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10% Happier with Dan Harris
Joseph Goldstein On: Impermanence, Impersonality, And How To Use Mindfulness To Be More Creative
01:12:47
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- [00:00]
Joseph Goldstein
Foreign.
- [00:05]
Dan Harris
It'S the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris.
- [00:20]
Unknown
Hello my fellow suffering beings. How we doing?
- [00:23]
Dan Harris
This truly is one of my favorite episodes that we've recorded in a long while. A few years ago, a really interesting thing happened to my great friend, the meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein. At age 75, seemingly out of nowhere, he started writing poetry. As he says, a channel opened up for him. Just to say right here at the jump, if you're like me and you're not especially interested in poetry, don't worry. Yes, technically this is a conversation about Joseph's poems. He just published a slim volume of poetry, but those poems are really a way to talk about the depth of Joseph's Dharma teachings. So really, this is a conversation about impermanence, impersonality, and the vast spaciousness of the mind. And quite practically, it's also a conversation about how to think about mortality and how we can use mindfulness to be more creative. Also, obviously, if you love poetry, which.
- [01:15]
Unknown
Many people do, then you're probably going.
- [01:17]
Dan Harris
To love this episode with no disclaimer required. Anyway, just before we dive in here, for those of you who don't know Joseph, he is the co founder of the Insight Meditation Society and and the Barry center for Buddhist Studies, both in Barry, Massachusetts. Two amazing places I highly recommend. Joseph is also the author of several books including Mindfulness, 1 Dharma and the Experience of Insight. His new book is called Dreamscapes of the Mind. That's the poetry book. It's available through the IMS website and I will put a link in the show notes Joseph Goldstein coming up right after this. Before we get to the show, I just want to mention that the Dump It Here journal that my wife and I created and that sold out double quick. It's back in stock. Just go to danharris.com and click on Shop to find it. Or go to shop.danharris.com It's a really cool journal. It's pretty non dogmatic. There are some instructions at the beginning. The rest of it is an open field for your scribbling. Go check it out danharris.com and click on the shop or go to shop.danharris.com if you deal with anxiety, you're definitely not alone. The bad news is that it doesn't go away overnight. The good news is that you really can change your relationship to it. The Happier Meditation app offers a course called Taming Anxiety. Over the course of 10 sessions, meditation teacher Leslie Booker and anxiety expert Dr. Luana Marquez guide you through strategies to cope with Challenging situations break free from anxiety loops and build mindfulness, compassion, and bravery. To start the Taming Anxiety course, download the Happier Meditation app today with wherever you get your apps. I love Airbnb. I stayed in one last winter with two other families. It was in Plantation, Florida, and we all had our kids with us. And the backyard was like a private playground. It had a soccer pitch, a volleyball, whatever you call it, a pool. And inside there was a whole playroom with games. It was nuts. And it wasn't even super expensive. The thing I often say about Airbnbs is that as much as I love hotels, when you're traveling with other families, to stay in the same home together is a level of bonding that you're not going to get at a hotel. So for you, maybe you want to go somewhere warm over the winter. And while you're away, you could Airbnb your home and make some extra money toward the trip. Whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little bit more fun, your home or spare room might be worth more than you think. Find out how much@airbnb.com host with a.
- [03:48]
Unknown
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- [04:17]
Hi Joseph.
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Joseph Goldstein
Hey, Dan. Good to be here.
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Unknown
It's always fun to see you. Okay, so you started writing poetry at the age of 75.
- [04:28]
Dan Harris
Why?
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Unknown
What happened?
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Joseph Goldstein
Good question. So I was in Spain at the time, just in this small town just outside of Barcelona, and listening to the poetry of Ocean Vuong, who is a young Vietnamese poet living in the States now. Poet, writer, and really quite brilliant. And I don't know exactly what happened, but somehow just in listening to the poetry and being in a quiet space, I was on vacation then, you know, so I was really just absorbing the poetry in the quiet and suddenly poem started coming out. And really what made it so meaningful at the time this was happening, I was there with two friends, Elizabeth Cottrell and Guiana Gibson. And as I was sharing what was coming out, you know, my first, my first attempts at poetry, they were so overwhelmingly enthusiastic that it made me take it a little more seriously than I think I would have if I had just been by myself, you know, because they were tremendously supportive and said, you know, this is great and you should do more of it. And so that was really a help at that time because, you know, I probably would have just had a lot of doubts about it and let it go without that. So that was the beginning. I'll just share one other little story which will probably feed into the rest of our conversation somewhat. So in that very first rush of starting to write, I also was quite naive as an aspiring poet because this was not my self image or my sense of who I was. So in that time, in the flush of that first enthusiasm, I just had the idea that whatever came out came out perfectly first time. And now when I look back, of course, to those very early ones, they were far from perfect. But because of the support of my friends and their enthusiasm, I kept writing. And then sometime later, maybe a year later, you know, I connected with another friend who's quite a well known and superb haiku poet, Sylvia Ford Ryan. And I started sharing my poems with her for some critical feedback, which was really helpful, you know, just to get some input into the craft of writing. And she said something which had a tremendous impact on me and which over these last five years, I've really taken to heart in seeing the importance of it. This is a bit of a paraphrase of what she said, but she said a major part of the art of writing poetry is revision. And that really landed as opposed to my first naive assumption that it came out perfectly first time. And that has proved so much the case. And for me, very much part of the joy of the creative process, the revision just allows for an exploration of greater subtlety, you know, a form of style, of content. So that has really, really incorporated that understanding into the writing since then. So those were kind of the beginning formative aspects, you know, work again this whole second career, even though it's not actually quite a career.
- [08:39]
Dan Harris
Not yet.
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Joseph Goldstein
Not yet.
- [08:42]
Unknown
Your point about revision or rewriting lands for me as somebody who's written a couple books and is attempting to write a third. And there's often a lot of gold in the initial inspiration, but it may be covered in lots of mud. It reminds me of, you know, I've done so many retreats at ims and you're not supposed to do this, but I have a journal there in case I have, you know, an inspiration for something I'm writing on. And I often think when I get out of retreat that this journal contains the best writing I've ever done. And then sometimes it's. It's pretty good. And then sometimes it's like the scrawling of the Unabomber. And so I think learning to both trust and mistrust inspiration, the original burst of inspiration is a big part of writing.
- [09:35]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And also something I've been even struggling with recently. And also in writing some of my Dharma books, It also is important to know when to stop revising.
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Unknown
Yes, yes.
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Joseph Goldstein
Because it could be an endless process, you know, always the last little tweak of this or that. Yeah. But it is really an important. An important part of it all.
- [10:01]
Unknown
So you actually wrote a poem about the beginning of your poetry career, such as it is. And that poem is called the Muse. Could you read that to us and then maybe we'll talk about it on the back end?
- [10:10]
Joseph Goldstein
Okay. The Muse. Something happened in my 75th year. A channel opened to oceans of space where words sparkle in their sparse delight, calling, calling, calling. And that really does describe for me the beauty of this whole process, because it did feel like a channel open to space in which the words emerged sparkling, you know, so it was just a beautiful experience of that, you know, and paying attention to that.
- [10:58]
Unknown
I always hesitate to use this phrase in a Buddhist context. Can you put some more meat on the bone in terms of. When you say a channel opened to space case, what does that mean specifically?
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Joseph Goldstein
Well, I mean, we could get a sense of that and maybe some of the images, the poem, in terms of words sparkling in their sparse delight when we go up out at night and look up at the night sky, you know, And I think for many people, there is a. There's a sense or a kind of awe, you know, in feeling the immensity, the immensity of the space, and then with the stars sparkling. And that's how it felt as these poems were coming. It's like my mind opened to that quality of. I'm a little hesitant to use the word boundless, but it felt a little like that the mind opened to this kind of boundless space, like awareness, you know, and in that awareness, you know, the words started coming, and it was really beautiful. And it was. It was kind of the same feeling as going out at night or sleeping under the stars, you know, it was just open to something so much bigger than ourselves. So that's really what the feeling was like.
- [12:25]
Unknown
But it seems like there's an overlap between the experience of creativity or the Muse visiting and the experience of meditation in that both are these receptive modes. I Think a big mistake people make in both creativity and meditation, and I say this as somebody who has made this mistake himself daily for 53 years, is to try to force it, to try to lean in, grit your teeth militaristically, try to get somewhere, but in creativity and meditation. And I'm curious if you think I'm onto something here. It really is a leaning back, a receptivity where the magic happens.
- [13:05]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah, I definitely think you're onto something then. Because I think both in meditation and in the creative process, in this case poetry, it's really a process of opening to our intuitions, you know, So I see. I see both as a very intuitive process. And so trying to force anything is counterproductive, you know, because that really closes off that whole level of sensitivity to the intuitions that may be arising or that we are sensitive to. So I think that's really an important. The understanding and the exploration and the deepening appreciation of the intuitive quality, you could say, of the heart of the mind. Because often we live. We live so much in the conceptual world, and some of the poems are about that. So we're lost in our head a lot. We're lost in our thoughts a lot, and we solidify things a lot. Whereas the receptive space, just as you said, it's settling back, it's opening. The opening to what emerges by itself, which is a very intuitive process. And for me, the beauty or the overlap between meditation and writing is actually paying attention to those moments rather than overriding them, you know, because I see in myself, in the busyness of the day and the busyness of our daily lives, we don't often give ourselves the space just to hear that more intuitive level of our experience. And so this is where I think, for me, the poetry and the writing and dharma practice really share, say, a basic ground stillness of silence, of intuition.
- [15:11]
Unknown
Do you think of art and creativity as. Now, we've talked about the overlap with the dharma, but do you see art and creativity as part and parcel of the dharma, as a form of dharma practice?
- [15:27]
Joseph Goldstein
I do. So I would say that it's the creative process rather than the output that is really an overlap. Because one could be in meditation for years and be in this space of stillness and silence and intuition and never write a poem. But in meditation, there is this sense of creativity, in the sense of exploring our experience but beneath the level of our conceptual framework. So I'll just give you a couple of examples which I think are quite common for people, for example, who have been on retreat. I know this happened to be many, many times, you know, both from the early years up until now. So when we're on retreat, as people know who have been on one, everything gets slowed down. Our minds eventually get a little quieter. We're more open to sense impressions. And so often on retreat, both externally just seeing things in a whole new way. You know, suddenly seeing a tree kind of not as a treat, as color and form and the light going through the leaves and the shadows, you know, and almost feeling the. The movement of the branches, feeling it in one's own body. So there's a intimacy, you know, with our experience. So that has to do with the external sense impressions in the meditation. When we go inward, in a way, it's the same process because we're going from kind of a fixed notion of ourselves, of our bodies, I don't know, being somewhat fixed or solid. And we're not often exploring kind of the fluid, energetic nature of it all. So as meditation proceeds, commonly the common experience as it unfolds is we begin to experience the body as an energy field, not as my body being something solid. So that's a kind of new creative understanding, you know, of what the body is. And the same thing with emotions. You know, for the most part, we're so lost in the story of the emotion or the story that's creating this. And yet in meditation, we're less interested in the story and in that creative exploration of the energy of the emotion. And that's a whole other level. So there's that kind of creative exploration that happens quite naturally in meditation. And I think it comes out of that same sensitivity to our experience that also inspires, for some, inspires the writing of poetry, helping to a different level of things.
- [18:55]
Unknown
So are you saying that we could. Because I think a lot of people. I know a lot of people. Here's another word that is tricky in a Buddhist context. But a lot of people want to be creative. It is a quality of mind that many of us want, are hoping to cultivate. And so are you saying that we could use meditation as a way to boost our creativity?
- [19:22]
Joseph Goldstein
Absolutely. Because even before the poetry, you know, when I was writing some dharma books, I think that the creativity, at least in my experience, really comes out of the space of silence of heart and mind. If we're just filled with a lot of chatter, you know, or restlessness or agitation, as I said, at least in my experience, the muse does not visit, you know, because my mind is too engaged. But when I'm quiet, when I just have some quiet space and my Mind stills. It's that creative intuition that happens by itself. It doesn't take effort. It just arises. And we're in the space to pay attention to the fact that it has arisen. Because I think many people just in the course of their lives, many people have intuitions about things or, you know, sudden inspirations from a new perception. But so often we're so busy in rushing, we just override it and we don't let it flower. It's the qualities in meditation. The silence, the stillness, the receptivity, the intimacy with what's arising. It is an incredibly beautiful space. Another example is. In a way, it's more prosaic rather than a poetic example. But when I was writing my book, Mindfulness, you know, that big book I'd be writing. And very often I would just get stuck. I didn't know where the next pantograph should go, something like that. And whenever I felt stuck in the writing, I would go sit. I would just meditate, and I would get into a meditative space. And it was so amazing to me that as soon as I quieted down and entered into that meditative space, it became so clear what the next step in the writing should be. So I saw this very intimate connection between silence, silence of the heart and creativity. It felt to me like that's the space out of which creativity expresses itself. And that's what was so inspiring to me is to see this overlapping of the meditation experience and the creative experience that they just share so much and always support each other.
- [22:05]
Unknown
I mean, this seems like advice that anybody could operationalize in their life. Just when you feel stuck, whether it's on a creative endeavor or how to handle a difficult conversation or any big decision you gotta make. Sit for a minute.
- [22:23]
Joseph Goldstein
Well, maybe more than a minute.
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Unknown
Yeah. I use. I use the phrase poetically. Something will come. It may not be the dish you ordered, but something may come.
- [22:35]
Joseph Goldstein
Yes, absolutely. And it does come really intuitively. It doesn't so much come because we're trying to logically think it out, you know, so it's a different. It's a different process that's happening.
- [22:52]
Unknown
Just staying with this overlap between the Dharma and creativity. It's interesting, you know, the way you're describing. And this is not uncommon. This is the way people talk about creativity. The muse visiting or idea. You know, a channel opening and words coming sparkling like stars.
- [23:11]
Dan Harris
It's.
- [23:12]
Unknown
It's all impersonal. You know, it's A channel has opened. An idea has. Has come to people. You hear songwriters talk about this like they woke up with the idea came to them in a dream. It's. We can't claim any ownership of. Of this. Which, of course, is a central component of the Dharma, where this self that we walk around, we feel like we're this self. But if we examine it, there's not much there.
- [23:38]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah, no, that's exactly my experience of things. And that's what makes it so delightful. It's really a joyful experience, both in meditation and in writing or any other aspect of our lives in which we allow these intuitive understandings to emerge.
- [23:59]
Unknown
Does no clinging arise for you? Because I might get great ideas or once in a decade, I'll get a great idea. But I feel after the initial burst of creativity, I pretty quickly claim it as my own.
- [24:16]
Joseph Goldstein
More practice, then. Well, you know, that is really not a problem if you just see that pattern in the mind as another impersonal pattern. So that's all you just say, oh, look at the mind doing that. That's just another star sparkling in the sky. So you're okay.
- [24:43]
Unknown
That's the. That is the subtext to every question I ask you. Am I okay? So let's. Let's do some more poems. Would you be up for reading A Distant Call?
- [24:56]
Joseph Goldstein
So just to let people know, this is a fairly new experience to me in reading my own poetry. Why at first, when I was first, you know, playing with all of this, and people would ask, you know, oh, you know, I'd like to hear it. I would ask somebody else to read it. I was kind of too embarrassed. I've gotten over that part. But it's still, you know, it's still a little bit of a new experience for me. Okay. A distant call. One night alone in bed, I heard the whispered call of death. Distant enough for now, but still regrets and repose embraced as my heart quickened in the dark.
- [25:48]
Unknown
Okay, so having read this book several times, death comes up over and over. So maybe say a little bit about why you think that is.
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Joseph Goldstein
Well, probably because we're all going to die. And it's not something that we necessarily think about a lot or really take in or really understand that it's completely natural, you know. And the Buddha highlighted this so explicitly. Whatever has the nature to arise will also pass away, you know. And he talked a lot about reflecting on death. So this particular poem arose. It was a particular moment. And I think, as I said, one night alone in bed. I think that, you know, that space when we're alone at night, maybe lying down. And in some way, I think it's not uncommon. An uncommon experience for something lets loose in our minds and our hearts and just in a way, free associate or just new things are coming up that normally are covered in the busyness of our lives. So I was lying then. For whatever reason, kind of the thought of death arose, but wasn't an intellectual thing at that point. It was almost like feeling, feeling the immediacy of it. Not in the sense that I thought it was going to happen in that moment, but it's almost as if in some way my heart, my mind transversed to the moment of death. So the feeling, the feeling, oh, yeah, death is going to happen. That became a very visceral experience for me in those moments. And then what was interesting to me as I was watching all of this and feeling it, I could see different regrets about my life arise. The ability to find some repose with all that arose. That's why regrets and repose embraced. You know, I could see all of that and feel all of that in that moment. As my heart quickened in the dark, there was that quickening from a connection to the experience of dying. Even though it was, you know, at that point, not actually happening, but it felt very real. This is a good example of what I meant by when I said very often, just in the course of our lives, we have different feelings or intuitions like this, but don't necessarily really pay attention to them and let them flower. So it was that experience, but it was in a space where I could just be with it, not override it, not be rushing on to the next thing and really see what came out of being in that space. And that's what was beautiful about it for me.
- [29:15]
Unknown
So in some ways it seems like taking on. Here's another tricky word in a Buddhist context. But taking on the identity of poet allowed you to pay attention to moments that even with decades of meditation under your belt, you might have bustled past.
- [29:36]
Joseph Goldstein
Okay, so this is interesting point here. So given where I was, it does point to a slight difference. And we talked about kind of the overlap of poetry and meditation, but also a slight difference. So in that kind of poetic mind space, it was really paying attention to and feeling into what was arising in a more classical, mindful, meditative space. I might have just noted it, you know, oh, thinking, feeling, and seeing how those just arose and pass away. So what we do with it may depend on whether we're in a kind of formal meditative mode or a more poetic mode. Even though the underlying space of awareness is the same, how we're responding to that intuition or that perception may vary a bit. And this was definitely in my more poetic mode. You have to let it. Let it flower.
- [30:52]
Unknown
Okay, but in that poetic mode, is there also some flavor of clinging or striving? Because, okay, I'm going to memorialize this. I'm going to write this down.
- [31:04]
Joseph Goldstein
That came later, maybe the next morning in the moment. It was just the sensitivity to the experience and didn't have any thought, oh, this is going to be a poem. It was just. It was. It was a kind of somewhat unique new experience because I was in that space and just feeling into it and letting it. Letting it unfold, you know, so. And there was great beauty to it, but I wasn't thinking about, oh, this will be a poem. You know, it's like. It was like the next day or whenever, and then I reflected back on what had happened. So then it began to emerge. But without that sensitivity to the experience, nothing would have emerged in terms of creatively.
- [31:58]
Unknown
So I want to make sure I'm understanding your point on this, on the difference between the poetic mind state and the mindful or classical meditative mindset. And you keep using this term sensitivity to experience. So if this experience, this kind of visceral sense of the reality of your own finitude, if you had been in a classic or classical meditative state, you might have noted thinking physical sensations. Let it come and go, and you're on to the next thing. In a poetic mind state, you're doing what instead?
- [32:40]
Joseph Goldstein
Okay, I'll just add one more thing to the meditative space where, you know, as the meditation progresses, really the. One of the emphases and, you know, a core element of unfolding insight is seeing the impermanence of everything. And so our mind is kind of on that channel of seeing impermanence of seeing things just arise and pass away. That's not in my experience. That's not what's happening when I'm in a more poetic mind space where there's that same connection. But it's not about seeing the impermanence. It's about letting the whole experience. I use. I keep using the word to flower, to unfold, you know, so the aim is not to just be seeing the momentariness of things. It's letting whatever that feeling state or the emotion involved to really let it. Let it blossom. So we're feeling it fully. So I. At least for me, that's a slightly different intention. Did that help?
- [33:57]
Unknown
I need to sit with that for a while. But let me go back to the poem. A distant Call your heart quickened. Do I take that to mean that in this moment of really taking in on a molecular level that you're going to die, that it was scary for you, or just that it was an experience that was powerful, that caused the heart rate to elevate?
- [34:22]
Joseph Goldstein
I think the latter. I don't remember particularly that there was fear in that moment, but kind of a certain level of intensity, not overwhelming. That's why I chose the word quicken. It wasn't disturbing, but I noticed. Oh, yeah, this is something important. Or there was an impact from that experience. Yeah. And that's really what I meant by that. It was not just in the same flow of every other experience. And I think that was so because of the power of reflecting on death with that kind of visceral immediacy. Oh, yes, this is going to happen to me. You know, there's something powerful about that, about that reflection. And it can call up a lot of different things. And for different people, it probably will. You know, for some people, it might call up fear or it might call up, I don't know, many different kinds of emotions. Or maybe it calls up really a state of peace. And that's why I kind of like that juxtaposition of regret and repose embracing, you know, because it had that quality of holding both.
- [35:45]
Unknown
Do you think it's one of the fruits of the practice for you that this visceral experience of mortality did not call up overwhelming fear?
- [35:58]
Joseph Goldstein
I hope so. So that's probably part of it. But part of it also might be that I really didn't think it was happening right then. That's why I called it a distant call. You know, it's like, yeah, it was like a whisper. I heard the whispered call of death. So I think that mitigated whatever fear there may be there. You know, it was not manifesting. It didn't call that up because I didn't feel like I was on the precipice. And we'll have to just wait and see whether the meditation actually has borne that fruit. I'll let you know from next side.
- [36:45]
Unknown
May that be many years from now.
- [36:50]
Dan Harris
Coming up, Joseph is going to read us some of his short poems. He's also going to talk about something that he says might get him in trouble with his meditation colleagues. And then we're going to talk about how to approach death. I got a great new pair of running shoes the other day sent to me by the folks over at Brooks who make running shoes. And they're sponsoring this episode. These shoes are their new glycerin 22 shoes and I worked out in them and they're great. The glycerin 22 is for anybody who craves a cushioned, distraction free experience that allows you to savor every step. Their new DNA tuned next generation nitrogen infused foam is created with dual size cell technology. Larger cells in the heel provide plush landings while smaller cells in the forefoot invite responsive toe offs. The wide platform plus the tuned heel and forefoot help your foot to land and transition from heel to toe smoothly and steadily. It's very obvious wearing these shoes that these folks over at Brooklyn Brooks spent a lot of time thinking about how to up your game, whatever workout you're doing, or even just taking a walk.
- [37:58]
Unknown
Also, the shoes look great, so there's that.
- [38:01]
Dan Harris
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- [38:17]
Unknown
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- [38:20]
Dan Harris
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- [38:21]
Unknown
Do you actually wear that stuff?
- [38:23]
Dan Harris
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Unknown
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Dan Harris
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Unknown
I have several of those.
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Dan Harris
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Unknown
Pants are not too tight fitting.
- [38:48]
Dan Harris
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- [39:50]
Unknown
Let's do another poem. Lazy day at 76.
- [39:54]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah, so I have many favorites, but this is one of them. Because the experience was so. Well, maybe the poem will express the experience. Hopefully. Lazy day at 76. Morning coffee and a first glimpse into the unknown day Waiting for that pulse of life to push through the pale joy of sitting, doing nothing. Going for a walk is almost too much on this day of questionable ease. Is it simply resting up to save the world or the faint glimmer of decline? I'll decide tomorrow if I awaken in the morning light. Even admitting I can just. It brings me back to that morning. Yeah, I had the morning coffee. I was just sitting on my porch and just didn't want to move. I was just there. There was no impulse to engage with the day. I say the pale joy of sitting, doing nothing. It wasn't exuberant, it wasn't exciting. It was just, oh, I'm just sitting. I feel like I just sit there forever. And then kind of the reflection. What does this mean? Is it just resting up to go out and save the world or the faint glimmer of decline when I won't be able to get up? So this is kind of what I mean. This, for me, was an example of the beauty of poetry and writing and being in that space. So I could have had that same experience and really not. Not appreciated it. Well, not. Not seeing the nuances of it. Oh, you know, I'm feeling a little tired. I'll just sit here, which is kind of bored, you know, But. But when we're sensitive, you know, when we're being sensitive to the whole experience, it's very rich. Oh, this is an interesting experience, you know, just sitting quietly, doing nothing, not wanting to do anything. Well, what's. What's that? You know, and so that's. That's kind of the exploration that I think that comes when we don't simply just don't pass over what could be a very common experience, you know. And so here's where I see the potential of poetry expressing and also revealing a great beauty in very ordinary things, in very ordinary experiences. But we have to drop beneath the level of our usual. Our usual mode of perception. It's like, yeah, it's just dropping into a more sensitized space.
- [43:21]
Unknown
I think this is what I was driving at before when I was saying that, you know, you had been cultivating the capacity to Wake up since your early 20s in meditation. And it, from what I can tell, is reasonably finely honed. And then at age 75, you start writing poetry, and there's a new level that opens up to you of the savoring of the moment. I think, am I pointing in the right direction as I say all of these words?
- [43:54]
Joseph Goldstein
Well, you just hit upon a key point, which is. And I might get into trouble with some of my meditative colleagues for what I'm about to say, but I don't see meditation. I would not use the word savoring the moment in meditation. It's aware of the moment, but it's more. It's more impersonal. You know, the impersonality of it really stands out, which, of course, is a profound realization in itself from a meditative perspective. The savoring of these experiences, for me, is the flavor of poetry, you know, where it's the same experience, but we're relating to it in a somewhat different way. We're really letting it emerge, you know, in its fullness and with a certain quality of reflecting, you know, or appreciating that moment. So I see. I see in this sense, kind of the creative process. It doesn't have to be, of course, poetry. It could be, you know, writing music or. There are a lot of creative endeavors. But I just see it as being a source of great beauty in our lives that we normally overlook, you know. So to me, it's a doorway to that. And that's a beautiful thing in one's life. You know, just in thinking about seedning and everything we're talking about, one artist came to mind very, very vividly in terms of the sensitivity that opened to a whole new way of seeing, you know. And I was thinking of Van Gogh, you know, and the starry night. His vision. His experience of the night was so spectacular, you know, and it just illustrates beautifully the incredible sensitivity, you know, just. Just to new ways of seeing things or perceiving things or expressing things. And I think that's what's. So. I was going to say seductive, but I don't mean that in a bad way. Seductive about art. And art meaning all creative expression, you know, it just opens us to a new world of seeing things or feeling things in a new way.
- [46:33]
Unknown
And while there is an overlap with the meditative lens on reality, there are some meaningful distinctions that might come down to this word savoring.
- [46:44]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah, I think that's what. When you said that word, it really struck a chord in me as being a good indication maybe, of the difference but not. It doesn't imply that there's a difference in exploring new realms because in meditation we also go through a process. But it's. I would say it's more important. Maybe we call it more impersonal or, but. Or more scientific. Maybe, you know, it's that exploration of all of our experience on levels underneath our usual way of perceiving the world. I was just thinking about this in terms of dharma practice and meditation and understanding the nature of reality. I was recently listening to a book. It was the history of quantum mechanics. And I'm not a scientist, I'm not actually very science minded, but I found it fascinating because it was just the exploration of an unbelievably radically new understanding of the nature of reality underneath our very normal perception of things. You know, we think we understand the world, you know, and classical science understands it kind of in the way we normally do. Quantum physics, quantum reality, the very little I understand it and know about it is mind blowing. You know, things are not what they seem to be on that level. So that's more, I think, of that meditative exploration. So it can equally open us to whole new levels of perception and understanding. But it's in a different. A different way.
- [48:45]
Unknown
I love that.
- [48:46]
Dan Harris
Let's do some more poetry.
- [48:48]
Unknown
The next one on my list here, although you could always change my list, is rebirth.
- [48:54]
Joseph Goldstein
Yes. So this one is interesting because it's also about death, but from a very different perspective than a distant cold. So reverse. The birth canal of death propels us forward. Is it love that beckons or the grappling hook of hope pulling, pulling towards the first crying breath? So just a little background to it, this whole image came to me. I was teaching a retreat and there was one meditator, really middle aged, who was in the last stages of cancer and was dying. You know, she was in that process. And when we were talking, we were talking a lot about her experience and what was going through and how she was feeling. And then from the Buddhist, you know, based on the Buddhist cosmology, which does not believe that death is the end of things, you know, and that from death comes rebirth, I began to. It was almost a visualization, but not exactly, but it was an image of death being the birth canal for rebirth. So instead of the dying process kind of leading us to an end, it's actually leading us to a beginning. And then I started reflecting. Okay, we're in the birth canal of death propelling us forward. And then what is it that's propelling? So that's the Question that came to mind. What's the force that's propelling and so is it love that's propelling us forward, or is it the grappling hook of hope? And hope could be desire for something, or it's. I think different energies could be propelling us forward in this birth canal of death. But I really, for me personally, and I'm not sure, but I think it. It may have helped reframe the whole experience for this person a little bit anyway, instead of it being a potentially fearful experience, the dying process, you know, is there a way of understanding it as really a process of a new beginning, you know, that's leading us onward to a new beginning? I think if we were able to have that frame, it would change perhaps how we feel about the whole process.
- [51:48]
Unknown
From a classical Buddhist standpoint, though, isn't what keeps us on the wheel of rebirth, of this cycle of dying and being reborn, isn't what keeps us on that wheel thirst or clinging or desire?
- [52:01]
Joseph Goldstein
Yes. So ultimately, in the Theravada classical teaching of early Buddhism, that's really giving emphasis to that. But, for example, in some of the Mahayana and Tibetan traditions, they acknowledge that as being, you know, the force of craving is the cause of rebirth. However, with a certain level of meditative accomplishment, compassion could be the force that's driving it, you know, and these great masters, as they describe it, you know, come back to birth again and again out of compassion, to the suffering of beings and with the intent to serve, to be a benefit. So it's depending on the Buddhist tradition, right. It'll have one predominant flavor or another. And so we. I think it's helpful to consider both of them, just to understand both. Both frameworks.
- [53:11]
Unknown
So as we, each one of us contemplate our own mortality, if we're open to the idea of reincarnation, and I don't have any evidence for it personally, but if we're open to it, can we think of it as an act of love where we would come back to be useful?
- [53:30]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah, I think that is very much part of, for example, the Tibetan tradition. But that also takes a lot of practice and accomplishment, you know, to be able to enter into that particular stream. I mean, this gets into rather a complex discussion of the Buddhist cosmology and all the different planes of existence and the potential for rebirth in different of these planes. So from one understanding, and this is what the historical Buddha taught, that the real freedom is escaping from the whole cycle of rebirth, it's helpful, I think, to have some kind of understanding of the various teachings in different traditions for people interested in this and people have some at least openness to the idea of rebirth, which in my mind is really central to the Buddhist teaching. So I don't see this as a cultural phenomena of ancient India or I see it as quite integral to everything the Buddha taught. And that's true in all the Buddhist traditions. So if we're somewhat, at least open to the possibility of it, then it's an interesting exploration to see what's motivating us, what's really within our potential. There's a lot, it's just a very rich field to explore. I just wanted to put out that there's a wide range of approaches to this.
- [55:11]
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, as sometimes happens, I'm actually asking the question on a much dumber level than you're answering it. And what I just meant is that whatever your view on the competing schools of Buddhist metaphysics or what it takes to attain X or Y, we're all going to die. And most of us listening, we're not meditative adepts. And I just think it's an interesting reframe right back to this middle aged person who was in the throes of late stage cancer to think about approaching death from the standpoint of love, meaning I don't know what's going to happen on the other side, but I go into this with the determination that if I do come back in some version, my job is to be useful.
- [55:59]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah, no, I think, I think that kind of aspiration is worth cultivating. I mean that's a beautiful aspiration.
- [56:09]
Unknown
It's a beautiful aspiration and I think it's a. Well, from speaking personally it seems like a comforting aspiration because when I contemplate death it does provoke a lot of fear. I think I'm not alone in this. And so what's the opposite of fear? It's love.
- [56:25]
Joseph Goldstein
Yes. And I think that really a valuable way of thinking of it and experiencing it. And there is a very strong case to be made which we won't do this evening. It could be another event for the hardcore. There can be a very strong case for the teaching of liberating this whole process, this mind body process from the endless cycle of rebirths. So I actually don't want to privilege one or the other. They're just two different perspectives that are expressed in different Buddhist traditions. And for myself personally, I find them equally compelling.
- [57:15]
Unknown
This from the guy who wrote a book called One Dharma. So yeah, I can see, I can see how you hold that position.
- [57:25]
Dan Harris
Coming up, Joseph read some more poems and we talk about topics like Nirvana or Nibana, Rebirth, taking refuge, and more One of the trickiest parts of being a parent is finding healthy food for your kids. I try not to be overly strict.
- [57:49]
Unknown
About it, but there are, you know.
- [57:51]
Dan Harris
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- [59:58]
Unknown
Let'S see if we can sneak in a few more poems here. How about Ode to Non Being?
- [60:04]
Joseph Goldstein
Okay, so this is the one that really takes a deep dive. I'm not actually sure how successful this poem is. This is the one that is very meaningful to me, but I'm not quite sure if it works as a poem. So that's a disclaimer, Ode to non being. Wait, I just need to explain the title a bit. It came from a book of the teachings of Chuang Tzu, as translated or related by Thomas Merton. And they were all in kind of poetic form. And this was from a poem, Starlight in Search of non being. And so the whole conceit is Starlight goes looking for non being, and it looks and looks and looks all over the universe and can't find it. Okay, so this little line right under the title is a quote from that poem, the last one. If now on top of this, non being is, who can comprehend it? So it's like the reality that non being is its own reality. Okay, so that's what the poem tries to explore a little bit. What matrix keeps us wandering in the dreamscape of the mind? What if the matrix is beingness itself? Castles of sand at water's edge where aging children play and Shiva laughs as breaking waves turn castles into caves. In 0, all the numbers of the world are freed. Who will brave this embrace of peace, that mysterious absence, terrifying at first, and then release?
- [62:29]
Unknown
Well, so this hearkens back for me to our many discussions. And I'll put some links in the. For podcast listeners. I'll put some links in the show notes of Nibbana or Nirvana, which is often referred to as the unconditioned.
- [62:47]
Dan Harris
Everything.
- [62:47]
Unknown
Everything in our normal life is conditioned by an ocean of prior causes and conditions. But there's. The Buddhist promise is that there is this unconditioned, this island, this state of non being, the unborn. And so it seems to me that that's what you're pointing at here, to the extent I'd even understand what any of that means.
- [63:10]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah, yeah, no, that's exactly. And that's why I snuck in. And again, even in reading it, I'm not sure. I'm not sure it's that clear. But in a little standard, in zero, all the numbers of the world are freed. So if we think of all experience as being the numbers of the world, in zero, they're freed. One times zero is zero, 100 times zero is zero, a thousand times zero is zero, you know, so zero can represent the reality of non being. Zero is not a thing, yet it's a powerful number. We tend to have a negative take on absence, which zero is absence of numbers. And yet the Buddha was pointing to this unconditioned reality. It's like zero. No phenomena is arising within it, and yet it is its own reality that can be experienced. So, again, this goes into, really, the depths of the Buddhist teachings. And obviously very hard to express in a few verses, but that was. That was my attempt at it.
- [64:39]
Unknown
Well, I like it, and I think I heard, but you'll correct me, a reference to what we were talking about earlier, which is what is driving us through this round of birth and rebirth. And it seems like what you're saying is there's a reference to beingness itself is what is. What is pushing us through this cycle of.
- [65:04]
Joseph Goldstein
Yes, okay. We are very attached to beingness. And that's why I kind of. Again, I don't know how well it worked as a poem, but that's why I use the image as castles of sand at water's edge where aging children play. That's us aging children playing with sand castles. And Shiva laughs. Shiva is the Hindu God of destruction. Shiva laughs as breaking waves turn castles into caves. You know, it's like the breaking waves just destroy the sandcastles. And yet we're all aging children fascinated by the sandcastles. Yeah. So that's. That's what's behind some of these images. And we're fascinated. We don't want to give up our sandcastles, even as the breaking page destroys them over and over again.
- [66:03]
Unknown
Yeah. It's like that line from the Mahabharata, the Hindu classic. What's the most wondrous thing in the world that we can be surrounded by aging, illness and death, and think it somehow doesn't apply to us?
- [66:17]
Joseph Goldstein
Exactly. Exactly. Yes.
- [66:20]
Unknown
So there's a phrase in that poem that is the title of the book. So therefore must have some. Some real weight and importance to you. Dreamscape of the mind. Maybe it's worth saying a few words about what. What you mean by that.
- [66:35]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah. So this goes back a little bit. It may not be an exact analogy, but it goes back to what I was talking about with regard to our normal perception of the world. And then the quantum reality, which has no bearing. I mean, it's like a totally different reality, but on normal reality. It's like, I imagine, from what would be the equivalent of the quantum level of understanding. Everything that's arising in our ordinary life is like a dream. There's an apparent perception of things and beings and, you know, our conventional world. But from another perspective. It's all. It's all just appearances, you know, impersonal, impermanent, insubstantial appearances arising in the mind, that it's like a rainbow, right? It has no substance. And so that's why I think of the mind as a dreamscape where everything's arising and it appears so real and we take it to be so real and yet it's all so empty and substantial and ephemeral. And we get so caught by what we take to be so real and solid and fixed.
- [68:05]
Unknown
So would a rough analogy be, you know, like this chair I'm sitting in feels very real to me. But ultimately it's a dream because if you take a high powered microscope to it, it's mostly empty space with spinning subatomic particles.
- [68:20]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, there's one Tibetan teaching which, you know, you're very familiar with in talking about the reality or non reality of the self. You know, of course, in Buddhism, it's so much about selflessness and non self. And the Tibetan teacher just had a wonderful expression. He said, yes, the self is real, but it's not really real. So I think that expresses, you know, so the chair is real on its level, you know, on the level of conventional perception and experience. But on another level, it's not real at all. In fact, the whole idea of chair disappears. And that's what's so, for me, so completely intriguing about the meditative exploration. Because we begin to experience for ourselves these different levels and we get a little somewhat unhooked from our attachment to the conventional reality. And it doesn't mean we don't engage with it or respond appropriately. We still do all that. Yes, the self is real, but it's not really real. And the meditation really opens the possibility of our experiencing the not really real aspect of it all.
- [69:47]
Unknown
Yeah, it's the. To me, it's like that T.S. eliot line. Another poet, not as good as Joseph Goldstein, but another poet. To care and not to care.
- [69:56]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That expresses it well. He's not bad. Oh, dear.
- [70:01]
Unknown
Tell you. All right, let's do another poem. This one's called A fall.
- [70:09]
Joseph Goldstein
Okay, A fall, a high forest stream, a slip, a fall, a twisted knee, and summer plans asunder. Why? Because anything can happen anytime. A night awake, grumbling, and in the morning peace. Why? Because anything can happen anytime opens the heart to life, to death. So this came out of. I was teaching a retreat out in New Mexico in the wilderness range. Did a hike on the last day. River, you know, walking, jumping over stones, slipped, twisted my knee, made it back, gave a talk that night. Thought I shouldn't sit cross legged, but I did. Those were the days When I still could. At the end of the talk, I could not stand. I had to be carried back to my room, which was very embarrassing. And so that was so old.
- [71:19]
Dan Harris
Not.
- [71:19]
Joseph Goldstein
I was grumbling because I had a lot of summer plans, teaching. But then somewhere in the middle of the night, this phrase came to me. Anything can happen anytime. And what was surprising to me about it was that instead of it calling up kind of paranoia, you know, oh, my God, anything can happen anytime. You know, and create a fearful state, it actually had the opposite. By acknowledging the truth of it, yeah, anything can happen anytime. As I said, it opens the heart to life, to death. It just. When we acknowledge it, when we see, yes, that's the truth of things, we just come to a place of acceptance, you know, and. And it changed everything in terms of my attitude about what happened and then going forward. And as you know, and many others, it's a phrase I use a lot and teach it. Anything can happen anytime because it's true in life, it's true in meditation. Anything can happen anytime. And it's really a question of whether we really embrace that or not or fight against it.
- [72:35]
Unknown
Like many of your phrases, that comes up in my mind not infrequently. I had an experience the other day. I haven't even told my wife about this because she would be horrified, but I was just driving along, coming from the city up to our house and just driving along. It was a Sunday morning, not much happening, and I look up, I think I went to press Fast Forward on a podcast or something, and I looked up and there was a mattress in the road that had fallen off of a truck, and I just instinctively veered around it. But if there had been somebody next to me, I would have hit them because I wasn't looking at the dash long. So it all just had happened really quickly. Anything can happen at any time.
- [73:25]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah.
- [73:26]
Unknown
And rather than being a source of paranoia, although, I mean, I'm still prone to paranoia, but for me, if I take it in, I think in the right way, it's more like it's vitalizing. It's. It's. Let's not take shit for granted. I mean, this, this, this is all. It may seem solid, but it's not.
- [73:44]
Joseph Goldstein
And it really is kind of. There's a wisdom aspect in accepting, recognizing, accepting the truth of impermanence. You know, impermanence doesn't only happen, you know, on a macro scale. It's happening on a micro scale as well. But we. Even though we know that conceptually, we often are Not. We haven't embraced the truth of it very often.
- [74:17]
Unknown
I think we have time for one more. How do you feel about the sages say?
- [74:22]
Joseph Goldstein
Okay, the sages say the sirens song. The siren from Greek Sirens. From Greek mythology. The sirens song, be more than you are, be everything you're not. The sages say, be less, not more. Because all that we're not lightens the burden, the lighting without hope, our desiring hearts.
- [74:57]
Unknown
I've been thinking about this a lot because I am such a product of capitalism and I'm a businessman, I'm a, I guess an influencer. You know, I'm. I'm constantly trying to be more, grow my business, grow my followers, all of this stuff. And I see, I really see the suffering in, in that. And so I find it very interesting, this notion of being less, but I also find it terrifying from these vantage point of like paying my mortgage.
- [75:27]
Joseph Goldstein
Well, kind of. This is an interesting point. So there are two aspects here. Be less, not more, because all that we're not lightens the person. I was like, as one teacher said of another who was doing a really challenging project and being out in the world and doing good things. And this other teacher said, I'm glad they're doing it so I don't have to. It's being taken care of. So all that we're not lightens the burden. And delighting without hope, our desire in hearts. So it's acknowledging that there are these desires in our lives for all of these things. But if we can delight in them and even doing them, engaging but without hope, which really means without attachment, then we're accomplishing the engagement with the world, but from a place of being less, not more. We're not establishing or strengthening our sense of self by what we accomplish by being less. We're letting go of that self aggrandizement. So then we can still engage, but without attachment, without clinging. And so we're still in the space of being less even as we're engaging and doing all the things, for example, that you're doing, you know, so if you could be doing everything and really, really be refining the motivation, you know, is it for the aggrandizement of some self image or is doing the very same things out of a feeling of service, which I think it largely is, you know, and I appreciate that about everything you're doing. So it, the being less really has to do with the attitude rather than the activity, because we can engage fully from a very selfless place. And the being less is really about selflessness.
- [77:55]
Unknown
And maybe it goes back to Caring and Not caring by that hack poet T.S. eliot.
- [78:00]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah, I'll send him this poem.
- [78:06]
Unknown
Joseph, thank you for your poetry. Thanks for all of your work. Thanks for making time to do this tonight.
- [78:11]
Joseph Goldstein
Really appreciate it. This was great. And thank you.
- [78:15]
Unknown
Oh, I'm sorry, Joseph, I interrupted you.
- [78:17]
Joseph Goldstein
Yeah, you should be sorry because I was about to praise you. You're a great interlocutor. Is that the word? So it's always, it's always a pleasure having this conversation through the day. So thank you.
- [78:31]
Unknown
Thank you, thank you. Right back at you.
- [78:37]
Dan Harris
Thanks again to Joseph. Always great to have him on the show. In fact, I've had him on the the show many times. And I will drop some links in the show notes to his previous appearances here. Don't forget to check out his new book, Dreamscapes of the Mind, Poems and Reflections. If you want to get a copy, you can go to the IMS website, give.dharma.org jgpoetry if you don't have a pen, I put a link in the show notes. You can get it for a suggested donation of 12 bucks which will support IMS's retreat center scholarship fund. IMS is an incredible place. I personally give quite a bit of money to IMS and support it in any way I can because I've gotten so much out of them. So whether you're interested in the book or not, I really highly recommend you check out their offerings and if you're so inclined and you've got some extra cash to support them, especially the scholarship fund, which helps a lot of people access these teachings. One last thing to say about the book, they only can ship to US addresses for now, so if you're overseas, my apologies, but you should still check out ims. And I also want to thank everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager, Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. If you like 10% happier, and I.
- [80:14]
Unknown
Hope you do, you can listen early.
- [80:15]
Dan Harris
And ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey@wondery.com survey.
- [80:31]
E
Hey everyone, it's your girl, Keke Palmer. Did you know I host a podcast called Baby this is Keke Palmer. And you're not going to believe the conversations I've had. Like, is onlyfans only bad? How has dating changed in the digital age? What's the deal with Disney adults? I've talked to John Stamos, the vp, Kamala Hearst, to Jordan Peele, Raven Simone, and yes, the one and only Jamila. Jamila. And just wait until you hear our conversation. We talk Twitter drama, bad dates, and then time. How the hell do you actually get sexy? Like, what the hell does that mean? Like, I know how to be funny. I know how to be like. You know what I'm saying?
- [81:04]
F
Exactly.
- [81:05]
E
Like, I don't really know how to be like. And take your clothes. I'm not robbing fucking givens. You know, it's like, how do people do that?
- [81:10]
F
I've been in this situation too many times and not. Not felt any of those things. The dull eyes, the quiet. Like, I've never been quiet a moment.
- [81:17]
Joseph Goldstein
In my fucking life.
- [81:18]
E
Yes on Baby this is Keke Palmer. No topic is off limits. Follow Baby this is Keke Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. You can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery.
- [81:31]
F
Being an actual royal is never about finding your happy ending. But the worst part is if they step out of line or fall in love with the wrong person, it changes the course of history. I'm Areisha Skidmore Williams. And I'm Brooke Zifrin. We've been telling the stories of the rich and famous on the hit Wondery show, Even the rich. And talking about the latest celebrity news on Rich and Daily. We're going all over the world on our new show, Even the royals. We'll be diving headfirst into the lives of the world's kings, queens and all the wannabes in their orbit throughout history. Think succession meets the crown meets real life. We're going to pull back the gilded curtain and show how royal status might be bright and shiny, but it comes at the expense of, well, everything else, like your freedom, your privacy, and sometimes even your head. Follow even the royals on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to even the royals early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus.