dharma

A wide ranging interview with one the biggest and most controversial names in the self-help world. 

Deepak Chopra is the founder of the Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality. He is a best selling author, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His new book, Quantum Body: The New Science of Living a Longer, Healthier, More Vital Life, is out now. 

In this episode we talk about:

• Deepak’s definition of the quantum field
• How Deepak handles criticism 
• The concept of creative intelligence 
• Breathing techniques, including vagal breathing and box breathing
• The benefits of imagining your own death 
• The exercise of returning to your zero point
• The concept of the body as a verb
• And the difference between the localized 'I' and the non-local 'I'

Related Episodes: 

Click here to listen to the previous episodes in our tenth anniversary series.

To order the revised tenth anniversary edition of 10% Happier: click here 

For tickets to Dan Harris: Celebrating 10 Years of 10% Happier at Symphony Space: click here

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At times it feels like thinking trips us up more often than it helps. In this session, everyday New Yorker—and meditation luminary—Sharon Salzberg coaches you toward feeling more empowered relating to your own thoughts.

About Sharon Salzberg:

A towering figure in the meditation world, Sharon Salzberg is a prominent teacher & New York Times best-selling author. She has played a crucial role bringing mindfulness and lovingkindness practices to the West.

Sharon co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield and is the author of thirteen books, including Lovingkindness, Real Happiness, Real Love, and the most recent Finding Your Way. Sharon lives in New York City and teaches around the world.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Getting Some Space from Your Thoughts.” 

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Three tools for living a “passion-struck” life.

John R Miles is a former naval officer and corporate titan who has made it his business to study what it means to find passion and purpose in your life. He is the host of the Passion Struck Podcast and the author of the new book Passion Struck: Twelve Powerful Principles to Unlock Your Purpose and Ignite Your Most Intentional Life.

In this episode we talk about:

• A visualization technique for setting your priorities
• Why “autopilot” is the wrong metaphor for an unlived life
• The five “transition points” on “the journey to becoming passion struck” 

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You may be breathing wrong. Here’s how to fix it. 

At times, self-improvement can seem like a never-ending hallway filled with limitless shame and insufficiency. So when something as simple as the breath falls into this category, it seems only natural to meet that news with some resistance. Our guest today, James Nestor, argues that many of us, of all things, are breathing incorrectly but that by fixing our breathing, it can help with both physical and psychological ailments.

Nestor is a science journalist who wrote a book called, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, which spent 18 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was translated into more than 35 languages.

In this episode we talk about:

• How Nestor got interested in breathing in the first place
• Why we are the worst breathers in the animal kingdom
• The importance of posture
• The deleterious effects of mouth breathing
• Why we need to chew more
• The relationship between breathing and anxiety
• The relationship between breathing and sleep
• And we dive into a variety of breathing exercises

Where to find James Nestor online:

Website: www.mrjamesnestor.com

Social Media:

• Facebook
• Instagram

Book Mentioned:

• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art

Other Resources Mentioned:

• Daniel E. Lieberman
• The Wim Hof Method
• Dr. Stanislav Grof and holotropic breathwork
• Dr. Richard P. Brown
• Matthew P. Walker
• More on Kundalini Yoga and Breathing
• Sudarshan Kriya
• Dr. Herbert Benson and tummo breathing technique

Related Episodes:

Three Lessons from Happiness Research | Emma Seppälä

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/james-nestor-rerun

Additional Resources:

• Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

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Sometimes perseverance is overrated. An argument for strategic quitting.

Julia Keller is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, novelist, and playwright. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature from The Ohio State University and has taught at Princeton University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Notre Dame, and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. She was the chief book critic at The Chicago Tribune for many years before quitting the world of daily journalism to write books. 

In this episode we talk about:

• The history behind why quitting gets such a bad rap 
• What happens in our brains when we quit 
• Why we don’t give enough credit to quitting
• The myth of perseverance 
• How to talk to our children about healthy quitting
• The power of having a community of quitters

Related Episodes:

• The Myth of the Dream Job | Simone Stolzoff
• How To Find Meaningful Work in a Rapidly Changing World | Bruce Feiler

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Additional Resources:

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Our ability to focus is not lost, it’s just changing. Here’s what we can adapt.

Here’s a horrifying fact: the average attention span has now declined to just 47 seconds on any particular screen. 47 seconds! How did this happen? How can we get anything done this way?

Today we’re going to meet the scientist who’s done this research, find out what’s driving this, and what we can do about it. And the good news is we really can do things about this.

We're experiencing a fundamental shift in how we think, work, and focus. It shows up in our blizzard of notifications, zoom fatigue, task switching, and burn out. 

Dr. Gloria Mark is the Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She has been a visiting senior researcher at Microsoft Research since 2012. She’s written a book called Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity

In this episode we talked about:

• Four myths about attention and technology
• The problem with frequent task-switching
• The surprising (to me) value of rote or mindless activities
• How to recognize when we are most distracted 
• How to design your day based on your attentional resources
• How practicing forethought can help boost our attention and focus 
• And Her thoughts on digital detoxes 

This episode is part of the latest installment of an occasional series we do, called Sanely Ambitious. If you missed last week's episodes, go check them out. We talked about the science of optimal performance, and also the science of failure, meaning how to fail well. Coming up on Wednesday we’re gonna talk about what the research says about when to quit, not just your job, but any endeavor. We will put links in the show notes.

Related Episodes:

The Science of Optimal Performance—at Work and Beyond | Daniel Goleman

The Science of Failing Well | Amy Edmondson

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/gloria-mark

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Gently opening to the full sensations of anxiety and even making friends with it can actually create more calm and peace in your body.

About Leslie Booker:

After training as a yoga teacher in 2007, Booker was drawn to Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Mindful Yoga and Meditation training which she completed in 2012. She is a co-founder of the Yoga Service Council at Omega Institute and the Meditation Working Group of Occupy Wall Street. In 2020 she was invited to be a Sojourner Truth Leadership Fellow through Auburn Seminary and was voted by her peers as one of the 12 Powerful Women in the Mindfulness Movement. She currently lives in Philadelphia with her partner and pup and is the Co-Guiding Teacher of New York Insight.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Making Friends with Your Anxiety.”

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A Harvard Business School professor discusses how to get good at “intelligent failure.”

Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. Her latest book is called the Right Kind of Wrong. Her research examines psychological safety and teaming within and between organizations.

In this episode we talk about:

• The problems of shame, perfectionism, and social media
• How not to get caught up in analysis paralysis 
• The importance of self-compassion and a growth mindset
• The benefits of worrying with someone else
• Why redundancy is your friend
• How to discuss failure without assigning blame
• Why accepting your smallness can be freeing
• Taking the time to learn from failure
• The cognitive framework: stop, challenge, and choose
• How to have a healthier relationships with anxiety and failure
• Creating a culture of psychological safety
• Recognizing that not everybody in society has the same permission to take risks 

Related Episodes:

Self-Compassion Ain’t Always Soft | Kristin Neff

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/amy-edmondson-2023

Additional Resources:

• Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

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Start your day by tuning in and learning how to feel more connected to all the little details of your life. It turns out, they matter.

About Cara Lai:

Cara Lai spent most of her life trying to figure out how to be happy, or at least avoid total misery, which landed her on a meditation cushion for the majority of her adulthood. In the past, Cara has worked as an artist, wilderness guide, social worker and psychotherapist, but at this point she’s given up on being an adult in exchange for an all-out mindfulness rampage. Her teaching is relatable, authentic, funny and sometimes crass, and is accessible for many people. She teaches teens and adults at Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, Spirit Rock, Insight Meditation Society, and UCLA; ultimately hoping to become as good of a show-off as Dan. And to help people be happier.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Embracing Life.” 

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Dr. Jud breaks down how habits work and how to change them. Plus, insights on stress, boredom, mindfulness, pleasure, satisfaction, and contentment.

Judson Brewer M.D., Ph.D., is an internationally renowned addiction psychiatrist and neuroscientist and a bestselling author. He is a professor in the School of Public Health and Medical School at Brown University. His new book is called The Hunger Habit: Why We Eat When We’re Not Hungry and How to Stop.

In this episode we talk about:

• The scientific evidence behind Dr. Jud’s approach 
• The difference between satisfaction and contentment
• The difference between hedonic and homeostatic hunger
• Why changing behavior may not require you to dig into your past
• “Unforced freedom of choice”
• The “bigger better offer”
• The “pleasure plateau”
• Habits vs. addictions
• “The hunger test” 
• The Buddha’s advice on eating
• Whether or not we can still eat gummy worms

Related Episodes:

• Dr. Jud’s anxiety Q&A
• Dr. Jud on anxiety as a habit
• Dr. Jud on addiction and bad habits
• Evelyn Tribole on intuitive eating

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/jud-brewer-hunger

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Chödrön also talks about how to deal with difficult people, set boundaries, and keep a sense of humor in the face of our human foibles and failings.

Pema Chödrön was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in New York City. In her mid-thirties, Ani Pema met and studied with Lama Chime Rinpoche, becoming a novice nun in 1974 in London. She received ordination from His Holiness the Sixteenth Karampa during that time. Pema first met her root guru, the teacher with whom she had the most profound connection, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1972, and she studied closely with him until his death in 1987. In 1984, at the behest of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Ani Pema moved from Boulder, Colorado to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to be the director of Gampo Abbey. She currently teaches throughout the United States and Canada and continues her studies and meditative retreat under the guidance of Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche.

In this episode we talk about:

• How to deal with difficult people and set boundaries
• Having a sense of humor about our own foibles and failings 
• Keeping a sense of ok-ness in the face of whatever happens 
• Why coming from a place of love doesn’t preclude us from getting angry or standing up for what we believe in
• Keeping a sense of humor when we’re setting intentions or taking a vow so we don’t set ourselves up for failure
• The actual language of the Bodhisattva vow and why admitting how vast and impossible it is to achieve can actually be empowering
• Why putting others first doesn’t mean leaving yourself out of the equation 
• How healing yourself can affect your relationships with other people and create a virtuous circle 
• Taking a "one person at a time" approach to suffering

Related Episodes:

The Dalai Lama’s Guide To Happiness

Full Shownotes:https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/pema-chodron-2024

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Is meditation the last thing you want to do right now? This one's for when closing your eyes and watching your breath sounds like torture.

About Matthew Hepburn:

Matthew is a meditation and dharma teacher with more than a decade of teaching experience and a passion for getting real about what it means to live well. Beyond Ten Percent Happier, Matthew has taught in prisons, schools, corporate events and continues to teach across North America in buddhist centers offering intensive silent retreats and dharma for urban daily life.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “I Don’t Want to Meditate.” 

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A leading behavioral psychologist reveals practical strategies to help you actually make the changes you want to make this new year (and beyond).

Hal Hershfield is a professor of marketing, behavioral decision-making, and psychology at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, and the author of Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today. His research on future selves has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, as well as the Harvard Business Review and Psychology Today. 

In this episode we talk about:

• What he means by a future self, and why thinking about your future self will help you make better decisions
• How to think about your future self without neglecting the present moment
• The importance of commitment devices, and what they are — including some which you can even adopt right now
• The importance of breaking down big goals to make them achievable
• How to reframe commitments so that you actually stick to them
• The role of mental time travel to help you actually do what you say you want to do

Related Episodes:

How to Change Your Habits | Katy Milkman

Atomic Habits | James Clear

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/hal-hershfield

Additional Resources:

• Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

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Understanding the Buddhist concept of “the five aggregates.“

Pascal Auclair has been immersed in the study and practice of Buddhist teachings since 1997. He has participated in retreats in Asia and America with renowned masters from both monastic and secular backgrounds. Pascal completed four years of teacher training with Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield of the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts and Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. Pascal teaches mainly in North America and Europe. He is one of the founding members of True North Insight, where he teaches and acts as a mentor.

In this episode we talk about:

• How the five aggregates got Auclair hooked on Buddhist practice and philosophy
• The five aggregates as a way to work with difficulty
• Living with the non-negotiable prospect of dying
• Paying attention to pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feeling tone
• Meditation training as a way to understand that experiences are conditional

Related Episodes:

Seven Buddhist Ingredients for a Happy Mind | Pascal Auclair

Dharma Seed

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A comprehensive strategy for setting and maintaining boundaries—and respecting other people’s boundaries.

Nedra Glover Tawwab, MSW, LCSW, is the author of bestsellers Drama Free and Set Boundaries, Find Peace. She is a licensed therapist, and sought-after relationship expert and has practiced relationship therapy for 15 years. Tawwab is the founder and owner of the group therapy practice, Kaleidoscope Counseling. 

In this episode we talk about:

• The definition of boundaries
• Leading with love when it comes to boundary setting
• Tawwab’s taxonomy of boundaries
• How to summon the courage to set and maintain boundaries, even when it's hard
• How to respect other people's boundaries, even when they aren't clear about what they might be 

Related Episodes:

How to Handle Family Drama | Nedra Glover Tawwab

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Cultivate resilience by choosing to turn towards joy, and transform difficult times into growth opportunities and heartache into gratitude.

About La Sarmiento:

La Sarmiento is a mentor for the MIndfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP) and a teacher with Cloud Sangha. They have taught meditation retreats for BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, Teens, and Young Adults, and everyone in-between around the United States since 2010 and are a 2012 graduate of the Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader Training. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Opening to Joy.” 

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What the ancient Greek philosophers discovered about how to do life better.

Tamar Gendler is dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale University. Her Open Yale course “Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature” has hundreds of thousands of views. An updated version of this course will be available on the Coursera website this spring. 

In this episode we talk about:

• The tension between our animal nature and our spiritual/intellectual nature
• How to define concepts such as “virtue”, “morality” and “the soul” 
• Whether living a moral life actually makes you happy 
• The similarities and differences between ancient Greek philosophy & Buddhism 
• And how Tamar has applied all of this to her own life

Related Episodes:

• How (and Why) to Hug Your Inner Dragons | Richard Schwartz
• An Ace Therapist Gives Dan A Run For His Money | Dr. Jacob Ham

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The longtime TV host and actor talks about working onscreen with her husband, her fear of public speaking, and what she does instead of sitting meditation.

Kelly Ripa is one of the most powerful voices in media with a career at ABC spanning over 30 years. She's the author of the NY Times Bestseller, Long-Winded Short Stories and the host of her new podcast "Let's Talk Off-Camera" on Stitcher Podcasts.

In this episode we talk about:

• What it’s like to work with her husband 
• The value of marriage counseling, even when you’re not on the cusp of divorce
• Her resistance to meditation, and what she does instead
• The upsides of anxiety
• Her surprising fear of public speaking
• Menopause and the whole idea of “growing old gracefully,” whatever that means

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/kelly-ripa-690

Additional Resources:

• Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

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One's a legend, the other's a phenom. Together, they offer practical wisdom for maintaining your daily meditation practice, handling conflict, connecting with community, and understanding the limits of the mind.

Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, India, and Burma. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is a founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts and Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. He is the author of 16 books which have sold 2 million copies, and the co-founder of Cloud Sangha.

Diego Perez is a #1 New York Times bestselling author who is widely known on Instagram and various social media networks through his pen name, Yung Pueblo. Online he has an audience of over 3 million people. Diego’s books are Inward, Clarity & Connection, Lighter, and The Way Forward.

In this episode we talk about:

• How and why to maintain a daily meditation practice
• The importance of community
• The limits of the thinking mind
• How to handle conflict
• How to love without being attached

Related Episodes:

• Jack Kornfield talking about forgiveness and uncertainty on the pod
• Yung Pueblo’s past appearance on the pod
• Dan Clurman and Mudita Nisker on effective communication

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Further resources:

• Diego's latest book: The Way Forward 
• Diego’s Newsletter
• Diego’s Instagram
• Wisdom Ventures 
• A note on Cloud Sangha: Jack Kornfield is a co-founder of Cloud Sangha, where you can turn your challenges into compost for growth and change. Come use your real-life experiences to rehearse living mindfully so you can be the best version of yourself, more often. Join us online to navigate the ups and downs of life together, and find inner freedom along the way. Use the code "TENPERCENTHAPPIER" to receive 30% off.

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jack-kornfield-and-yung-pueblo

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