The Funniest Conversation You'll Ever Hear About Achieving Inner Peace | Pete Holmes

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Funniest Conversation You'll Ever Hear About Achieving Inner Peace"

Podcast: 10% Happier with Dan Harris
Episode Guest: Pete Holmes
Recorded: March 4, 2026

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Episode Overview

This special live episode, recorded at a benefit for the New York Insight Meditation Center, features comedian, author, and podcast host Pete Holmes in conversation with Dan Harris. Renowned for his humor and philosophical curiosity, Holmes shares his journey from an evangelical upbringing to a more mystical, contemplative approach to spirituality, blending hilarity with hard-earned wisdom about inner peace, consciousness, and the human need for affirmation and connection.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Pete Holmes' Upbringing and Early Faith

• Growing Up Evangelical in Massachusetts (10:53–14:33):

  • Holmes shares anecdotes about his childhood in a "Bible-believing" family.
  • His mother was "more churchy," while his father attended church "to fit in and not be a widow."
  • Pete: "I believed grownups...they know all the things. So I bought into it even more than my mother did."
  • He discusses his plans to become a youth pastor, attending a Christian college (Gordon College) that emphasized insular community and rigid morality.
  • On marrying young: "You gotta get married if you're gonna have sex. So that's what I did." (13:36)
  • Explains how religious social norms around sex lead to young marriages, with mixed outcomes.

• Crisis of Faith & Atheism (14:33–17:48):

  • Holmes details his personal upheaval after his wife left him, despite following all the "rules" of faith.
  • He describes the resulting spiritual crisis metaphorically: "It was like I was paying into a protection service, and the Mafia still burned down my bakery."
  • Finding solace in atheism: "What a relief it was to not think that everyone who wasn't in my church was going to hell."
  • Shares the story of learning ethical behavior was possible outside religion—"We're not doing it to avoid punishment. We're doing it because we have to take care of each other."

2. Psychedelics & Mysticism

• Transformative Experiences (17:48–21:26):

  • Holmes recounts a significant psychedelic (mushroom) experience at Bonnaroo that reframed his perception of self and reality.
  • "It wasn't what I was seeing. I saw myself as a witnessing presence. So I got a break from Pete." (18:26)
  • The experience led him to Joseph Campbell and the mystical tradition: "Metaphor is the only language we have to speak of the mystery... You could say God. Let's just say the mystery. Reality. Awareness. You can't talk about it directly."

• Non-Literal Spirituality (21:26–26:20):

  • Holmes reinterprets Christianity through mysticism, focusing on metaphor and personal experience.
  • Centrality of the Prodigal Son parable as a metaphor for innate belonging and acceptance, not transactional forgiveness.
  • Quotes Richard Rohr: "Jesus didn't die to change God's mind about you. He died to change our mind about God." (24:45)
  • "You can't become what you already are. It's a metaphor."

3. Awareness, God, and the Nature of Reality

• Defining God as Awareness (30:02–32:25):

  • Pete: "When you say God...what do you mean by that word? Awareness. And let's unpack. Awareness, Consciousness, Knowing."
  • Uses Rupert Spira's framing: Awareness is the background—"We're like characters in a movie. And awareness, or knowing...is the screen."
  • The "nature of existence is love, because love is acceptance." (32:25)

• Mindfulness and Direct Experience (32:25–39:30):

  • Describes meditation not as conjuring, but as "mimicking your own nature," allowing all experience to arise within awareness without resistance.
  • Discusses Vedantic vs. Tantric approaches: either "step aside from" feelings or "get as close as we can...and let it in for tea."
  • Close examination shows that all phenomena are "modulations of myself"—everything is awareness in action.

• Interconnectedness (39:30–40:41):

  • Meditation/awareness reveals our essential sameness: "How many boundaryless, borderless, infinite spaces could there be?...The empty space inside is the same."

4. Meditation Practice & The "Pathless Path"

• Different Approaches: Progressive and Pathless (66:11–69:56):
  • Pete shares Rupert Spira’s "pathless path," advocating for self-abiding rather than effortful striving.
  • "Enlightenment belongs to the supremely lazy individual for whom even blinking is too much effort." (66:56)
  • Dan references the progressive vs. pathless debate (e.g., Joseph Goldstein vs. Sam Harris), emphasizing that different approaches help different people at different times—"whatever works." (68:40)
  • Pete: "It's a funny thing to try to be what you already are." (69:56)

5. Happiness, Peace of Mind, and Service

• Affirmation Addiction and Happiness (44:44–49:20):

  • Pete admits to being an "affirmation addict," striving for external validation from comedy and public performance.
  • He finds deeper satisfaction in service and family: "When I'm with my daughter, I'm not thinking, 'Oh, we're in God's dream.' I'm just loving my daughter. And that is worth a thousand live podcasts." (44:49)
  • On affirmation: "Broken Pete is actually one of my favorite Pete's. Because he needs you." (47:38)
  • Ram Dass: "We're walking each other home."

• Integration of Spiritual Practice & Real Life (60:50–65:01):

  • Pete and Dan discuss the challenge of applying spiritual insights to daily frustrations, especially in competitive environments.
  • Pete, quoting Greg Boyle: "With every damn breath."
  • On remembering and forgetting: "It's not an error when I spend a week completely forgetting any of this stuff...You're always the guy's son. You can't become what you already are." (61:34–63:59)
  • The original meaning of "sati" (mindfulness): "Remembering." (65:37)

6. Laughter, Masks, and Outlets

• Laughter & Merging (70:11–75:26):

  • Holmes describes laughter as a taste of egolessness, a temporary reset: "When I'm really laughing...I experience void, just nothing. You were naked. Felt good, right?" (71:48)
  • Compares laughter, meditative absorption, and "being blown away" as returns to our essential self.
  • On the communal nature of comedy: "It's like a drum circle. It's ancient, it's shamanic...we're all gone. That's when it's good."

• The Importance of Outlets and "Mask Work" (51:53–57:33):

  • Pete values being able to move fluidly between personas—public comedian, husband, father, friend—as essential for happiness.
  • "We're one of the few tribes that don't do mask work...it's such a pathetic substitute."
  • Connections drawn to RuPaul, athletes, and actors all point to our shared nature beneath roles and uniforms.

7. "Yes, Thank You" – A Simple Mantra for Acceptance

• On Acceptance (75:35–78:38):
  • Dan and Pete discuss the practical power of the mantra "Yes, thank you" for facing disappointment or discomfort.
  • Pete: "If you can just say yes to what is, that's all you need...It just short circuits your brain if you say, yes, thank you to it. And I mean almost instantly, in my experience, flight is delayed. Yes, thank you. It's so weird. That's why it works." (77:22)
  • Practice helps break cycles of aversion, disappointment, and self-judgment.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Religion, Morality, and Atheism

• "I felt like I had done everything right. And then...the Mafia still burned down my bakery." (15:08)
• "What a relief it was to not think that everyone who wasn't in my church was going to hell." (16:16)
• "We're not doing it to avoid punishment. We're doing it because we have to take care of each other." (16:53)
  — Pete, describing ethics without supernatural policing

On Mysticism and Awareness

• "You can't become what you already are." (25:20)
• "The whole Christian message...is to accept that you are accepted." (25:56)
• "When you say God...Awareness. Consciousness. Knowing." (30:25)
• "We're like characters in a movie. And awareness, or knowing, is the screen." (31:00)
• "The nature of existence is love, because love is acceptance." (32:25)

On Comedy

• "Broken Pete is actually one of my favorite Pete's. Because he needs you." (47:38)
• "If you're curious what it feels like to do standup, it's again holy and whole. We want to merge, right? We want to merge. It feels better meditating together. Live comedy feels better than watching it when we all are laughing at the same thing." (73:33)

On Affirmation and Happiness

• "Take it from an affirmation addiction. I did Town hall on Friday. It's gone, it's gone...What we should be going for is peace of mind, self abiding, self remembrance, all of these things." (43:54)
• "If we were fine, we'd be at home." (48:10)

On Spiritual Practice in Everyday Life

• "I'm not just holding the diamond in my pocket all the time." (61:56)
• "You weren't good when you remembered, and you weren't bad when you forgot. Because you're always the guy's son. You can't become what you already are." (63:59)

Mantra for Life

• "If you can just say yes to what is, that's all you need...It just short circuits your brain if you say, yes, thank you to it." (75:50, 77:22)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

| Timestamp | Topic / Quote | |-------------|--------------------------------------------------| | 10:53–14:33 | Pete’s religious upbringing and early beliefs | | 14:33–17:48 | Crisis of faith, atheism, and ethical awakening | | 17:48–21:26 | Psychedelics, mysticism, and awakening | | 21:26–26:20 | The mystic reading of Christianity – Prodigal Son| | 30:02–32:25 | Defining God as Awareness/Consciousness | | 32:25–39:30 | Mindfulness, meditation, and non-dual awareness | | 44:44–49:20 | Affirmation addiction, service, and happiness | | 51:53–57:33 | Mask work, identity, and the importance of outlets | | 60:50–65:01 | Bringing spiritual ideas into daily life | | 66:11–69:56 | Different paths in meditation, "pathless path" | | 70:11–75:26 | Laughter, merging, and comedy as spiritual experience | | 75:35–78:38 | "Yes, thank you" – mantra of acceptance |

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Tone & Language

The episode is infused with Holmes’s trademark humor, vulnerability, and warmth—frequently oscillating between deep wisdom and light-hearted banter, often mocking the seriousness with a "we’re all just trying our best" undertone. Dan Harris acts as an insightful, self-deprecating straight man, drawing out Holmes’s philosophy and keeping the conversation grounded and relatable.

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Summary Takeaway

Pete Holmes seamlessly weaves together comedy, mysticism, and practical psychology to address both the agony of failed beliefs and the resilience of genuine happiness. Through stories of personal crisis, psychedelic insight, and the radical acceptance possible in both meditation and laughter, Holmes and Harris reveal that peace of mind doesn’t come from getting it all "right," but from remembering—over and over—that everything, even our most dysfunctional seeking, belongs. Acceptance isn’t a finish line, but a practice, and sometimes it sounds as simple (and powerful) as "yes, thank you."

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For More:

• New York Insight Meditation Center
• 10% Happier
• Pete Holmes’ book: "Comedy Sex God"

Transcript

[Pete Holmes]

Foreign

[Dan Harris]

this is the 10% happier podcast.

[Chris]

I'm Dan Harris.

[Dan Harris]

Hello everybody. I have to be diplomatic with what I'm about to say because I love all of our episodes, but some episodes are extra special and this is one of them. This is genuinely one of my favorite interviews that I've done in a long time. I came into this conversation with high expectations and those expectations were exceeded. Let me say what I mean by that. I knew that my guest, the comedian Pete Holmes, would be hilarious. What I did not expect was how wise and useful he would also be. Some of you probably know Pete Holmes as the creator and star of Crashing on HBO or the Pete Holmes show on tbs. You may also know him from his many, many stand up specials on HBO, Netflix, Comedy Central, etc. Etc. Or you may be aware that he's the host of a big podcast called you made it Weird. Or that he wrote a book called Comedy Sex God. Long way of saying this is a dude who's done a lot in the world and that's why we wanted to have him on. In this conversation, we talk about how his upbringing in an evangelical household shaped his early ideas about fear and morality and God. Then we move on to psychedelics, awareness, identity and consciousness. We talk about mysticism and we also talk about his meditation practice and the various forms of meditation he's done. We talk about the fact that he's an affirmation addict, the role of service and helping other people, the difference between happiness and peace of mind, and much more. Real quick, two things to say before we dive in. First, this is a live conversation that we did in New York City as part of a benefit for an amazing organization that you should check out. It's called the New York Insight Meditation Center. You can get more information on them by going to nyimc.org Second, if you want to meditate with me, please check out my app, 10% with Dan Harris. We've got meditations from many of the world's greatest teachers. We also do these weekly live meditation and Q and A sessions on video because there's all this evidence that shows it's much easier to form and maintain habits when you've got what the psychologists call social support. So join the party. You can sign [e-mail], i'd love to see you over there. Okay, buckle up. We'll get started with Pete Holmes right after this. One of the biggest challenges for a busy person is to stay energetic and strong and present during the course of what can be very, very long days. And that is where Spark comes in. It's a drink that gives you energy and mental sharpness without the trade offs. With zero grams of sugar and essential vitamins and amino acids for mental focus, SPRK supports reliable, sustained energy and focus without that jittery spike and crash feeling. Make it your go to pick me up for the 2pm slump or swap coffee for Spark to start the day strong. Taylor, who's the head of operations my little company, drinks Spark and her quote to me about the product is and this is a direct quote, this stuff is awesome. Get steady, controlled pre workout energy with 0 grams of sugar. Spark comes with 120 milligrams of caffeine for alertness and concentration, delivering sustained energy. Also, amino acids and taurine help balance the caffeine without jitters or crashes. Spark has choline to support performance, mental focus and clarity. It also has B vitamins to support energy and metabolism. Plus they've got bold, great tasting flavors that you will look forward to drinking. Spark Energy plus Focus is offering 30% off and free shipping. Go to drinkspark.com and use the code HAPPIER and at checkout that's code happierrinkspark.com. It's that time of year to take care of you and who better to help you do that than the top voices in well being on Audible, you can level up your parenting, career, finances, sleep, relationships or mindset. The Audible well Being collection has everything you to inspire and support you every step of the way. Hear the latest from bestselling authors Brene Brown and Jay Shetty, Master Nutrition with chef Jamie Oliver, hear nature sleep sounds from the sleeping world or get on top of your finances with Rachel Rogers. Plus, you'll find all the best parenting guides like Raising Good Humans. With this at your fingertips, you can imagine more for yourself and your family. By the way, I'm creating an Audible original with my great friend, the Great Meditation Teacher 7A Selassie, which will be

[Chris]

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[Dan Harris]

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[Chris]

Hello, how we doing? That was not meant as a call and response. You should not talk for the rest of the evening. I just want to be clear about that. But Say hello to Pete Holmes, everybody.

[Pete Holmes]

Hi, everybody. Is this on? Yeah. Okay. Nice to see you. We haven't seen the space, so we're just taking it in. It feels weird.

[Chris]

I was telling you backstage that every time I do an event here with Joseph Goldstein, we call it Two Jews in a Church, and this is not going to be that at all.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, no, I'm not Jewish, but I know what you mean. Yeah, I wouldn't do my actual in here

[Chris]

for fear of lightning bolts.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I don't know. It's just a little too diarrhea. You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't feel. See, feel that? You can't scroll past it. We're in the room. We're all locked in. I am very happy to be here.

[Dan Harris]

I'm very happy you're here.

[Chris]

Now you're going to see how the sausage is made on my podcast because I always have an nerdy list of questions. And, Pete, I want to tell you what I always tell my guests. Occasionally, you'll see me looking down, but I'm not checking my phone. I'm just looking at my questions.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm honored.

[Dan Harris]

Do you do that with your podcast guests?

[Chris]

Do you have a list of questions?

[Pete Holmes]

Then you can tell. It's a different flavor. It's more of a hose, you know, on the ground that somebody turned up real high. And if I find somebody that is also that way, Although I'd love to have you on and I think we would find that energy, but it's more of an experiment of, like, it's more jazz, I guess. I feel like this is going to be.

[Chris]

Yeah, it's more white guy.

[Pete Holmes]

What's that?

[Chris]

It's more math.

[Pete Holmes]

Class math. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You sort of have math face.

[Chris]

Yeah, I was not good at math. Just to be clear. Not still not good at math.

[Dan Harris]

I have math face.

[Pete Holmes]

They weren't sure if they could laugh at that. This is your show. And I said, you have math face. And you guys are. You've never been this exact assemblage of an audience before, but you nailed. We should play it back. The laugh that you gave that, which was like, we want to support Pete, but we love Dan. I don't know. And you were, like, hyper vigilant. You were like, how does he feel? Is he laughing? Some of you started to laugh and then saw he wasn't laughing, and then were like, it was brilliant. And even that, you faded it out perfectly. Don't overthink it. You're doing great. How did you do that? That was Perfect. That was perfect. I'm not even kidding. I don't think you have math face.

[Chris]

Thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

But it is.

[Chris]

Thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. You don't want math face.

[Chris]

I just do want to encourage you to stay on my side for the rest of the evening.

[Pete Holmes]

Valerie. My wife said you're gonna love it because Dan is a really good interviewer.

[Chris]

Thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

And so I'm excited for your questions.

[Chris]

Well, I'm not. I don't claim to have any brilliant questions. I just have a list of questions.

[Pete Holmes]

Did you use Chat GPT?

[Chris]

I did not. I did not. I do use it a lot.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, we were talking about it back.

[Chris]

Yes. I was saying that I've had this, like, health journey recently around insomnia, and ChatGPT is better than my doctors.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. At helping you fall back asleep.

[Chris]

No, no, no, no, no, no. My doctors are terrible at that. Although I live with a doctor who's my wife, and she also is terrible at that.

[Dan Harris]

Helping people.

[Chris]

When I was a little boy, I used to go to my dad sometimes and say I was having trouble sleeping, and he would say, bend over and run as fast as you can into the wall.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Chris]

Yeah. And he was a doctor,

[Pete Holmes]

not a head doctor? No, no, no. Internal medicine.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That's crazy. What did ChatGPT tell you about insomnia that helped you.

[Chris]

I have the. The dumbest sounding syndrome in the world.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay.

[Chris]

Restless leg syndrome.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah. So I can't even get a dignified syndrome. And it's. I've been complaining about this to my doctors for over a decade, as I mentioned to you backstage, and nobody picked up on it. But complaining about it to ChatGPT, it was like, dude, you got restless leg syndrome.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And is there a cure for that?

[Chris]

Iron supplementation.

[Pete Holmes]

It's always iron.

[Chris]

Yeah. Is this helpful to you guys in any way? Are we.

[Pete Holmes]

There's one person out there with kooky old lady syndrome. That's what it used to be known. And they're very happy to know that all they have to do is cook on an iron skillet and it'll go away.

[Chris]

You know, any failed artistic endeavor. The thing people they say to themselves is, if it helps just one person.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's right.

[Chris]

And that's basically the theme of the conversation up until now, when I actually start being a good interviewer.

[Pete Holmes]

That's what we're going for.

[Chris]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Does anyone have restless leg syndrome?

[Dan Harris]

Clap.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. Really?

[Pete Holmes]

Several. David Nichtern's got it.

[Chris]

You have it.

[Pete Holmes]

Get you some iron.

[Chris]

No. You were humoring him. Okay, fine.

[Pete Holmes]

That's called a mensch.

[Chris]

Yeah, he's a mensch, all right. I know you've told it before, but I think it would be good level setting if you would just tell a little bit of your personal story. You were raised the next town over for me. You were raised in Lexington. I grew up in Newton, Massachusetts.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, wow.

[Chris]

And you grew up in a, as I understand it, a Bible believing family, an evangelical family, which I didn't know they had in Massachusetts at all. Seriously, I thought that. I was surprised to hear that that's where you were from. But can you say a little bit about your upbringing?

[Pete Holmes]

Sure, yeah. Well, it's a little bit more complicated than that. My mother was more churchy. My father went because it's good to be normal. That was his quote. We went to church because he wanted to fit in and not be a widow. That's what he said.

[Chris]

Did he have that bad of a buff? Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I go, dad, why do we go to church? He goes, you don't want to be a widow, Peter. I could call my father's bank and get money. It's Jay Holmes. I just wanted to send $500 to 444-8911. And they do it. Yes, Mr. Holmes. So my dad was not super. No. He would cry at the music, which I thought was really sweet, but my mother wanted us to go to church. And then I really took to it because I wrote about this in my book just in case the people with restless leg have read it. I just was a kid that I believed grownups, like, if you had a wallet and keys and khakis and, you know, when the world was just legs, you know, everybody's so big and they're like, this is what it is. Why would they lie? They know all the things. So I bought into it even more than my mother did. So that's what ended up happening. I thought I was going to be a youth pastor because this is my head. I went to a Christian college. Like, technically, Harvard was a Christian college, but you know what I mean, Like a lame one.

[Chris]

I thought you were going to say I went to the Harvard of Christian college.

[Pete Holmes]

No, that's Wheaton. If you're laughing, I can't believe it. But Wheaton is the Harvard of Christian colleges. I went to the Swarthmore of Christian colleges called Gordon College. I haven't heard of it either, but they had, like, you had to take Bible classes and you could major in youth ministry. This is just a long way to say no one's Ever asked me for my degree. And thank God, because it was kind of like a summer camp school. I enjoyed my time there. But that's where a lot of people got married. They called it the Mrs. Degree because you'll never be there with as many Christian people. That's the thinking you're gonna get out in the world and it's gonna be Sodom and Gomorrah. So you marry someone here. And I thought that was really dumb. And then I really wanted to have sex,

[Chris]

and that's what it required.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, you gotta get married if you're gonna have sex. So that's what I did. I mean, this is a lot of people. You should know about this. There's a lot of people that are like, you can't. Don't do premarital sex, so you get married in large part to have sex.

[Chris]

Divorce rates in that cohort must be unusually high, would you say?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I think so. Although I know a lot of people that are still together that did that. And I'm sort of joking, obviously. My first wife and I had a connection. We loved each other. I got married when I was 22, though. And then when I was. Everything was just fine. We moved here to Park Slope because we were lesbians. And my brain was so fast. It was like, do we do it? I was like, go for it, Go for it.

[Chris]

You don't feel like you broke the ice with diarrhea? Like, I think it's all we talked about.

[Pete Holmes]

Sonar pings. That was a sonar ping to see, where are we? What are we? And then I was like, we're ready for the Park Slope humor. And then when I was 28, I'll really do the broad strokes. When I was 28, my wife left me. She was having an affair. Only person I had ever been with. And my understanding of the divine was, if you don't smoke and don't drink and don't swear and you get married and you don't have premarital sex. I felt like I had done everything right. And then it was like I was paying into a protection service, and the Mafia still burned down my bakery. So it caused this crisis of faith. And I was like, I dabbled in atheism. I was just sort of like. I started by being like, well, maybe it's not. All my friends are comedians. All my friends are atheists. So they were all like, you should listen to this one woman show, Letting Go of God. You should read the God Delusion, all this stuff. So I looked into it, and honestly, my first Takeaway was. What a relief it was to not think that everyone who wasn't in my church was going to hell. That was actually the chapter in my book is called Horatheist because it was a relief of a burden. It wasn't, oh, no, I'm alone. It was like, thank God we're not all on the brink of being tortured for real. That weighed on me so heavy. I studied in Israel. I went one of the semesters in college specifically to study hell. I just didn't understand how this religion had gotten so with us, against us, in out, heaven, hell, all that. But I didn't really get the answer. Anyway, then my wife leaves me, and I started thinking, maybe it's not how I thought it was. And then I met really beautiful atheists, which was really confusing to me. I know I was sheltered. I was just like, why would you be good? There was a story. It was me. And I know you should know that there are people wondering that, like, if it's not the lifeguard, God, why wouldn't. The example was we were in a Holiday Inn, me and these comedians, and there was an unmanned little mini bar. And it was just like, no one was working it. And it was like two in the morning. We were probably drinking. And I wasn't gonna steal it, but I was like, why not just take it if it doesn't matter? And they were beautiful. I just wasn't ready for it. They were like, because somebody is working this shift and maybe they'll get in trouble because things were stolen. Maybe they'll get fired. We're not doing it to avoid punishment. We're doing it because we have to take care of each other. And I was just, like, blown away. Yeah, you can clap at that. It's not my line, but it was beautiful and it was important. I'd grown up thinking, like, the good people believed in my religion. And so I was getting surprised. And then, and I'm only a little embarrassed, what a cliche this is. I did bonnaroo and I took mushrooms. And it wasn't that I had a religious experience. It's that mushrooms showed me. It wasn't what I saw. It's that I saw that with which I was seeing, if that makes sense. You want to do some mushrooms, bro?

[Chris]

I am terrified of mushrooms.

[Pete Holmes]

You don't have to. And I'm glad you said that, because that is not my message. I'm not here. I think a lot of people are advocating that Ram Dass was one of my first teachers. And that was a huge Part of that path, and I loved it, and I've done my share, but I don't think it's essential. I'm not against them, but I'm certainly not telling people to do them. And we're learning more about them, even though they're miraculous. There are certain neurotypes that do not do well with them, and you might be one of them. So listen to your intuition.

[Chris]

But I think that neurotype is Jewish

[Pete Holmes]

now. I think you should do, though. But, you know, I didn't even take that much. It wasn't a Jesus trip. It wasn't a God trip. It just. It felt like. I mean, I can't really put it any better than that. It wasn't what I was seeing. I saw myself as a witnessing presence. So I got a break from Pete. This is it, man. We're jumping right in. When you take away everything that can be taken away, what's left? And that's what happened on mushrooms. And I went to that place, and then I was kicked out for wearing the wrong garments. It's a Jesus reference. I know where you are. It's the same people with restless legs. So I had to come back. And then I didn't go to Ram Dass right away, went to Joseph Campbell. Because the. The takeaway was, it's ineffable. I had a moment. I don't remember much from that trip like, that I can tell you about specifically, but there was a moment. Tears are streaming down my face. I'm looking. I mean, I'm emotional, remembering. I'm looking at a tree. I'm feeling no separation, all of these things. Just crying in a field at a music festival. And I thought, I'm gonna have to talk about this and ruin it. So I came back with this real desire to find a way to talk about things you can't talk about. And it softened me not just to the tradition I was raised with, which is Christianity, but all of them. And once I found Joseph Campbell, I started to discover that the mystics were way ahead of us. And they were saying literalism is missing the point. It's good to build a bridge. It's not good to talk about the ineffable. It's good for a doctor. It's not good for a clergyman, necessarily. Is that metaphor is the only language we have to speak of the mystery? You could say God. Let's just say the mystery. Reality, awareness. You can't talk about it directly. So then when I started looking at things like a virgin birth or a death And a resurrection through a mystical lens. I was like, oh, they're trying to evoke something. It's not trying to be accurate. I'm not saying it's not accurate. There's a, there's a possibility that that's just literal. That's not my understanding. But I'm saying it's trying to evoke something. It's not to be right or to be in or to win a debate or to convert the most people. It's a personal experience and whatever gets you there evokes that experience in you. And that there were ways without mushrooms of. And meditation is one of them, but storytelling is another one. Contemplation, study, chanting, these types of things would take you to that place. But I had the pathway because I had had the psychedelic experience. There were footprints in the snow and I could go back.

[Chris]

I don't know that much about Christianity, but is it possible to do a rereading for you of the life and utterances of Jesus and view him as a mystic as opposed to the way he's often portrayed now, which is a little bit more encrusted with dogma?

[Pete Holmes]

Absolutely. And that's honestly one of the greatest thrills of my life. And I'm assuming some of you were probably raised in that tradition and that's. It's been really intoxicating to realize that there were not everything. It's Father Greg Boyle, who's a hero of mine, says he calls it the mystic lens. You have to go into these things and look at, you know, what do you want, what are you going to take and what are you going to leave? And I think you have to be careful. But sorry, people have probably heard me say this before, but it's something that I feel very passionate about. I think all of Christianity can be summarized in the prodigal son. And I jokingly say that it's Jesus closer. That's comedians talk for their best bit. Also, if this is interesting to you, historically speaking it's the most. What's the word? Verifiable meaning. Non religious scholars are like this was Jesus Jesus said the prodigal son. Now, to answer your question, I'll do this really quick. What Christ has become. It's called atonement theory. It's this idea that you're a wicked little boy and Jesus died to change God's mind about you. Richard Rohr, my spiritual father, said Jesus didn't die to change God's mind. Listen to those words. Change God's mind. Jesus didn't die to change God's mind about you. He died to change our mind about God. That he's in it with us. God suffers in and through and with and as you. That he's involved, that it matters. It's beautiful. So the Prodigal son. There's no Jesus character in the Prodigal Son. You've been told, I'm sure. Believe in Jesus. He died for you. He's going to wash away your sins. And now you can finally go back to God. That's the main narrative. The prodigal son tells a different story. And I'll tell it real quick. It's not a king. People often say it's a king. And he has two sons. One of them says, give me my inheritance. You know, the story gives it to him. Loving father gives him his inheritance. He goes off into a far off land. I would argue that's where we are right now. We're in a far off land, using our inheritance. Life. Give me life. Give me independence from you. Life. Incarnation. What do we do? We do what we all do. We squander it. We end up broken, destitute with the pigs. For a Jew. I'm not trying to be funny. For a Jewish person, that's a joke. He was working with the pigs. It's a way of saying he's down and out. He has no money, he has no prospects. He blew it. He blew it. What does he do? He remembers who his father is. It's a recognition. It's a turning around and going, wait, I forgot. My father's a loving father. He'll take me back in as a servant. He goes back and the father, before the son has even reached the house, from quite a distance, sees him, runs out, greets him, doesn't make him a servant. Throws a party, fattened calf, all those Bible terms, rings on his finger, special robe because what is lost has been found. And then the father says to the son, you are always with me and everything I have is yours. That sounds like what can't be taken from you. Awareness, Me, life. The ground of being. I was with you there. You can't become what you already are. You were my son here. You were my son there. All he did was remember now what we've turned Christianity into. And I say this with love for my tradition, there needs to be a Jesus figure. So somebody finds the guy with the pigs broken down and says, I'll walk you back to your father now. Your father is a vengeful man. Someone needs to be killed for this. For your sins, you wicked boy. We know he won't listen to reason, but I'll let him kill me. So he'll take you back because he knows somebody's heads need to roll. But it'll be me. That would be the Jesus figures we've come to understand it. That's not what it is. He just remembers who his father is. Now, I'm not saying you need to use those languages like, I'm God's son. That's a little too religious. I understand. But you go, you can't become what you already are. It's a metaphor. Jesus uses the idea of sons and fathers to say, no matter what you do, you'll always be your parents. Child, you can't become what you already are. And to quote Richard Rohr, the whole Christian message is, is to accept that you are accepted. That's what the prodigal son does. He accepts that he's accepted that he can go home. That's Christianity to me.

[Chris]

I say this as a compliment. You have a preacher's style.

[Dan Harris]

You do?

[Pete Holmes]

Well, I watch preachers every Sunday. Yeah?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah.

[Chris]

You come by it honestly? Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's great.

[Pete Holmes]

I come by it honestly.

[Dan Harris]

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[Chris]

So when you say God because you do, you you're not. You're not in the same situation now as you were in your childhood in your 20s. You're if you're a Christian at all, you're a different kind of Christian, but you still use the word God. What do you mean by that word Awareness. And let's unpack. Awareness,

[Pete Holmes]

Hostile Witness Awareness, Consciousness, Knowing.

[Dan Harris]

So I think maybe, maybe you gave

[Chris]

a pretty comprehensible like I got it description when you were talking about your first mushroom trip where you said took

[Dan Harris]

away everything except that's right.

[Pete Holmes]

What? The koan that I like the most. Buddhists. My Buddhists. What is but does not exist. I don't want to say it's the best one. I think it's the best one. What is but doesn't exist. Now we're Supposed to go sit with that for a month. So to exist means to stand out from. I'm getting all of this from my teacher, Rupert Spira, who explains it way better than me. But it's to stand out from. So the awareness is the background. You are aware of your experience. I stand out from it, and I seem to exist. So to not exist, it is. But we can't. It's nothing. We can't find it. So it doesn't exist. It doesn't stand out from the background because it is the background. We're like characters in a movie. And awareness, or knowing. Knowing might be better, is the screen. It's what makes our experience knowable so clearly when we were meditating. If you look at your mind, you're aware of your thoughts, but a thought isn't aware. There's something aware that's looking at your thoughts. We hear the car horn. It appears in awareness. Mind adds. Did you hear the car horns? Mind adds the interpretation. Far away, but it couldn't be closer to you. It's made of you. It happened in you. That's why when we say the nature of existence is love, it let it in. It gave it support. It was there. And we. We go. Car horn. Far away, but it's the background in which and out of which everything is made.

[Chris]

So the nature of existence is love, because love is acceptance, I guess.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. This might be a little out of my depth to explain, but I see it as a yes.

[Chris]

I was just going to say this is a safe place to be a bullshit artist, because it's like, bro, well,

[Pete Holmes]

even if you're resisting it, what you're resisting has already been welcomed into awareness. So meditation is trying to not conjure up this thing that doesn't exist. You're trying to mimic your own nature. You know what I'm saying? Like, you are this fresh, allowing. Again, Rupert uses the metaphor. The space of this room. We could be fighting. We could be dancing. It doesn't change the nature of this room. And to me, meditation has a lot to do with knowing yourself to be that. And what's better than being spacious? I spent the first half of my spiritual life wanting to be right or persuasive or impressive. And now my heroes are like the space in this room. Accommodating, fresh, clear. And it's not just a thought experiment to go like, okay, I'm like the space in this room. Once you recognize that, you are like a field of knowing, which is a little bit easier to know when your eyes are closed. But you can still know when your eyes are open. In this field of knowing, the second step is to ask, what is the nature of that knowing? Because it's. Again, Rupert, without agitation. So we call that peaceful. You know, it's happy, it's joyful. I don't mean the kind of joy you get when you eat ice cream. I'm not talking about oxytocin or whatever. Talking about without agitation. So when I wake up at four in the morning, as I inevitably will tonight, replaying moments from our dinner.

[Chris]

You will?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, for sure.

[Chris]

Restless legs.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Do you know anything for that? No. I'll get up to pee and then I'll get back in the bed and I'll be like, oh, what's what. What did I say to Dan? Did I embarrass myself? And I'll just have to go, who or what is aware of my experience? And then if you want to get tantric with it, let's say I do. It's emotional. You feel humiliation. So the vedantic approach is to step aside from it and go, I am not humiliation. I am aware of my humiliation. But the tantric approach is to go, let's get as close as we can to that and let it in for tea. Beyond, no resistance, welcoming. And you see, this thing that you called humiliation is actually kind of a grab bag of 75 different feelings, and in my experience, 62 of them are bliss. And there are some ones that you don't know what to do with, but they. They're like children. They wanted you to pat them on the head, you know, and so you go into it, but then you go like, there's this experience and then there's the knowing of it. That's kind of Ram Dass's approach. Rupert would go, there's no distance between the knowing of it and the experiencing of it. It's made of the knowing of it. And then you just kind of fall into that.

[Chris]

I have, I think, two ways of understanding it from my standpoint, so I want to say them to you in. And then just get a sense of whether what I just said makes any sense.

[Pete Holmes]

Sure.

[Chris]

So on the. On the example you gave about humiliation from my, like, basic old school Buddhist mindfulness approach. Well, anything you're feeling with the microscope of mindfulness can be investigated and broken apart into what you say, 60 constituent parts. You know, it's buzzing in the chest, it's a starburst of thoughts, it's rumbling in the tummy, It's a bunch of stuff. And in this way, I Believe. I love this phrase. I believe it's seeing by dividing is the way they describe insight, meditation or vipassana. And so you see that this thing that feels monolithic, personally monogrammed, is actually made up of these fluxing parts, and it kind of loses its power in that way. So that's one way in. I have another way in. But how does that land with you, what I just said?

[Pete Holmes]

I like that. Okay, yeah, I think we're talking about the same thing. I get a little bit like, what is this experience made of? And there's a comfort to going, it's me. It's a modulation of myself. And there's no distance between. There is. I don't find a knower. And an experience I find experiencing. And it's very intimate and it's very close, and that helps me release it a little bit. You know, it's like if you close your eyes and go to the experience of your body right now, you know, you feel your butt on the seat, maybe your elbows on the armrest, you see that there isn't really a body per se. There's just the knowing of these different clusters of sensation. And this either does it for you or it doesn't. So if we stick with that, we have body, we drop that and we just go, okay, there's a tingling at the bottom of our feet, our face, our hands, and then there's my voice. And then there's your thought. I like this. I don't like this. Is there a distance between where my voice is appearing in this field, this knowing field, and the thought? Now picture Michael Jordan. Isn't he emerging out of the same place that the knowing of my voice is emerging? The knowing of the image of Michael Jordan. This is what Rupert says. He says, put out an imaginary hand and pass through your mind's eye image of Michael Jordan and say, what is this made of? Do that with my voice. What is this made of? And really, I don't want to answer that for you. Like, what is it made of? The thought, the feeling, the sensation of my feet, what is it made of? Where is it happening? The sound of a distant thing, your thought. Now a feeling comes up, an emotion. There's something really liberating about going, it's me. It's a modulation of me. It's the knowing of it. Is it. And then do we find a boundary? Can you go somewhere? Here where it ends, is there a wall, a divider where you find. And on the other side of it, there isn't knowing. Now we kind of start to cozy into the dimensionless quality. You could call that infinite, but it's kind of like dimensionless. It's just kind of spaceless, but it's without boundary. And this is where you get compassion.

[Chris]

When.

[Pete Holmes]

When we were all meditating, when all our thoughts, let's all say we all got to that thoughtless place, were we different? When you're deeply asleep, everybody's Enya. Everybody's Enya. On the inside, nobody's Metallica. I like Metallica. I'm just saying, if you could calm anybody to zero same. So when I'm struggling with somebody, we share the same nature. You and I share the same nature. And we can go there. That's what's beautiful about things like this. We can actually go there together. How many boundaryless, borderless, infinite spaces could there be? You know, your house is over there, my house is over there. The empty space inside is the same. It's like the dao. The vase has a shape, but it's the empty space inside that makes it useful. These are people trying to evoke the importance of the nothing. Does that make sense?

[Chris]

That's a tough question. Let me give you the second way in. Because you use the phrase we can. We can go there together. And in my experience, sometimes these conversations can be beautiful but also a little frustrating for people because it's like, ah, I can't get there. I don't, you know, like, I can't fully grok it or experience it for myself. And so the one technique for me that's been very helpful, and I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on it, is it comes from Joseph Goldstein, who is a great meditation teacher and a great friend, and he has this practice called the passive voice practice. So in your beautiful sort of impromptu meditation, you were guiding us in, you were having us tune in to the fluxing sensations that we're calling body. So one little linguistic trick you can do is, oh, tightness or pressure is being known. Instead of, oh, I'm knowing or I'm aware of these sensations. Oh, these sensations are being known and then. Known by what?

[Pete Holmes]

That's right.

[Chris]

Then you're just like turning the camera back at itself in a way and like, oh, who's taking delivery of these sensory packages?

[Dan Harris]

What is knowing it?

[Chris]

And there's nothing to find. And that's the finding.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I never understood those. Like Alan Watts would talk about, can a knife cut itself? Or can a flashlight point at itself? And that's kind of the space that we're in. And that's why we want metaphor and we want evocative things. But if our awareness is like the sun and it shines on the earth and it makes things knowable, even not even, but science would agree with that. There's consciousness and it makes things knowable to me. What we're talking about, and I think we are doing the same thing, is the sun does illumine itself. It is self luminous. Again, this is Rupert. We are self knowing. Something that's very useful to me is like, am I aware? And if you all ask yourself, am I aware? And you go, you go, and you go, yeah, I'm aware. Where did you go to? What experience? And again, this is all Rupert Spira. To what experience are you referring? When you come back definitively with a yes, what was that? And don't say I have this written on my mirror. Don't say I don't know because you're having the experience right now. That's the issue is what we're talking about. When this starts sounding, and I'm with, you can start sounding a little too out there, a little too weird or whatever, confusing conceptual. We're talking about the most intimate, familiar experience and not just to get familiar with it, but to align ourselves with its qualities. It's fulfilled, it's at peace. And when you talk about 10% happier, obviously I was thinking about happiness. There's different altitudes to answer that question. And don't get me wrong, I'm all about finding your purpose. I'm all about sharing, art, connection, helping all family love. We can have that chat. The most lasting one is getting familiar with who you are. Because that's their take it from me, take it from an affirmation addiction. I did Town hall on Friday. It's gone, it's gone. You know what I mean? I did a comedy show, went great. Show it to me. I don't buy into the idea. Tony Robbins, who I like, talks about living his life for rocking chair moments. When he's old, he'll sit in a rocking chair and remember all the things he did with respect. I don't buy it. I don't think that's how it goes. I think what we should be going for is peace of mind, self abiding, self remembrance, all of these things. Because that's a lasting peace that doesn't even need to be conceptualized. If we're old and falling completely apart, it's still with you.

[Chris]

What are the modalities for you that help you get peace of mind?

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, honestly, conversations like this meditation obviously I mean, obviously, meaning I think we have that in common. And then sort of strangely, service getting. This is fun. But my wife, when she left, she was like, you're gonna love it. You're gonna talk about your favorite thing to talk about. So this is indulgent. And then when I'm with my daughter, I'm not thinking, oh, we're in God's dream. I'm just loving my daughter. And that is worth a thousand live podcasts. That's 10,000, a million. You know what I mean? So we can come at it lots of different ways. I'm not quite fully baked yet that I could say. There's nothing to the seeming the Maya or whatever you want to call it. I think it matters that we had a nice dinner. I think it matters that we were joking backstage. I think it matters that you're smiling. I think it matters that my wife kissed me before she left. I think it matters that I'm excited, that I'm going to see my daughter tomorrow. I think it matters that I did a. A show, that I did what's written in my bones to give to other people. And I can still recall the faces of the people laughing and the thrill of that connection and that merging. I'll talk out the other side of my face as well. I'm just also very interested in what Jesus called the peace that passeth understanding. That one, too. King James. Both. I'm interested in both.

[Chris]

You called yourself an affirmation addict. Yeah, I felt seen when you said it.

[Pete Holmes]

Good boy.

[Chris]

Thank you.

[Dan Harris]

So say more about that.

[Chris]

I meant specifically how good a boy I am.

[Pete Holmes]

Just fabulous. Great, great stuff. You want to talk about that, though?

[Chris]

I want to talk about addiction to affirmation.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. I think everybody's trying to feel safe, and I think people are using outdated modalities. You like ifs? I like ifs. I don't think there's any. I say that with no shame. I learned getting laughs and being a golden boy meant less fighting, more safety, more quiet for everybody. So it's a wound, but it's not. I don't begrudge it. And it's useful. We were talking backstage. I was like, yeah, there are days where I'm depressed or anxious, and then I'm. I'm driven into the hands of other people when I'm broken, this Pete is only so useful. Well, we're like a screen in the movie. That's fine. But Broken Pete is actually one of my favorite Pete's. Because he needs you. And God, that's. We Talked about this at the pre Thing. Holy and wholeness. It's the same route, right? We need each other. We belong to each other. Ram Dass would say, we're walking each other home. So the Pete that's an affirmation addict. It is like, thank God. How much closer to me do you feel to knowing we have the same thing? I think this whole ruse is an excuse to love each other. It's all an elaborate hoax. And I've had experiences this undulating, overflowing, gratuitous, almost obscene. Yes. Of.

[Dan Harris]

Ah.

[Pete Holmes]

Can't help. It's its nature to erupt and expand and clash. And we're all going to go backstage and take off our masks and laugh to tears. And I'll say, thank God I was that guy that just needed people to laugh or he felt like a wicked boy. We wouldn't be talking if we weren't affirmation addicts. This wouldn't be happening. Great. It's all an excuse. It's a hoax. It's a hoax. If we were fine, we'd be at home.

[Dan Harris]

Right.

[Chris]

So our wives.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Chris]

Are not here tonight. Not by mistake. Your wife's at a play. My wife's at home. And those people are fine.

[Pete Holmes]

Valerie is. You said it backstage that she's just sunlight. Not everybody sees it. So I think. I'm not just saying this because you like it, but that's a credit to you. There's certain people that can see Valerie, and I just think she's incredible. It's funny. Talk about happiness. Relational happiness. We just uncovered this. I was like, we've been together for 13 years, and we really are. I don't know. It's just one of the great loves. I really think it is. And sometimes people say, what's your secret? And we go. I say, find someone who thinks what's annoying about you is funny. And that's Valerie. I do a meditation event. I open by saying diarrhea. She would be like, that's my man. She would. And she wouldn't be faking it. She'd literally. She'd feel embarrassed, and she'd be like a warm. She says to me. The most loving thing she says is because I'm quirky, I'm weird. She'll tell you, I'm 75 people in a day, and she sees all of them. And I say to her, my first wife left me. And I'll be like, please don't leave me. You know, Like, I know. It's so tender, right? And she goes, I'd be Bored with anyone else. Can you hear, Ah, wow. It's incredible. But yeah, she's not here. She's at oh Mary. And I'm proud of her because we both deal with codependence, so she loves being like a support. She wants to be there. I'd have checked in with her 12 times. She'd be smiling. She went, and I'm proud of her. I was like, you really wanted to see that show. It's the last night, go see it. So she's doing good stuff too.

[Chris]

Our wives are a little different because after one of my events, one of the rare ones that she came to backstage, she said, I like you so much better in public.

[Pete Holmes]

It's fantastic.

[Chris]

It's a great line.

[Pete Holmes]

It sounds like I'll enjoy her if I get to meet her.

[Chris]

Yeah, it still hurts a little, actually,

[Pete Holmes]

when I tell the story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No. Val is incredibly sweet, but I am sort of a little bit of a baby again. I'm self directing back to the topic of happiness. I think there's something about being unembarrassed, that that's how I am. I say this to Val all the time. I'm like, I'm not resigned to being this way. You know, like, I am working on it, but like, thank you for reassuring me here that all this sort of stuff, we talked about it backstage, it's like, I'll go and entertain a thousand people and really get them. And then I just need somebody to be like, you weren't embarrassing. You don't need to be afraid. It's this real. There's a pendulum swing. And again, thank God, because if I came home, the guy that was on stage, I mean, I love that guy, but like, that's not. He's not a great partner or father. Like, you need a real person. That's the other thing about happiness is like having outlets. We're one of the few tribes that don't do, like, you know, American tribe. We don't do mask work. We don't. We do Halloween, but we don't have a lot of allowances for like, New Year's. Oh, it's kind of wild on New Year's, you know, it's such a pathetic substitute for cultures that understood the nuance, the dreamlike, ethereal quality of all the different masks we wear. And that is one of the reasons I think I'm a very, like a deeply happy person is I have these. Can grab this vine and swing to a pirate ship and be a comedian. I know it's not all of me, but it's this whole other thing. And then I also get that psychological need. I need to be heard, and I need to be understood. And people laugh. I like the laugh, but I like the connection more. I like the understanding more. And then I swing back, I tell Val, after I do the show, I'm like, I won't tell that joke for a month. And those 30 days, I'll just be a boring dad. I love it, but it's because of that outlet. It could be karaoke. It doesn't have to be show business, but it could be that friend that I'm so grateful for. Friends that love salty me. Cause I like being. People know me as, like, a sweet, positive guy. That's true. But, man, I love roasting things, man, I love complaining. I love being a bitch. And when you find real friends that don't just allow that, but celebrate that, that's like wearing masks. It's like, it's a drinking buddy or it's your choir. These are the people that know this side of me. I find that to be really. And then you're not. I'm not burdening my wife, obviously. I don't think it's just a burden, but, like, comedy me is like, hot takes. That's great, but, like, you don't want to be with that guy all the time. So when I'm at dinner, I'm not doing hot takes. It's like, I got it out of my system. So outlets could be your baseball team, but places where you can do it, you know?

[Chris]

As you're speaking, I'm thinking a little bit about RuPaul's brilliant stuff on drag.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Chris]

You know, just that. That is. I mean, it's mask work. It's mask work, but most people aren't

[Pete Holmes]

doing it, and I think that's a real loss. I always thought it was funny or interesting that in some of these tribes that do mask work, they put on the mask of, like, the misfit, the devil, and they look in the mirror and they go, oh, I'm the devil. And then they get to act that way, and everyone knows it's divine. Putting on a show is divine. I'm not Pete, you're not Dan. I don't know your names, but you're not that. You look in the mirror and go, this. And you go around, and people keep nudging you to be what they think you are and what you told them that you are. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's. I think, one of the reasons why we sometimes way too much but acclaim actors. When Meryl Streep transforms, we go, I knew it. I knew you weren't that last one. And you're not this one. We're not that. I think there's more understanding so called non spiritual people. When a baseball player, Red Sox is traded to the Yankees like Johnny Damon was on the Red Sox, gets traded to the Yankees, go to Fenway park, play the Yankees, Johnny Damon comes up and he's a Yankee. Everybody gives him a standing ovation. That's a divine moment. You're not the uniform. I remember you. I know you. You're the guy's son. You can go home. It was just a game. It's my daughter's name, Lela. To dance. It's a play. The play of the universe. It's not wrong. I'll be someone you can be mad at so you can learn how to forgive. I'll be somebody for you to love. It's just, it's all an excuse to clash up against each other and it's all uniforms and masks and play. And that's why I think comedy is so important. We laugh at it. Nothing essential to me is out there because it's, it's the same. We're all the same.

[Dan Harris]

Coming up, Pete talks about how these ideas we've been discussing in this conversation hold up in the real world. Why having a spiritual practice does not eliminate irritation, judgment or reactivity. And why saying yes, thank you as a little mantra can have immense power. It's that time of year to take care of you and who better to help you do that than the top voices in well being? On Audible, you can level up your parenting, career, finances, sleep, relationships or mindset. The Audible well Being collection has everything to inspire and support you every step of the way. Hear the latest from best selling authors Brene Brown and Jay Shetty, Master nutrition with chef Jamie Oliver. Hear Nature Sleep sounds from the sleeping world or get on top of your finances with Rachel Rogers. Plus, you'll find all the best parenting guides like Raising Good Humans. With this at your first fingertips, you can imagine more for yourself and your family. By the way, I'm creating an Audible original with my great friend, the Great Meditation Teacher 7A Selassie, which will be

[Chris]

out in a few months. So go Audible.

[Dan Harris]

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[Chris]

What you're describing is beautiful. I'm interested to hear how good are you at applying it to life in particular, you exist and have thrived in a hyper competitive and often quite toxic business, the entertainment business. How good are you at moonshine? I mean, you may have a side hustle. I'm unaware of that. ChatGPT did not alert me to

[Pete Holmes]

yeah, there's a something doesn't line up.

[Chris]

No, I think it could line up. But I'm curious to hear how well you think you line it up in your day to day life.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, to steal a line from father Greg Boyle who if you don't know who Greg Boyle is, you should. I couldn't recommend his books more. He founded Homeboy Industries, a charity I really love and I asked him the same question because he I mean he'll make you weep talking about this sort of stuff and I'm like how? How do you keep yourself in that space he's dealing with? He works with gang members and people are literally dying and people are all these sorts of tragedies and he just goes, breath, breath by breathing. He's like, with every damn breath. And I try to remember that I asked Richard Rohr something similar. I was like, are you cooked? Are you converted? Do you just see everybody as God in drag? Talk about RuPaul. Or is it effort? And he's like, it's both. Absolutely me. We were talking about this at the last thing. Take a couple meals away. Take away my coffee. I was telling you, I'll be on an airplane. I'm like, I hate this guy's head. I hate this guy's head. If we're deplaning and the row behind me tries to leave before me, I'll stand and face them, to shame them, and then take my bag down while making eye contact with them and then deliberately leave slowly. So absolutely. That's. That's why it's so compelling to have a practice, even as we're discovering it here together. Talking about feels like that. It feels like, oh, right. You know what I mean? I'm not just holding the diamond in my pocket all the time. And Valerie, my wife, again, is just so good at the everything belongs of it all that it's not an error when I spend a week completely forgetting any of this stuff. And she's like, it's not a mistake. It's not a flaw. You weren't good when you remembered, and you weren't bad when you forgot. Because you're always the guy's son. You can't become what you already are. But, yeah, I lose it all the time. Constantly. Every day after this. I'm gonna fight you.

[Chris]

I don't like my odds. You're like six, six and 10 years younger than me.

[Pete Holmes]

You'll be fine. Grab a bottle.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Break it.

[Chris]

That was spoken like a guy from Boston.

[Pete Holmes]

It was.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That was the most Boston thing I've ever said. Oh, but that's good. Ram Dass says, if you think you're enlightened. I'm not. I'm not saying that. I don't think people are enlightened. I think awareness is enlightened. Only awareness is enlightened. Sometimes it wakes up in me. Sometimes it wakes up in you. Deep sleep, deep meditation. You're tasting your true. That's why it feels so good. Right? So I'm not claiming that, but Ram Dass said, if you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with your parents. F minus.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I've sat with my mother going, I am loving awareness. It doesn't. She has my number, man. She'll break me out of that spell so fast.

[Chris]

Actually, she'll put you into the spell.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's right. That's right. She'll pull me into it when I visit home. It's like they give you a play that you thought closed in 1986.

[Chris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

They're like, here's your script. And you're like, ah, Pop, you're the best. How do you do it? It's brutal. So, yeah, I think remembering and forgetting so much of the. I'm not a physicist, obviously, but so much is the wave. Right. And I think we're in that wave and I don't think it's an error.

[Chris]

I love thinking about and people who've. If anybody's ever listened to my show before, you've probably heard me say this a million times. But I think it bears repeating. Like one of the original translations of the word that we now translate as mindfulness.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Chris]

The word in Pali, which is the language in which the Buddha's teachings were written down, is sati. And it. The original translation is remembering.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Chris]

It's like we, we're in this. And this is actually just really helpful to know while meditating. It's like the tide coming and going, like you're gonna get lost and then wake up again and in your meditation and in your life. And so you're behaving the back of somebody's head and then you'll be loving awareness 30 seconds later.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay. So I think you'll think this is interesting. The way that I've learned to meditate with Rupert is they call it. It sounds a little pretentious, but it's the pathless path. So a progressive path would be let's focus our attention. The pathless path is sort of like recognizing that it's absurd to focus what you are. It's hard to explain, but the image that I use is resting, self abiding. It's like being out all day in the city and then you take a hot bath. You just rest into it. He goes. He quotes somebody as saying, enlightenment belongs to the supremely lazy individual for whom even blinking is too much effort. And I just go, you're always with me and everything I have is yours. Ramana Maharshi died. They said, don't die, don't leave us. And he said, where could I go? Where could I go? So you're meditating. When we were meditating. I do get distracted. Yeah, that too. It's just I'm so unbearably lazy. It's the opposite. I've done the focusing, but like, what eventually started to make sense for me was just like, just ugh. And it's hard to explain. And even as I'm saying it, I can't believe it works. But that's another self abiding as a meditation.

[Chris]

Well, this is a big debate and I don't take a side in this debate. I have two friends, the aforementioned Joseph Goldstein and then my other friend Sam Harris. They are old friends of each other and have been fighting about the pathless path versus the more directed, progressive path. And I actually recently had them on my podcast. And it's the only time in the nearly 10 years of having a show that where in the middle of it I put my head on the table.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh my God. Yeah, I could imagine.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You know there's a place for both.

[Chris]

Absolutely.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

And again, Rupert would say, as long as if you feel yourself to be a separate person, if you can't just rest in it, then do a mantra, do breath. It's like fine. It's sort of whatever gets you there.

[Chris]

And there are different times in your meditation practice, different times in your life, different people for whom different things work. And it's. I mean, one of Joseph's little expressions is, you know, whatever works, you have to find what works for you. There isn't, I don't think better or worse.

[Dan Harris]

There's what works.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I think you would be well versed in this. It's a tricky thing, all of this wondering about better and worse. You know what I mean? And then when you're there, you see that meditation being this, like gratuitous. Yes. And this. The more you try, the worse you do. This surrendering and this melting and like we. I'm not saying I'm above it, I'm not saying it's bad, but it reminds me of the church I grew up. And it's like, was it a literal virgin birth or sinless? Was it a literal seven day creation? It's like we might have lost the plot a little bit. If Dan's head is on the table, maybe we took a wrong turn. And I'm not throwing shade on those guys because I do it too. I'm just saying when you're there, there's a lot of laughing. Yeah, there's a lot of laugh. It's a funny thing to try to be what you already are. It's very funny.

[Chris]

Okay. You brought us to laughter. We did do for some of you were there. We had a little event before this event. And so I'm going To ask you some of the same questions I've already asked you in the course of this evening. But it'll be new to these folks. The restless leg folks.

[Pete Holmes]

RLF

[Chris]

RLS oh, restless leg folks. Okay. Yes, I'm slow. There's a reason why I asked the questions. Laughter, in your view, you've already kind of articulated. It is kind of an expression of. You didn't use these words, but. And so I'll check in with you. Kind of an expression of the enlightened mind. Is that your view?

[Pete Holmes]

I think it can help you taste. Let's say this. You don't go along with it when you're really laughing or when you're climbing a mountain with no harness, you go to zero. When you meditate, you go to zero. People, dancing people, line cooks in a flow state, they go to zero. So I'm not saying it's unique to laughing, but I do think one of the reasons we love deep sleep. Why would you love something you can't remember? But you love it. It's not for how you feel. You love it. You loved it. I'm looking forward to it. You love being zero because it was you. It was you with everything taken away that can be taken away, except that which cannot be taken away. So this isn't that exotic. You taste it every night. And when you laugh, I think you taste it. If you're. And I'm talking about my own experience, I can't imagine, you know, I'm not gonna guess what my audience is going through, but one of the things that I experience when I'm really laughing is void is just nothing. And it's such a. It's like the eye of the needle. You can't bring. That girl didn't say yes when I asked her out. It can't go with you. It was just you. You were naked. Felt good, right? And I think that's why a lot of the things we do, flight suits, you know what I mean? People just want break from all of this, all of our troubles. And it feels really, really, really good.

[Chris]

Yeah. It's in our language. We want to be blown away.

[Pete Holmes]

We want to be blown away. Exactly. And I killed them. I killed them?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah.

[Chris]

I killed them. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I killed or I died. If I bombed, I say I died. But the funny thing, it's not adversarial. And I promise not to go on too much about this, but if you're curious what it feels like to do standup, it's again holy and whole. We want to merge, right? We want to merge. It feels better meditating together. Live comedy feels better than watching it when we all are laughing at the same thing. It's like a drum circle. It's ancient, it's shamanic. And I'm not the fancy boy, as much as I'd like to be. If I fall into it as well, we're all gone. That's when it's good. It can be co opted. And then the guy's like, you know, I'm the king. And I'm the king. But the best ones, I say to audiences all the time, you're watching me, I'm watching you. Like you're grading me. I'm grading you. Like, what do you think? You think you're off the hook? I'm nervous for you. And it's real. And then we start. I could talk about this forever. So you're gonna have to moderate. But it's like, it's hyper attunement. It's sexual. I don't mean that in like a. It doesn't have to do with literal sex, but it's the same thing as. I'm sorry, but as a good lover, it really is. Oh, hairs on your neck when I. Oh. I don't wanna be too graphic. I'm just saying the bad sex you've had, somebody was doing a bad open mic. You know what I mean? Like, it was. They weren't attuning. You could make it more church friendly and just say a good conversation, a good date attunement. Somebody saw your face fall when you said, my dad. Something happened to you. What's going on with your dad? Holy sh. That's amazing. We love that feeling when we can do it together. And when you're. I'm saying something and let's say it's crazy and we're all going with it. You're next to every. Oh, it's amazing. None of us were there if it's done properly. And that's why a heckler is so offensive to me. Because they're saying I resist the. This merging and I want to hinder their merging. That's why a bad comedian is offensive to me. Because they're resisting merging with the crowd. They're not listening to the crowd. They're not attuning to the crowd. It's interrupting something far more special than a show. That's why a cell phone at a Broadway show is. So you snap me out of it. I need to be away. And then I heard whatever sound brings me back to all the stuff I'm trying to just a little break.

[Chris]

Let's end on this. You have a little mantra that I really like, and I'd love to hear you talk about what it means and how you apply it.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Chris]

Yes, thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I think you might have added a yes, but I like it.

[Chris]

I didn't ask for notes.

[Pete Holmes]

It is yes, thank you.

[Chris]

Yes, thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

I've heard really good teachers saying, if you can just say yes to what is, that's all you need. I don't know how true that is, but I found. I wrote a book, which I mentioned, and they sent copies of it, which is funny. The book is where I wrote about, yes, thank you. And then they sent copies to all the reviewers. And then I looked through it and it was like three versions ago. As a writer, you can relate to this. It had notes to myself in. Had a word I used to go, meaning, come back to this, which is a silly word. Flappy. Just says flappy throughout the whole book. There were chapters that I cut in the book. It was just my first book. Deeply disappointing. And you feel this, like, black cloud. You're just sad. Then you're embarrassed. To me, it's the feeling, and then it's the embarrassment that you have the feeling. It's worse than the feeling. And I find that it really. We don't even have to spiritualize it or philosophize it. It just short circuits your brain if you say, yes, thank you to it. And I mean almost instantly, in my experience, flight is delayed. Yes, thank you. It's so weird. That's why it works. Everything. Attraction and aversion.

[Chris]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

So aversion is just charging it with all of this push like a basketball underwater. So you're giving it all the energy. So when you just. Yeah. As if it's what you wanted. And then you realize you're in an airport, you realize you'll be in an hour later. And, you know, the brain wants me to be like. And then you recognize somebody you haven't seen in 20 years. It doesn't have to be that. It can just be a clean breath and a recognition that. That you're alive. And maybe you see the sun coming through the window and maybe you remember that people used to die in covered wagons on the journey you're about to take in four hours. But that's mind stuff. But it can really be way less than that. Really not debating with the bad feeling, just saying, yes, thank you to it. That's been one of the most powerful things in my life. For sure. I'm glad you brought it up because it's been really, really helpful. So yeah, with the book I laughed because I was like, it's in the book. And I was like, yes, thank you. And I mean, it just lifted. It just lifted. And travel stuff. I travel a lot, so I do it a lot.

[Chris]

In traveling, you might think that what I'm about to say is a bit. And I'm not fucking with you at all. As an affirmation junkie, I had high expectations for night and you exceeded them. You were amazing. Thank you.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, thank you, my friend. And thank you. Thank you very much.

[Dan Harris]

Thanks again to Pete Holmes. He's my friend now.

[Chris]

I don't know if he knows that,

[Dan Harris]

but he's my friend now. Don't forget to check out my new app, 10% with Dan Harris. If you sign up, you and I can be friends. Danharris.com There's a free 14 day trial if you want to check it out before you buy. Last thing to say here. Thank you so 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.

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