficult moments and let me work with them, let me be skillful, but let me not cling to the past.
- [20:53]
Dan Harris
Yeah, I mean, I continue to bump up against the same lesson in my own practice. And I can imagine somebody who maybe is a little bit newer to this saying, well, if you don't cling to the past. Well, there are two questions. One is, if you don't remember the past, are you going to be a doormat? Are you going to just be forgiving people for the unforgivable? And then the second part of this is, okay, yeah, you're right, everything's changing all the time. And the Buddhists are always talking about non attachment, don't be attached. That's the source of suffering. But does that mean that I'm detached from the people I love? And how does love fit into all of this? So I asked you just two huge questions there. So I'll split them and hold them in my mind.
- [21:34]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Both of them have the same quality. And this is one of the values of these different, especially the Theravada practices where you may enter into them and you start immediately seeing that the mind will initially be very black and white. It'll sway from extreme to extreme where it's like, oh, if I can't have an attachment, any attachments, does that mean that I can't have any goals in life? I can't do anything. I'm just going to be passive. Like, no, it's not like that. What it's doing is that it's introducing you to subtlety. So, for example, yes, you don't want to be controlling in your relationship because when you're very attached in a relationship, it will manifest through your actions as control. And if you're being controlling, then you're going to suck the life out of a relationship. Instead, what you want to do is try to approach things from a point of Trying to create commitments where both you and your partner are very clearly explaining to each other, this is how I like my happiness to be supported. And you do your best, you're not going to do it perfectly, but you do try your best to show up for your partner in ways that are key and essential to them, but you're not always going to get it right. But at least that effort is there. And it's much more valuable to approach a relationship and try to design the foundation of the home of a relationship around commitments as opposed to attachments and expectations. And especially when a lot of these expectations are quite silent and it's almost like you're setting up these little traps that your partner eventually falls into because they're not even fully aware of how you want to support them.
- [23:06]
Dan Harris
I'm laughing just because that sounds familiar, having been guilty of that myself, but just on this difference between love and attachment, like I sometimes joke about, I have this magical ability to inhabit the mind of my listeners. I can imagine people thinking, well, are you saying I should be detached from my spouse or my kid that wouldn't care if something bad happened to them, et cetera, et cetera?
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Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
No, I'm saying that the care is there, but it's more so compassion. It's an act of compassion where you're trying to show up for them and you're trying to be there for them and support them, but you're not trying to control them. So that doesn't mean. You know, a lot of people, when they hear that, when they hear about like, love is freedom, they get scared because then they think, oh, does that mean that my partner can just sleep with whomever and that there's no rules? It's like, no, that's not what we're talking about. There's still, you're still building your home around commitments and we're here to be with each other. But what that really means is that you're allowing your partner to evolve, to change for their preferences to change so that you don't always feel forced to have the same interest, to eat the same foods to. You're letting each other just blossom in the way that feels natural and correct to each other. And you're still there. You're still moving side by side along each other, but you're moving in freedom as opposed to trying to be the same person. You're more so just two rivers flowing alongside each other.
- [24:29]
Dan Harris
My wife and I have occasionally worked with this really brilliant and also Buddhist inflected marriage and couples counselor, Michael Vincent Miller. I've never had him on the show, but I want to. He's fantastic. And he talks about this tension in relationships between intimacy and individuality. This is a tension with parents, with romantic partners, that we have these seemingly competing desires for intimacy and for individuality. It feels to me that that's what you're, you're nodding in the same direction when you talk about love as freedom.
- [25:06]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah. And I, I think everything is hyper situational. Right. Like the way your relationship has harmony and the way your relationship struggles can be quite unique from anybody else's relationship. But I think that especially with intimacy, with individuality, with moving forward in freedom, it just requires not hardened rules, but it requires consistent communication so that you just know where your partner's at and you know that, you know, you don't need to hide your truth. Like as you're evolving, as your preferences are changing because the way that your partner may have wanted their happiness to be supported last year, five years ago, 10 years ago, can be drastically different. I mean, my wife and I, we have this experience where whenever we go away to a 45 day meditation retreat. 45 day, yeah, yeah, we've done a few, two 45 days, three, 30 days. But Dan, when we come out, it's like I'm meeting a whole new person. You know, we come out, we don't know the way our preferences have shifted over that time because you just, you're burning so much conditioning so fast and you come out and the world feels very fresh, very new. And it takes almost like a month and a half to two months where we're like getting to know ourselves and each other and we're not holding this current version and comparing it to the old version. And we're just letting each other evolve. And it's happened so many times where, you know, we come out and like, we just have different priorities as individuals, you know, compared to what we wanted before, even like down to like our taste of what we want to watch on TV or where we want to go on trips or how we want to design our lives. And it's honestly just been a joyful moment where it's like, you know, I want to get to know this person again because they're fresh and new.
- [26:57]
Dan Harris
You used a phrase there that I want to have you unpack. Burning, conditioning. But just to stay on, on the subject, when you say love is freedom, you don't mean, means you can do whatever the hell you want and cheat on your spouse or violate any number of norms. It means that you're giving the person you love, the freedom to grow alongside you.
- [27:22]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah, exactly. To grow, to change, to like just be who they want to be. And that can be something as small as, like what they want to watch, what they want to read, like the hobbies that they want to do and the freedom to move about in the world. And you don't have to be plastered together all the time to be with each other.
- [27:41]
Dan Harris
Okay, let's go back to that intriguing phrase you're talking about within the context of being on a 45 day meditation retreat. You're burning, conditioning. What does that mean?
- [27:51]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
That's a lovely question. It's fun talking to you because you have so much context. So the mind has this quality where the moment that it stops producing any new reactions, right, the mind is no longer reacting because the mind is very equanimous. Even though, even if it's for like a second or two seconds or five minutes, where there's stable equanimity, stable awareness, the mind is really in tune with reality as it is. The mind isn't really creating more new conditioning that hardens and weighs down the mind. Instead, what happens is that the old conditioning that's there very quickly starts. A better term is just evaporating. It starts burning away because you're no longer feeding it. Similar to like, you know, the way that you have to charge your iPhone and you're, you have to plug your iPhone in, charge it, and it has battery, the moment that you stop, you unplug it, you're no longer charging it, the battery slowly melts away. And when you are in one of these purification paths, like, you're, you're literally purifying the mind of this hardened conditioning. And the moment that you stop reacting, the moment that you're actually a quantumist, all that old stuff automatically starts burning away. And when you go away to these longer retreats, you know, I mean, in these retreats also, like, it's people who, like my wife and I are usually the youngest people in the room. You know, a lot of people there have been meditating for 40, 50 years. And you keep mentioning Joseph. And the last retreat that we sat was with Barry and Kate lapping and Barry lapping. He was roommates with Joseph. You know, there were roommates, like in India for years and, you know, really like still friends to this day, but he was a teacher of that course. And there's something where, you know, we spend the first 15 days just sharpening the mind with anapana, with the natural awareness of the breath. And after 15 days of being aware of the breath, the mind becomes so calm and so concentrated that the mind becomes quite powerful. It becomes like a cannon. And the moment that you take that very sharpened awareness and turn it to the body, the truth of, you know, this law of nature, the truth of impermanence becomes starkly clear. Because the body doesn't feel solid, it looks solid. You can look in the mirror, but what you actually feel is almost like this rushing river of atoms where it's just like bubbling up and changing at incredibly rapid rates. And when you're in tune with that for days and days, you know, for weeks, you delete so much conditioning and you come out and you're like, wow, I still feel sadness. You know, it was funny the last time I went, I finished a retreat. And then literally three days later, I'm at South by Southwest, I'm speaking in front of 4,000 people. And as soon as I get up there, I'm like, oh, I should be feeling anxiety right now. But there was nothing. There was none. I was just like, it was so easy to just go into flow. And I think it was directly related to, in that particular course, I went up against a lot of fear like this. So much fear kept coming up. You know, fear that, that was not triggered by anything. It was just fear that was stored in my mind. And, you know, fear and anxiety have this very deep relationship. So then I get on stage after the course is over, and I was like, wow, I just could not believe how little anxiety I felt in that moment.
- [31:15]
Dan Harris
Let me see if I can restate some of that just to make sure I get it. And by extension, the listener, as you're right, it is fun for the two of us to talk because we do share so much context. And I just always want to be sensitive to any listeners who might have some trouble keeping up because they haven't been marinating in the drama as long as you and I have. You know, a key aspect of Buddhist thought and practice is just seeing how everything is just this endless chain of cause and effect arising and passing away, causes and conditions. So every human, I, I sometimes when I'm on my game, will look at every human as like having this vapor trail of incalculable numbers of causes and conditions that have led them to where they are in their body and in their mind right now, inclusive of their, you know, all the events of their life, but all the events of their ancestors lives, you know, that leave a mark in the mind. And so we, we're operating on this with this incalculable gumbo of causes and conditions at our backs all the time. And what happens in practice, deep practice especially, is because you're just awake and aware in the present moment, you're not creating new causes and conditions in the same way. And some of the old ones start to run out of steam. And so you're not owned by some of your historical neuroses the way you would be if you weren't practicing. Am I in the neighborhood?
- [32:52]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah. I mean, you explained it beautifully. And you use this sentence that I use all the time, too. Leave a mark on the mind. And I think that's something that, you know, these different Buddhist traditions have understood really well and that I think the Western world is understanding more so now than before, where the things that you feel very intensely throughout your life, whether it's in childhood or whether as an adult, if you feel something very intensely, some heartache, some anxiety, some. Whatever it could be, it leaves a mark on the mind. It shapes the mind, and it affects the way that you're perceiving reality. It's like literally a thick lens with which you have to look through to try to see reality as it is. But you have all this conditioning there that's blocking your view. And it's challenging, but it's also, you know, one of the upsides is that the mind is quite malleable. So when I go away to retreats, it hit me that I'm just going to the mental gym. I'm literally just taking myself to the gym. And I'm working on three specific qualities. I'm working on developing awareness, working on developing non reaction, which is like my new favorite sort of like, synonym for equanimity, because equanimity is just like that word is not that well used. And the third quality is compassion. And these are three qualities that every human being is born with. But they're not necessarily developed. They need strengthening. That's what I go to do. And it's really radically changed my life, my choices, my behaviors, and the way I show up for my mom and my friends and my parents.
- [34:27]
Dan Harris
Yeah. And your wife and everybody.
- [34:29]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah.
- [34:32]
Dan Harris
Coming up, Diego talks about what selfless listening is and how to do it, the liberation that comes with from equanimity. And some incredibly valuable lessons he's learned from 12 years of meditation. He made a list of the 12 things he learned after so many years of pretty hardcore practice. And we'll dive into that after the break. Summer always changes how I get dressed. This is, I'm pretty sure, true for you as Well, I, speaking personally, want pieces that feel lighter, more breathable, things that are easy but still look good. And that is why I keep coming back to Quint's. They focus on high quality essentials that look and feel amazing. Think breathable linen and soft organic cotton. Well made basics, but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated but still effortless. Quint's European linen pants and shirts are the perfect warm weather upgrade to add to your rotation. Starting at just $34. Their tees are soft and easy to wear and they're lightweight. And cotton sweaters are perfect for those cooler summer nights. Everything at Quint is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality, not brand markup. You've heard me talk about Quints before. They're a longtime supporter of this show, for which I'm grateful. I'm actually looking down as I read this ad copy. I'm looking down over my desk. I can see my feet and I've got Quint's socks at this very moment. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quints.com happier for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U-I-N-C-E.com happier for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com happier Monday AI agents took over my work and I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind. Now they live inside Monday.com, so they see the full picture. My work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff. Knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work.
- [36:48]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
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- [37:02]
Dan Harris
of the most user friendly. It was important to me to think
- [37:05]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
about where we would be in the future. All of the tools for reading your sales, like planning inventory, they're just right
- [37:10]
Dan Harris
there on your dashboard.
- [37:11]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
For anyone starting a small business, the biggest thing I can tell you is it doesn't have to be perfect. Shopify can help you build a product upon it. Start your free trial on shopify.com
- [37:23]
Dan Harris
so I'm going to make a little bit of a pivot in this conversation that we talked about before I started rolling. But before I do that, I want to put a little bit of a bow around the relationships aspect of this conversation because you have this new book where you're really talking about the connection between meditation and love. Just as a reminder, the book's called how to Love Better, and I want to make a pivot to sort of getting even deeper into your meditation practice in a second. But staying on the. On the subject of love, if I've understood your latest writing correctly, one of the primary points you're trying to make is that love is not a feeling. It's not just a feeling, it's a practice. Am I right about that? And if so, can you just hold forth on it a little bit?
- [38:12]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah. And we can even break it down between. There's a difference between feeling the love for something that you care about. Right. Like love. You can use it to describe anything that's extremely important to you. Like, I love this, I love that. But what's really important in the relationship is that it takes time to learn how to care for someone. Like learning how to care for them compassionately, trying your best to understand, you know, their emotional history, understanding how they like to be supported. Like, these are things that you're developing over time, and they don't just happen. It's not like your relationship's supposed to be easy all the time and exciting. Like, this is stuff that was fed to us by, you know, clever storytelling for romantic comedies where, like, you meet someone and then you have one sort of problem that you have to overcome, and then you're happily ever after. Life is not like that. The same way that you have ups and downs as an individual, you are going to have ups and downs in your relationship. And there are clever ways to try to deal and face those ups and downs. I mean, one of the biggest points is, is really, especially in the moments when you're having arguments, doing your best to not strive to win the argument, but instead putting your energy into trying to understand each other. Like one of the sentences by Thich Nhat Hanh that has really inspired the chapter, the Art of Arguing in the book is love is understanding. And it's absolutely a hundred percent like, it just couldn't be said more clearly. But how do you get there? How do you get to that point? And that's where I talk about selfless listening. That's where I talk about taking turns describing the series of events and how things moved for each person and doing your best to see where your partner's coming from. And in the act of seeing each other, the tension slowly starts melting away. And it's something that is, you know, it's hard because we're really wired for defensiveness whenever we feel threatened. But we have to train ourselves to understand that, like, oh, like, I don't need to win this. I actually, my goal should be to try to understand, like, why is this happening? And let's talk it out.
- [40:26]
Dan Harris
Well, you said a lot in there. I want to come back to Love is understanding in a second. But I think as a top line notion, and this is very similar to what the aforementioned Michael Vincent Miller talks about, that we're sold this idea that we're going to go from, and this is me quoting here one Enchanted Evening to happily ever after. Yeah. But in fact, as Michael says, you know, love is not like, you know, we talk about falling in love as if it's actually like a passive in some way, but it is an active thing that you're building with somebody. And your reframe that love is a practice, not a feeling is I think, really helpful. The second thing, though, you talked about after mentioning the Thich Nhat Han, who just for the uninitiated, is a great Zen master who passed away a couple years ago, he talks about how he views love as understanding. And within the context of you talking about that, you mentioned selfless listening. What is that and how do we do it?
- [41:26]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
A long time ago, I read this essay by Jiddu Krishnamurti and he was talking about being able to just see something where if you're looking at a tree, you're just looking at it, you're not projecting onto it, you're not thinking about something else. You're just fully taking in that moment. And this was around 2013, when I was first starting my meditation journey and I was experiencing some of that on my own. So when I read this, I was like, oh, he's giving words to the things that I'm experiencing. And when we started bringing that quality into the way that we handle our arguments, where in a moment, okay, we're having an argument, but we have to understand that one. The person that I'm arguing with is not my enemy. This is someone that I love. This is my, my partner, my roommate, my best friend, someone who's very important to me. So let me approach this argument without intensity and just do my best to try to listen selflessly. And what that really Means is in this moment, when I'm listening to my wife's story and hearing how things move for her, I'm not thinking about how to retort. I'm not thinking about how to jump in. I'm literally doing my best. Even though it's quite challenging. I'm doing my best to listen to how things move for her, to try to understand where she's coming from. Like, how did she land into this moment? And then I can also, after that, share how I landed in this moment. And we have found that so many times, like, one of us may need to do some apologizing, but when we can really see each other, when we can really see where each other's coming from, the tension does melt away.
- [43:05]
Dan Harris
It's the opposite of what has sometimes been called predatory listening, where you're just listening for the weaknesses in their argument so that you can exploit them and you're not really seeing them.
- [43:14]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Oh, my gosh. I've never heard that term. It sounds so scary. Predatory listening. That sounds great.
- [43:20]
Dan Harris
I heard it first from a Dharma teacher. I believe it was this teacher, Winnie Nazarco, who was giving a Dharma talk, and I was listening to it, and that's what she said. I don't know if she coined the phrase, but one technique that's really helped me. This goes back to these communications coaches I referenced earlier, Dan and Mudita, that because I'm not naturally very selfless, I'm naturally selfish, and that's my conditioning. So there's this technique called reflective listening. I'm sure you've heard of it, where you. Somebody says something to you, your wife or anybody, and you repeat back to them in your own words, the headline. And so it forces you to listen in a kind of journalistic way so that you can repeat back to them the bones, as Mudita says, the bones of their message. And it's incredibly gratifying for the other person. And I play this little game where I try to see how many times I can get people I'm talking to to say back to me the word exactly. Because I've summed up their argument over and over well enough that they say, exactly.
- [44:26]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
That's really nice because you're. You're really, really honing in and training yourself to listen. I think that was one of the things I really struggled with, too, was just listening growing up. And I found that mistake and how it was like, aggravating situations in the relationship. And it was clear, like, okay, that's the power of being in a relationship. You do that Mirror is so stunningly clear, you're so deeply in proximity to another human being that what you're good at and what you're not good at is stunningly clear. And hopefully you have the time to work on it.
- [44:58]
Dan Harris
This is an escalation and amplification and elevation of this notion that love isn't just a passive state that you fall into. It is a relationship you actively make. And it's like a dojo. Talk about a gym. I mean this is seriously crucible in which you can really. It's a massive opportunity to develop as a human being.
- [45:19]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah, I've been using the terminology. What you're doing in a relationship is you're designing a home. And we think about it in terms of the material aspects so often, but it's like you're designing a home of like, what is this place going to feel like between the two of us? Like, how do we show up for each other, how do we handle arguments, how do we make sure that our nervous systems are calm in front of each other so that you don't feel like you're like, you know, you don't have to have your guard up around me in any way. But it is like, I think the being in relationship, the combination of like and this is totally right for, for me as an individual. But the combination of being on this quest of meditation and simultaneously having a long term relationship has been the two greatest points that feel like simultaneously they're helping me grow because my wife is also my comrade in wisdom. Like she is so serious about her own growth and I trust her perception is quite clear. So it just helps me see like, you know, where I'm at and we're honest with each other, you know, without being like petty or giving unnecessary feedback. But when a truth needs to be told and I hear it from her, it really means a lot. And usually it's coming from a place where she really wants what's best for me. And I think it's just so helpful. So I see myself, she sees me, and we help each other grow.
- [46:42]
Dan Harris
Yep. Okay, so you have this new book, it's called how to Love Better. And we just talked about some of the primary points you're trying to make in that book. Within the book. There's a list that really stuck out to me that I was thinking that maybe in the second half of this conversation we can focus on. We're not going to get to all of the 12 points in the list. You're such a good Buddhist, you make lists. The Buddhists love Lists.
- [47:07]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
I know after you read the Sutta is Enough. It's. Everything's in a list.
- [47:10]
Dan Harris
Yeah, exactly. So you have this list, 12 lessons from 12 years of serious meditation, which I just found really interesting. We're not going to get to all 12, but I just was going to maybe take through a few of these and. And hear what you have to say. The first lesson is pain spreads through the web of humanity. Can you say more about that?
- [47:31]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah, that became really clear to me in the earlier years. So I came from a background in nonprofit organizing, so I spent a lot of time being a part of movements and, like, just organizing people to make change, like in their cities or in their schools. And I would see how much the world could be a better place. And like that, in combination with my love for history. And just like reading about all these struggles that human beings have gone through, it's clear to me that we're often in this massive web together as human beings because we're so communal that it's almost like the hurt that someone has felt, they may intentionally or unintentionally pass it on to someone else. And like that, we keep passing on hurt in some form of another to each other. And that lesson felt really important to mention at the top because I do think that we live in this very precious historical moment. Even with all of the chaos and all of the ups and downs and the political changes and whatnot, it feels like there's never been a time before, other than the time of the Buddha, where there are literally millions of people meditating. There are millions of people in therapy, millions of people who are, like, actively helping themselves come out of past pain, come out of serious trauma, who are trying to heal themselves in some way or another. And what's really interesting is that I think historically we do pass on pain to whomever is in proximity to us. But we have this opportunity now where people who are equipped with these tools, whatever, you know, whether it's meditating or not, they're equipped with these tools that can help them transmute that pain. So if they do receive pain from others or receive pain, you know, in their childhood or whatnot, they can figure out how to deal with that, how to process it, and how to let it go so that those that they're around, they don't pass on that pain to others and inspires me a lot and gives me a lot of hope.
- [49:38]
Dan Harris
Yeah. More people burning their conditioning than it probably at any point in human history is a hopeful sign. I'm not a Christian per se. I'm half Christian, half Jewish, but I'm not religious. But there is that. That thing Jesus said on the cross, you know, forgive them. They know not what they do. Hopefully I'm not mangling that because I really did go to temple more than I went to church.
- [50:00]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah.
- [50:01]
Dan Harris
But I do think about, like, if you just. There's this pathos to the human condition where all these traumatized people, all of us, big T or little T trauma with untrained minds, most of us walking around, passing our pathology on to others, banging up against each other like pinballs. And that's the pathos of the human pageant, really.
- [50:27]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Whenever I think about someone who's fully enlightened and I think about these archetypes like the Buddha or Jesus, these are beings that were so fully in unconditional love, like, that was their existence. Like, that's the way the framework of their mind. You know, how we live through ego. As you continue burning that conditioning, like we mentioned, your framework slowly starts shifting to become much more compassionate. Compassion for yourself and compassion for others. And I think it is possible to take it to the ultimate level where you just exist in a framework of compassion. And what that means is when you look out onto the world, you don't see anyone as your enemy. No one is your enemy. There's just this flowing love. But even so, you know, there is, I think, that line that you were mentioning with Jesus on the cross, it just points out to ignorance. People just don't know what they're doing.
- [51:27]
Dan Harris
Yes. The second of your 12 lessons from 12 years of serious meditation you've just brought us to nicely. Ego and the sense of self are not fundamentally real.
- [51:37]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
I know. That's my favorite one. It's interesting. Sometimes people have a really tough time with that one, and it trips them out. And I can understand it on an intellectual level because it might point towards, like, nihilism or something like that. But that's not really what we're talking about here. It's just that when you just really cultivate the mind and train the mind and basically turn your mind into a microscope, there are times where, you know, when I'm in meditation retreats, it feels like I'm sitting at the edge of the universe and I'm just really studying, minute studying, like, how is reality structured? Like, how is this bound together? And, you know, you pointed at this earlier where you were talking about individuals and the causes and conditions that got them here. But you can also see that internally they are a set of causes and conditions that they're literally this bundle of mental and physical phenomena that have come together and are moving in these incredibly rapid speeds that create this sense of I. It makes you feel like, oh, I exists. But when you really sharpen the mind and you point that lens inward, it becomes quite clear that it isn't even that there's an observer. Even the observer itself starts melting away. And you start seeing that that which is observing also has the quality of arising and passing away, that your consciousness is arising and passing away. The way that you react is rising and passing away. So these components that come together to create the sense of I, they fluctuate just like everything else. They're also unsubstantial. And personally, for me, that experience is quite liberating because I can let myself change now. I'm like, I am changed. Like, understanding that I am change has been so helpful. And just like, I don't have to stick to this idea of Diego. Diego doesn't have to be this one thing all the time. I can just keep letting myself flow, letting myself evolve, making sure that I'm existing within the confines of trying to not harm myself and not harm other people. But then other than that, I'm free to do what I want. I think it's been very freeing to just let my identity evolve.
- [53:47]
Dan Harris
I love what you said about sitting on the edge of the universe. You've done way, way more retreat time than I have. To the extent that I've had maybe one or two moments of what you might call, like, real equanimity. And it does feel like you're just getting a glimpse into the gear works of the universe. Like you are just seeing everything arising and passing so quickly, so clearly. And I'm aware that for me, like, that, that was a big moment. But for, like, experienced meditators, that's just a Tuesday, you know, it's like. So I don't want to make too much of these experiences on my side, you know, because I. I am a real baby in this realm. But it's a thrilling and freeing thing when you recognize, yeah, this whole world that seems so solid, like a real movie is actually 24 frames per second. And yeah, it can be scary and also really cool.
- [54:40]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah. And also very liberating. And that feeling, like I, like, like I mentioned before, I'm not enlightened or anything like that, but when you think about the Buddhist teaching, it points to Nibbana, the unconditioned, the truth that exists beyond mind and matter and this experience of total freedom. And when I think about those Terms like beyond mind and matter. As I've kept meditating, even though I haven't experienced it per se, I can feel like, oh, this is where this leads. This is totally heading towards, like. Because to me, beyond mind and matter means outside of the universe because we're. There's so many levels of existence and mind and matter are literally the descriptor of this universe that we exist in. But I think you can just make the mind sharp enough that eventually it pierces right through.
- [55:29]
Dan Harris
Okay, so now you, you've. You've got a. Some sort of molecular suspicion that the metaphysical claim, the core metaphysical claim of Buddhism, which is that nirvana is achievable and that nirvana is this experience, as you said, essentially outside of this universe, or at least not part of the universe that we generally have access to in our conventional lives. Your sense is, even without having experienced it, the Buddha's pointing to something.
- [55:55]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's really clear. And it feels like it's just, you know, what happens next, because you can literally feel like the way time starts slowing down, the way everything becomes so incredibly tranquil that the filaments, I don't even know what to call them, but these. These things that are binding together, the universe are ever so lightly melting away. And to me, it's like. And I think in the beginning when I first started meditating, that idea was so exciting. Like, oh, wow, the potential to, like, be fully free and all that. And now I've learned to just like, that's the point of the practice. The point of the practice is to achieve ultimate liberation. But I'm not going to rush anything. I'm just going to keep practicing. Whatever happens, happens. I think it's become pretty clear, you know, to see that, yeah, I've traveled enough of this path to know where it leads.
- [56:49]
Dan Harris
Interesting. Well, you just picked up on something. I don't know if this is on your list of 12, but it's a core lesson for me and has been the relief of a lot of suffering that can come with practice. Early on in my meditative career, I would hear all this talk about nirvana, or sometimes called nibana or whatever, and then I would get ambitious. Yeah, and ambition, you know, often doesn't feel very good. It's got a strivey, wanting, sweaty character to it. And so it's about holding two things in mind at the same time. One is, yeah, there is allegedly, at least, because I don't have as. As strong a suspicion as you do, but there is allegedly a culmination to this path and if you want it too much, you can't get there. So you just shut up and do your meditation.
- [57:35]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Exactly the exact moment that you start craving it, the door closes. It's just not. Just not even approachable. And it's funny because I've seen it happen in myself and I had to overcome that and I've seen it happen to a lot of other people. But we learn and understand more of what the goal is and then we start bringing this like Western capitalist, like productivity mentality to it. And it's like, how can I optimize? How can I get there faster? And this is the antithesis of that. This is like literally about how much can I just observe and allow my mind to be so utterly balanced that I'm letting these things unfold organically? And I think that's one of the hardest things because like what's the Buddha really asking? He's just asking to just observe. And that's like one of the hardest things for a human being to do.
- [58:19]
Dan Harris
Yes. Coming up, Diego talks about how to make decisions for your future self, how to have so called boundless compassion without being a pushover. And why being able to see perspectives outside of your own is a sign not only of intelligence but also mental strength. We are big fans of Wayfair. At my house we've got lots of Wayfair stuff both inside and outside. This is the time of year though where you may be specifically looking to gussy up your outdoor space. It's very important that space feel like you. Wayfair is your one stop shop for home. Outdoor seating, grills, major appliances, storage, patio lighting, rugs, decor, installation and assembly services are available for a truly seamless experience. With over 20 million 5 star reviews, you can hear from real customers before you buy. I have been on the Wayfair website many, many times. Their selection really is extraordinary. And my wife, who is the person in our household who actually has good taste, has made some really cool selections from the vast Wayfair library of merchandise. Patio season is here and these deals won't last. Head to Wayfair.com right now to get your outdoor space ready for way less. That's W A Y f a I r.com wayfair every style, every home. This is a Monday.com ad.
- [59:47]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
The same Monday.com helping people worldwide getting
- [59:50]
Dan Harris
work done faster and better. The same Monday.com designed for every team and every industry. The same Monday.com with built in AI scaling your work from day one. The same Monday.com that your team will
- [60:04]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
actually love using the same Monday.com with
- [60:08]
Dan Harris
an easy and intuitive setup. Go to Monday.com and try it for free. Yes, the same Monday.com, number three on your list is something that I, I resonate with quite a lot. Surround yourself with people who have the qualities you want to develop.
- [60:25]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
I think that's one of the reasons why I've, like, you know, my wife and I, we live now in Western Mass. Where there's a lot of meditators out here, and we've been living up here for four years. And we lived in New York before that in New York City. And it was just a wonderful time. And it was interesting being around in New York City, being around a lot of people who wanted to help the world in different ways, but also had a lot of ambition to, like, make these big goals and make them happen. And I think it was really helpful for me to be in New York City, even, like, being in New York City. Like, I got to meet you for the first time when we did the seven minute thing that we made for your show in 2019, and, you know, meeting Elena Brower, just meeting different people, that kickstarted my writing career. And I knew that once the writing career got established and I was like, okay, I've made some good connections, made some great friends. I'm like, I really want to grow on the practice. So I had to kind of move up here and just surround myself with people that I could learn from because, you know, I've only meditated, what, like, maybe like somewhere between 12,000 and 13,000 hours. And that's not indicative of wisdom. That's just more indicative of effort. But, like, I know a lot of people have meditated like, 40, 50,000 hours. And, like, these people are weapons, you know, like, their minds are just so strong, and they've never written a book, never been on a podcast. They're just like, quietly, these beings of great wisdom. And I love being around people like that because they just. They help me grow.
- [61:58]
Dan Harris
Yeah. And the Buddha was not shy or subtle on this score, you know, when he talked about the three jewels, the three primary components of being a Buddhist. They were the Buddha, which is somewhat immodest, but he was basically holding himself up as an avatar of awakening, an example of the fact that this path does have a culmination and it is achievable. The second is the Dharma, which is the teachings of the Buddha. And the third jewel is the Sangha, the community. And it wasn't like an asterisk. It was the third Jewel, an equal part of the trilogy. And it's often overlooked in our individualistic age.
- [62:37]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah, it's totally overlooked. Even with the monastics, the Sangha, we don't have as much understanding in the Western world about the, like, Buddhist Sangha. But there are times when I'm out here in Western Mass and, like, I see monks walking around, up and down the hill. It's so cool to me. It's like they've surrendered everything they practice, they serve, and they have literally sort of donated their lives to the Dharma so that they can help the continuation of the teaching, helping the teaching continue existing for future generations. And I'm like, dang, that's some power. That's so, so amazing. So super inspired by things like that.
- [63:20]
Dan Harris
I'm literally sitting here thinking, should I be moving to Western Massachusetts?
- [63:24]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
You gotta come hang out. It's cool. I went to your center a year and a half ago, got to give Donna to Biku and Alio and just check out the whole center, and it was just awesome.
- [63:34]
Dan Harris
It is. I wish it was my. Well, it's definitely not my center. I know you didn't mean that, but.
- [63:40]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah, yeah, the one you go to.
- [63:41]
Dan Harris
Yeah, the one I go to. Yeah. Insight Meditation Society. Everybody should check it out. Dharma.org While I'm at on the promotion tip, if people want to check out, quote, unquote, your center. What's the website for that?
- [63:53]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
That's so funny. It's Dharma Dhamma.org D H A M M A.org awesome. Yeah, so we stick to the poly one.
- [64:01]
Dan Harris
One typo can get you to one center or the next.
- [64:04]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
I've seen it happen before with really cool results.
- [64:06]
Dan Harris
Yeah, I'm sure.
- [64:07]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Really awesome.
- [64:10]
Dan Harris
So number four on your list is your future is created by your present actions.
- [64:17]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah, that's a big one. I think I. I've seen the way that even within one lifetime, Right. Because it's hard to talk about, like, other lifetimes because it's, you know, you don't really have much proof of that other than a feeling. But even within a lifetime, I've seen that as soon as I started improving my actions, let's say the actions that I started taking in 2012, 2013, 2014, have totally created what my 2020, 2022 look like. And the moment that I started intentionally, because I think a lot of times I was acting quite passively, unconsciously, I was just reacting and trying to, you know, move through life without a lot of intention. But the moment I started activating the intention and started Cultivating my habits and bringing a daily practice into my life, making sure that I always have time in the year to do these longer meditation retreats. The results have been extraordinary. And a lot of it is just helping me make better decisions. It's not like it's some magic that, like, oh, you know, you do this thing and then some random thing from the sky comes and blesses your life. It's not like that. It's just that my decisions and how I move about has just become a lot clearer. And that's helped so much with the creativity, it's helped with the writing, it's helped with all these facets of life. And all of it stem from the good actions that I've taken. So I think your actions that you put forward really set up your future.
- [65:43]
Dan Harris
It's karma.
- [65:44]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah. You're literally building every action one step at a time.
- [65:48]
Dan Harris
Yeah. You're creating a new vapor trail. We have so much conditioning we can't control. And if you can, it's amazing to burn some off. But we can always start creating new conditioning right now.
- [66:04]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Totally. We always have that opportunity. Like Goenka, Sharon Salzberg, you know, all the good teachers, they say, start again.
- [66:10]
Dan Harris
Yes. Number five, make your compassion boundless.
- [66:14]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
I think that's the challenging one. Like, we talked about that a little bit earlier, about being able to look upon the world and see no one as your enemy. And people who don't cause harm, people who do cause harm, and understanding that even those who do things that hurt others, like, they're struggling, they're really struggling in their mind because it's something that's happening in the mind that would even create a force of action in that manner that hurts another. So having that deeper sort of macro outlook on the human conditioning and being able to challenge yourself to make your compassion more boundless, to make your love. And this is, you know, we're talking about indirectly the practice of Metta, where you're really doing your best to share your merits with all beings. Like, may all beings be happy, may all beings be peaceful, may there be, you know, no strife in the world. And you notice the. The connection between having no aversion towards people or trying not to have aversion towards people and wishing them the best and that deeply supporting your own inner peace. Because you're not sort of like, channeling all that turbulence and harboring all of that. Instead, you're giving them love.
- [67:28]
Dan Harris
This is timely discussion because I. And I'm sure you're getting a lot of this too, but I'M getting a lot of questions. You know, in the era of Trump, is compassion a viable strategy? I want to be clear as I ask this question. This podcast is for everybody, whether you like Trump or don't like him. And I'm aware that I think the vast majority of people listening and the vast majority of the questions are getting along this line, are from people who don't like Trump. But we're in an era of heightened polarization and division, and I am getting the sense that it's harder and harder to sell compassion. Maybe sell is not the right word, but to pitch people on compassion, I'm finding a lot of pushback on this. So what do you say when you are confronted with people who push back?
- [68:16]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah, there's a subtlety there. There's a very important subtlety, because compassion does not mean that you're a pushover. Compassion does not mean that you let people do whatever they want to do. What it really means is that you are doing your best to treat people well. And when you come across someone who is causing harm, you know, whether Trump or not, we're talking about any individual. When you come across someone who's causing harm, you do your best to stop them, but you do your best to stop them without hating them. You do your best to stop them out of compassion because they're harming others and for the one getting harmed and the one doing the harming. And this is interesting because in the back in 2012, so I came into that first Goenka retreat with a very, like, you know, social activist conditioning. Quite left at the time. It was on day eight that Goenka talked about this exact thing that it just really deeply connected with me. He was like, you don't just let people harm others. You're not just gonna stand there like a vegetable. You're not just gonna let whatever happened happen. Oh, that's all because of karma. It's not like that. When you come across something like that, and it's in your direct line of sight, you do your best to speak up. You do your best to stop them. If it's something that's on a very micro, interpersonal level, but you make sure that you do that without hating the individual. You do it still with love in your heart. And the perfect example is, like, a small child. If you see a small child that is, like, really about to do something very dangerous, and you have to scream at them to stop them to get their attention, it's not because you hate the kid. It's because you love them. And you're doing that from a loving place and you have to speak harshly because you need to get their attention.
- [69:58]
Dan Harris
I love that the two like, synonyms that I'm finding for compassion, that I'm finding it go down a little easier with people. One is, goes back to the Thich Nhat Hanh thing as love is understanding, compassion is just understanding that we all have our vapor trails, we all have our causes and conditions. And as Van Jones recently said to me, you know, it's not like anybody wakes up in the morning, decides to be a bad person. Yeah. You know, it's. Everybody thinks they're doing the right thing. So that, that's just the, the raw understanding and in no way precludes you from taking decisive action in disagreement. And the second is, the second, like, synonym is non hatred.
- [70:38]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah.
- [70:38]
Dan Harris
You know, it's a very Buddhist way of saying it. It just means that you, you can take the same actions. They just don't have to be based in hatred, because hatred is not a clean burning fuel. It will burn you out over time. And so if you're drawing on the wellspring of compassion for yourself, for the people you care about, and even for the other person, because as you said earlier a couple of paragraphs back, that people who are doing harm, like it's harming them, whether they're aware of it
- [71:06]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
or not, absolutely immediately it was even harming them before they even committed the action, because they had to have this big burst of negative energy to even make that action happen. And it's creating these massive, deep aversive imprints in their mind that are going to be with them for a long time. And I think one last thing to add on this point that keeps coming up is like, I think all people, you know, wherever they are on the political spectrum, I think something that's important to work towards is not putting your views on a pedestal. It's just really, really important to understand that all views are imperfect. And this was one of the things that the Buddha warned the Sangha about before he died, where he talked about how attachment to views could lead to division. And it's exactly what happened.
- [71:55]
Dan Harris
Yes. The Buddhist community fractured in some ways with some positive results. We now have these incredible schools of Buddhism, but it wasn't without turmoil. I do want to say that what you just said, right there is essentially a, a different way of saying what you say in number seven on your 12 lessons, which is being able to see perspectives outside of your own is a sign of intelligence and mental strength.
- [72:18]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
I think that's been like, I used to be so combative and, like, and argumentative about political topics, and especially when I was younger and, you know, really thought I had everything figured out. And what I've been learning over time is that I absolutely don't have everything figured out, and it would actually be quite beneficial. Instead of when I hear someone's view that I don't necessarily agree with, instead of fighting them on it, I've been leaning on using these simple words, just tell me more. Like, I'm curious how you landed there. Like, just, you know, and without condescension, just with raw curiosity, like, tell me more. You know, you have to learn to pick your battles. Like, you don't need to fight every single person who has a different view from you. But in these moments where you do come across someone, just tell me more. You know, I want to understand how you got there, and I think that's been just so productive.
- [73:14]
Dan Harris
Well, we made it halfway through your list, and this is probably a good place to leave it. I'm going to ask you two questions that I always ask at the end of the conversation. One is, was there something you were hoping we would get to that we didn't get to? No.
- [73:28]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
I think this has been so fun. Honestly, it's a. It's a breath of fresh air because it's. I've been doing a lot of interviews to support the release of the book, but it's really nice having this Dharma context between the both of us to really kind of fully show where these lessons are coming from for how to love better.
- [73:46]
Dan Harris
I totally agree. I share that sentiment a million percent. And, you know, I just notice over and over I didn't sleep well last night. I can. That's neither here nor there in some sense, but I can be underslept or in a bad mood or busy. But if I'm talking Dharma. Yeah, everything's okay.
- [74:04]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
It's so fun. Yeah.
- [74:06]
Dan Harris
And so the second question I was gonna. You kind of brought me to it nicely is can you just remind everybody of the name of your new book and also of your past books and your substack and just please give us all of it?
- [74:18]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah, sure. So how to Love Better. It'll be available on Amazon in bookstores. And it's my latest book. This one really focuses about relationships. It focuses on just developing harmony and relationships. Other than that, you can find me on substack. Youngpueblo.substack.com it's one of my favorite places to really go deep on topics you know. I'm also sharing things on Instagram Yungpue BLO on Instagram there but a lot more of that is just short form and bite sized reflection points. And I have a few other books, another nonfiction book called Lighter and three poetry and prose books that are called the Inward Trilogy that people can get.
- [75:03]
Dan Harris
Excellent. We'll put links to all that in the show notes. I'll drop some links to my prior encounters with Diego Youngpublo so you can go deep. Thank you so much for making the time to do this. It was great to talk to you.
- [75:15]
Diego Perez (Young Pueblo)
Yeah, this was awesome. Thank you so much.
- [75:21]
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 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. One last thing I want to say before you go. If you enjoy this show, please do me slash us a solid, follow the show and leave a rating and a review on whatever platform you watch or listen to us on. It only takes a minute. It's free and it really helps new people find us and spread the good news that the mind is trainable. Thank you. Sincerely, I mean it. Thank you. Sa.