DAN HARRIS: I
always feel bad when
people have to read the
subtitle of the book.
It's like a Fiona
Apple record title.
So if you had told
me a couple of years
ago that I was going to
end up as a traveling
evangelist for meditation, I
would have coughed my beer up
through my nose.
This is kind of the
last thing I ever
thought would happen to me.
And it's a funny
story, actually.
It all started with a panic
attack on national television.
What you're about to see
happened in June of 2004
on a little show you
may have heard of.
It's called "Good
Morning America."
Because I'm a masochist, I
asked our research department
to find out exactly how
many people were watching,
5.019 million, so no big deal.
And so in this clip
I'm going to show you,
I give kind of a blow by
blow my on air Waterloo.
We can play it.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-From ABC News, this is
Good Morning America.
-Welcome to the most
embarrassing day of my life.
-We're going to go now to Dan
Harris is at the new desk.
Dan.
-Good morning,
Charlie and Diane.
Thank you--
-This is me 10 years ago.
And the reason this is the most
embarrassing day of my life
is not that it looks
like I've been attacked
by a blow dryer and
a can of hairspray.
No, it's that I am
about to freak out
on national television.
-Health news now.
One of the world's most
commonly prescribed medications
may be providing a big bonus.
Researchers report people who
take cholesterol lowering drugs
called statins for
at least five years
may also lower their
risk for cancer.
But it's too early to
prescribe statins slowly
for cancer production.
-At this point I realize
I'm helpless, so I bail,
right in the middle.
-That does it for news.
We're going to go back
now to Robin and Charlie.
-All right.
Thanks very much, Dan
Harris at the news desk
with some of the
headlines of the morning.
Want to go to Tony Perkins now.
He is--
-Once the fear subsided,
humiliation rushed in.
I knew with rock solid
certainty that I just
had a panic attack on
national television.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
I've watched that
clip 1,000 times
and it never fails to suck.
Some people watch it and say,
you know, it wasn't that bad.
And that's true.
It wasn't like, has
anybody ever seen
the movie, "Broadcast News"
where Albert Brooks breaks out
in flop sweat.
I can guarantee you
that I had I not
had the luxury of tossing it
back to Charlie and Diane,
that I would have
resulted in flop
sweat and a Tourettic outburst
and the end of my career.
To my vast surprise,
that panic attack
ended up significantly
improving my life
in a weird and windy way.
But I'm going to tell you
a little back story first.
At the root of my
freak out was, I think,
something that we all
share, especially, I
would say, here at Google, that
would be especially true, which
is a desire to be
great at my job.
I arrived at ABC News-- sorry.
That's-- there it is.
I arrived at ABC News in 2008,
excuse me, in the year 2000.
I was 28.
This is the picture they took
of me on my first day at ABC.
A colleague of mine-- this
is for my security ID.
It's still on my security ID.
I can't get them to change it.
A colleague of mine later joked
that if you take a wide shot,
it looks like I might
be holding a balloon.
So, I'm 28 years
old and I'm working
with these giants like
Peter Jennings and Diane
Sawyer and Barbara
Walters, and I was green.
I knew I was green and I was
really self conscious about it.
And my way of coping was
to become a workaholic.
I just threw myself
into the job.
And after 9/11 happened,
I raised my hand
to go overseas and cover
the ensuing conflicts,
frankly, without
thinking much about
the psychological consequences.
This is me with the
Taliban in October of 2001.
And I spent the following years
in-- I spent a lot of time
in places like Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Israel, the West
Bank and Gaza, and I made
six or seven trips to Iraq.
When I got home from
one particularly long
and hairy visit to Iraq,
in the summer of 2003,
right when the insurgency was
starting, I got depressed.
And somewhat embarrassingly,
I didn't actually
know I was depressed,
although I now
know that I was exhibiting
many of the telltale symptoms,
like I was having trouble
getting out of bed.
I felt like I had a low
grade fever all the time.
And at this point I did a
toweringly stupid thing, which
was I started to self medicate
with cocaine and Ecstasy.
I hasten to add, it wasn't
like the "Wolf of Wall Street."
It was reasonably
sporadic, never when
I was at work, definitely
not when I was on the air.
As I like to say, I was
stupid but not that stupid.
After my panic
attack, I went to see
a doctor, who asked me
a series of questions
to get to the root
of the problem.
One of the questions
was, do you do drugs.
I kind of sheepishly
said, yeah, I do.
And he said, well actually,
he gave me this look
that I read as, OK, asshole.
A mystery solved.
He explained that even though
I hadn't been doing cocaine
every day, it was enough to
raise the level of adrenaline
in my brain and prime me
to have that panic attack.
This is a huge moment for me.
It really hit me very
hard what a moron I'd been
and I realized I need
to make some changes.
The first one was a no-brainer.
I quit doing drugs that day.
The second was
that I agreed to go
see this shrink once or
twice a week indefinitely.
This isn't some
neat, clean story
where then I started to meditate
and my life has ever since been
a nonstop parade of
unicorns and rainbows.
There was something else
that needed to happen,
which had to do with this guy,
Peter Jennings, who some of you
may remember.
He died in 2005.
But he was a huge figure
in American journalism
and he was my mentor.
And he gave me an assignment
that I really did not want.
He told me I was going to cover
faith and spirituality for ABC
News.
I tried to explain to him that
I was raised in the People's
Republic of Massachusetts by a
pair of physician scientists.
I did have a bar mitzvah, but
that was only for the money.
I remember when I was eight
years old, my mom explaining
to me that not only is
there no Santa Claus,
but there's also no God.
So this is kind of atmosphere
in which I was raised.
And I tried to explain
this to Peter--
I left out the old
mercenary bar mitzvah part.
--but he didn't care.
He said, you're going
to do it anyway.
And it turned out to be
a great thing for me.
I spent the next decade in
megachurches and mosques
and Mormon temples.
I made a lot of
really good friends.
I really developed a
deep and abiding respect
for the value of having a
worldview that transcends
your narrow, personal interests,
which was useful for me
as a young reporter on the make.
That said, none of what
I encountered really
spoke to me personally.
I didn't go kosher or
anything like that.
Until the year 2008, when one
of my producers recommended that
I read a book by this guy,
whose name is Eckhart Tolle.
Has anybody heard of him?
OK.
We've got a smattering of hands.
I had not heard of him.
He is a mega bestselling
self-help guru.
And as my producer
explained, Oprah loves him.
All these celebrities
are into him.
He was selling, you
know, millions-- he still
is, selling millions
and millions of books.
And her argument was,
well, he's a big deal.
We should maybe look at
him and do a story on him.
So I ordered one of his books.
And at first I thought it
was irredeemable bullshit.
There's all this weird language
about vibrational fields
and these grandiose claims.
First off, there's a lot
of pseudo scientific claims
and then these grandiose claims
about how this book is going
to produce a spiritual
awakening in you, the reader,
and that, after his own spirit
awakening at the age of 29,
he lived in a state of
bliss on park benches
in the city of
London for two years,
a city, which as far
as I know, has winter.
Suffice it to say,
I was not terribly
impressed at first blush.
But as I continue to
read, Tolle started
to unfurl a thesis about
the human condition
that I'd never
heard before, that I
found incredibly compelling.
His argument is that we all have
a voice in our heads, by which
he is not referring to
schizophrenia or hearing
voices, he's referring to your
inner narrator, the voice that
chases you out of
bed in the morning
and has you constantly
wanting stuff, not
wanting stuff, judging
people, criticizing
yourself very harshly.
One of the hallmarks
of the voice
is that you are
constantly thinking
about the past or
the future, instead
of focusing on what's
happening right now.
My friend, Sam Harris,
who some of you
may have heard of-- we're not
related but we're good friends,
he describes the voice in the
head or his voice in the head
or in his head, as,
when he thinks about it,
he feels like he's
been kidnapped
by the most boring
personal alive, who just
says the same shit over and over
again, most of it negative, all
of it self-referential.
The laughs indicate you
know what I'm talking about.
And when you're unaware of
this nonstop conversation
you are having with
yourself, according to Tolle,
it yanks you around.
It's why you find yourself
with your hand in the fridge
when you're not hungry,
you find yourself
checking your
mobile device when--
I should say Android.
--when --when somebody's
trying to talk to you, or why
you're losing your temper when
it's strategically unwise.
And for me, this was
another huge aha moment.
I realized, A, it's
intuitively true.
B, it's really true for me.
And that the voice
in the head explained
the most embarrassing
moment of my life.
It's why I went to war zones
without thinking it through.
Its why I came home and got
depressed and didn't even know
it, and then blindly
self-medicated
and it all blew up in my face.
Suffice it to say, it was
mildly embarrassing to be
a self-styled, skeptical newsman
and thinking, this guy gets me.
But there was a bigger
problem than the ego bruise.
As far as I could tell, there
was nothing in Tolle's book
that was practical
or actionable.
He didn't give any
concrete advice.
Perhaps I was being
obtuse, but I could not
divine any concrete
advice for dealing
with the voice in the head.
I actually went, and this
delighted my producer, who
was a little bit less cynical
about Tolle than I am,
I went and interviewed the guy.
And I sat down and
asked him, what
do you do about the
voice in the head?
It was my first question.
And his answer, wait for it,
was take one conscious breath.
What the fuck does that mean?
And then it got even weirder,
because I started asking him
if he ever gets into a bad mood.
And maybe the
gentleman in the back
can play you what he said to me.
[BEGIN VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-Don't you ever get
annoyed, irritated, sad,
anything negative?
-No, I accept what is.
And that's why life
has become so simple.
-But if somebody cuts
you off in your car?
-It's fine.
It's like a sudden gust of wind.
I don't personalize
a gust of wind.
And so, it's simply what is.
-And you're able to
enjoy every moment, even
if I start asking you a
ton of annoying questions?
-Yes, that would be fine.
So it's really--
-Don't tempt me.
[LAUGHING]
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
He was so frustrating.
It was like he had pointed
out that my hair was
on fire and then refused to
give me a fire extinguisher.
And I was at wit's end.
I mean, I was really, really
intrigued by his thesis
and just determined
to figure out
if anybody had any ideas for
doing something about it.
And I then threw myself
into the world of self-help,
not knowing what else to do.
It is not a pretty place.
I met a lot of these
questionable characters who
promise that you can
solve all of your problems
through the power of
positive thinking,
which I hate to break it to
you, is not going to happen.
And I can get on my high
horse about positive thinking
in the Q&A session if you want.
But in the interest of
speeding things along,
I will say that I found
it deeply unsatisfying,
this world.
And I was even more frustrated.
And then one night, my
then fiancee, now wife,
came in with the save.
She-- I walked into
the apartment one night
and she said, You know,
I've been listening to you
talk about Eckhardt Tolle
and blah, blah, blah,
with varying levels of cogency.
And it made me realize,
it reminded me of a book
that I read a long
time ago by, not him,
that guy, who is a shrink,
based here in New York City.
His name is Doctor Mark Epstein.
He actually has
credentials and he
writes about the overlap
between Buddhism and psychology.
And notwithstanding the
fact that I was ostensibly
a religion reporter, I actually
knew nothing about Buddhism,
other than the fact
that at the age of 15,
I had stolen a Buddhist statue
from a local gardening store
and put in my bedroom because
I thought it looked cool.
Unbeknownst to me, this
guy, heretofore known
to me only as a lawn
ornament, had 2,500 years
before Eckhart Tolle started
cashing his royalty checks,
this dude was talking about
the voice in the head.
He had a slightly
different term for it.
He called it the monkey mind.
According to the
Buddha, our minds
are like furry little
gibbons, constantly
lurching through a forest of
urges and impulses and desires,
always grasping at things
that will not last,
in a universe characterized
by impermanence,
and hurling ourselves from
one pleasant experience
to the next, one sexual
encounter, one meal, one
promotion to the next, and
yet, never fully satisfied.
I mean, if you think
about it, how many
great meals if you had?
Are you done?
We are insatiable.
And unlike-- so again,
very, very interesting.
And unlike, Eckhart
Tolle, the Buddha
had a very specific
piece of advice
for dealing with
the monkey mind.
Fresh problem arises
at this point,
which is, what he was suggesting
I found to be repellent.
Because what he was
suggesting was meditation.
My view was that
meditation was only
for hippies and freaks and
people who live in a yurt
and are deeply into aromatherapy
and ultimate Frisbee and Cat
Stevens and John Tesh and
wear little finger symbols
and use the word
Namaste un-ironically.
My view is actually
perfectly summed up
by Alec Baldwin's
character on "30 Rock," who
said the following.
Gentlemen, can you
roll that video.
[BEGIN VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-Meditation is a waste of
time, like learning French,
or kissing after sex.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[LAUGHTER]
DAN HARRIS: Love it.
When I saw that, I was
like, I am finding that clip
and putting it in my PowerPoint.
But then I started
do some research
and I've found that there's
been a fascinating explosion
of scientific research
into meditation.
It's still in its
early stages, but it's
strongly suggestive of a
long and almost laughably
long, almost laughable, list of
health benefits, starting with,
it can lower the release
of stress hormones.
It can lower your
blood pressure.
It can boost your immune system.
It can help with
depression, anxiety, ADHD,
age-related cognitive decline.
The further I get into my
40s, the more important
that becomes to me.
It could even help with
seemingly unrelated things
like irritable bowel
syndrome and psoriasis.
And here's where things
get truly sci-fi.
Neuroscientists have
been peering directly
into the brains of
meditators and finding
that, when you meditate you
are, in effect, performing
a kind of neurosurgery
on yourself.
And this is not just true
of people who wear robes,
it is true for the rest of us.
There was a study done at
Harvard a few years ago, that
took people who had
never meditated before
and gave them an
eight week class.
During this eight
week class, they
meditated for short
periods of time every day.
At the end of the eight weeks,
they scanned their brains.
They actually scanned it the
beginning and then at the end.
What they found in those
second set of scans, was
that the areas of the brain
associated with self awareness
and compassion, the gray
matter literally grew.
And the area associated with
stress, the gray matter,
literally shrank.
I found this very,
very compelling.
And then I learned
something else.
Meditation does
not-- let me just
say that the word meditation
is a bit like the word sports.
It can describe a whole
variety of activities.
Badminton and water polo
don't have a lot in common.
The type of meditation
that is mostly
being studied in the
labs is something
called mindfulness meditation.
And this type of meditation does
not involve a lot of the things
that I had feared, like
finger symbols or whatever.
It does not involve sitting
in a funny position, which
was one of my worries.
That's my cat Ruby
with Gus behind her.
She's actually watching the
Real Housewives in that shot.
That's not a lie.
Many of the other things I'm
saying are probably lies,
but that is not a lie.
So you don't have to
sit in a funny position.
You can if you want,
but for somebody like me
who's not particular limber,
you can sit in a chair.
It also doesn't involve joining
a group, paying any fees,
wearing special outfits,
believing in anything
in particular.
It's simple and secular
and, as we've established,
scientifically validated
in many, many ways.
So there are three steps.
I'm not going to make you do
this, but just so you know,
the first step is
to sit up right,
to sit comfortably
with your back upright.
Again, you can sit
in a chair or if you
want to get all cross-legged,
that's cool too.
The second step is to
focus your full attention
on the feeling of your breath,
coming in and going out.
Pick a spot,
wherever your breath
is most prominent, your
nose, your chest, your belly.
You just want to feel
the breath coming in
and feel the breath going out.
The third step is the biggie.
As soon as you try to do this,
your mind is going to go nuts.
You're going to start
thinking about what am I
going to have for lunch?
Why did I say that
dumb thing to my boss?
Why did "Dances with
Wolves" beat "Goodfellas"
for Best Picture in 1991?
Why do celebrities only
marry other celebrities?
Whatever, your mind's
going to go nuts.
And that's fine, that's fine.
The whole game is to notice
when you're lost in thought
and to start over and
start over and start over.
And when you do that, that is
a bicep curl for your brain.
And it shows up on
the brain scans.
Not incidentally, it
is also a radical act.
You are breaking
a lifetime's habit
of walking around in a fog,
in a daydream of projection
into the future and
rumination about the past.
And you're actually
focusing on what's
happening right now, which,
I know it's a new age cliche,
but it is always now.
And that's where your life
is at, and yet most of us
don't live there.
So when I learned all of this,
I decided to start meditating.
I started with like five
or 10 minutes a day.
That's a picture my wife took
of me, meditating on vacation
with some opportunistic
chickens trying to bum rush me.
And I'm not going to lie to you.
It wasn't like, awesome.
You know, it's hard.
The act of sitting there,
trying to focus on one thing,
getting lost, and returning,
is-- it takes grit.
It's kind of like holding
a live fish in your hands.
And especially when you're
new, it's like learning,
it is-- It's not like, it
is, learning a new skill.
And it takes a little
while to get used to.
That being said.
I very quickly started to notice
some significant benefits.
The first was, my ability
to focus got better.
I can't prove this,
just so you know.
I feel that it's
true, but I didn't
have my brain scanned
before or after.
However, there have
been studies that
show that meditation can help
with your ability to focus.
We live in the
age, an age that's
been called the Info Blitzkrieg.
You know this
better than anybody.
And it is very hard to
do one thing at a time.
In my job, I literally
have other people's voices
directly in my ear
through an earpiece.
It's really hard to focus
and yet very important
that I do so, because I need
to get the story correct.
I need to report it correctly.
So I just found that
the daily exercise
of trying to focus on one
thing and then getting lost
and starting over, really
helped me with that.
The second benefit
was the big one.
And it's this word mindfulness.
It's become somewhat
of a buzz phrase.
Oddly, it's also kind of like
a boring anodyne-sounding word,
but is a game
changing proposition.
A simple serviceable
definition of mindfulness--
which by the way, it's
an incredibly rich term.
It goes back 2500 years.
It's all the Buddhist texts.
But let me give you a
simple definition that
can be relevant in your life,
which is, it's the ability
to know what's happening in
your head at any given moment
without getting
carried away by it.
I was going to say that
again, not to be didactic,
but it is useful
to hear it twice.
It's the skill of knowing
what's happening in your head
right now without
necessarily taking the bait
and acting on it.
So let's just think about
how useful this could be.
You're standing on
line at Starbucks
or one of your 5,000
micro-cafeterias here
and somebody cuts you off.
What happens?
You think to
yourself, I'm pissed.
What happens next?
You automatically,
reflexively, habitually inhabit
that thought.
You actually become angry.
There's no buffer between the
stimulus and your reaction.
When mindfulness is on
board with a little bit
of meditating, you
might be able to notice,
after that person cut you
off, my chest is buzzing.
My ears are turning red.
I'm having a starburst of
self righteous thoughts.
I'm getting angry.
But maybe right now I
don't need to act on it.
I like to think there's another
way to think about this.
I'm not a good artist
but I drew this.
You can think of the
mind as a waterfall.
And that's water coming down.
Those are your thoughts.
Most of them have to
do with me, me, me.
Mindfulness is the area
behind the waterfall.
You are stepping
out of the traffic
and watching what's
happening nonjudgmentally.
We have three habitual
reactions to every piece
every stimulus in our lives.
We want it.
We don't want it.
We don't care.
And mindfulness is
a fourth option,
which is to just see
it dispassionately,
without getting involved.
If you think I'm
making this up, it
is worth noting that
we, as a species,
are classified as homo sapiens
sapiens, which means the man
or woman who thinks
and knows he thinks.
But the second sapiens has
been atrophied with time,
because nobody points out to
us that we have this bonus
level in our brain, which is the
ability to step out and watch
it calmly and nonjudgmentally.
Let me just get back
to Starbucks example.
I suspect some of
you may be thinking,
aren't there times when
I need to get angry?
Yes, although I would argue
probably less than you think.
The idea here, the
argument I'm making,
is not that you
should be rendered
into some lifeless,
nonjudgmental blob.
The argument is that there
are times when it makes sense
to get angry, but most
of the time it doesn't.
So what mindfulness
gives you is the ability
to respond wisely to
things that are happening
instead of reacting blindly.
I love this, respond not react.
There are many, many cliches
in the meditation world
that make me kind of put a
little bit of vomit right here.
But respond not react
is a brilliant one
and it's a life
changing proposition.
And as you can imagine, it
has so many applications
in the workplace, which is why
it's now being offered here,
Procter & Gamble, Aetna,
Target, General Mills.
These are the people that
make Hamburger Helper
and they have meditation
rooms in every building
in their corporate campus
in Minnetonka, Minnesota.
It's now very big
in Silicon Valley.
This is a clip from "Wired"
magazine, where they referred
to meditation and mindfulness as
the new caffeine, which I love.
I also love the
irony of the fact
that you people,
who are developing
all of the technologies that
are destroying our ability
to focus, are embracing
this technology.
This is just--
it's just awesome.
And it's not just in
a corporate setting.
This is the quarterback for
the Seattle Seahawks, who,
as you may recall,
dominated in the Super Bowl.
They have a meditation coach.
Novak Djokovic, who did
reasonably well at Wimbledon
not too long ago, a meditator.
Many, many, many
Olympians, meditators.
The New York Knicks,
not doing great,
but they just
started meditating.
Let's see how they do at
the end of the season.
It's also happening
among entertainers.
That's a lead singer of Weezer.
Katy Perry does it.
Fifty Cent, that dude
got shot nine times.
He deserves some peace of mind.
Perhaps most compellingly
though, it is now
being done by the US Army
and the US Marines, who
are spending millions
of dollars to research
whether meditation can make more
effective and more resilient
soldiers and whether it might
be something that could be used
to cut down on the scourge,
the epidemic, of PTSD.
So at this point,
I'm going to make
a little bit of a
prediction, with a caveat
that my powers of
prognostication
are historically weak.
Just as an example of
that, in the early 2000s,
I convinced my younger
brother to invest with me
in a company that
makes the Palm Pilot.
That didn't go super well.
Having said that,
I firmly believe
that meditation is the next
big public health revolution.
In the 1940s, if
you told somebody
you were going
running, they would
have said, who's chasing you?
What happened?
We then saw a ton of
scientific research
that proved, beyond really
a shadow of a doubt,
that physical exercise
is really good for you.
And now we all do it
and if we don't do it,
we feel guilty about it.
I think this is where we're
heading with meditation.
I think meditation is going to
join the bucket of no-brainers,
like brushing your teeth, taking
the meds that are prescribed
to you, getting enough sleep,
et cetera, et cetera, when
it comes to physical and
psychological wellness.
Think about it.
We spend so much time working
on our stock portfolios,
working on our home decor,
working on our bodies,
and almost no time tuning up
the filter through which we
experience everything,
and that is our minds.
Now despite the fact
that I've become this,
to my surprise,
this weird traveling
meditation evangelical,
I want to be clear,
it's not going to solve
all your problems.
It's not going to, and I have
learned this the hard way,
it's not going to
regrow your hair
or help you win the lottery
or like fix everything
in your love life, which
is why I wrote a book
and I called it "10% Happier."
That's an absurd
unscientific estimation,
but it's true enough.
And I like it because it
sounds like a good return
on investment.
I would argue that it
does compound annually.
My idea is that if
you can strip away
all of these saccharine, syrupy,
and frankly, pretty annoying,
language, which has been
used to promote meditation
for too long, it could
be accessible to lots
of smart, skeptical people
who would never otherwise
go near it and don't use
the word Namaste ever.
And at the core of it is a
simple and really attractive
and really fascinating idea,
which is that we assume,
consciously or subconsciously,
that our happiness depends
on external factors, the
quality of our childhood,
did we get a promotion
recently, how's our love life.
But in fact, it's
not-- now, I'm not
argue that those external
factors don't matter.
But in fact,
happiness is a skill,
that you can train your mind
and your brain to be happy,
just the way you can train
your bicep in the gym.
And that is an incredibly
powerful and liberating notion.
And it should be accessible
to everybody, not just
the folks who have been
drawn to meditation
since the Age of Aquarius.
As for me, I've been
meditating for five years now
and I am still, I think you
could probably fairly describe
me as a workaholic, just like
I was when I was a 28-year-old.
And I still firmly
believe that if you're
trying to be great at anything,
either your job, your volunteer
work, parenting,
whatever, there's
a certain amount of stress and
plotting and planning involved.
There's just no
getting around it.
But what I've learned is to
draw the line, at least 10%
of the time, between
what I call constructive
anguish and useless rumination.
And that has made a huge
difference in my life
and in my relationships.
That said, if my
wife was here, she
would give you her 90%
still a moron speech.
And my younger
brother, the one who
I convinced to invest
in the Palm Pilot,
he recommended that
we re-title the book
"From Deeply Flawed
to Merely Flawed."
I'm going to close,
but I just want to say,
I just want to leave you
with one exhortation, which
is, give it a try.
Whatever your
preconceptions are,
they're probably misconceptions.
I think five to 10 minutes a
day is a great way to start.
You can tell yourself,
you'll never do more.
And I don't care
how busy you are.
I don't care if you have
three jobs and 15 children,
everybody's got five minutes.
Right when you wake up,
right before you go to bed,
before you-- when you park
your car in the driveway,
if you drive, right before
you go into your house,
there are five minutes for you.
And here's my little
tagline, which
is, if it can work for a
fidgety, skeptical newsman,
it can work for you.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
So we have time for questions.
There's a microphone over there.
Yes, sir.
AUDIENCE: Hi, Dan.
My name is [? Adityah, ?]
and I'm an engineer here.
And I've got a story that
has some similarity to yours.
I joined Google six
years ago, in part
to help teach meditation.
And I apologize
if my question is
a little bit outside
the scope of your talk,
but I really enjoyed
your conversation
with Sam Harris,
the one on his blog.
I think it's called
"Taming the Mind."
And I was particularly struck,
because in that conversation
you bring up nonduality, which
is something a little bit
difficult to speak about.
It's not exactly the same
thing as mindfulness,
but there's obviously
some overlap.
And what I've noticed
in the last maybe
5 or 10 years is
that mindfulness
has become more mainstream.
There are more people sort
of willing to talk about it,
to listen to it.
Your talk is a very
timely in that regard.
I'm curious if
you've see anything
with regard to nonduality
and if that's something like,
could be a meditation two
point, or what you perceive
the public openness to that is.
DAN HARRIS: It's
a great question.
Let me just explain
what nonduality is.
So my whole thing is to make
this as attractive as possible
to everybody.
But the mindfulness comes
out of Buddhist teachings
and it's just one part
of Buddhist teaching.
And it has been
secularized, I think,
in a really great way, which
is the way it's offered now,
in many contexts, there's
no Buddhism at all.
And I'm completely
fine with that.
I think the Buddha himself
would be fine with that.
He wasn't trying to
start a religion.
He never envisioned an ism.
But one of the things
he talked about,
which is a little bit
deeper than mindfulness,
is the fact that the self, the
voice in your head, the you,
that you think is
so real, actually
doesn't exist in the
way you think it does,
that it's actually an illusion
that you are creating moment
to moment.
Very tough concept to
get your head around.
And I struggle with it.
Sam Harris, who-- [? Adityah, ?]
is that your name?
--referenced, who I
talked about before.
He's the guy who said he
thinks that he's been hijacked
by the most boring person alive.
He is a famous atheist
writer, and also,
and this was a big surprise to
a lot of his fans, a very, very
serious meditator.
And he's just written a book
called "Waking Up," which
is an excellent book
and I recommend it
to everybody, in which
he talks about the fact
that mindfulness
meditation is great.
But really the point is to see
that this self that you think
is so real, is actually the
source of all of your misery.
And so to answer
your question, do
I think this is the next
thing coming down the pike?
I hope so.
I think that would be great.
And I think Sam's book, which is
still on the top 10 York Times
bestseller list after four
weeks, is a great first step.
I think it's a very
tough thing to talk about
in a comprehensible way.
I'm not even sure
I've done that here.
But one of the
things I think about
is, whether, maybe
in my next book,
I can learn to talk
about it in a way
that is simple and engaging and
seems practical and applicable
in daily life.
AUDIENCE: Thanks.
DAN HARRIS: Appreciate it.
AUDIENCE: Hi there.
My name's Nick and I
wanted to thank you
for coming and talking.
And my question is, kind of
speaks to your story before.
About when you first started
doing some of the meditation,
and sort of the way
you think about it
seems to be very
parallel to myself
and I'm hoping some
of the others here.
When I first started doing some
of the more mindfulness stuff,
I can't help myself
but think about it
in terms of what I'm
trying to accomplish.
And every time I get
distracted and I come back,
I get this feeling
of, I'm failing.
I'm not doing it well.
And after doing it for a month,
and getting no better at it,
based on the name of your book,
I'm guessing you understand.
It feels like I'm not
accomplishing something.
I'm not getting better.
Why am I doing this?
And I just leave more
frustrated than I entered,
and I was hoping you could
talk to that a little.
DAN HARRIS: OK.
I have a million things
to say about that.
The big one is you're not alone.
I mean, that's the deal.
The good news is, let me
just lead with the good news,
because it is that
it gets easier.
It just does.
I've been doing
it for five years.
It's still hard, but
it's a lot easier.
And I do much more
now than I used to.
I do 35 minutes a
day and I sometimes
do a supplemental
second sitting before I
go to bed because I
find it helps me sleep.
Not because I have to, nobody's
putting a gun to my head.
It's just grown organically
and it's gotten a lot easier.
But is it hard?
Yes.
Sometimes people come
to me and say, I get it.
You make a good case.
Meditation is good for you.
But you don't understand,
I could never do it.
My mind is too busy.
I call this the
fallacy of uniqueness.
Welcome to the human condition.
Everybody's mind is crazy.
Think about it like
going to the gym.
If you go to the gym and
it's easy, you are cheating.
And if you're meditating,
and it's easy,
you're probably cheating,
maybe you're enlightened,
or you're dead.
You are fighting, as I said
in my speech, a lifetime
habit of just blah, blah,
blah, blah, me, me, me.
And it is hard to stop that.
By the way, you don't
have to clear your mind.
You're just focusing
on one thing.
That is the game.
So drop that.
And yet, here I
am, five years in,
and when I find myself lost
and distracted, there's like a,
I think I used this phrase in my
book, a tornadic blast of self
flagellation.
The whole game is to
just notice that too.
Oh, I'm beating myself up.
Let's go back to the breath.
And Sharon Salzberg, who is an
amazing meditation teacher, who
spoke here yesterday,
I had brunch with her
on Sunday morning,
and we were talking
about my problem of
beating myself up
when I get lost in thought.
And she said, it's helpful
to have a sense of humor.
Because, as much as
you may think your life
is about big things like faith,
honor, fidelity, patriotism,
or whatever, and that may be
true, but most of your life--
And I could prove it to you
if you just sit down and close
your eyes and watch what
happens. --most of your life
is about, what am I
going to have for lunch.
It's funny, right?
So we're all assholes,
you know, and so,
like so just to sit
down and close your eyes
and then find yourself
lost, if you can do it
with some lightness, if you can
do it with a sense of humor,
it makes it much easier.
And then, just know--
And I'll repeat
what I said at the beginning.
--that it does get easier.
It just does.
And so you may not feel like
you're accomplishing anything,
but I'd like to hear, after you
do it for a couple months, what
people who live and work
with you say about you.
Because it was my wife who
started noticing it before I
did.
I started hearing her
say at cocktail parties,
Harris is less of a jerk.
And that really was
a good motivator.
And great teachers will
say to all the time,
the real litmus test is
what people around you
are saying about your behavior.
So just keep going.
Don't worry.
This is unlike everything
else in your life,
where you do something and
expect a preordained result.
It requires, and I know
this is a sticky word,
it requires a little
bit of faith or trust
that it is worth it, which
is what I'm trying embody.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
DAN HARRIS: Good luck.
AUDIENCE: Hi, Dan.
Thank you so much
for joining us today.
When I first started meditating.
I went to a meditation
retreat and I
was telling my boyfriend
and best friend
that I was going there.
And I felt like,
after I told them
that, I had to convince them
I wasn't joining a cult.
But the thing is, that
I think it would really
benefit both of them.
I'm never sure though,
how to tell the story.
I mean, obviously you're
promoting meditation now,
with your book, but before
you decided to write it,
was it something that
you were actively
recommending to other people?
And if so, how were you
talking about in a way that
would make sense to a western,
college educated person?
DAN HARRIS: Well, there
was a "New Yorker" cartoon
that I'm trying to
get into my PowerPoint
because it's awesome.
It was recent and
it has two people
a lunch and one
of the women says,
I've been gluten free for a
week and I'm already annoying.
That's kind of my
view about meditation.
I'm perfectly happy to
get up and put a mike on
and say, you guys
all need to meditate.
But I won't do it one to one,
because it's really annoying.
And there's just
no way around it.
And I think-- my wife
doesn't meditate, by the way.
I mean, she's a
physician, scientist,
and she's seen all the data.
She buys it.
She loves that I'm
less of a jerk.
But she doesn't do it.
And I know the shortcut
to a smack in the head
and her never meditating,
would be for me
to a lecture about when she
stressed about how, maybe it
would help if you meditate.
Bad idea.
I'm going to steal something
from my Christian friends.
They often say that
the best thing to do
is not to evangelize one to
one, but to live your faith
in a way that is
convincing and compelling
to the people around you.
And over time, you
may find that people
come to you of
their own volition,
and say, what's this all about?
Because I guarantee you, in
a world, as I said before,
that is characterized
by both impermanence.
I.e. nothing lasts, and
entropy, where everything's out
of our control, your
friend and your boyfriend
are going to have
crises in their lives.
And they may, at that
point, come to you
and say, tell me about
this thing you're doing.
One last cliche, it's often
said in Buddhist circles
that it's better to be a
Buddha than a Buddhist.
And so, I would just
say, live your life.
Maximize your own happiness
through your practice.
Don't wag your finger
at those around you.
And let them come to
you, because they will.
AUDIENCE: I have a
follow up question.
DAN HARRIS: Yes.
It's worked really well
with my cat, that cat Ruby.
She hated me for a
long time but then
when I started ignoring
her, she loved me.
AUDIENCE: So, Sharon, yesterday
inspired me to start again,
because I'm kind of
off again, on again.
And the thing that happens
when I meditate in the morning,
is when Peter's in the
shower, I'm always like,
let's hope the meditation
ends before he gets out
of the shower.
Because when he gets out
and comes out into the room
and sees me sitting there, he
inevitably asks me if I'm OK.
Like I go to that place when
I'm sad or something like that.
And I'm never sure
how the quite tell
the story without going
into-- I don't know, in a way
that he's going to comprehend
and make him feel like I'm not
doing it because I'm
feeling depressed.
I'm just doing it--
DAN HARRIS: You need to start
talking to him the way you
would about physical exercise.
You should start--
This, I think you
could say to him
pretty aggressively,
just view this as if
you came out and found
me doing jumping jacks.
You know, this is
just part of upkeep.
You don't have to do it.
It's totally cool if
you don't want to do it.
But this is my
thing and I'm just
trying to be consistent about
doing it five to 10 minutes
a day.
And that's way every
westerner can grasp.
And if you're
doing it every day,
he's not going to think, he will
not have any reason to think,
you only do when you're sad.
And let me just make
a pitch for dailyness.
I think it's more powerful to
do short daily doses than once
in awhile long.
It's that daily collision with
the asshole in your head, that
will help you fend off
its shitty suggestions.
Because that's it's job.
And what you want
is the wherewithal
to not follow those
bad suggestions.
And you get that through
the daily collision, which
is why I say five
to 10 minutes a day,
time we all have, no
question about it.
And you can always get
it down to two minutes
on your super busy days.
It's just the
dailyness of it that
helps you really stick with
it over long periods of time.
And when you're
sitting there worrying
about your boyfriend's going
to say, just notice worrying.
That's what, that this
is what worrying's like.
Then go back to your breath.
AUDIENCE: Thanks.
AUDIENCE: Hi, my name is Andrea.
My dad and I both
read your book.
And we really liked it.
It's great that you
admit that you're flawed
and it makes it seem
more realistic and more--
DAN HARRIS: Thanks for
bring that up again.
AUDIENCE: No problem.
That's what I'm here for.
I'm curious if you've looked
into positive psychology at all
and if you've considered
incorporating that
as well into your life
or your next book.
AUDIENCE: I don't know anything
about positive psychology,
per se.
That usually doesn't stop me
from to speaking at length.
But I'm going to use
this is an opportunity
to talk about positive thinking.
Sorry.
Positive thinking,
there's actually
a scientific term for it.
I believe the scientific
term is bullshit.
This idea that you can
get anything you want--
Don't watch this, but there
is a DVD called "The Secret."
It was very popular a while ago,
for reasons that I cannot fully
comprehend.
And there's a DVD which, again,
I don't think you should watch,
in which they
basically argue, you
can get anything you want,
like a diamond necklace
miraculously, a cure for cancer,
and a that better love life,
if you just think positive
thoughts all the time.
It's just demonstrably untrue.
And think about the
inverse of the logic
and how damaging an
argument this is.
First of all, it's
damaging because you
don't want to be
telling people, you
don't need to go the doctor.
That's just a terrible
thing to suggest.
But with the inverse
of the logic is,
so anybody born in a
refugee camp in Africa
was thinking
negatively in utero?
Everybody in Port Au
Prince, Haiti in 2010
was thinking
negatively and that's
why they got hit
by an earthquake?
It's crazy.
And it's not helpful.
And the only people
I know who've
had their problems solved
through these books
are the people writing them.
So I would urge
you to stay away.
I will do some research
on positive psychology.
I suspect it's less pernicious.
AUDIENCE: A little bit.
And one quick
follow up question?
Are there any meditation
apps you recommend?
DAN HARRIS: Yes.
Headspace.
Really good.
And those guys know
what they're doing.
They're legit.
Andy, the guy who founded
it, was a monk for 10 years
and yet is young and really,
really cool and can juggle.
And so, it's a good app.
It's very sticky.
People tend to like it
and I think it's great.
I don't think you need
technological assistance, just
for the record.
But if you want an
app, that's a good one.
AUDIENCE: Hi, Dan.
My name's Daniel
and I'm an engineer.
In your book, you mention
going on a retreat.
What role did that
play in your journey
and are there any good
places in New York?
DAN HARRIS: Yes.
OK, that's a great question.
I went on a 10 day silent
meditation retreat,
which was the most annoying
thing I've ever done.
And also, the happiest
I've ever been.
I don't think you need to do it.
I did it because I
was writing a book.
I needed some shit
to write about.
So, but, it's a
great thing to do
if you're getting
into meditation.
The reason why I'm just
being a little careful
is because I don't want
people to think in order
to be a meditator, you need
to go off and do 10 days
with people who wear
socks and sandals.
But it is a great thing to do.
It can really
deepen your practice
and give you-- because
this is, again,
to use the physical
exercise analogy,
once you're on 10 days
and its what you're
doing all day, every day,
you get into great shape
so to speak, and you're
going to have experiences
that are different
than what you're
doing in your daily life.
And for me, I had
an experience where
I just, all of the struggling
and striving and the suffering
kind of just, whew, just
evaporated for about 36 hours.
And I was just right there
with whatever was happening.
It wasn't spiritual, there was
no white light or string music
or anything like that.
I just had this
incredible 36 hours
of being fully where I was.
And that was accompanied with
a big blast of serotonin.
And then it went away and
it went back to sucking.
But I think that
meditation retreats
are where your practice
really changes.
And if you're starting
to get serious--
there's a bit of a spectrum.
There are people who just
do a little bit every day,
and I think that's fantastic.
But some people
move up the spectrum
where they get more
serious about it,
then I think going on
a meditation retreat
is a great, great idea.
And there's a place
in Massachusetts,
three hours drive from here.
It's called The Insight
Meditation Society.
Sharon Salzberg, who was here
yesterday, she co-founded it.
And they run meditation
retreats all year.
It is a font of wisdom.
It is where this revolution,
mindfulness revolution,
started.
And you are getting
the purest of the pure
and they're not going
to try to inveigle you
into some fancy religion
or get your money.
It's cheap.
It's super legit, and I
would recommend it highly.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
DAN HARRIS: Pleasure.
It's 1:00.
I suspect maybe you
guys have to work.
I'll answer questions
as long as you want.
I love talking about this stuff.
But if you need to go
back to work, I'm sorry.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
