Why Self-Hatred Makes No Sense | Matthew Brensilver

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Why Self-Hatred Makes No Sense | Matthew Brensilver"

10% Happier with Dan Harris
Host: Dan Harris
Guest: Matthew Brensilver, Ph.D.
Release Date: May 21, 2025

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Introduction

In this insightful episode, Dan Harris welcomes Matthew Brensilver, a clinical social worker and experienced meditation teacher, to explore the intricate concepts of self-love and self-hatred within the Buddhist framework that challenges the very notion of a permanent self. Their conversation delves into the feasibility of self-love and self-hatred if the self is considered an illusion, the skepticism surrounding personal emotions like anger, and the ethical implications of self-perception.

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The Illusion of Self: Self-Love and Self-Hatred

Dan Harris begins by posing a profound Buddhist question: "Does self-hatred or self-love make sense if the self is an illusion?" (00:21).

Matthew Brensilver responds by reframing the conversation around a "spectrum of the density of self," where self-hatred represents a rigid and oppressive sense of self, while self-love signifies a more fluid and accepting relationship with oneself (07:30). He emphasizes that self-love is not about narcissism but about a deep understanding, forgiveness, and acceptance of one's limitations.

Notable Quote:
"Self love, in this sort of more capacious understanding of the word, gets you towards seeing that the self is not as real as you thought in the first place." – Matthew Brensilver (09:32)

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Moving from Self-Hatred to Self-Love

The discussion navigates how self-hatred is a form of fixation that makes it difficult to let go of the self, whereas self-love allows for detachment and a deeper appreciation of one's existence. Brensilver explains that embracing self-love leads to recognizing the emptiness of self, which in turn fosters compassion and reduces the inclination toward self-hatred (10:49).

Notable Quote:
"The self that is hated is much more difficult to forget than the self that is loved." – Matthew Brensilver (08:21)

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Practical Applications: Handling Anger and Aversion

Dan Harris shares his personal experience of integrating loving-kindness (metta) meditation into his practice, which helped him view his thoughts with warmth and acceptance rather than judgment (11:03). This shift from self-criticism to self-love enabled him to understand that the chaotic thoughts are not a reflection of a fixed self but rather products of various causes and conditions.

Notable Quote:
"When I suffused the mind with warmth and I was seeing whatever came up in my mind with really accepting it, that felt to me like what I might describe as self love." – Dan Harris (12:05)

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The Connection Between Self-Love and Ethical Conduct

The conversation transitions to the relationship between self-love and ethical behavior, or sila in Buddhism. Brensilver suggests that as individuals cultivate self-love and understand the emptiness of self, they naturally evolve ethically. This ethical evolution is driven by a deeper appreciation of the interconnectedness of all beings and a commitment to reduce suffering.

Notable Quote:
"As we evolve ethically, we are being called to grow, to evolve ethically." – Matthew Brensilver (37:13)

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Addressing Moral Incoherence and Effective Altruism

Brensilver discusses the concept of moral incoherence—feeling that one's lifestyle may not be justifiable given the global suffering—and how this realization can motivate ethical action. He touches upon the effective altruism movement, which seeks to maximize the positive impact of one's actions, aligning closely with Buddhist principles of compassion and ethical responsibility.

Notable Quote:
"What we owe to others... are very egoically provocative questions, I find." – Matthew Brensilver (37:50)

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Cultivating Compassion and Reducing Hatred

The dialogue emphasizes the importance of cultivating compassion and reducing hatred through mindfulness and meditation. Brensilver explains that understanding the causality behind our emotions helps dismantle the rigid sense of self that fuels negative emotions, thereby fostering a more compassionate and loving outlook.

Notable Quote:
"The insight into the emptiness of the self actually dramatizes the pain of the predicament of being human." – Matthew Brensilver (11:03)

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Overcoming Aversion and Embracing Love

Brensilver shares strategies for dealing with aversion and anger, advocating for a skeptical examination of these emotions to uncover their root causes. By recognizing the delusion inherent in aversive states, individuals can foster a deeper sense of love and understanding, both for themselves and others.

Notable Quote:
"There may be a seed of wisdom in it, but there is always delusion coexisting with it." – Matthew Brensilver (23:03)

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Acceptance of Mortality and Its Impact on Love

In a poignant segment, Brensilver discusses how his meditation practice has led to a reduced fear of death and a sense of life being complete. This acceptance allows for a more profound appreciation of love, both self-directed and towards others, as he contemplates the legacy of love as the most significant aspect of one's life.

Notable Quote:
"Death has become much less imposing." – Matthew Brensilver (63:18)

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Practical Meditation Guidance

Throughout the episode, Dan Harris promotes live guided meditations focusing on the Brahma Viharas—loving-kindness, compassion, equanimity, and sympathetic joy—as antidotes to anxiety. These ancient practices, validated by modern science, offer psychological and physiological benefits that support the cultivation of self-love and ethical behavior.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with Matthew Brensilver sharing resources for further exploration, including his website and Dharma talks available through Dharma Seed. The conversation leaves listeners with a reinforced understanding of how embracing self-love, within the context of an illusory self, can lead to ethical evolution and a more compassionate engagement with the world.

Notable Quote:
"Love is our birthright. That is possible even for a very ordinary person like myself." – Matthew Brensilver (69:23)

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Resources

• Matthew Brensilver's Website: matthewbrensilver.org
• Dharma Seed Talks: Available through Dharma Seed

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Note: Portions of this episode were previously aired in February 2022 and have been re-run due to their lasting relevance and impact.

Transcript

[Matthew Brensilver]

Foreign.

[Dan Harris]

It'S the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello my fellow suffering beings.

[DJ Cashmere]

How we doing today?

[Dan Harris]

We've got a compelling Buddhist question. Does self hatred or self love for that matter, do either of these concepts make sense if the self is an illusion? I'm going to be chewing over that and many other fascinating questions with one of my favorite guests, Matthew Brensilver, Ph.D. who is a clinical social worker and also an experienced teacher of meditation, including deep meditation retreats. Aside from the question about whether you can love or hate yourself if the self doesn't exist, we're going to talk about how and why to view your anger with skepticism the relationship between self love and personal ethics what to do if you think you're a good person but you have no interest in changing your behavior to get better how to handle a nagging sense of doubt that you may have about the morality of the way you're living your life and how Matthew has arrived at a place of relative peace with his own mortality A little bit more about Matthew before we dive in here. Aside from teaching retreats at places like Spirit Rock, he has worked at at an organization called Mindful Schools, which teaches teachers how to teach meditation. And as a social worker, he has treated severely and persistently mentally ill adults and adolescents. He's an utterly fascinating person and I got a lot out of this conversation.

[Unknown]

Quick note this episode is a rerun.

[Dan Harris]

From February 2022 and we loved it so much we're bringing it back before we dive in. And on a very related note, I do want to tell you about something I'm doing over on danharris.com all week at 4pm Eastern I'm going to be doing live guided meditations where I focus on specific forms of meditation that were designed by the Buddha as an antidote to anxiety. As you may know, there are four related meditation practices that are collectively known as the Brahma Viharas or Divine Abodes. Not my preferred branding, but really, I found these styles of practice to be immensely helpful in my own life. And you can think of these four interrelated flavors of meditation as a way to take it easier on yourself yourself and more skillfully navigate the world. These styles of meditation have stood the test of time, having been practiced for 2,600 years, and are increasingly being validated by modern science, which suggests these practices can have psychological, physiological and even behavioral benefits. So again, I'll be doing live guided meditations all week [e-mail] Again, head on over to Dan Harris and get all the details.

[DJ Cashmere]

We will get started with Matthew Bren Silver right after this.

[Dan Harris]

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[DJ Cashmere]

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[Dan Harris]

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[DJ Cashmere]

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[Dan Harris]

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[Dan Harris]

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[Dan Harris]

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[DJ Cashmere]

Matthew Brensilver, welcome to the show.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Thanks for having me.

[DJ Cashmere]

Glad to have you. So as I understand it, you have an interest in concepts such as self love and its opposite, self hatred. And I'm just curious, how do you think about self love or self hatred within the context of a tradition where it is argued that the self is an illusion in the first place?

[Unknown]

Yeah, well, sometimes I think about the terminology.

[Matthew Brensilver]

There may be a better alternative to.

[Unknown]

Teachings on quote not self.

[Matthew Brensilver]

It might be that the phrase is.

[Unknown]

Something like not ownership or something like this.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And there's a lot of confusion that seems to happen. And so rather than thinking of a kind of tension between the teachings on the illusory nature of self, the empty nature of self, and self love, I construe it more as a kind of spectrum of the density of self.

[Unknown]

And on one end of the spectrum, at the far end is self hatred.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And its kind of flip side of grandiosity and arrogance and the kind of melodrama of all of that. And that's where the sense of self is very fixated and very solid and oppressive in a way.

[Unknown]

And the movement towards not self like.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Includes a movement towards self love, which is actually a much more fluid, flexible way of relating to the self.

[Unknown]

And for me, self love is actually.

[Matthew Brensilver]

An expression of a certain kind of non clinging.

[Unknown]

It's not like some tight ideas about my greatness or something like that.

[Matthew Brensilver]

That's just another expression of the kind of more dense mode of self.

[Unknown]

Self love is more akin to a.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Deep understanding of oneself and a deep forgiveness for oneself and a deep appreciation, acceptance of our own limitations. And so the movement from self hatred into self love actually gets us closer to understanding the emptiness of self.

[Unknown]

The self that is hated is much.

[Matthew Brensilver]

More difficult to forget than the self that is loved.

[Unknown]

Yeah, self hatred is a kind of preoccupation and fixation. And the self that is loved, it's so easy to forget because it's not.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Bound up with a certain kind of vigilance and defensiveness. And so this moves us us in the Direction of.

[Unknown]

Like to use language from the Zen.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Tradition, forgetting the self, that famous line from Togan.

[DJ Cashmere]

So I'll see if I can recapitulate a little bit of that. And you'll fact check me. Love is not the same thing as not self or not ownership of self or emptiness of self. But it is a step in that direction, in that loving yourself in your conception of love here isn't kissing the mirror or standing there hugging yourself, telling yourself how great you are and you're better than everybody else. Self love, in this sort of more capacious understanding of the word love gets you towards seeing that the self is not as real as you thought in the first place.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Yeah, that's great. That's what I meant. In a way. Maybe we could think of it as a kind of spectrum of how deeply.

[Unknown]

We are accepting the arising of. Of the phenomena that comprises self. And at that far end of arrogance or self harshness, there is an incredible.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Amount of friction and an incredible amount of resistance. And as we move towards self love, we're really unclenching the hand of grasping. And it is closer to something like acceptance of what we perceive when we look inwards. And we continue along that same spectrum.

[Unknown]

To appreciate the more subtle aspects of.

[Matthew Brensilver]

The sense of I am ness.

[Unknown]

One of my teachers, Shinzen Young, talked about, like, the coagulation of the sense.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Of I am ness.

[Unknown]

And as we pass through these realms of self acceptance of self love, we.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Begin to fold the elements of I am ness into awareness.

[Unknown]

And those too become empty.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And then that realization, the kind of.

[Unknown]

Emptiness of the self, it's like this actually leads us back into a deeper kind of compassion and tenderness for oneself.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And so the insight into the emptiness of the self actually dramatizes the pain, the congealing of self.

[Unknown]

It dramatizes the pain of the predicament of being human. And so it then can kind of feed back into a deeper appreciation of.

[Matthew Brensilver]

The intensity of the human condition and the drama of being someone and its attendant pain.

[DJ Cashmere]

Let me see if I can ground this in something very concrete just to help people get a toehold here. And maybe this will work or maybe it won't. I'll talk a little bit about how this has worked for me, given that my understanding is limited. And that might be a generous way to describe it, but I would say.

[Unknown]

I don't know, Dan. I don't know. Okay. Okay.

[DJ Cashmere]

Right. Maybe false modesty is too much selfing. So there you go, you didn't say that, but it was implied in the. Okay, Dan.

[Unknown]

For Me.

[DJ Cashmere]

One of the biggest plot twists in my meditation practice was adding in high dosage meta or friendliness or loving kindness practice. I realized after doing, you know, a long retreat, long, you know, nine day retreat of nothing but loving kindness practice where you're repeating these phrases, maybe happy, maybe healthy, while envisioning various beings, including yourself. I realized in the course of doing that that my mindfulness practice, where I was supposedly viewing everything that came up in my mind with some non judgmental remove, actually had a subtle and hitherto unseen aversive flick in it. And that actually when I suffused the mind with this artifact, sort of I'm using the word artificial, but it's that maybe that's unfair because you're just uncovering what's already there. But when I suffused the mind with warmth and I was seeing whatever came up in my mind with really accepting it, that felt to me like what I might describe as self love. It wasn't an acceptance in terms of resignation. It wasn't like great, I just saw some like spasm of bigotry go Dan. It's more like, oh, of. Well, that's the result of, you know, endless causes and conditions. The culture in which I grew up, the conditions in this moment. I don't need to beat myself up for it. And then the next step, after seeing whatever comes up in my mind as a function of causes and conditions, as the organism, as Jack Kornfield likes to say, as the organism just trying to protect itself, however unskillfully, the next step was to see that it also is not personal. There is nobody here, no homunculus of Dan inside my mind deliberately creating and tossing out these thoughts. I can't find it. It's a mysterious process with no apparent conductor. And so that to me is how I went from what I would call self love, of, you know, viewing whatever comes up in my mind with some warmth to actually viewing that real self love is to say, see that there's no self at all because you're not placing any responsibility for all of the inner chaos and cacophony. Anyway, I just said a lot of words there. I wasn't planning on doing that, but I did. Does any of that make any sense?

[Matthew Brensilver]

Yeah, Good words, good words.

[Unknown]

Yeah. I do think that speaks to what I'm intimating in this, that the insight into not self brings with it a.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Whole raft of self forgiveness.

[Unknown]

And I like the word sometimes innocence.

[Matthew Brensilver]

The kind of innocence of our being. And that comes out of really seeing.

[Unknown]

Dependent origination, really seeing the multicausal nature.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Of our being, of our thoughts, of our feelings, that what feels so intimately.

[Unknown]

Like me originates very much outside of.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Anything I could call me. And that creates a certain kind of forgiveness and an understanding and also a.

[Unknown]

Courage to do more self exploration. Because it means that the ego is.

[Matthew Brensilver]

No longer at stake in the process of seeing.

[Unknown]

The hallmark of the ego is a.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Certain kind of defensiveness.

[Unknown]

And that shorts circuits the kind of.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Wild, reckless, investigatory nature of the meditative endeavor. And as we come to see a certain kind of innocence or the forgiveness that you describe, the centerlessness of our own being, the poignancy of our condition begins to bear down on us with more and more weight.

[Unknown]

And the possibilities for love, for self love for loving others, these possibilities multiply.

[Matthew Brensilver]

But hatred becomes less and less tenable.

[Unknown]

And so that sense of, yeah, that there's nothing that I might discover about.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Myself that would make self hatred more tenable. There's nothing I could actually see that would make a better case for self hatred.

[Unknown]

No, I may see a lot of habits, I may see my greed, my aversion, I may see delusion, but none of that actually becomes an argument for more self harshness.

[DJ Cashmere]

We've talked about self love quite a bit in this conversation, and its opposite, self hatred. But how would you define love?

[Matthew Brensilver]

Will you stop me dead in my.

[Unknown]

Tracks there with that?

[Matthew Brensilver]

Even though I use the word very.

[Unknown]

Casually, I don't know, it's almost become a kind of placeholder for everything good in the universe, which is very poor definitional discipline. But some people don't like that word.

[Matthew Brensilver]

It's very hallmark ish or something, or it's too closely associated in some narrow.

[Unknown]

Way with romantic relationship or something like this. But for me, it is a bit.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Of a placeholder for this general softening of the heart. And it includes loving kindness and compassion. But it's not limited to those. The word that comes up for me is poignancy, just the poignancy of the human condition. And I feel that so acutely in.

[Unknown]

This phase of.

[Matthew Brensilver]

This moment in time.

[Unknown]

With accumulating points of grief in this country.

[Matthew Brensilver]

I felt that so acutely with COVID.

[Unknown]

As it unfolded with George Floyd, with the undercurrent of a certain kind of.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Authoritarian strain in American politics and culture. And so much really to grieve.

[Unknown]

And it's too much without love.

[Matthew Brensilver]

It's just too much.

[Unknown]

We turn towards apathy or numbness or just rage and trying to control all.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Of the causes and conditions. And so for me, love, even the turn inwards to my breathing, to my body, to the kind of intensity of being human.

[Unknown]

To do that without love just seems reckless.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And so there's a certain kind of.

[Unknown]

Convergence in my mind around the insight.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Side of practice and the love side.

[Unknown]

You can certainly do loving kindness practice.

[Matthew Brensilver]

As its own discrete path, a beautiful path, as you described doing nine days of just that.

[Unknown]

But in some ways, some other forms.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Of love seem indispensable just in the process of investigation, of truly encountering the human condition as it manifests moment by moment.

[Unknown]

And it's not a very discursive kind of love.

[Matthew Brensilver]

It's a kind of softening to the poignancy of the human condition. And that to me feels like, oh, yeah, that sort of underlies so many different aspects of practice.

[DJ Cashmere]

I'm sorry to stop you in your tracks, although I guess that's a hallmark of a good question. But getting back to the definition, you said something like, I think of it as a catchphrase for all that's good in the universe. And I'm thinking, well, maybe that is a fair definition. Maybe love is. And I've been increasingly thinking of it as, you know, anything north of neutral. It can be a common sense friendliness that you can have for your barista. Just we're sharing the same oxygen supply. I hope you're doing all right all the way up to, you know, the string music kicks in and John Cusack is holding a boombox over his head, you know, in a love scene in a movie or whatever. And everything in between, how you feel about your parents, how you feel about your kid, how you feel about your cats and dogs. It encompasses civility, generosity, compassion, empathy, all of the. What the scientists call pro social behavior. Why can't love just be all of that?

[Matthew Brensilver]

Thank you for not rejecting my loose definition, Dan. I appreciate. Yeah, maybe it can be all of it.

[Unknown]

That's how I think of it. That's how I think of loving kindness.

[Matthew Brensilver]

As it manifests in the rhythms of one's life.

[Unknown]

And those are all subtle or sometimes.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Dramatic expressions of a certain kind of.

[Unknown]

Care and love and appreciation for the existential condition of ourselves as individuals and.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Of society as a civilization. The more closely we look, the more reason we have to love. And the more deeply we look, the.

[Unknown]

Less ground there is, the less tenable hatred is. And so I'm an aversion type. So if I gonna suffer, I'm gonna.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Suffer around resisting something I don't like. That's my favorite way to suffer.

[Unknown]

And so love is important for that.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Personality constellation and so in my own.

[Unknown]

Experiences of anger, of aversion, potent or quite subtle, there is a kind of.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Reminder that comes up in my mind because I tried to train in this.

[Unknown]

The reminder of, like, oh, yeah, that aversion that cannot end well.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And it is never the last word. The hatred, the kind of divisiveness, it is never the last word. It always leaves something out.

[Unknown]

And so there's a certain kind of trust that if I follow this thread deeper into causality, there will be less.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And less reason for hatred, more and.

[Unknown]

More reason for love, for forgiveness, for understanding. And so in the anger, the aversion.

[Matthew Brensilver]

There may sometimes be a seed of.

[Unknown]

Wisdom, but there is always delusion coexisting with it.

[Matthew Brensilver]

So there may be a seed of understanding of anger. You know, Ruth King said, anger is. Can be initiatory but not transformative. And what I take to understand from.

[Unknown]

That is that it can signal something important.

[Matthew Brensilver]

There's a seed of wisdom in it.

[Unknown]

But it cannot be the vehicle we ride forever on. And for me, as an aversion type.

[Matthew Brensilver]

I do try to remember in the arising of anger, in the arising of.

[Unknown]

Aversion, like, oh, there's delusion here, to whatever clarity.

[Matthew Brensilver]

There may be no clarity. There might be a seed of clarity, but for sure there's delusion present. And the certainty of that mind state needs to be undercut by a certain kind of skepticism.

[Unknown]

And so just to say to myself.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Ah, I need to look more deeply here. I know there's confusion here.

[Unknown]

I know the Dalai Lama would not.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Have the same response to this situation that I'm having right now. I know there's more to be seen.

[Unknown]

And so we just follow that causal.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Thread and in my experience, just arrive at a deeper sense of love.

[DJ Cashmere]

So if somebody in your life has really pissed you off and you truly sit with it in an investigatory way, you can get under the hatred and anger to love, you're saying, no, Dan.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Not in my life.

[Unknown]

I'm just recommending it to your listeners.

[Matthew Brensilver]

No, yeah, we can do this. We can do this. It may take some time.

[Unknown]

We may have to sort of innovate.

[Matthew Brensilver]

In one way or another. And it's about training. It is about training ourselves.

[Unknown]

Because in the.

[Matthew Brensilver]

The mind state of aversion, it's such.

[Unknown]

A certain kind of mind state, and.

[Matthew Brensilver]

It admits no ambiguity.

[Unknown]

And so we can't remember much in those moments.

[Matthew Brensilver]

But I have tried to train, with varying success.

[Unknown]

But I have tried to train to remember there's more to be seen.

[Matthew Brensilver]

There's more to be seen. And you can kind of sense when you're making your case against the person.

[Unknown]

Yeah.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Whether that's a member of one's family.

[Unknown]

Or anybody, in making the case, one is always leaving out certain premises in the argument.

[Matthew Brensilver]

You can kind of sense the mind.

[Unknown]

Sort of shuffling through like a sloppy lawyer kind of like shuffling through trying.

[Matthew Brensilver]

To hide some little bit of evidence.

[Unknown]

As we make our case for the.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Justifiability of our aversion.

[Unknown]

And you start to be more discerning and sense that, like I'm leaving something out.

[Matthew Brensilver]

I sort of jumped over from this premise to that premise and I left something out. But if I include that, it weakens the case for my anger, it weakens the justification.

[Unknown]

And so we just have to be.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Rigorously honest when we say, see our.

[Unknown]

Mind cobbling together its case in that way to pause, look more deeply. And we have many experiences of just.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Seeing the kind of folly of our aversion in the rear view mirror. Sometimes only in the rear view mirror.

[Unknown]

But in the rear view mirror it's so apparent, like, oh, I really left that big piece of data out from that case. And it leads us into something like care understanding.

[Matthew Brensilver]

That doesn't mean that we forget that incident entirely.

[Unknown]

That may be important actually to honor what's been seen in somebody else's behavior or something like this. But we arrive at a place of deeper love than where we started.

Coming up after the break, Matthew explains.

[DJ Cashmere]

Why you should not take your shortcomings, some might even say your ugliness personally. And we talk about the relationship between.

[Dan Harris]

Self love and the Buddhist concept of.

[DJ Cashmere]

Sila, or ethical conduct. That's right.

[Unknown]

After this craving your next action packed adventure. Audible delivers thrills of every kind on your command. From electrifying suspense and daring quests to spine tingling horror and romance in far off realms. Unleash your adventurous side with gripping titles that keep you guessing. Exclusive captivating Audible Originals Hotly anticipated new releases Must listen bestsellers that hook you from the first minute. Whether it's heart pounding suspense like the Audible original Mad Love, a fantasy romance adventure like Onyx Storm, or a listen with the lights on epic like like Stephen King's latest Never Flinch. Plus more big releases like Freda McFadden's the Tenant and Amelia Hart's the Sirens. There are a bunch of books I've loved recently, just to name a few. Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor, Beautiful Animals by Lawrence Osborne, Nightboat the Tangier by Kevin Barry. All three of them just outstanding. And Audible, by the way, has over a million audiobooks podcasts and a radio originals all in one easy app. I in fact in the process of writing an Audible original that I will.

[DJ Cashmere]

Be recording in the next couple of months.

[Dan Harris]

So big fan of what they do.

[Unknown]

And have really enjoyed working with them. Start listening and discover what's beyond the edge of your seat. New members can try Audible now free for 30 days, and dive into a world of new thrills. Visit audible.com 10% or text 10% p n p e r c e n t to 500500 that's audible.com 10% or text10% to 500500 as the founder of a pretty new small business, I can tell you that one of the biggest and most urgent issues is hiring. You want to hire the right person and you want to do it quickly. Just by way of an example, our most recent hire is the mighty Abby Smith, who's my executive assistant and also plays many key roles throughout the team. And she was very much the right person and immediately improved my life and the lives of everybody around me by way more than 10%. So if hiring is an issue for you, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job Post seen Seen on other job sites Indeed's Sponsored Jobs help you stand out and hire fast. With Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to.

[Dan Harris]

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[Unknown]

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[DJ Cashmere]

So lesson learned.

[Unknown]

Plus with Indeed Sponsored Jobs, there are no monthly subscriptions, no long term contracts, and you only pay for results. How fast is Indeed in the minute I've been talking to you about this, 23 hires were made on Indeed. According to Indeed data, there's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more [e-mail] happier. Just go to indeed.com happier right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.

[DJ Cashmere]

That actually really helps.

[Unknown]

Indeed.com happier terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Foreign.

[DJ Cashmere]

I just want to double click to use a little corporate speak there on what you said about the rearview mirror and what you said before that about how it may take some time. I don't want to leave people with the impression, and I don't think you do either. But please correct me that this is, you know, easy or rapid, you know, the getting underneath the aversion and hatred. In certain cases that could take years if not lifetimes. Am I wrong about that?

[Unknown]

No, you are not wrong.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And this is one of the very.

[Unknown]

Humbling aspects of practice, that to see the depth of the kind of roots of these habits, it's humbling.

[Matthew Brensilver]

It's humbling.

[Unknown]

And this is a part of why.

[Matthew Brensilver]

There's a kind of gradual training in this. We are training in the same way.

[Unknown]

An athlete trains their body. And the accumulation of skills, of strength is often gradual.

[Matthew Brensilver]

There may be some moves that we can make in the moment once that suffering has arisen. But so much of the fruit of.

[Unknown]

Our practice is actually a function of this gradual training of not getting backed so deep into the karmic corner where.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Our reactivity just feels so overpowering.

[Unknown]

And when we do get backed into.

[Matthew Brensilver]

That corner and it just feels like we are going to suffer, there is not one degree of freedom in this. In those moments.

[Unknown]

My aspiration is this.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Is humbling for sure. May it not be humiliating.

[Unknown]

Yeah, may it not be humiliating for sure.

[Matthew Brensilver]

It's humbling. It's necessary.

[Unknown]

That humbling quality of practice is quite important.

[Matthew Brensilver]

But humility is different than humiliation. And the humiliation is really a function of the drama of self in that moment. And so may I take this pain.

[Unknown]

This habit less personally.

[Matthew Brensilver]

It is not a commentary on the.

[Unknown]

Deepest layer of my being. And in that pain, backed into that corner when nothing works, when all of my mindfulness moves do not work. We're at an important place actually. And it does usually devolve into frustration or self hatred, humiliation.

[Matthew Brensilver]

But it's actually a moment where we.

[Unknown]

Can again come back to love, that the heart is being softened by the intensity of our habits.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And in that certain kind of surrender, it actually consolidates our motivation to practice and it softens rather than hardens our heart.

[Unknown]

It can do that even in that.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Kind of sense of abject defeat. It's just.

[Unknown]

But there is a kind of opportunity for very deep kind of compassion for ourselves.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And then it overflows from the bounds.

[Unknown]

Of our own heart to others.

[DJ Cashmere]

I think you've just brought us where I was hoping to go. But you're talking about, if I understand correctly, you know, the how our relationship with ourself can impact the way we are with other people. And that got me to the question I was hoping to ask you, which is what is the Connection between the. We're now several paragraphs removed from our discussion of self love. Again, in the broadest kind of conception of self love. What is the connection, though, between this self love that, as you are describing it, and our ethical stance vis a vis the world, or what the Buddhists might call sila S I L a, which is. Well, I'll let you define what that is.

[Unknown]

So there are a number of connections.

[Matthew Brensilver]

My mind is moving in different directions. So one piece of it might be.

[Unknown]

That the movement out of the kind.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Of more congealed modes of self, out.

[Unknown]

Of arrogance, out of self hatred, into.

[Matthew Brensilver]

A kind of deeper acceptance of self.

[Unknown]

Of understanding the emptiness of self.

[Matthew Brensilver]

This is a movement away from defensiveness.

[Unknown]

And as I was saying, we could.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Think of one of the hallmarks of ego is defensiveness.

[Unknown]

It means that we stand guard at the gates of self, kind of patrolling visitors, VIPs, intruders, everything. Yeah.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And that is a very fragile way of living. That means that at any time, any.

[Unknown]

Person, anywhere can do something destructive to.

[Matthew Brensilver]

My own inner environment.

[Unknown]

And.

[Matthew Brensilver]

The move away from some of that defensiveness into a certain kind of.

[Unknown]

Acceptance love, deeper understanding, that is actually very important. As we evolve ethically, we are being.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Called, I feel, to evolve ethically.

[Unknown]

And the Buddhist path makes very clear all that we ought not do, all of the sila, the rules of training.

[Matthew Brensilver]

The guidelines that lead us away from suffering rather than towards it.

[Unknown]

The Buddhist tradition articulates what we ought not do, but it is more quiet about the positive duties we have to other people, what we ought to do.

[Matthew Brensilver]

What we owe to others. And those are very egoically provocative questions, I find.

[Unknown]

And this kind of sense that as.

[Matthew Brensilver]

We see, as we look at the.

[Unknown]

Country, at the world, as we have a deeper appreciation of history, of the.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Future, of existential risk, of climate, of all of this, there's a sense of being called to grow, to evolve ethically.

[Unknown]

As individuals, as a species, that our.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Well being, the well being of the civilization, probably at some point will depend.

[Unknown]

Deeply on a certain kind of ethical.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Evolution and gesture of love.

[Unknown]

And what I find is that I.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Want to think of myself as a.

[Unknown]

Good person, but I don't really want.

[Matthew Brensilver]

To change my behavior.

[Unknown]

That is a bit of a jam. And we think of our ethical life as we kind of grow up and we find our commitments and then we.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Just enact those commitments for the rest of our life.

[Unknown]

But our ethical life, we could think.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Of its evolution as kind of wild and unpredictable and full of twists and.

[Unknown]

Turns and part of meditation practice in.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Dramatizing the intensity of the human condition.

[Unknown]

Of witnessing just what it's like to.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Have an itch on our face and want to stay still. Just what it's like to have a pain in our back, just what it's.

[Unknown]

Like to have our heartache.

[Matthew Brensilver]

In dramatizing this, we become more sensitive.

[Unknown]

Sensitive to the kind of moral fabric.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Of the universe that wherever there is suffering, there ought to be sila. Wherever there is suffering, there ought to be ethical commitments and there's suffering everywhere. And so we start to perceive this.

[Unknown]

The poignancy of the human condition, and.

[Matthew Brensilver]

We'Re called to grow, to evolve ethically.

[Unknown]

And for me, I've been struck by.

[Matthew Brensilver]

This experience of a certain kind of moral incoherence or moral unjustifiability. Like my life as I live it.

[Unknown]

I perceive as less so now, but.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Still so morally unjustifiable.

[Unknown]

The depth to which I privilege trivial pleasures and comforts in my life over.

[Matthew Brensilver]

The very lives of other beings, often on the other side of the globe. That induces a certain sense of moral incoherence, that actually my life as I'm.

[Unknown]

Living it is not quite justifiable.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And normally when we sense that, we immediately shut down or rationalize it, explain it away. I remember when I was in college.

[Unknown]

Reading in the college library in a.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Comfortable, cushy chair, and I was reading.

[Unknown]

A book, Peter Unger, Living High and Letting Die, that was illustrating just the degree of inequality of well being across the globe and my privileging of trivial comforts in the face of the enormity.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And tractable suffering of the world.

[Unknown]

And that scrambled me and my heart in a deep way.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And I've been living in a certain sense with those questions and with that sense of moral incoherence for a long time.

[Unknown]

And sometimes I've gone on autopilot around it. Sometimes it's catalyzed more clear, significant action.

[Matthew Brensilver]

In my life to try to think.

[Unknown]

About the suffering of the world and what I owe. And this ties in with this whole.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Realm of effective altruism, which has been very meaningful to me.

[Unknown]

And it's really the question, I would say, of the kind of those folks that I feel like they're trying to.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Answer the question, what is the modern Bodhisattva? What does compassion look like in a.

[Unknown]

World where we actually know a lot about something? Suffering, where we know a lot about.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Suffering that is neglected suffering, that is tractable, that can be addressed.

[Unknown]

And that, to me, kind of hangs.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Over so much of my Buddhist practice.

[Unknown]

And how I think about Sila and how I think about love and how I think about my debts to others. And as my own suffering has been.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Diminished, I still suffer plenty, but it's been diminished in dramatic ways. There's less and less energy that's needed.

[Unknown]

To tend to one's inner life. And so that frees us up to.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Open our eyes more completely to the world.

[Unknown]

And we see suffering, and we see the absence of suffering.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And that, I feel, leads us deeper.

[Unknown]

Into a commitment to meet the conditions.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Of the world more fully.

[Unknown]

But it entails a measurement of disorientation, tolerating disorientation, because the egoic mechanisms are always scrambling to regain their footing.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And so when I say something like.

[Unknown]

I want to think of myself as a good person and I don't want to change my behavior, that will tend.

[Matthew Brensilver]

To induce a sense of a certain kind of dissonance or something, and we'll feel a little disoriented.

[Unknown]

And to actually tolerate that in this.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Realm of ethical evolution, in our own.

[Unknown]

Understanding of difference, of racial difference, other forms of differences, that tolerating disorientation feels quite important. And our dharma practice is indispensable in.

[Matthew Brensilver]

That because we actually get more comfortable.

[Unknown]

Amidst the free fall, amidst the ego.

[Matthew Brensilver]

All the kind of familiar reference points not being there in the same way. And that will tend to generate a certain kind of panic and so scramble to reestablish ground.

[Unknown]

But, no, it's safe to fall.

[Matthew Brensilver]

It's safe to take the backward step and fall into a certain disorientation.

[Unknown]

And so it's one of the threads.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Of connection that occurs to me.

[DJ Cashmere]

You mentioned the effective altruists. This is a group of people, perhaps the most famous proponents. This young man, Will McCaskill, is a philosopher, I believe, at Oxford or Cambridge. One of them.

[Unknown]

I think so, yeah.

[DJ Cashmere]

Yeah. And he bases much of his work, or at least some of his work, on the philosopher Peter Singer, who quite famously talked about, with apologies to everybody involved here might be mangling what I'm about to say, but Peter Singer, I believe, talked about how, you know, spending on ourselves to live high while others die is a bit like walking by a pond where there's a drowning child and not wanting to save the child because you don't want to get your suit dirty or something like that.

[Unknown]

And.

[DJ Cashmere]

And Will has argued that, you know, since we know $2,500 will save a life in a malaria prone country, it's very hard, if not impossible, to justify spending $2,500 on anything beyond your basic needs, given that you're essentially Walking by a drowning child. I think I'm restating that view correctly. And so given that, where do you, Matthew, fall in your day to day life vis a vis something like a latte? Do you allow yourself any measure of living high?

[Unknown]

For sure, not a latte. The effect of altruist.

[Matthew Brensilver]

They're always vegans. And the vegans got to me and convinced me. And so no lattes, but yes, plenty of indulgences. I think in some, some ways the question of where does it stop?

[Unknown]

What's the threshold? It's a reasonable question, but we do have the intuitive sense like, oh, more could be done, I can do more.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And what does that mean?

[Unknown]

And so I have tried to live with that sense of moral incoherence and.

[Matthew Brensilver]

It spurred action for me.

[Unknown]

You know, I do still have the equivalent of lattes all the time and.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Not living profoundly renunciate life or something.

[Unknown]

Like this, but we know that we can do more. And you mentioned Will MacAskill and some of these folks, and the movement has a very. Somebody called, like a group of fussy nerds that was somehow. Somebody described it, and that's fair enough. There is a lot of kind of.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Rigorous analytic thinking and quantitative kind of.

[Unknown]

Efforts, you know, but at the heart.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Of it is love. At the heart of it is love.

[Unknown]

And for some reason I was in.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Some kind of random lottery drawing and I won a sweet session with Will MacAskill and I was on a Skype.

[Unknown]

With him, and he's a serious philosopher.

[Matthew Brensilver]

But just in seeing his face there.

[Unknown]

On Skype, I started crying because I could sense that this is somebody who.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Is asking the question of what it is to be a Bodhisattva. He would never put it in that language, I don't think. But to me it is. This is like, what is the modern bodhisattva? And I think that can take a lot of forms. But for me, the most important piece.

[Unknown]

Is that it lures the heart into deeper commitment.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Maybe a little bit more renunciation, a.

[Unknown]

Little bit more commitment to caring for the welfare of others.

[DJ Cashmere]

For those who don't know what a bodhisattva is, can you define it?

[Unknown]

Yeah, well, it's not even language from.

[Matthew Brensilver]

My tradition of insight meditation in which I've been trained.

[Unknown]

Exactly.

[Matthew Brensilver]

But what I take it to mean.

[Unknown]

Is the deep, abiding, almost relentless commitment.

[Matthew Brensilver]

To the welfare of others and to.

[Unknown]

Make one's heart and one's practice and one's life of benefit for all that we encounter. And it's really quite a radical commitment. And I've had opportunities to take a Bodhisattva vow or something like this, and I haven't because.

[Matthew Brensilver]

I don't know what that would do to my life exactly.

[Unknown]

And there's a sense of I'm not quite ready to give informed consent to.

[Matthew Brensilver]

That depth of commitment.

[Unknown]

You know, even though I'm in training, I feel like I'm in training and I'm trying. And what's that?

[DJ Cashmere]

There's that expression, lord, make me chaste, but just not yet.

[Unknown]

That's right.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Exactly. But it's part of like, okay, if we're going to take a vow, that is no joke. To tie one's heart in that way.

[Unknown]

Is a kind of.

[Matthew Brensilver]

It's a performative utterance. It's words that do something.

[Unknown]

They actually do something to our heart, to our lives. And when I'm really ready, because I.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Don'T know how much that might reconfigure my life.

[Unknown]

When I'm ready, I'll take it. I'll take it. Yeah. But in the meantime, let us do what we can.

[DJ Cashmere]

Coming up, I asked Matthew about a quip of his that I really like. He has said how your meditation practice is going to is none of your business. What does that mean? We're also going to talk about how he has arrived at a point of general okayness with his own mortality. That and more right after this.

[Unknown]

Craving your next action packed adventure Audible delivers thrills of every kind on your command. From electrifying suspense and daring quests to spine tingling horror and romance in far off realms. Unleash your adventurous side with gripping titles that keep you guessing. Exclusive captivating Audible originals hotly anticipated new releases must listen bestsellers that hook you from the first minute. Whether it's heart pounding suspense like the Audible Original, Mad Love, a fantasy romance adventure like Onyx Storm, or a listen with the lights on epic like Stephen King's latest Never Flinch. Plus more big releases like Frida McFadden's the Tenant and Amelia the Sirens. There are a bunch of books I've loved recently, just to name a few. Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor, Beautiful Animals by Lawrence Osborne, Nightboat the Tangier by Kevin Barry. All three of them just outstanding. And Audible, by the way, has over a million audiobooks, podcasts and originals all in one easy app. I in fact the process of writing an Audible original that I will be.

[DJ Cashmere]

Recording in the next couple of months.

[Dan Harris]

So big fan of what they do.

[Unknown]

And have really enjoyed working with them. Start listening and discover what's beyond the edge of your seat. New members can try Audible now free for 30 days and dive into a world of new thrills. Visit audible.com 10% or text 10% P E N P E R C e n t to 500500 that's audible.com 10% or text 10% to 500500500.

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[DJ Cashmere]

This latte question I know you were using latte.

[Unknown]

I love lattes. I love lattes.

[DJ Cashmere]

Anyway, this latte question is a pretty profound self love conundrum because on the one hand, I think you can make a case that a certain amount of harmless, let's say, or quote unquote harmless or seemingly harmless indulgence, you know, is part of self love, taking care of yourself so that you can be more available to take care of other people. On the other hand, I think a very enlightened view of self love would see that there's so much joy and flourishing to be had from serving other people that why wouldn't you help yourself to as much of that as possible? So this question of how high do we live while others die? Is this is not an easy puzzle.

[Matthew Brensilver]

It's not easy.

[Unknown]

It's not easy. And I want to be careful about being too idealistic. There's a way in which in the Buddhist world we can get too caught.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Up on certain ideals and that tends.

[Unknown]

To cause the kind of erasure of.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Certain elements of our own experience.

[Unknown]

I want to be careful about maintaining.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Fidelity to what it's actually like.

[Unknown]

You really do want that latte, and I don't want to minimize that. And I think the point you're making, and it's a refrain from somewhere in the effective altruism movement, if you passed a burning building today and you just.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Kicked down the door and rescued a.

[Unknown]

Couple people and brought people to safety, that would be among the most meaningful.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Or maybe the most meaningful day of your life, or certainly your year.

[Unknown]

And it would be a cardinal event. And we're actually offered that opportunity. It's just the mechanisms of empathy and the proximal effects of suffering right here, rather than distant, that makes the example seem different. But at a moral level, they're really not different.

[Matthew Brensilver]

That said, I do believe it still.

[Unknown]

Leaves plenty of room for delighting in.

[Matthew Brensilver]

One'S good fortune and enjoying the kind.

[Unknown]

Of pleasures on offer and taking good care of oneself.

[Matthew Brensilver]

The main point for me is not going unconscious around the question and just.

[Unknown]

Living with that question.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And then you see, how does that.

[Unknown]

Catalyze changes in one's own behavior?

[Matthew Brensilver]

And just that sense of almost a.

[Unknown]

Certain kind of wonder for the evolution of our own ethical being, like, how might I grow?

[Matthew Brensilver]

It's not a static thing where we.

[Unknown]

Just follow the precepts or something. It's like, how might my ethical being.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Be transformed in the same ways that other aspects of myself is transformed by practice?

[DJ Cashmere]

In our remaining time here, I want to digress pretty radically, maybe abruptly, too. But so, with apologies, I want to ask some maybe unrelated questions here. Every episode, somebody prepares for me a. I guess we call it a prep doc or a preparation document. And this one was prepared by our producer, DJ Cashmere, who has recently gone on a meditation retreat with you, Matthew. And he mentioned in the prep doc a few things that you said on that retreat that were compelling to me, that I thought I would enjoy just hearing you unpack them a little bit. So the first was you were talking to the people on this retreat where DJ was a retreatant. And I think you were talking to people about this tendency that many of us have. I have this in a big way to play what Joseph Goldstein calls the practice self assessment tapes, the way just obsessing on how am I, Am I doing it right? How am I doing? How far am I getting? Am I about to realize nirvana, whatever? And you said to the group something pretty compassionate, which is, how your retreat is going is none of your business, which I love. And I wonder if you could explain it and also explain whether it could apply to our daily meditation practice as well, because a lot of us, a lot of people listening, will never actually do a retreat.

[Unknown]

So the habits of our mind keep us so compulsively oriented to past and future. And then the present feels like it's.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Sandwiched between those two.

[Unknown]

And we're sort of always trying to gauge the trajectory of this moment.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Where is it going? Where is it going? Is it going towards goodness or away from goodness?

[Unknown]

Is it going towards what I want.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Or away from what I want?

[Unknown]

And that is Very much bound up in our biology, I feel. And each moment is a kind of.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Down payment on some future moment.

[Unknown]

And this moment, the present, is almost like a canary in the coal mine of the future.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Yeah. So we're just like, really vigilant. Is everything okay? Like, are all the parameters okay here?

[Unknown]

And that gets recapitulated in practice.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Right.

[Unknown]

And so it's like I take one breath, one mindful breath, and then I.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Want to ask myself the question, Matthew, are you more concentrated? How's this going? Right.

[Unknown]

And on retreat, in the context of.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Retreat, where there's less friction in the mind and it can really go in.

[Unknown]

Different directions, we get even more compulsive.

[Matthew Brensilver]

About asking, where does this moment point? Is this working? Am I accruing whatever I'm meant to accrue? Am I doing it right? Is this enough?

[Unknown]

And so that kind of notion of just one of my teachers, Michelle McDonald.

[Matthew Brensilver]

At one point said, it sounds so.

[Unknown]

Not meditative, but she said something like, you clock in and you clock out. Yeah, you just do your practice.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And sometimes I've thought of the analogy.

[Unknown]

That in lifting weights, if I were.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Lifting weights, doing reps to improve the.

[Unknown]

Strength of my bicep, I would not, after doing a rep, look over to my bicep and have a kind of.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Heart to heart of how it's going.

[Unknown]

To, you know, am I getting stronger? How was that rep? It would much more be like, well, a certain kind of surrender to just.

[Matthew Brensilver]

The practice itself, the exercise.

[Unknown]

I just did that rep. And we so privilege the kind of what is.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Accessible to us in consciousness, the sort.

[Unknown]

Of top layer of the mind, and especially the valence of it.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Is it pleasant or unpleasant? And we use that as the barometer for the entirety of our practice.

[Unknown]

And that is just another one of our weird preoccupations.

[Matthew Brensilver]

It's so natural, but it's like, no.

[Unknown]

Let us just do our practice.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Let us just do it.

[Unknown]

And then at some point, we sort.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Of have that metacognitive awareness to appreciate what has happened, what hasn't grown, what we've let go of, what we haven't.

[Unknown]

And we can do that at a reasonable cadence, but it's definitely not after each breath.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And so let us just.

[Matthew Brensilver]

This gesture of surrendering. And it's almost unbelievable how intense the human condition is.

[Unknown]

We cannot believe it. Just to pay attention to the breath.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And just to see the ways we're bombarded by sensory events. It's unbelievable.

[Unknown]

And so we are always assessing the.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Trajectory of it, but it's actually not so useful at various points in people's practice. And so, yeah, let it be not.

[Unknown]

Our business, and let us just keep.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Going with our synthetic sincerity, with our awareness, with our wisdom.

[DJ Cashmere]

I love that. The other thing you said on this retreat, per dj, I don't know if he's a reliable historian, so, yeah, I'm.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Sure DJ is very reliable.

[Unknown]

But I'm always afraid when people quote me back because I'm like, what did I say?

[Matthew Brensilver]

And maybe I'm going to be totally mortified by what I said in one context or another, but I'm ready, dad.

[Unknown]

Go. Go ahead, hit me. What did I say?

[DJ Cashmere]

Well, it's interesting you use the term mortified, because I'm going to ask about death. Per dj, you made some comment that was in the neighborhood of your having, after all of these years of practice, a significantly reduced fear of death. Would that be an accurate restatement of what you allegedly sat on this retreat?

[Unknown]

I think, yeah.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Death has become much less imposing.

[Unknown]

There's still fear for sure, and we don't really know how afraid we are until it's happening. But I do feel like practice has.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Engendered a certain sense of completion in my life, that my life has been.

[Unknown]

Complete and do I want more? Absolutely. Do I want to die now?

[Matthew Brensilver]

Absolutely not. But there is a sense of whatever.

[Unknown]

Else comes is gravy and that it.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Was enough, and that's a reasonable question.

[Unknown]

To ask, what makes life feel like enough? Otherwise we kind of wind up just wanting, always wanting more. But even 500 or 1000 years wouldn't feel like enough, actually.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And so what creates a certain sense.

[Unknown]

Of completion in our life and death.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Has a very hallowed position in the kind of pantheon of Buddhist practice and reflections.

[Unknown]

And for me, just my own experience, family conditioning. I really feel like, in the way I've been feeling conscious for a long.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Time, feeling like I was dying from very young.

[Unknown]

Not in a kind of.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Anxious way, but just the sense of the weight, of mortality, of my own.

[Unknown]

Of everyone I love.

[Matthew Brensilver]

That was a very acute sense from.

[Unknown]

Quite early on and a sense that.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Probably in some ways I got into practice and got it hooked into my.

[Unknown]

Heart because I had the intuitive sense.

[Matthew Brensilver]

That I was utterly unprepared to die.

[Unknown]

And to lose people. I love that the enormity of that.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Was such that it was almost unimaginable.

[Unknown]

That that could be absorbed in a.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Heart, not destroy my heart.

[Unknown]

And as a result, I feel in.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Some ways, we don't know why we get into practice or why we keep.

[Unknown]

Going exactly, but at some level, it.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Was and is an attempt to address.

[Unknown]

The truth of mortality and to prepare.

[Matthew Brensilver]

For that and to live in such.

[Unknown]

A way that life feels whole, that it feels complete. Yeah, that's what's arising in me now.

[DJ Cashmere]

What is the mechanism of practice that would allow you to feel like the rest of your life is gravy? You're playing with the house's money. Life feels completely complete.

[Matthew Brensilver]

I think it's about exploring the many.

[Unknown]

Chambers of the mind, and I think it's about love. I think it's about some sense of having deeply explored the human condition, the possibilities for well being, for very deep peace. Peace. It's about love. It's about, you know, when I volunteered.

[Matthew Brensilver]

In hospice some years ago.

[Unknown]

And so few things matter at the end of one's life but the legacy of love.

[Matthew Brensilver]

It's about the only thing that matters.

[Unknown]

From what I could see. And if it wasn't there, there was.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Nothing I could do, actually, often to.

[Unknown]

Support it, to support a better death. And there was a kind of sort of haunting realization of like, oh, I better love. Well, you know, I better be real.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Careful with how I live.

[Unknown]

Because that kind of legacy is going to be what is most salient in the mind at that time of death, if I'm conscious. So loving ourselves deeply, just a deep appreciation for all of our strength and.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Goodness and all our foibles and limitations.

[Unknown]

Loving others in sustained relationships of growing.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And being nourished by the love of.

[Unknown]

Others, and then loving widely, you know.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Very broadly, radically, for those we'll never meet, actually to know the boundlessness, the.

[Unknown]

Measurelessness of love, which I take to mean that there's nothing on the other side of it.

[Matthew Brensilver]

There's nothing outside the threshold of it.

[Unknown]

It's like that radical. And we can know these experiences in our own practice. We can know the sense of nothing.

[Matthew Brensilver]

But love, just the mind pervaded by it. Not this kind of amalgamated state.

[Unknown]

It just. There's nothing but love. And that leaves a kind of impression on our heart even amidst the intensities of daily life, amidst the aversion, amidst.

[Matthew Brensilver]

The anger, amidst frustration that serves as a kind of North Star, that sort of radical, expansive.

[Unknown]

Love is our birthright. That is possible even for a very ordinary person like myself. That's possible, to know that.

[Matthew Brensilver]

And this.

[Unknown]

Makes life feel more complete and more.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Ready to let go for that final time. All the training in letting go of.

[Unknown]

Unclenching the fist, of grasping, as I think Steve Armstrong used that phrase, like unclenching that fist.

[Matthew Brensilver]

We've practiced That a million times just sitting or in our life and then.

[Unknown]

I imagine the end of our life is the kind of grand surrender of control of ownership. So I don't practice with it in.

[Matthew Brensilver]

A very explicit way of contemplating it.

[Unknown]

Very actively in a rigorous technique oriented way. But it, it's just everywhere in practice too.

[DJ Cashmere]

That's a pretty rousing send off here. I think you give all of us, especially those of us which I have a suspicion it's most of us who, who haven't tasted what you've described. It's a good motivating sentiment to get us to keep putting our butts on the cushion. Before I let you go, can I get you to plug, if you're comfortable, you know, any resources that you've put out into the world where people can learn more about you, if not maybe even contact you?

[Matthew Brensilver]

I have a website that just matthewbrandsilver.org.

[Unknown]

My full name.org and that has recordings and links to Dharma seed and audio.

[Matthew Brensilver]

Dharma places where there are talks that are freely available.

[Unknown]

So people are welcome to that, of course.

[DJ Cashmere]

Thank you, Matthew. It's a pleasure to meet you and thanks for coming on.

[Unknown]

Thanks so much. Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

Thanks again to Matthew. Always love talking to him.

[Unknown]

Don't forget all this week at 4.

[Dan Harris]

Eastern, live on Substack, I will be kicking off a meditation miniseries where I will be focusing on some styles of meditation, meditation that I. I refer to as the, the Buddhist antidote to anxiety. I'm talking about the Brahma Viharas, these four interrelated styles of practice which include loving kindness, compassion, equanimity and something called sympathetic joy, which you can think of as the opposite of schadenfreude. Every day I'll talk for a few minutes, just setting up the Brahma Vihara that we'll be focusing on that day. Then I'll do 10 minutes of meditation, then I'll take your questions. By the way, if you can't make it live, we send out the session the next day via email so you.

[DJ Cashmere]

Can do it on your own time.

[Dan Harris]

Before I let you go, I just 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 Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorber of the band Islands wrote our theme.

[Unknown]

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