0:00

How are you going to talk about

0:02

issues related to our inner

0:04

weather, our interior lives.

0:07

What I was really trying to do was to

0:09

kind of knock this discussion off its pedestal,

0:12

stop using the woo language.

0:14

Really get away from overpromising

0:16

this kind of peddling of reckless hope, which I

0:19

see sometimes in our eleven

0:21

billion dollar a year self help industry.

0:23

To speak very simply, very

0:25

clearly from the perspective of a skeptic

0:28

and a screw up. Hi,

0:46

I'm Dr Oz and this is the

0:48

Doctor Oz podcast. Is

0:52

that exactly who you would be expecting that be touting

0:54

the benefits of meditation? ABC News

0:56

is Dan Harris has been through help and he's come back

0:58

and has the power of mindful this to thank for coming

1:00

out on the other side even stronger than before.

1:03

He's also the host of the wildly successful podcast

1:05

ten percent Happier, titled after the New York

1:07

Times bestselling book, and the author

1:10

of a new book, Meditation for Fidgy Skeptics,

1:12

which would be a topic today and ten percent Happier

1:14

book about how to so this

1:17

word tempercent keeps coming up least and I were debating it.

1:20

She wants to know specifically,

1:22

you know, I asked my fift of course you want

1:25

more. He wants percent happier,

1:28

happier. I do a lot of haggling ever since this

1:30

book came out. So we're gonna talk a little bit about this rocky

1:32

road to recovery that we all face in life.

1:35

You've been very transparent about it. I applaud you for that. But

1:37

it is a logical question why that number particularly must

1:39

have some symbolism for you. Actually, it's

1:41

pretty random. I was in the middle of a conversation

1:43

with one of my colleagues at ABC News

1:46

after I started meditating, and I this

1:48

is the I'd like to say that meditation

1:51

is the first My embrace of meditation

1:53

marks the first time in my life I was ever ahead of a trend.

1:56

I started getting interested in meditation in around two

1:58

thousand and eight two nine, but for it was

2:00

as cool as it is now. And

2:02

uh I started mentioning that to some people

2:05

I worked with, and uh

2:07

I was met with a lot of mockery

2:10

because at that time meditation was viewed

2:13

and still is viewed in some corners has a

2:15

pretty niche strange concern.

2:17

And I was talking to one of my colleagues, an

2:19

old friend UH named Chris Sebastian

2:22

who was the senior producer at Good Morning America.

2:24

And she stopped me one day, She's

2:26

like, what's the deal with you? In meditation? The

2:28

subtext was why have you used to be

2:31

cool? What happened to you? And I

2:33

kind of was looking around for an answer, and

2:35

I said, you know, it makes me ten percent happier.

2:38

And I noticed the look on her face went from

2:41

scorn to something approaching interest,

2:44

and I thought, Okay, that's my stick. That's how I'm

2:46

going to talk about this from now on. So let's

2:48

go to where you are. You're very

2:50

well respected within the business. Folks

2:52

outside of you know of your your

2:55

all the wonderful things you've done, hosting weekend

2:59

shows and and and pors beyond Gmail

3:01

all the time, as you mentioned, Yet

3:03

there were times in your life when you had fallen off

3:05

the tracks. Cocaine, ecstasy.

3:08

What did they do for you? You You had everything?

3:10

And I should want you're You're from May and originally

3:12

right, he went to school there. I went to school in May, but I'm from

3:14

Boston, now far away, but northeast,

3:16

northeast. Yes, you had a pretty good life people

3:19

in Maine and Boston can do drugs too,

3:21

of course they count I mean, these

3:23

are colleague parts of the country that have a

3:25

reasonable standard of living. And you went

3:28

to Colby's at right Colby College, so we

3:30

went to you know, great school, and you know you had

3:32

that out of the park in your career. What

3:35

gives My parents were doctors as a matter, doctor

3:37

Paris doctors. So what happened? I

3:40

went and spent a lot of time in war zones after

3:43

nine eleven. So I got to ABC News

3:46

very young. I was twenty eight years old in

3:48

the year two thousand, very ambitious,

3:50

very insecure about my lack of inexperience

3:52

and my lack of experience, and

3:55

uh, when nine eleven happened,

3:57

I very eagerly raised my hand and said, send

3:59

me over ease. I want to cover whatever happened next.

4:01

I think for a range of reasons

4:04

that partly was kind of crass

4:06

ambition careerism.

4:08

I think also curiosity, and then on

4:11

the more on the less embarrassing side

4:13

of the spectrum, I was I was very idealistic still

4:15

I am very idealistic about the power of journalism,

4:17

and I wanted to sort of bear witness to what we

4:19

were going to do, and uh,

4:21

my bosses accepted my offer and

4:23

I spent a lot of time in Afghanistan,

4:26

Pakistan, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza,

4:28

Iraq. I was in the rock months

4:30

and months and months and months at a time, and

4:33

when I came home from one trip to Iraq, I got

4:35

depressed. I didn't actually know I was

4:37

depressed. I was exhibiting

4:39

what I now know to be some of the signature signs

4:41

and symptoms. You'll be familiar with this in your practice

4:44

because of your practice as a physician. I was

4:46

having trouble getting out of bed. I felt like I had a

4:48

little grade fever all the time. And

4:51

that's when I reached. That is when I

4:53

reached for cocaine, which was an

4:55

incredibly dumb move. At a party.

4:57

I had never done drugs, hard drugs before

4:59

we and booze as a

5:01

younger person, but not really to excess,

5:04

and a friend of mine offered me some cocaine, and

5:06

for the first time of my life, I said yes because I felt like

5:08

garbage just didn't feel good

5:11

and it made me feel better. And so I

5:13

wasn't doing it all the time, but

5:15

there were about eighteen to twenty four

5:17

months where I was doing it semi regularly,

5:20

and that culminated in me having a panic

5:23

attack on Good Morning America because,

5:25

as I later learned, I was doing enough

5:27

cocaine. I wasn't high in the air, but I was doing enough

5:29

cocaine that had altered my brain chemistry and made

5:32

freaking out more likely. So

5:34

this is a an iconic moment.

5:36

You're on there, you

5:38

have this s Norge break down. The country

5:41

witnessed it, people did not know what was happening. Was

5:44

that rock bottom for you? Yeah? Definitely.

5:46

Actually I want to say

5:48

yes, but actually

5:51

it was I had a second one. So

5:54

I had this first panic attack and then

5:57

I kept partying. Actually I didn't.

5:59

I knew I had had a panic attack, and I kind of

6:01

lied to my bosses and got away with it. Because if

6:03

you look at the video and it's got millions

6:05

of views on YouTube, one of the responses

6:08

I get is, yeah, it didn't look that bad. I kind

6:10

of held it together. I mean, it's not

6:12

good, but it's not It's not like Albert

6:14

Brooks and broadcast news with flop sweat and

6:18

so, but that was it was people who knew

6:20

you. That wasn't it was. My mother called me right

6:22

away and said, you had a panic attack. So I knew

6:24

something about it happened, but I didn't really tie

6:26

it to the drugs. And then I a

6:28

couple of months went by and I had another one,

6:31

and then I went to go see a shrink uh here

6:33

in New York City who asked

6:35

me whether I did drugs and I said yes,

6:37

and he was like, all right, idiot, you know, mystery

6:39

solved and that that's what

6:42

That was rock bottom for me, and that's you

6:44

know, I started to build from there. So you

6:46

go, for me, the war correspondent waiting

6:49

to hear what you have to say about text going on other parts

6:51

of the world that that should scare us, because you're

6:53

actually there, you become the faith and

6:55

spiritual correspondent. I mean's almost like the opposite

6:58

side of the spectral, not just

7:00

geographically but emotionally intellectually.

7:05

Was that obviously conscious decision? But how did you even

7:07

come to that epiphany that maybe that was what she needed

7:09

to do? It wasn't. I didn't come to that

7:11

epiphany, and it wasn't a conscious decision on my

7:13

part. It was a conscious decision on the part of a guy

7:16

named Peter Jennings. Who was Peter. Peter

7:19

took me intervention. No,

7:21

actually, he had no idea any of this stuff

7:23

was going on, and and he just he

7:26

was interested in faith in spirituality and

7:28

wanted us to cover it aggressively, and

7:31

I didn't want to do that. I

7:33

was raised, as mentioned in the People's Republic

7:35

of Massachusetts. Both my parents

7:37

are atheist scientists. I

7:40

did have a bar mitzvah, but only for money. Um.

7:42

So, like I was not interested in

7:44

spirituality at all, but Peter

7:47

forced me to do it, and that ended

7:49

up having a really positive effect on me, because

7:52

it's not like I embraced any faith,

7:54

but I did. I

7:57

saw first of all how ignorant I was about faith

7:59

in spiritual reality. I made a lot of friends and

8:01

so and really sort of value of having

8:03

a worldview that transcends your own narrow interests.

8:06

For me, as a very selfish, young, self

8:08

centered young man, that was pretty useful.

8:11

Um. But ultimately the

8:13

faith in spirituality be led me to

8:15

a writer whose name is Eckhart.

8:17

Totally have you guys heard of him? Okay,

8:20

So that's

8:24

a that's a sentence most people don't get to utter.

8:28

Would be on the show with me, so I

8:31

mean, I'm not on the same show, but we do two shows

8:33

to day. I'd be the morning, he'd be the afternoon, so you could

8:35

sort of sit back and and talk to me. You

8:37

have a round your bust, I mean, people listening. It should happens

8:40

that you run someone you have no idea who you are,

8:42

and you feel how you rust, how blessed you are that you ran

8:44

into that which happened to not just car

8:46

totally, but we'll get to deep back in a second as well.

8:49

Yeah. So one

8:51

of my colleagues was a big fan of Eckhart

8:53

totally, and she said, you know, she should read his book because he might

8:55

be a good TV story for your whole faith in spirituality.

8:57

Be by the way, for the uninitiated, are

9:00

totally is a big, huge, mega

9:02

best selling self help guru, powered

9:04

in many ways by Oprah, who

9:06

loves his work. And I read his

9:09

book were one of his books.

9:14

That's actually I like, everyone knows his

9:17

other book, but but I think A New Earth

9:19

is his best book. I really think it's powerful. I

9:21

agree with you, although I have to say

9:24

I'm pretty skeptical guy. And when I read that

9:27

book at first, I had a I

9:29

had negative reactions to much of what was in

9:31

it, Like the way he talks and writes is

9:33

pretty soft and fluffy. For

9:35

for me, I have it just a

9:37

particular idiosyncratic makeup,

9:40

and some of his invoking

9:43

of vibrational fields and spiritual awakenings

9:45

didn't sit well with me. Um

9:48

And Yet I continued to read his book even though

9:50

I was thinking he was b

9:53

s uh, and he though

9:55

I'm glad I did because he started to talk

9:58

about a thesis about the human situation, and I'm

10:00

sure you're familiar with, which is that we all have a voice in

10:02

our heads, that we have this inner narrator and ego

10:04

whatever you wanna call it, that's just chasing us

10:07

around all the time and yammering at

10:09

us and has us wanting stuff or not wanting

10:11

stuff, comparing ourselves to people thinking

10:13

about the past or thinking about the future, to the detriment

10:16

of whatever's happening right now and

10:18

when. And Totally's argument

10:20

is, as you know, when you're unaware of this NonStop

10:23

conversation that you're having with yourself,

10:25

it owns you. And that to

10:27

me was an incredibly powerful argument, because

10:30

first of all, it just struck me as intuitively true. I never

10:32

heard it before, by the way, and this and

10:34

the second part was that it explained the voice

10:36

explained my pack attack because it was the voice

10:39

in my head, my ego whatever that sent me off to war

10:41

zones without thinking about the consequences

10:43

that I came home, I got depressed, didn't

10:45

know it, and then self medicated blindly

10:47

and it all blew up in my face. So Kard

10:50

totally had a huge impact on me. Even though I like to

10:52

make fun of there's

10:55

lots more will be come back. Yeah,

11:07

So you transition from Mekrt to someone

11:09

that I've gotten no pretty wealth de fact Chopra,

11:12

who influenced me a lot. I remember watching pps

11:14

specials he was doing as a medical

11:17

student, and he seemed to connect the

11:19

dots that that I needed desperate

11:21

help with because you go many people going

11:23

to medicine, and I was in that group because

11:26

we all not just because we want to help people. That's part

11:28

of it, and I do believe that sincerely is a passion

11:30

that most doctors have, but there's also a

11:32

little bit of a selfish desire to understand more about

11:34

the world that we're in and how can you understand the world outside

11:37

of you. If you don't understand the world inside of you, then

11:39

you go to medical school in your lize you don't actually get all

11:41

of it. I kept waiting for the day when I really

11:43

was a doctor, because the doctor knows everything and

11:46

her. I am decades later, and

11:48

I still have that same the queasiness

11:50

that people expect me to know it all, and there's

11:52

something none of us really know, and

11:55

you need to go one step deeper to get there, because

11:57

the medicine are answering different questions right medicine

11:59

asking what is this? What is this table made of? Not

12:01

why is it made of? That? Which is what some

12:03

of these deeper spiritual practices take you into.

12:06

So how did how did the Deepak interaction

12:08

affect you? Well, I don't know how this

12:10

is going to go down in this room. But I also make fun of Deepak

12:12

a little bit because he has a

12:14

way of talking that's pretty

12:17

sort of out there. And sometimes

12:20

I a scientist who

12:22

Deepak went on to write a book with this guy. But I was

12:25

moderating a debate one time and with Deepak

12:27

and an atheist philosopher named Sam

12:29

Harris, and there were a few other people in the stages. Well,

12:31

no relationship and no relationship with that, but Sam

12:34

and I are pretty pretty tight. Um. We share

12:36

a lot of the sort of skeptical

12:38

genes. So uh. One

12:40

of the science scientists got up in the audience and said

12:43

something to Deepak that I've always thought was

12:45

very funny. He says, he said, I understand

12:47

the words you're using individually, but not

12:50

in the order in which you're using them. So he

12:52

says Deepak a lot of things

12:54

that like, I don't understand

12:56

what he's saying. He'll casually use phrases

12:58

like the transformational vortex to the

13:01

infinite um and things like that, and so

13:03

I do. He's a pretty good copy for me

13:05

as a writer. So I've made fun of him

13:07

a little bit. I did make fun of him a little bit in my book.

13:09

And yet I agree with you that

13:11

he's asking questions about

13:14

what's beyond the hard facts

13:17

in UH that we rely on in

13:19

medicine and science. And

13:21

and also he's been a really effective advocate

13:24

for meditation on a grand scale. So

13:26

I tease him a little bit, but I to

13:28

the extent that I know him, I like him, and I do think

13:31

he's been a force for good. If Brian Green

13:33

used a similar phrase, you

13:35

know, maybe tweaked slightly about the vortex, you

13:37

probably also wouldn't understand it, but it would be

13:39

purely based in science. He's

13:43

a physicist at Columbia,

13:45

is brilliant, boryant. He did um a

13:48

bunch of PPS series as well. Um.

13:51

Anyway, my only point is that there

13:53

is an area where what Deepak

13:55

is talking about, which is sort

13:58

of the trans

14:00

transcendent view of the cosmos

14:03

and and physics,

14:05

especially new physics, converge

14:08

where we get to that space where there's

14:11

something we don't understand but it is.

14:14

It is powerful. You know, they're

14:17

there are a bunch of books like the Dancing

14:19

Wouie Masters was that I think what it was

14:21

called Copras

14:24

books and um. The more

14:26

we I think, the deeper we go into physics,

14:28

the more like the string theory. There's

14:30

and parallel universes. It sounds

14:33

like deep packs talking, but it's actually just

14:37

physicist. No what I'm saying. What I'm saying that it

14:39

has the same, It rings the same

14:41

to a layman's ears. Yes, I

14:44

was with Deepack at an event that actually was hosted

14:47

as a Vatican and it

14:49

was on medicine ethics, and

14:51

they had brought together a bunch of philosophers.

14:54

And I don't know if you talk to philosophers very much, but

14:56

in a similar fashion to your

14:58

the audience member of Deep Talking said, I know what the

15:00

words mean individually, but put up, you know, I don't know what a

15:02

spiral, vortext whatever.

15:05

Yeah, uh, I was Depeck

15:08

was in the conversation with me, and I was listening

15:10

to them talk amongst each other. And

15:12

I come from a specialty of field where

15:14

we're often using words not on purpose,

15:16

but because it becomes habit that no one else

15:18

but us understands. Medicine is guilty of

15:20

that, probably as much as any other specially lawyers,

15:23

are guilty of it. You're in

15:25

a in a field where you're specifically

15:27

don't do that, because your job is to explain

15:29

to us things we don't really get and maybe take

15:31

us place as we would have gone otherwise. But I

15:33

wastenessing these philosophers talking to each other, and I couldn't

15:35

understandything we're talking about. I didn't I really

15:37

the same thing. I knew what the words meant individually,

15:40

but they had clear connotations, so I

15:42

I thought you know, I'm a smart

15:44

enough guy that I can understand this. Give me some papers,

15:47

send me the articles that you guys are writing, because they're writing

15:49

off ped pieces, and like they sent me some of them. Then

15:51

I could understand them. I would read them all.

15:53

I read the backwards. I could understand them. They're

15:55

like hwever and it was like hieroglyphics, but of

15:57

syntax, not of words. And

16:00

it was very frustrating to me. And then I realized

16:02

my brain hadn't trained itself to

16:04

think the way at least these philosophers.

16:06

In addition, deep back and some of these guys were their data

16:09

people. Some of them were you know, there were

16:11

some physicists there. Their minds just worked in a

16:13

different way. In many ways. If you listen

16:15

to musicians talk about the music, they'll use

16:17

phrases that I'm not comfortable with, just I'm

16:19

not in this field. They'll talk about gigs.

16:22

I get what a gig is, right, but

16:24

but it's a performance. But I don't know what the other

16:26

things said after that. Do you ever feel that as

16:28

you try to do research in their spirituality? Absolutely?

16:31

You know, this gets back in many ways to the question you

16:33

asked at the beginning, which is why ten percent happier?

16:35

And the answer is it has to do with language.

16:37

How are you going to talk about

16:40

issues related to our inner

16:42

weather or interior lives

16:45

that can speak to a broad audience.

16:48

And what I was really trying to do was

16:50

to kind of knock this discussion

16:52

off its pedestal, stop using

16:55

the woo woo language, really get away

16:57

from overpromising this kind of

16:59

peddling of less hope which I see

17:01

sometimes in our eleven billion dollar

17:03

a year self help industry. And that's

17:06

what I was trying to get at, to speak

17:08

very simply, very clearly from the perspective

17:11

of a skeptic and a screw up. Uh.

17:14

And and also to as

17:16

I said, to sort a counter program against

17:19

some of the more pernicious parts

17:21

of of the self

17:23

help industry. There's a humble nous

17:25

too the way you speak this that

17:27

you call yourself a scrub. We're all scrubs. I want

17:30

to hear my voice and screw up. And if you don't realize

17:32

that yet, you'll figure it out. Uh.

17:34

You know, osmandis in the making, But

17:36

h there's still wisdom that

17:39

people who are screwed up can use to minimize

17:41

the scrubs. So, for example, you speak to the in between

17:43

moments, Why what are they? Why are they

17:45

so important for our listener? I think we

17:48

live and this is not my diagnosis that car

17:50

Totally talks about this. Some guy who was alive

17:53

years before KR Totally, whose name is the

17:55

Buddha, talked about this too, which

17:57

is that we kind of live in

17:59

this in this leaned

18:01

forward state, we're just

18:04

always on the hunt for the next hit

18:06

of dopamine, the next latte, the

18:08

next appointment, the

18:10

next party. We're always kind of leaned

18:13

forward, never quite where we are right

18:15

now, and in that state

18:17

we often tend to overlook much of our lives,

18:19

and much of our lives are spent waiting

18:22

online, waiting for an elevator,

18:25

uh, without very

18:27

much to do, on an airplane, etcetera,

18:29

etcetera, or you know, playing with your

18:31

child and poured out of your mind. I have a four

18:33

year old, so I'm intimately familiar with this

18:35

state. Can you, however, co opt

18:38

those moments, those in between

18:40

moments, to be right where

18:42

you are, to tune into what's happening

18:44

right now, because, by the way, that's all

18:46

you ever get. Both at Art and Deepak

18:49

talk about this in different ways. Uh

18:51

In Eckhart would say the power

18:53

of now. Deepak would say the present

18:55

moment as the transformational vortex to the infinite.

18:58

I would just say, you know, it's all you've

19:00

got right now. Your whole life

19:02

takes place right now. The past and

19:04

the future are thoughts, you

19:07

know, They're just formulations, which,

19:09

by the way, I'm not running them down. This is

19:11

what makes us human, the ability to prognosticate,

19:13

to reject into the future and think

19:16

about the past and learn from the past. So there's

19:18

I'm not I'm not saying we shouldn't engage in that,

19:20

but recognize that much of our lives are lived

19:22

in this kind of autopilot, this fog of projection

19:25

and rumination, as opposed to being right where

19:27

you are. How does how does the

19:30

awareness of the present moment help

19:33

you deal with post

19:35

traumatic stress from the time

19:37

that you were overseas? IM wanna answer

19:39

that question. I'm not gonna say something first about PTSD.

19:42

So which is which is that I don't have

19:44

it? So? Um, are

19:46

you sure? Because you witness some really horrific

19:49

thing I did? I did. But it's two

19:51

things about that. One is that much less

19:54

this is I'm not saying this in a cavalier way. I'm actually

19:57

saying this in a in a wrecking

20:00

noizing that what I've seen and witnessed

20:02

is very little compared to many

20:05

other more seasoned war correspondents, and of

20:07

course compared to the actual warriors,

20:09

men and women on the front lines. But more

20:11

importantly, I think, and I've done quite a

20:13

bit of psychotherapy, I think the issue for me wasn't

20:16

trauma. It was and this is actually

20:18

quite common when I'm about to say, among both

20:21

journalists, work correspondents and warriors

20:24

is a kind of addiction and a kind of addiction

20:26

to the action. So when I came

20:28

home from war zones, what

20:31

was making me depressed was that life here, even

20:33

though we're in the greatest city on Earth, in my opinion, seemed

20:36

gray and boring. And even though I have this incredible

20:38

job and was out covering presidential campaigns

20:40

and being on TV and talking to Peter Jennings

20:43

and blah blah blah it, what just couldn't

20:45

compare to being in war zones. There's

20:47

an expression, there's nothing more thrilling than

20:49

the bullet that misses. And you know,

20:51

for me, they all Winston

20:55

Churchill's exactly right. So I it was

20:57

the it was the list life and death. It's life

20:59

at it's most heightened. Absolutely

21:01

absolutely, And so for me it was the darkness

21:04

of the universe. Okay, no, I mean, I believe

21:06

me. I've seen a lot of darkness, um,

21:09

but it

21:11

to my knowledge consciously, that's

21:13

not driving me as much as

21:15

my kind of addiction to the

21:17

you know, dopamine hits of thrill,

21:20

and so I was getting that synthetically

21:23

through cocaine. When I got home. You

21:25

asked a deeper question. I was just asking how

21:27

the meditation helps you not

21:29

need that, not be seeking. Why? Why

21:31

is being aware of the present moment an

21:34

antidote to the

21:36

thrill seeking of the elevated

21:38

cocaine state, or the ecstasy or the

21:40

war zone. In my opinion, this is the

21:43

key question, right, This is why

21:45

one would meditate, in my opinion, because

21:48

it's about self awareness. It's about

21:51

when you're in the when you're awake right

21:53

now, you're seeing what is

21:55

clearly, you're hopefully seeing clearly what

21:57

is happening right now internally and externally,

22:00

and when especially when you're seeing things clearly

22:02

internally, when you're aware of the sort

22:04

of inner cacophony of random thoughts,

22:07

powerful emotions, desires,

22:10

um then you're not owned by them as

22:12

much. And meditation is

22:15

a systematic waking up to what's

22:17

happening right now where you sit and try

22:19

to in the kind of meditation I practice, which is

22:21

different than what you guys do, when we can talk

22:23

about those differences if you want. But in mindfulness

22:25

meditation, you sit, try to focus on your

22:27

breath, and then every time you get distracted,

22:30

you start again and again and again, and we use

22:32

the breath as an anchor to bring us back to

22:34

the present moment. And the distraction

22:37

is natural and the whole game and

22:39

meditation, the art of meditation is learning

22:41

how to handle that distraction well, to blow it

22:43

a kiss when you notice if whocomes distracted instead of

22:45

feeding yourself up and then come back, come

22:47

back, come back. And it's the coming back that

22:50

is the meditation and the healing part

22:52

of this is that the more you're aware

22:55

of the sort of

22:57

inner tumult, then it has less

22:59

power of you. So for example, for me,

23:01

I can see more clearly how leaned forward

23:03

I am, how I'm always looking for that

23:06

next thrill, that next book publication

23:08

that next I don't know, a nice article about

23:10

me, or next deal I can close,

23:12

etcetera, etcetera. The next podcast I can

23:15

do with the oz is with etcetera, etcetera.

23:18

Then I can, then I can. It doesn't mean

23:20

that's all going to go away. It just means that

23:22

it can recede into the backdrop a little bit, because

23:24

I can bloat the kiss, salute it, and say, okay,

23:27

it's here. But I don't need to act

23:29

out of that space. More

23:31

questions after the break just

23:44

I usually do trans ol meditation, which

23:46

just frankly, I also use breathing to get into

23:49

it. And then there's a mantra that I learned,

23:51

but I actually I could

23:53

easily find myself doing mindfulness

23:55

meditation, which I you know, John cabots

23:57

in it work with beyond

24:00

years ago when I was trying to figure out this all out, I actually

24:02

got induce this from Lisa's parents, who

24:04

are way ahead of the curve on

24:06

this stuff, and I began to believe

24:09

that it must be you biquitous he done.

24:11

Only later that I realized that very few people

24:13

were doing it, which sort of made sense

24:15

to me after a while, and one of the reasons that

24:17

I think people weren't doing it. Some people

24:19

was I think clouded belief systems from

24:22

the sixties because you know, the Beatles

24:24

were going to India and they were bringing back

24:27

you know, but people thought was so soft, touchy

24:29

feely stuff. But there's also the belief

24:31

that you would lose your edge if you meditated.

24:34

What do you say to those folks? I would

24:36

say, I have a bunch of things to say to people who

24:38

are worried about losing their edge because of meditation. One

24:41

is, look at the people who are doing it these days.

24:43

It's all over the corporate

24:45

c suites. You know, you've got senior

24:47

executives doing it. You've got elite

24:50

entertainers from Katie Perry, Lena

24:52

Dunham, the lead singer of Weezer, fifty cent

24:55

meditating. You've got the U. S.

24:57

Marines in the U. S. Army spending

24:59

tens of million of dollars to research whether it

25:01

can make troops or less emotionally

25:03

reactive in the field, making better decisions in the

25:05

field and then more resilient when they come home

25:08

in the face of what has become a scourge of PTSD.

25:11

And those research results are really interesting

25:13

and compelling. You've got scientists

25:15

doing it, lawyers doing it, you've got teachers

25:17

doing it. They're doing in prison, they're doing it

25:19

in schools. It's happening all over the place.

25:21

These are not the exception perhaps of

25:24

prison. These are not low performing,

25:26

low functioning human beings. These are highly

25:29

effective people who have

25:31

not lost their edge. You're gonna tell the

25:33

CEO of Twitter, whatever you think of Twitter, that

25:35

you know that he's a slouch. I think he's a ceo of two companies

25:38

at once. We've got a lot of the Chicago

25:40

because Djokovic, all

25:42

of these people who are highly effective.

25:45

You you Ray

25:47

Dalio, who's running a big hedge fund.

25:50

So it is a It is

25:52

a way if you think you'll have less edge

25:55

if you boost your ability to focus

25:57

and boost your ability to

26:00

not be owned by all of your random emotions,

26:02

so you can be the commonest person, the kindest

26:05

person in the room in a in a difficult situation,

26:07

Well then you shouldn't meditate. But I

26:10

don't think anybody thinks that. I'm

26:12

gonna take a quick segue if you don't mind, because

26:15

meditation, to me has provided a remarkably

26:17

important tool to

26:19

get past stuff saying

26:22

to myself that often blocks my creativity.

26:24

So it helps me work harder

26:26

that I normally would be able to work, probably because I can

26:28

focus better, but also I can work smarter. And

26:30

these you know mentioned vessels that we each have in

26:32

our lives, and we've got to fill them with whatever fluid

26:35

we use. It's a metaphor that a friend of

26:37

this is uh and mine gave me because

26:39

he's a Buddhist American, but

26:41

Buddhist, and you think he's right, And we use different

26:43

fluids, and meditation I think for some people

26:46

allows them to fill the vessels in a different way. Meditative

26:48

practices are found in much of our mythology

26:51

and much of our religion. What do you think

26:53

about some of these concepts and how they might actually

26:55

intertwine with more organized ways in which

26:57

we study the world around us to

27:00

spiritual practices in particular. You know

27:03

where I'm sort of and where I'm gonna

27:05

take this, and I don't know if this is at all what you

27:07

were intending, So I apologize in advance of taking this

27:09

in a different direction, which is that I think

27:11

a lot of people you were talking before about

27:14

the Beatles studying meda

27:16

Yes, the Maharishi, Mahashi,

27:19

etcetera, etcetera, And and how meditation

27:22

is kind of seen as this fuzzy,

27:25

fluffy thing in an era

27:27

that's increasingly secular. Now, um,

27:30

I actually think Um, while as I

27:32

said before that I'm I think I might have used

27:35

the term atheist, but I'm more of an agnostic,

27:37

a sort of respectful agnostic. I don't know. I don't

27:39

take a view on issues metaphysical

27:42

issues, but I do think in an era where

27:44

we're seeing less um

27:46

attend is sort of lower attendance

27:48

that organized religious events and

27:51

more sort of a cafeterious spirituality

27:53

out there, I do think that meditation can

27:55

play an incredibly positive role because people

27:57

are looking for meaning. So

27:59

why they go to soul cycle, this is why they go to cross

28:01

fit. You know, people are out there looking for meaning.

28:03

There's an increased sort of skepticism and maybe

28:06

cynicism about organized religion, perhaps

28:08

for good reason, given some of the scandals we've

28:10

seen. And I do

28:13

think that meditation is something is

28:15

a very hopeful sign in

28:17

an increasingly acrimonious

28:19

UH society. But just to

28:21

add to that, meditation is a

28:24

part of most religion. It is right

28:26

if you mean, when I sit in a church

28:28

service and we you know, we'll go with a

28:31

Lesa's family that the beautiful cathedral

28:33

where they live, and you sit in there, it's it's

28:35

wonderful to hear people singing. I don't even care

28:37

what they're singing. It's just the thought of all these voices

28:39

in unison saying phrases

28:42

that are that have a melody to them and

28:44

are uplifting. It's wonderful. And I think it came about

28:46

Judaism uh Sufi Islam,

28:49

which is you know, was in the

28:51

town when my father grew up, uh you know,

28:53

certainly in the Eastern religions. It's

28:55

it's more explicitly stated. It does

28:57

seem like meditative practices in ways

28:59

of getting there are hard wired

29:01

into us. Absolutely, And it's so

29:04

incredible that you see these

29:06

meditative practices popping up

29:08

in faiths that came

29:10

about in cultures that were

29:13

not in any way connected by space

29:16

and time. Right, So you've got the shamans

29:18

in the in in the rainforests

29:21

of Brazil doing these shamanic practices,

29:23

often involving plants that

29:25

were meditative and trying

29:28

they're trying to transcend the ego and

29:30

reach for spiritual enlightenment. You have meanwhile,

29:33

in your dad's hometown Sufi

29:35

um Islams uh

29:38

Sufi Muslims dancing in

29:40

circles. They're called whirling dervishes. That's

29:42

where that term comes from. And that

29:44

gets you into a trance state which is meant to

29:46

transcend the the work a day ego

29:49

and put you into a different state.

29:51

You see the desert fathers in Christianity.

29:54

What are the rosary beads if not a way to

29:56

to focus the mind? You see

29:59

this in cabal Judaism. You see

30:01

it, of course, as you said, explicitly in

30:04

Judaism and Buddhism and Hinduism.

30:06

And so how why did we Why

30:08

did we come to this? Because as

30:10

you said, we're hard wired UH.

30:13

Something in a sees that the daily

30:15

discursive mind trips us

30:17

up and there needs to be a way to get

30:19

out of our own way. One final parameditation

30:23

question. There's been a lot of medical

30:26

debate of late about hallucinogens

30:29

and Wilson, one of the founders

30:31

A, actually stopped drinking because of

30:34

some probably hallucinogen induced

30:37

UH trance or state that he achieved

30:39

nearly thirties, and he tried to introduce LSD

30:42

to alcoholics anonymous for

30:44

most of his adult life, and now we're seeing

30:46

a rebirth of some of those interest Kindaman just got approved

30:49

for the Pressure States and

30:51

PTSD approvals coming up. Uh. You

30:53

know micro does give LSD s use a lot

30:55

in Silicon Valley, for example, people say gives

30:57

them creativity. I know the magic

30:59

mush and psilocybin um is being

31:01

used clinically now in you know, pre

31:04

addictive manage measurement, addictions of alcoholism,

31:06

uh uh, opiates,

31:09

as well as some of the more important

31:11

psychiatric issues anxiety in the face of chronic

31:13

illness. These are shortcuts

31:16

I think. I don't know, but I think they're shortcuts

31:19

to what you might get through a life of meditation.

31:22

Thoughts on and Shamans. You mentioned in Amazon

31:24

they would use ahahuasca. They would use it normally just

31:27

to be clear. They would use it and then they

31:29

would explain what they saw their practicis. But they were probably

31:31

using for people who are having issues as well, so

31:33

appropriately supervised, could

31:35

these play a role? I

31:37

am I want to issue the caveat

31:40

that this is just one guy speaking who is semi informed.

31:42

Um, I'm really

31:45

intrigued by this, and I think we are starting

31:47

to see a lot of evidence that this can I've had a lot

31:49

of folks on my podcast coming to talk about this. I

31:51

think we're seeing a lot of evidence, um

31:54

that this can have really salutary

31:56

effects. I think it's a great shame that we

31:59

lost decades is Nixon, where this stuff

32:01

was outlawed, where we couldn't conduct

32:03

the research around it. I think at the very

32:05

least we should be able to conduct the research

32:08

to see whether these this plant

32:10

medicine, these psychedelics can help

32:12

people, and and the early signs from what I

32:14

can tell, are incredibly positive. I have

32:16

not done it because my shrink really

32:18

does not want me messing with my brain chemistry given the

32:21

fact that I panic disorder. But if we're

32:23

that not the case, I would have done it. I'm

32:25

a control freak, so I don't want to go first.

32:28

But I don't blame but I sure you believe

32:30

that there's a hypocrisy around allowing physicians

32:33

to do what they should do to help people be illnesses.

32:36

And when I start to see some of the data around

32:38

solutions for people who had no other options,

32:41

and then I think, okay, well the d A might stop this. We're

32:43

putting the emphasis to power in the hands people don't

32:45

even wanted. I've spoken to people the DA said, please

32:47

don't make us spake a decision here. We don't want to be in that space.

32:50

We want to take care of bad guys, not good

32:52

people. Try to help other good people. Then

32:54

there's always always ten percent happier.

32:56

And he looks happier today. How I tamed the voice

32:58

in my head, reduced stress without losing

33:01

my edge, and found self help that actually

33:03

works. It's a true story about a good friend

33:05

and some SOMEONOST really accomplished quite a bit with this

33:07

podcast. Wonderful successful. In fact, all the things

33:09

you do seem to be touched with successful.

33:12

Bless you for that. I did host the failed game show.

33:14

But other than that, I'll do it all right. That most

33:17

score. I love it, though I want to put it on my resume

33:20

until it Happy head

33:22

Harris, Thank you guys, thank you, this

33:25

is fun. Thank you. I really appreciate it.