Joseph Goldstein On How To Train Your Runaway Brain

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: 10% Happier with Dan Harris
Episode: Joseph Goldstein On How To Train Your Runaway Brain
Date: January 1, 2026
Theme:
This episode kicks off 2026 with a deep dive into how we can train our often unruly, distracted, and “ridiculous” minds. Host Dan Harris and legendary meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein discuss a series of pithy, practice-based phrases—colloquial “Buddhist earworms”—that have been central in Joseph’s teachings and offer practical tools for meditation and everyday life. The conversation centers on why these guiding phrases work, how to use them, and what to do when the mind inevitably wanders.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Phrases Matter in Meditation

• Origins of Phrases ([05:49])
  Joseph Goldstein explains that most of these phrases emerged intuitively for him during his own meditation practice, serving as “little hacks” to unhook himself from stuck patterns or distracting thoughts.

  "It just comes as a... little hack that gets me unhooked." —Joseph Goldstein [05:53]

• These phrases function as an “inner dharma coach”—arising spontaneously and offering gentle, on-the-spot support to bring mindfulness back online.

  "They come intuitively. I like the creative aspect—it just appears. Oh yeah, that's right on. That really gets to the point." —Joseph Goldstein [09:17]

2. Just Begin Again: The Granddaddy Phrase

• Gentle Reorientation ([10:57])
  “Just begin again” is a compassionate instruction for returning to the anchor after distraction, normalizing mind-wandering as a foundational part of meditation.

  "It's just a really simple reminder... be gentle with our own minds in the face of the wandering mind, with that soft reminder: just begin again." —Joseph Goldstein [12:05]

• Mind-wandering is not failure but rather the very process of training.

  "Getting lost and starting again is meditation. It is not an obstacle to overcome en route to proper meditation." —Sharon Salzberg [17:25]

• Puppy Training Analogy ([13:41]):
  Joseph likens training the mind to training a puppy: the repetition is the practice.

  "We're all dumb puppies in this context...it's a training process." —Joseph Goldstein [14:52]

3. Sit and Know You’re Sitting

• Radical Simplicity ([18:51])
  The phrase, originating from Joseph's first teacher, Munindraji, emphasizes stripping meditation down to just recognizing you're sitting—with the entire Dharma revealed in that direct awareness.

  "Just sit and know you're sitting...and the whole of the Dharma will be revealed." —Joseph Goldstein [19:06]

• This approach invites relaxed alertness and openness to whatever arises.

  "It suggests a very relaxed yet alert quality of mind. That combination... is really the balance that we're aiming for in meditation." —Joseph Goldstein [21:31]

4. Relaxed, Not Casual; More or Less Mindful

• The Balance of Practice ([28:23])
  Joseph cautions against being too “casual” in mindfulness, where attention is only “more or less” present, allowing background thoughts to proliferate undetected.

  "It's very easy to be moving about, kind of mindful. We're not totally spaced out, but we're not feeling the experience closely." [29:18]

• Detecting Rushing ([32:12]):
  Subtle rushing—energetically leaning into the next moment even without external speed—signals loss of full presence.

  "Rushing has nothing to do with speed. It has to do with whether one is balanced and really back in the present." —Joseph Goldstein [34:31]

  • Memorable Example: Joseph describes slow walking meditation, noticing an “inner energetic rushing” toward the lunch bell even though his pace remained slow. [33:18]

5. What’s the Attitude in the Mind?

• Monitoring Subtle Energies ([37:47])
  By periodically asking “What’s the attitude in the mind right now?” meditators recognize hidden toppling forward or judgmental attitudes—a reset cue with transformative impact.

  "As soon as I did that, 'What's the attitude?' I could feel my mind settling back from the leaning forward...It was a leaning forward I was not even aware was there." —Joseph Goldstein [37:47]

6. Mara, I See You

• Dealing with Unwholesome Patterns ([41:14])
  Invoking “Mara, I see you”—the traditional Buddhist response to delusion or unhelpful mental states—shifts identification and enables letting go with humor.

  "In the moment of recognizing what's going on—to say, 'Mara, I see you,' really effects the letting go." —Joseph Goldstein [42:39]

• Joseph adds the playful “wagging the finger at Mara” gesture, reinforcing humor and lightness as crucial in practice. [43:09]

7. The Mind Has No Pride / Ridiculousness

• Liberation in Humor ([45:57])
  A favorite phrase: “the mind has no pride.” Embracing the ridiculousness of mental content is freeing rather than discouraging.

  "What's helpful about this realization is that it's actually liberating. Because...there's a lot, of course, we're talking about the ridiculous aspects." —Joseph Goldstein [46:29]

• Why Is the Mind Like This? ([48:05])
  Our "ridiculous" minds are the product of deeply entrenched habits of attention and unexamined conditioning. As mindfulness strengthens, old tendencies have less space to operate.

8. Undercurrent of Thoughts, Thieves of Meditation, Dreaming Yourself Into Existence

• Subtle Forces ([63:17])
  Joseph describes the “undercurrent of thoughts”—a continual, lightly passing flow of (often self-referential) thoughts operating like a background soundtrack, shaping moods and conditioning even when we're unaware.

  "This undercurrent of thoughts is like the soundtrack of our lives." —Joseph Goldstein [67:49]

• Being Stolen from ([68:11])
  "The thieves of meditation... they've stolen our mindfulness," Joseph says, emphasizing the need to become aware of and gently interrupt this continual self-dreaming.

  "I'm just dreaming myself into existence in all of these moments when I'm lost in the undercurrent of thought." —Joseph Goldstein [66:25]

9. Deconditioning and Interest

• Root Issue: Ignorance ([57:38], [60:10])
  Sharon summarizes the Buddhist teaching of “causes and conditions” and Joseph reaffirms: at the root is ignorance—failure to see impermanence, leading to patterns of craving, clinging, and reactivity.

  "Because of ignorance, we're not necessarily attuned on an experiential level to the process of momentary change... It's that wisdom, as opposed to ignorance, which starts to decondition clinging and craving." —Joseph Goldstein [58:11], [59:36]

• Practice Is Powered by Interest ([71:56])
  The key attitude is not striving, but deep curiosity:

  "The mind is fascinating... Mind is the forerunner of all things... What could be more interesting than really exploring everything it's doing?" —Joseph Goldstein [71:56], [73:15]

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “It just comes as a little hack that gets me unhooked from whatever I might be dealing with in the moment.” —Joseph Goldstein [05:58]
• “Just begin again with a real gentleness in the mind.” —Joseph Goldstein [12:05]
• “We’re all dumb puppies in this context... That is more typical.” —Joseph Goldstein [14:52]
• “Getting lost and starting again is meditation. It is not an obstacle.” —Sharon Salzberg [17:25]
• “What's the attitude in the mind right now?” —Joseph Goldstein, citing U Tejaniya [37:47]
• “Mara, I see you.” —Joseph Goldstein [41:14]
• “The mind has no pride.” —Unattributed teaching referenced by Goldstein [46:15]
• “The mind will do so many crazy things. Just a little sense of humor story...” —Joseph Goldstein [43:32]
• “This undercurrent of thoughts is like the soundtrack of our lives.” —Joseph Goldstein [67:49]
• “I'm just dreaming myself into existence in all these moments.” —Joseph Goldstein [66:25]
• “The mind is fascinating… Mind is the forerunner of all things.” —Joseph Goldstein [71:56]
• “Our whole lives are the manifestation of our minds... it's as interesting now as it was in the beginning.” —Joseph Goldstein [73:15]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 05:49 — The origins of teaching phrases and their function as “little hacks.”
• 10:57 — Introduction and unpacking of “Just begin again.”
• 13:41 — Puppy training as a metaphor for the mind.
• 18:51 — Sit and know you're sitting; the simplicity of direct awareness.
• 21:31 — The importance of balanced, relaxed alertness.
• 28:23 — More or less mindful, casual attention, and the perils of unnoticed background thought.
• 32:12 — Subtle signals of “rushing” and energetic leaning forward.
• 37:47 — Using “what’s the attitude in the mind?” as a practice cue.
• 41:14 — “Mara, I see you” and humor in practice.
• 45:57 — Embracing the mind’s “ridiculousness” as liberating.
• 48:05 — Why are our minds like this? Habits of attention and conditioning.
• 57:38 — Causes, conditions, and the centrality of ignorance in Buddhist psychology.
• 63:17 — Undercurrent of thoughts, the thieves of meditation, and dreaming oneself into existence.
• 66:25 / 67:49 — The subtle soundtrack analogy.
• 71:56 — Interest and curiosity as motivation for lifelong practice.

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Conclusion

This episode blends warmth, humor, and lived experience, making complex Buddhist psychological insights accessible and actionable for contemporary listeners. Joseph Goldstein and Dan Harris, with Sharon Salzberg’s insightful contributions, explore practical phrase-based interventions—the “Buddhist earworms” that gently nudge the mind back on track. Key takeaways: approach your mind with interest and humor, normalize distraction, and use these simple, memorable phrases both on the meditation cushion and in everyday life. The goal: less self-judgment, more gentle awareness, and a foundational curiosity about the stream of your own consciousness.

Transcript

[Joseph Goldstein]

Foreign.

[Dan Harris]

This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, everybody. Happy New year. Welcome to 2026. We've got a fantastic pair of episodes to kick off this new year, both of them featuring my guy, Joseph Goldstein. So let's get right to it. You may have noticed that your mind is often out of control. It's populated by racing thoughts, habitual neuroses, ancient grudges.

[Sharon Salzberg]

I could go on.

[Dan Harris]

So what can be done about this today? As mentioned, I'm going to talk to.

[Sharon Salzberg]

One of my favorite people, also one.

[Dan Harris]

Of the most prominent meditation teachers in the West, Joseph Goldstein, about how ridiculous our minds are. And by the way, that's a word.

[Sharon Salzberg]

He uses a lot to describe the mind.

[Dan Harris]

Ridiculous. So we're going to talk about how ridiculous the mind is, and we're going to talk about some very compelling ways to train these unruly minds.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Let me give you a little bit.

[Dan Harris]

Of context for what we're going to do here. I managed to convince Joseph to co author a book with me. This book will not be out for several years, but it's going to be a compilation of the phrases that Joseph uses while he's teaching meditation and Buddhism. These are pithy, catchy phrases that are, as Joseph says, kind of like hacks.

[Sharon Salzberg]

For working with your mind.

[Dan Harris]

I've been studying with Joseph for more than 15 years, and I've made a list of, I think, close to a hundred of these phrases, each of which has been incredibly helpful for me in my own life and in my own practice. Some of these phrases are designed to help you with meditation. Some of them are just to help pull your head out of your ass when you're stuck in useless anxiety or you're in the grips of an unwise desire, et cetera, et cetera.

[Sharon Salzberg]

So.

[Dan Harris]

So I've been conducting a series of interviews with Joseph about these phrases, these Buddhist earworms. And these interviews will form the spine of the aforementioned book project. And as I record these interviews, I'm going to release them here on the podcast. So this is the first one I'm releasing. There's another one coming out this coming Sunday, January 4th, and then many more will start dribbling out over the next year or so. Just to give you a little taste, here are some of the phrases we'll be covering in today's episode. Just begin again. Sit and know you're sitting relaxed, not casual, more or less mindful. The thieves of meditation. Mara, I see you. The mind has no pride, and the mind is the forerunner of all things These might not make any sense right now, but you will hear Joseph explain each of the phrases, where they came from and how to use them in your life. Speaking of Joseph, he will be leading our free seven day New Year's meditation challenge which will be running from January 5th through the 11th. You can sign up by downloading my new app 10% with Dan Harris. You can download [e-mail] or wherever you get your apps. This challenge is incredible. In it, Joseph gives a kind of masterclass and on ramp to Buddhist meditation. It's good for beginners and and for experienced meditators. I was in the room with Joseph meditating along with him as he recorded the sessions and I got a ton out of it myself. So go to danharris.com, download the app. There's a free 30 day trial, so if you sign up now, that free trial will cover the challenge. Okay, we'll get started with Joseph Goldstein right after this. The best B2B marketing often gets wasted on the wrong people. I can't tell you how often I'm.

[Sharon Salzberg]

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[Dan Harris]

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[Sharon Salzberg]

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[Dan Harris]

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[Sharon Salzberg]

I think as an overarching question, why have phrases become such an important part of your teaching?

[Joseph Goldstein]

So mostly these phrases have come up.

When I've been on retreat myself in.

Doing my practice, and somehow it just.

Comes as a. I don't know if this is the right expression exactly. A little hack that gets me unhooked from whatever I might be dealing with in the moment. And just over these many years, there.

Have been a lot of really helpful phrases that come to mind that have a very impactful influence on my practice.

In terms of unhooking from someplace where I've been caught. And it's been really interesting because they're very intuitive. They just come by themselves. Oh, yeah, that just gets it.

Or I might read something in some of the texts and there might be.

A phrase that just really seems to.

Apply to the practice in a way.

That I hadn't thought of before. So that could be another source of them.

But they're always practice related in ways.

That I found helpful.

[Sharon Salzberg]

And helpful specifically how that the phrase will surface in your mind at the moment when you need it.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yes.

So I'll give you an example and we may get into a discussion of this one later. So this goes back quite a few years, but it was a phase in my practice where I was dealing just with a lot of sensual desire.

And it was just coming up a lot and a lot. And I used all the familiar ways of relating.

So I would be mindful of it, I would note it, I would realize.

This is not helpful.

But nothing was unhooking because they were very pleasurable. At least I thought they were pleasurable on a certain level. And so one of the phrases that came to my mind after going through.

These cycles, endless number of times, just.

The little phrase dead end came to.

Mind because I realized all of these fantasies, they were just dead ends.

They weren't going anyplace. So I'd go down this road, come to a dead end, and then have.

To come back and just start again.

So I started using the dead end up front. So as soon as the desire started, the fantasy, oh, dead end. And it just helped me not have to go down the whole road.

So it's things like that, it's ways.

Of seeing myself caught in a particular way.

And then something comes which helps free the mind.

[Sharon Salzberg]

And your experience as a teacher is that these phrases also work for your students for some.

[Joseph Goldstein]

So I put it out because they've been helpful for me.

And then I think they have generally been helpful, but people will use them or not, depending on just where their own practice is and where they have to be useful. But I think they're general enough in terms of dealing with common practices, problems that arise. But I think generally they've been helpful.

[Sharon Salzberg]

And I'll speak for myself. They've been incredibly helpful for me. And I notice that they really do spontaneously arise in my mind at moments when I need them. You've described it as like an inner dharma coach at times.

[Joseph Goldstein]

That's what it feels like. And what I particularly like about them is the fact that they come intuitively.

So I'm not sitting there trying to think of, oh, I wonder what would be helpful here. They just come into my mind.

I like the intuitive, creative aspect of it.

It just appears.

Oh, yeah, that's right on.

That really gets to the point.

[Sharon Salzberg]

So it's not like you're in a room with a whiteboard trying to craft the perfect phrase. It just arises naturally. And to you, that kind of gives it some freshness.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

And it actually kind of speaks to.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Its power because it's not contrived.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Correct.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Yeah. I mean, I.

[Dan Harris]

Just to re.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Emphasize how useful the phrases have been for me, I was able to come up with a list of about a hundred of them from memory.

[Dan Harris]

And no, I think that can be.

[Sharon Salzberg]

A little tricky in that we don't want to bombard people with too many moves you can make in meditation because it can get confusing. But I've been hanging around with you for a long time, so I've just accumulated the larceny of taking your stuff and using it in my own practice.

[Joseph Goldstein]

And fortunately, you have a better memory.

Than I do, so you remember more of them than I remember. I'm glad you have the list here.

[Sharon Salzberg]

We don't have cameras for this, but yes. Joseph is motioning toward a list that I have in front of me that I'm going to use during the course of this set of interviews. Okay, so the first set of phrases we're going to talk about are specifically meditation phrases. And I think the granddaddy of them all is just begin again.

[Joseph Goldstein]

I'm not sure whether that is the granddaddy of them all, but it's definitely a frequently used one.

And it's really helpful because for almost.

Everybody.

Even experienced practitioners, but particularly for people just Starting their practice. It's almost inevitable that people experience what.

We call the wandering mind.

We've given the mind an object of attention.

Simple could be the breath. What could be easier?

Just stay with the breath. Be aware of the in breath, the out breath. But what we find is generally that.

Often within a very short period of.

Time, the mind hops on these trains.

Of association and just takes us on a journey. And then at some point we hop off.

And in that moment of hopping off, which really means becoming aware that we've.

Been thinking that we've been lost.

That's a critical moment.

And often people overlook it because there could be a tendency for that moment to express some self judgment. Oh, lost again. And so then we think we can't really do this.

A lot of doubt comes into the mind forgetting that no, this is going to happen. This is just a natural part of the process. And a much more gentle and useful approach would be to really, oh, lost. Just begin again with a real gentleness in the mind. And it's that coming back again and again and again each time we're lost, which actually begins to train the mind. So it's just a really simple reminder that both it's natural and we can be gentle with our own minds in the face of the wandering mind with that very soft reminder, just begin again.

So in a way, I see that as being very inviting.

[Sharon Salzberg]

You said that when you wake up from distraction and begin again, that's how you train the mind.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yes, it is.

The coming back with the intention.

Okay, I'm going to just stay steady.

On the breath now. It's kind of like training a puppy.

You want to train the puppy to sit. Okay, little puppy. Okay. Kind of push your drum down, sit. And of course, within five seconds it's up and running around again. But you just sit up and running around, sit.

At a certain point, depending how smart.

The puppy is, it'll get the idea, oh, the point is to say steed, you know, or in the meditation, the.

Point is to stay steady on the object.

In this case, it might be the breath.

So it's the coming back is the training of the mind and reminding the mind.

Okay, the purpose of this, stay steady.

[Sharon Salzberg]

But I think for many people, especially at the beginning stages, although I think this kind of self criticism can, can linger in my experience for years, you start feeling like you're just a really dumb puppy because you, you keep having to start over and over again. So what do you say to folks who have that concern?

[Joseph Goldstein]

It's really simple. We're all dumb puppies in this context. There are some people.

Who, for whatever.

Reason, have a natural ability to be concentrated, and they just settle in and.

Their minds stay steady on whatever they're attending to.

But that's pretty unusual. For most people, it's a training process. And for most of us, it's like.

That puppy that just keeps getting up and running around. That is more typical.

And I think just knowing it's like normalizing it rather than thinking, oh, it's.

Just me, and I can't do this.

This is the process for almost everyone. When I first started meditation, I had zero concentration and I had studied philosophy college.

So my mind loved to think about things. Went to India, began my practice.

I would just sit and think for.

An hour and enjoy it. I was entertaining myself, and the hour went quickly, but I wasn't getting anyplace.

So I know from my own experience that if I could make some progress.

In steadying my mind, anybody can, and.

That it is a training. And to know that is really helpful.

Because sometimes people have the idea, oh, I'm just not suited for this, or I can't do this.

Forgetting that it's like learning any other skill.

You know, if you want to learn a musical instrument, you have to practice the scales or practice the basics again and again.

And at first it doesn't sound right.

But we keep practicing and we get better at it. It's really the same thing.

[Sharon Salzberg]

I don't know how often you speak to, like, completely naive audiences, audiences where they've never really done much meditation, or they've tried it once or twice in the middle of the meditation app craze or whatever. I do that a lot. I've spent a lot of time traveling around the country and the world talking to people who are really beginners, and I find myself saying the same thing over and over again. But it feels good every time I say it, which is. And I'm curious to hear whether you agree with this, the thing that is happening in your meditation that is leading.

[Dan Harris]

You to tell yourself that you're a.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Bad meditator is actually proof that you're doing it correctly. Getting lost and starting again is meditation. It is not an obstacle to overcome en route to proper meditation.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yeah, I think that's a. A helpful way of framing it, which.

Is another way of normalizing it. And.

It would be interesting just as you go around, whether at different times you just find different ways or different expressions or different reminders to help people realize, yeah, this is natural. This is the training, and keep going yes.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Meaning there would be better ways to say it.

[Joseph Goldstein]

No. Perhaps. No, no. Just.

Just to mix it up a little bit.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Sharon Salzberg]

I just notice the lights go on for people because I've given. You know, I've done hundreds of these talks. And when I point out, yeah, this.

[Dan Harris]

Getting distracting, starting over isn't a problem.

[Sharon Salzberg]

That's meditation.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yes.

[Dan Harris]

People are like, oh, I can do this.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Right?

[Sharon Salzberg]

I have been doing this.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Okay, maybe this is the best way.

Run with it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Well, you never know. Okay, so let's move on to another phrase, and this one. You say this a lot. Sit and know you're sitting. What does that mean?

[Joseph Goldstein]

I first heard this from my first meditation teacher, Munindraji, in India.

And he would say this. Just sit and know you're sitting. Actually, he had another part to the.

Expression, sit and know you're sitting, and.

The whole of the Dharma will be revealed. So it struck me, and what I liked about it was, first, it's a very simple instruction to begin with.

So it's not complicated. It's just sit and know you're sitting. And I think people can relate to.

That and actually begin to practice that simplicity quite easily. Just sit and know you're sitting.

Nothing else to do.

What makes it powerful is that when we sit and know we're sitting, so it just provides like a frame.

[Sharon Salzberg]

For.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Whatever else may be arising within that frame. So we sit, and now we're sitting. And quite automatically, we may become aware of the body breathing. We're just sitting. We're sitting, and we know that we're sitting, but part of that will be the body breathing. And so quite naturally, we become aware of that, and then sit and know we're sitting and sounds occurring. So we quite naturally become aware that we're hearing. So this phrase is just a very open, easeful way of settling into this whole. We could say practice or training in being aware. And so we just start with something completely simple where there's nothing we have to do. It's just we're sitting. You know, it's completely simple. So sit, know you're sitting. And then maybe a tagline, which I have not used, but it's just coming to my mind now. Sit and know you're sitting and see what happens. So my hope is that it suggests a very relaxed yet alert quality of mind. And that combination of relaxed and alert is really the balance that we're aiming for in the meditation.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Say more about that. Why is relaxed alertness so important?

[Joseph Goldstein]

Because Each of those terms is an antidote to a potential difficulty or challenge in meditation. Relaxed is the antidote to over efforting, even with something as simple as feeling the breath. Very often for people, and perhaps especially.

More in the beginning, there can be a tendency.

In our effort to be alert, efforting a little too much and.

Manipulating the breath even in some subtle way, pulling the next breath in, rather than just letting it come in its own rhythm. So the relaxation is, as I say, an antidote for the over efforting or over striving. Alert is the antidote for spacing out, because it could be easy to settle.

In to a relaxed mode and become.

So relaxed that we've lost the edge of mindfulness, of really being connected closely to what's happening. But when these two come together, when.

We'Re both relaxed and alert, the mind.

Just finds that effortless balance where we.

Can be aware of what's happening without.

Over efforting and without spacing out.

[Sharon Salzberg]

But this is a delicate equipoise. I mean, this balance between relaxed and alert, in my experience, which is limited, you kind of have to overshoot and undershoot a bunch before you actually get to that nice balance. And of course, like everything else, that equipoise is impermanent.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yes. Although I've never done this, it's something.

I've read about a high wire acrobat in maintaining the balance. Not that they find the balance and then just walk on the high wire.

They're continually adjusting the balance. I have this image in my mind.

Of them sometimes carrying a pole or.

Something to help if they feel the.

Body going a little to one side.

They balance it by going to the other side.

So that's a natural part of the process.

The idea is not that we find.

The right balance and then we have it.

It's a continual process of adjustment.

One suggestion for people as they're exploring this is to begin to pay attention to the quality of the balance. So that awareness starts to be built in to the very practice of just.

Being with the breath, for example.

So we're with it, but we're also attending. Oh, is it getting too tight?

Is it getting too loose?

And one might even ask that question every once in a while, intermittently, just as a reminder. That would be worth checking on.

[Dan Harris]

Coming up, we'll dig into the difference between relaxed and casual, and we'll talk about being aware enough to notice when you're rushing, even if you're moving slowly. It's a new year, colder days for many of us. So therefore, this is A moment where your winter wardrobe really has to be on point, really has to deliver. If you're craving a winter reset, start with pieces truly made to last season after season. Quince brings together premium materials, thoughtful design and enduring quality so you stay warm, you look sharp and feel your best all season long. Quince has everything you need. Men's Mongolian Cashmere sweaters I got a bunch of those wool coats, leather and suede outerwear that actually holds up to daily wear and still looks good. Each piece is made from premium materials by trusted factories that meet rigorous standards.

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[Dan Harris]

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[Sharon Salzberg]

I don't know what they're called.

[Dan Harris]

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[Sharon Salzberg]

Middle of a busy day.

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[Sharon Salzberg]

For life. Is there a phrase you have ever used or liked involving the words relaxed and alert?

[Joseph Goldstein]

This is related. I'm trying to think of whether I'm.

Remembering the whole phrase or this is.

Just part of it.

Well, this is the part that I remember, and maybe it's the whole phrase.

But often I'll remind people in their practice of mindfulness. Not to be casual, because casual. And this is related to another phrase which I use a lot of describing a certain mind state as more or less mindful.

And this is very interesting and really.

Worth keeping an eye out for because it's so easy to be moving about, kind of mindful. You know, we're not totally spaced out, but we're not feeling the experience closely.

And so that's what I call being.

Casual or more or less mindful. And it's very easy.

I want to go for a long.

Time in that state.

But in that state, it's very easy then for there to be a lot of background noise in the mind because.

We'Re not really closely connected to the moment's experience.

So there's room. We don't have that intimate connection with what's happening. So then there's room for a lot of other mental activity to be happening. So this is really.

To become aware of when we're in this casual, more.

Or less mindful state is a really.

Helpful check, I think, on the quality of our attention.

[Sharon Salzberg]

How does one become aware? Because it sounds like you could drift along for a while and more or less mindful.

[Joseph Goldstein]

There are a few signals that might remind us that we're in that state. One is if at a certain point.

You realize, yeah, I've been present, but.

Also at a certain point noticing that.

The mind has been drifting off in a lot of background thoughts. And if we just become aware that's happening.

That'S an indication.

Sometimes those background thoughts can lead the.

Mind to become reactive about something. So if one pays attention to.

Whether there's some level of emotional reactivity to.

Something, that's an indication that, oh, the mind has just gotten lost in some story that's creating this reactivity. And because the reactivity is usually quite noticeable Even more than just the kind.

Of general low level thoughts that may be going on. Another useful.

This is a really useful.

Signal, especially as we're moving about, and that is to pay attention to even subtle feelings of rushing just as we're engaged in our ordinary daily activities. I can notice in myself it's so easy to fall into a slightly rushing mode. And it doesn't have to be that.

We'Re moving super quickly or doing something super fast. It could be a really subtle just.

Leaning into the next moment.

I had an interesting experience of how subtle rushing, the feeling of rushing can be. I was on a retreat at IMS at our center at that time. I was doing very slow walking meditation, really slow. Being aware just of the lifting of the foot and the moving forward and the placing.

So I'm doing this walking meditation back and forth and then the lunch bell rings and I saw myself. I was walking just as slowly, but I could feel energetically the inner energetics. I could feel myself leaning into the.

Lunch line in anticipation. And it was so subtle because from the outside I don't think anybody could have seen, but I could really feel it.

And what that means, what rushing means, is that we're ahead of ourselves.

There's a reference I often make is to a line from a short story by James Joyce. I think it's in the Dubliners where he said, Mr. Duffy lives a short distance from his body.

[Sharon Salzberg]

I love that.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yes. But we do that a lot just in the course of our daily lives and the various things we're doing. So that feeling of rushing, even on a very subtle level.

Is an indication.

That, okay, we're more or less mindful.

We're kind of aware of what we're doing, but not in that really relaxed and balanced way. So a key point here is that rushing has nothing to do with speed. People think, oh, it means you're moving quickly. No, rushing has to do with whether one is balanced and really back in the present, really grounded in the present at whatever speed. Just as an example of this, my.

First teacher, Meningigi, he was a very speedy guy. He moved quickly. I never saw him rush. He was so back in his body even as he was moving quickly.

And in the example I gave, even when I was moving slowly, I could feel that subtle sense of rush. So it's important to understand it has nothing to do with speed.

[Sharon Salzberg]

So just to reset for the listener, we're really spanning all the way from formal meditation seated, to walking meditation, to just walking around in your life.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yes.

[Sharon Salzberg]

And this tributary of the conversation started because I asked, okay, if relaxed and alert is what we want to be aiming for, how do we know if we're more or less mindful of drifting? And you said one feedback that you can keep your eye out for is rushing.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yes.

[Sharon Salzberg]

And this rushing is a feedback that we can look for. Informal meditation, but also throughout our lives. But I, you know, one might think back to formal meditation. How could you rush if you're just sitting, watching your breath? But actually, if you're paying attention, you can notice. And you use this verbiage a lot, a kind of toppling forward energy into the next breath, even.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Exactly. You're supposed to say, these are the words I love to hear.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Anybody who's ever listened to our many interviews, I'm always looking for the gold star. It's a lot of dopamine is released when it happens.

[Joseph Goldstein]

No, that's exactly it. So this is another story which just illustrates that point. So one time I was just sitting and just feeling my breath, completely normal, natural, nothing special going on, just feeling the breath. And then a phrase popped into the mind, which is used by one of the Burmese teachers. His name is Ute Janir. He would often suggest that people ask from time to time in their meditation, what's the attitude in the mind right now? So that's just a phrase that he uses a lot, which I have begun to use. So I was just sitting, feeling the breath, and then that thought came to mind. Oh, what's the attitude? And the point of the question is not even really to find an answer, simply by asking the question. As soon as I did that, oh, what's the attitude? I could feel my mind settling back from the leaning forward that you were just mentioning. And it was a leaning forward I was not even aware was there until I asked the question. So it can be very subtle. It's just we're with the in breath in order to feel the out breath, we're always leaning into the next moment. So this is a very common experience that people have in practice.

It can be quite subtle.

So it's just something to be increasingly aware of and to use.

Prompts like what's the attitude?

Or.

Relaxed and alert, or there could be many, many prompts that remind us, settle back.

[Sharon Salzberg]

I just want to say again that the notion of rushing as a sort of feedback, as a mindfulness bell plus what's the attitude in the mind, which I personally find very powerful, can be used again in formal meditation, but of formal throughout your life.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yes.

[Sharon Salzberg]

I find that asking, and I've made this joke before, so I'm just going to make it again, but I'm going to own that I'm repeating myself, that when you ask the question, what's the attitude in the mind? Did you ever see, though there were some very famous segments on ABC News where my former colleague Chris Cuomo went into a hotel room with a black light and shined this black light on the sheets and all the surfaces and it was disgusting. That's what happens for me when I ask, what's the attitude in the mind? I see, oh yeah, there's been this background static of wanting or aversion or just tuning out that I don't have to get tangled up in, but once I see it, I can let it go.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Exactly.

This is something you may already be doing in that example. But when you see through the black light all the stuff that's there.

What.

The attitude of the mind is in seeing it.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Yes.

[Joseph Goldstein]

And so is it, oh, that's really.

Disgusting, or oh, this just proves I.

Can'T do it, or is the attitude, oh, I'm so glad to be seeing this. So how we frame our response to what we see is really important. And especially, and this took me some years of practice to let go of the self judgment that would arise whenever I saw something that was unhelpful or unskillful or unwholesome.

There would be an immediate self judgment.

In that until a certain point where it all switched.

Oh, no, I'm glad to see you.

Because I'd rather see you than not see you.

And so it's really honoring the wisdom of the seeing.

[Sharon Salzberg]

That kind of, I think, brings us to another phrase, which is Mara, I see you.

[Joseph Goldstein]

So Mara, of course, within the Buddhist.

Framework is the embodiment of ignorance and delusion and often represented as a figure that would come to try to snare the Buddha or the other practitioners. But it's really the representation of some.

Form of delusion in the mind.

And that phrase, which is often found in the Buddhist discourses, where Mara is attempting to ensnare the Buddha or some monk or even lay person. And when they see what's going on, the phrase will be, Mara, I see you.

And then Mara just vanishes. I found the same thing in many different situations where some unwholesome pattern of mind.

In Buddhist terminology, they call the defilements.

When we see one of those arise in the mind, and for a while.

We may get caught in them because they're generally very seductive.

But then in the moment of recognizing.

What'S Going on to say, mara, I.

See you, really effects the letting go.

Of being identified with whatever it is. And then we just say, oh, yeah, this is just another passing thought. So it's very freeing to do that. So I've sometimes altered that phrase, a.

Little bit of variation on it.

So there's Mara, I see you.

And then sometimes I call it wagging the finger at Mara.

Like the wagging the finger is the mudra or the hand gesture of Mara, I see you. We're wagging the finger.

Oh, Mara, you're not going to fool me.

[Dan Harris]

So the sense of humor is key.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yes, absolutely. It's really key.

Our minds will do to so many crazy things.

Just a little sense of humor story. I was on this retreat with Sayada.

Upandita, Burmese meditation master. Very classical, very orthodox, very demanding teacher and very skilled. So I was on retreat with him.

Was actually in Australia.

And because he was the kind of teacher he was, everybody was just trying.

To be as impeccably mindful as possible and moving really slowly. And so there's a lot of stillness.

We were online for lunch. I was second online, and people are.

Walking very slow into the dining room. So the person ahead of me, the.

First person online, took the lid off the first pot of food that was on the table, and as they lifted the lid off, it slipped and fell to the floor, making this huge clattering noise in the midst of the silence. And the first thought in my mind, it just popped into my mind.

It wasn't me.

So how can you not have a.

Sense of humor about that, where you see just all the things the mind will do unbidden?

So not taking it too seriously is.

Really helpful because it creates space so then we can see and not be.

Caught on whatever it is, but with a certain lightness, a lightness of heart about it all.

So I just find a sense of humor really helpful.

[Sharon Salzberg]

I don't know if what I'm about to say next could be fairly classified as one of your teaching phrases, but it is a word that comes up time and again, both in my interviews with you for this podcast and in the hours and hours of audio I've recorded of me complaining to you while on meditation retreat. The word is ridiculous. You use that word to describe the human mind all the time.

[Joseph Goldstein]

I was not even aware that I used it that often, but it does resonate. So somebody there was a meditator who once came into a meditation interview, and his great insight was, the mind has no pride. It'll do anything and does do Anything.

But what's helpful about this realization is that it's actually liberating. Because when we can approach our minds.

With that openness.

And you're seeing all the things it does.

Yeah. And there's a lot, of course, we're talking about the ridiculous aspects.

There are also sublime aspects.

I don't want to leave that side out. But particularly with the more ridiculous things the mind does.

This spaciousness and the sense of humor. Is actually an effective way for not.

Being caught by it. So it has a liberating function to.

Not take oneself so seriously with regard to what the mind is doing. It's really helpful and just makes it.

A lot more useful. And, of course, very often we forget this.

When the mind will be carrying on.

With something ridiculous and perhaps even painful.

And will be caught in it for a while until we see.

But with practice, we get to see the humor of things more quickly.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Yes, the mind has no pride is another key phrase, in my view. I've even thought that maybe, and we'll discuss this over the years before we publish this book. That it might even be a good.

[Dan Harris]

Title for the book. Do you have a thought? Do you have any theory?

[Sharon Salzberg]

Why are our minds so ridiculous?

[Dan Harris]

How do we end up in this situation?

[Joseph Goldstein]

So that question, the response to that question could be a whole book.

So I'll just frame it in a.

Couple of different ways. I'm not quite sure how it all fits together yet.

One thing which I've come to appreciate more and more over the years. And has really helped recalibrate, in a way, how I frame the practice. And it has to do with the idea that we have all established in ourselves certain habits of attention. Habits of the quality of our attention. And it could be on for different people, very different levels. Some people may have cultivated a habit of really being very attentive. And that's just the habit. That's the default. In some way or other, they have trained themselves to be really carefully mindful. For most people without some formal training, our habits of attention are not at that level. Our habit of attention is more like more or less mindful or casual, where we're attentive, but not closely attentive. So if the habit of attention is casual, where we're just being more or less mindful. There's a lot of space in the mind then, for the habituated patterns of desire and greed. Or restlessness or aversion.

Or the things that create some kind of.

Unease in our lives. There's a lot of space when our habit of attention is not really close and careful. There's just a lot of space in the mind for those deeply conditioned tendencies to manifest.

So the all the different kinds of thoughts that we have when everybody knows.

Who'S really watched their minds at all, we've all just have different habituated patterns.

Maybe there's a lot of self judgment.

Or a lot of fantasizing, or a lot of planning. There are certain thought patterns that each of us really unknowingly have just habituated in our lives.

So those are the patterns that are.

Going to manifest in that space when we're not fully present.

And that's why as the meditation gets.

Steadier, when the power of our mindfulness gets stronger, where we really are one with the moment's experience, there's much less of that because our mind is fully engaged in the moment's experience.

But it's not to say that even for very experienced practitioners, the mind becomes completely silent. Because there's another phenomenon which is very.

Common, and it's called the undercurrent of thoughts. Where just through the day, these very light thoughts keep going through the mind. And sometimes they're problematic in some way, and sometimes not. Sometimes they're just ordinary thoughts. But the problem is that because they're lighting quickly passing, we for the most part, are unaware of them. And so for those minutes or moments that we're lost in them, the mind is really lost. We're not aware of what's going on. And it's reconditioning those particular habit patterns of thought. So this is just another level of paying attention.

To when we're being more or less mindful. And then another gradation is we come even closer to the experience, but there's.

Still this very subtle undercurrent. And then we start practicing, really trying.

To be aware of the undercurrent.

And so then we drop to an.

Even deeper level of presence of mind with what's happening.

So there's a whole spectrum here.

It's not just either or.

This kind of practice I find incredibly useful and helpful, particularly as I'm going about my daily life. Even more so than in the formal setting where.

We'Re really giving attention to all this in a very intentional way.

But when we're just going through our.

Day doing all the things we do.

That'S when it becomes really interesting to watch how often the mind has dropped.

In to the undercurrent of thought.

I find it fascinating.

[Dan Harris]

Coming up, Joseph and I endeavor to answer the question, why are we like this? And he finally gives me the gold star I've been chasing for as long.

[Sharon Salzberg]

As I've known him.

[Dan Harris]

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. The new year does not require a new you, but maybe just a less burdened you. And therapy can help more easily identify what is weighing you down and holding you back by offering an unbiased perspective to help you understand your relationships, your motivations and your emotions. I have found this to be true over and over throughout my life, which is why I continue to do therapy. Everybody in my house has a therapist. We are big believers in the Harris household and of course, in the larger 10% Happier Cinematic Universe. In the benefit of therapy, BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. BetterHelp makes it easy to get matched online with a Qualified therapists sign up and get 10% [e-mail] happier that's betterhelp.com happier.

[Mayra Amit]

A mochi moment from Sadie, who writes I'm not crying, you're crying. This is what I said during my first appointment with my physician at Mochi because I didn't have to convince him I needed a GLP one. He understood and I felt supported, not judged. I came for the weight loss and stayed. Aid for the empathy. Thanks, Sadie. I'm Mayra Amit, founder of Mochi Health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com Sadie is a Mochi member, compensated for her story.

[Sharon Salzberg]

You just had a bunch of things that I want to follow up on. Very interesting. The undercurrent of thought is really important. We've spent a lot of time talking about it privately, but I just want to go back to this question of like, why are we like this? You know, why? Why do we have these minds? If I you dropped a few breadcrumbs. I'm going to see if I can articulate them and maybe expand on them a little, and then you can tell me where I run a foul or.

[Joseph Goldstein]

I've gotten it exactly right.

See, it's a little pattern.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Okay, you can tell me how great a job I did once I'm done. And this pattern actually is completely apropos to what I'm about to say, which is that a fundamental view in Buddhism or the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha is causes and conditions, perpetual change. Everything that's happening right now is the wave cresting on an ocean of an unfathomable gumbo of prior conditions and so of course, your mind is the product of all of your prior experiences, but also whatever causes and conditions happened in the minds of your forebears, perhaps whatever conditioning your parents are carrying into this realm. And if you are not mindful, you're just carried along by your habit patterns, what mindfulness allows you to do. And you use this word, decondition. So am I in the right zone? And what more needs to be said?

[Joseph Goldstein]

I'm going to retire.

Then it's all yours. Take it away.

[Sharon Salzberg]

The student has become the master. I love it.

[Joseph Goldstein]

So I would just add one, please.

One thing to it. So the Buddha did talk about, okay, what's the root condition for all of this? And he said the root condition is ignorance. That's at the bottom of it all.

As long as there's ignorance in the mind.

And that ignorance has many manifestations. Right. So this is going to be like a crip sheet of Buddhist teachings.

Because of ignorance, we're not necessarily attuned on an experiential level just to the process of momentary change. That impermanence, of course, happens on every time scale, can be macro, it can be micro.

And in the meditation, we just begin.

To refine our perception of change, the.

Changing nature of sensations, of thoughts, that.

Everything is just arising and passing very quickly.

And as we focus the microscope of our minds through meditation and mindfulness, we begin to get a more and more.

Refined perception of this flow of change.

If we haven't done that, then one.

Aspect of the ignorance is not understanding that.

And it's through understanding that the very impermanent nature of things arising and passing.

It'S that wisdom, as opposed to ignorance, which starts to decondition, clinging and craving.

Because we're seeing things are changing so quickly, there's not even time to cling to it. So this is just one little example.

Of how ignorance of that particular aspect will then condition all kinds of other thought patterns and clinging and desire and aversion, because we're not seeing the impermanent nature of it all. So the ignorance is conditioning all of those patterns.

And that's just one little example of how ignorance is at the root of everything. If we see everything with greater clarity.

In seeing the very nature of how things are happening, that's what begins to decondition a lot of the unwholesome patterns.

The unskillful patterns that arise in the mind.

[Sharon Salzberg]

And you're reconditioning things like present moment awareness.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Exactly.

[Sharon Salzberg]

And then compassion.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yeah.

And steadiness of mind, or just all.

The what in Buddhism are called the factors of enlightenment, the factors of awakening. And the Buddha was so incredibly, I'll use the word brilliant, but it's not about an intellectual brilliance, although I think that was there too, but just a.

Brilliance of understanding of what conditions what.

How ignorance conditions a whole run of.

Unhelpful qualities of mind, how wisdom conditions a whole run of really helpful qualities of mind. He understood the mind so well and.

So deeply that a lot of the.

Teachings are about unpacking the nature of our own minds.

To us, we tried to figure this out by ourselves.

It was hard enough just following the.

Breath three or four times in a row. And here's the Buddha who just had this profound understanding of how it's all working that enables us to see it with a greater degree of clarity. Oh, that's what's going on.

[Sharon Salzberg]

So why are we like this? Because we're programmed for a kind of delusion, ignorance, blindness to what's happening right now. But in meditation, we can tune up our ability to see the machinations in the mind and that we don't have to be quote unquote, like this.

[Dan Harris]

That is ridiculous.

[Sharon Salzberg]

As much as we used to be.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yes, exactly.

[Sharon Salzberg]

I'm really racking these up.

[Joseph Goldstein]

You are.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Okay, so. But let's close one loop here before we end this session and go take a break.

[Dan Harris]

So there are a couple of phrases.

[Sharon Salzberg]

That are coming to mind on this very subject, and I'm not sure which one we should use in the book. I'll just provide a fusillade of them for our discussion. Now, quickly passing thoughts, the undercurrent of thoughts, the thieves of meditation, and dreaming yourself into existence all come to mind as phrases I've heard you use in this zone. So can you unpack all of that?

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yeah. So.

The phrase is the undercurrent of thoughts.

And the thieves of meditation actually comes from a Tibetan teaching that I came across.

And it just so completely resonated with my experience. I thought, this is a perfect description.

I read this after an experience I had previous to reading it. I was on a self retreat and I was just going for a mindful walk outside. So I wasn't doing the really slow walking meditation, natural pace, but I was on retreat and really trying to be.

As mindful as I could.

And for whatever reason at that particular time, I just started noticing these very quickly passing thoughts. And they would come so frequently. I was surprised at how frequently they came. They were not dramatic, they were not particularly disturbing.

They were just these quickly passing thoughts.

But they reminded me of Another experience, which I think many people have, of waking up in the morning. So you wake up and. And then maybe, you know, at times you just drop back off to sleep.

For, I don't know, five minutes or however long a short period of time.

But in that short period of time, we often drop back into a quick little dream state. So we wake up and then we drop back into sleep.

Few minutes of a dream, and then maybe wake up and we're fully awake.

I realized that when I would be lost in this undercurrent of thought or these quickly passing thoughts, it was just like going from the waking state where I was really alert and I knew what my experience was. In the moment of being lost in a thought, we are not aware that we're thinking because we're lost in it. And it just reminded me of that dream state. And then I had this further reflection. I realized that a lot of these thoughts, even if they weren't dramatic or even necessarily obviously problematic, many of them contain some kind of self reference. It could be something, say, like a memory I had of being at a certain place, or maybe a plan, or just ordinary thoughts, but which constantly around the self.

So when I realized that this other.

Phrase came to mind, I'm just dreaming myself into existence.

In all of these.

Moments when I'm lost in the undercurrent of thought and the fact that it happens so frequently, much more than we're aware of. It's almost like this underground stream that's flowing along, well, hardly aware of it.

So another analogy I use to describe this whole process is like the experience of going to the movies and being totally engrossed in the story, what we're seeing in the drama, whatever it is.

And unaware of the background soundtrack of music.

Because we're so engaged in the content of the story.

And yet it's that background, unnoticed soundtrack that is totally manipulating our emotions.

As we're watching the story, the music speeds up and gets tense and all of a sudden we feel tense, the music mellows out and we feel mellow.

And we can become aware of this.

Of the impact of this, just by muting for a while. It's a completely different experience, completely different.

This undercurrent of thoughts is like the soundtrack of our lives. And every time we're being lost in.

[Dan Harris]

It.

[Joseph Goldstein]

It'S like having the soundtrack there and not being aware of it. Every time we're lost in this undercurrent of thoughts.

The thieves of meditation, because they've stolen, they've entered unknowingly and have stolen our mindfulness.

Each of these moments are reconditioning our mind in one way or another.

Even.

To the point of unknowingly reinforcing this felt sense of I and self. So it's really powerful to begin to notice these thoughts when you're taking a shower, you're washing the dishes, or you're.

Just going about your daily business.

It's there. And I was completely fascinated when I became really aware of this process. It was another whole dimension of mindfulness and meditation that I had not really been aware of, even in deep practice.

So it was kind of a new and exciting discovery.

[Sharon Salzberg]

The phrase, I've heard you give this rap before, both publicly and to me when wagging your finger at me about my meditation. The phrase that I'll sometimes use is, especially when I'm doing walking meditation or just walking around, and I feel like I'm. I'm more or less mindful, But I know there are these little kind of not supercharged, somewhat subterranean thoughts happening soundtrack.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Yeah.

[Sharon Salzberg]

And then I'm down here.

[Joseph Goldstein]

No, but.

But, yeah.

That's why I like that analogy, because.

It'S so immediately recognizable.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Yes.

[Joseph Goldstein]

And it contains just within that word, our understanding of the impact of it.

So instead of, oh, yeah, these are.

Just light thoughts that don't really matter. By highlighting them, we can see that they do matter in the sense that they are reconditioning our minds one way or another in ways that we have not been aware of. One of the things that I find so interesting about it, as I'm noticing this, just as I'm going through my day, as I notice them, I can feel how they contribute just to different kind of moods I'm in. There might be these undercurrent of thoughts.

Of just some project that needs to be done.

And if I'm unaware of. If I'm unaware of these thoughts going through my mind or when I do become aware of them, maybe there's a slight anxiety, oh, do I have enough.

Time to finish it?

And it's all really subterranean, and yet it's having a really strong impact. So I find that.

Incredibly interesting. And it's motivated me to really take.

Interest and keep an eye out for them. And I love it when I see them.

Yeah, it's really. It has juiced up the practice a lot.

[Sharon Salzberg]

I just want to highlight that because a striver, I don't want to name any names, but his initials are Dan Harris, might hear that instruction and think.

[Dan Harris]

I've just got to work harder to.

[Sharon Salzberg]

See all these I've got to grit my teeth, but shot through your comments as a playfulness, a curiosity, an interest. That is the real tool here, not a bearing down.

[Joseph Goldstein]

Absolutely.

You hit upon a word that for me has characterized my practice over all these years and that is interest. The mind is fascinating. The first line of the Dhammapada, which is this collection of Buddhist verses. The first line of the first verse is mind is the forerunner of all things. That's a profound statement. It's like everything we do and we feel and everything our whole life is experienced. It's the manifestation of our minds. And mind here, just in the Buddha sense does not just mean thought or intellect. In the Buddhist sense, mind could say consciousness or awareness, which really includes the whole heart, mind, so it includes all emotions and different mind states. So mind is in a very expansive.

Sense when it says mind is the.

Forerunner of all things. So given that our whole lives are the manifestation of our minds, what could be more interesting than really exploring everything it's doing?

You know, both from the point of view. The mind has no pride in the.

Ridiculous things it does to the sublime things it does to the ways we get caught, to the ways we can become free. It's incredibly interesting and it's this quality.

Of interest that for me has sustained my practice for 60 years now. It's as interesting now as it was in the beginning.

Yeah. So there's a lot of joy in doing it if one and one has to learn how not to get caught.

By over efforting or over striving and that that's part of the process as well.

Taking interest in that. Oh, this is not so helpful.

[Sharon Salzberg]

Maybe that's a good place to leave it. Thank you, Joseph.

[Joseph Goldstein]

You're welcome, baby.

[Dan Harris]

Big thank you to Joseph. We will have another episode of Joseph. And don't forget, we've got another episode with tons of Joseph's phrases coming up this Sunday, January 4th. And then on January 5th, we begin our free seven day New Year's Meditation challenge led by Joseph. If you want to sign up, just go to danharris.com download my new app, which is called 10% with Dan Harris. The app comes with a free 30 day trial, so that free trial will cover the New Year's Meditation Challenge. And then after that, if you want to stay with us, that would be awesome. Finally, thank you very, very much to everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are 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 band Islands wrote our theme.