Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to 10% Happier early and ad free right now.Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts.I'm Dan Harris. Hey, hey, how we doing, everybody?
It is so natural and understandable our desire to push away what we don't want to feel, to resist, to deny, to compartmentalize.Believe me, I get it.But as you probably know, that resistance just makes whatever we don't want to feel stronger.
Hence the old expression, what you resist persists. Today, we're going to talk about some Buddhist strategies for acceptance, which, as you will hear, definitely does not mean resignation.
We're talking here about equanimity, being OK with whatever you're feeling so that you can respond wisely to any situation.Speaking of sticky situations, we are recording and releasing this episode in the middle of the 2024 U.S.presidential election.
But I want to be super clear that the advice here is applicable wherever you find yourself and whenever you find yourself. My guests are Kara Lai and Afosu Jones-Korte.
Kara has worked as an artist, wilderness guide, social worker, and therapist before becoming a full-time meditation teacher.Afosu is the male voice over on the Balance meditation app.
He's also an author and a hip-hop artist who records under the name BornEye. In this conversation, we talk about the Buddhist concept of the three root poisons, and why Kara and Afosu see these poisons as the cause of all the suffering in the world.
How to be mindful of these so-called poisons, which include greed, hatred, and delusion, so that you can handle them in a more sophisticated and supple way.The value of not clinging to your opinions and the freedom that can be found in not knowing.
Mindful approaches to working with social media, and why Kara and Afosu believe mindfulness in itself is a form of activism.We'll get started with Carly and Afosu Jones-Corte right after this.
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Carl I, Afosu Jones-Corte, welcome back to the show, both of you.
All right, so we came to you and said, we're in a stressful time in the life of the planet.What do you think you guys could talk about?And you came back with an answer that I would not have predicted, which is the three poisons.
Kara, I'll start with you.What are the three poisons and why did you pick this route?
Yes.Okay, so to define the three poisons, it's a Buddhist way of explaining how suffering works and categorizing suffering into three categories, greed, aversion, and delusion.
Greed is basically what tends to happen when we experience something that we like or is pleasant, that we want it and we want more of it and we get fixated on it.
We're not content anymore because we're just leaning forward towards something else, something better.And then aversion is kind of the opposite of that.It's like something unpleasant happens.We don't want it.We don't like it.We try to get rid of it.
We don't accept the moment as it is because we think it's somehow wrong or bad. The third one is delusion, which is when we basically are thinking that happiness is just completely elsewhere from the moment.
So the moment is irrelevant to our happiness.So we tend to just like check out and go into our thoughts and yeah, just go into la-la land. They're all different ways that we detach from the present moment.
And when we detach from the present moment, we are clinging to some imagined reality that isn't there.And so suffering coexists with that.
The reason that this feels connected to what's going on in the world right now is because I think that and the Buddha taught that it's at the root of all human problems, not just human, but every being's problems is this tendency to
cling this tendency to not accept things the way they are.And you can trace all of the unrest that's happening in the world to these three poisons.
And so identifying them in our own minds and seeing how they operate can be really useful in understanding what's going on in the world, what's going on with someone who we disagree with,
and changing from having basically aversion to it towards having a more peaceful coexistence with it and a relationship with it where we can just have a little bit more wisdom and have more clarity about what is a useful course of action that will actually be forward leading instead of just feeding the cycle of hatred and aversion more and more and more.
Does that feel like a complete answer?
Yeah, let me just see if I can restate it to you.
There are almost an infinite number of ways in which we can create unhappiness in our lives, but you can dump them into three big buckets of ways that we cling to some other version of reality that is different from what is actually happening right now so we can
want something, more of something, like desire or greed, we can feel aversion or hatred, meaning resisting what's happening, or we can numb out and pretend nothing's happening at all, and that's delusion.
And you said, these are all the roots of suffering.That's a tough word, I think, for people because, as I've often joked, I hear that word and I think of being tied to a rock and having crows peck out my innards.
That's what you think of.That's funny.
Suffering in Buddhism is a much more general and kind of down-to-earth term.Yeah.So Fosu, maybe you can just talk about what the Buddhists mean by suffering.
Yeah, so by suffering, the Buddhists mean cocaine, vodka, and Twitter.
That sounds like the first two parts of that sound great.I don't know what you're talking about.
Yeah, no, but okay.So let's take those examples.It always seems like a good idea.And then on the backend, you're just like, fuck, why did I do that?This is the worst idea I could have ever had.I guess a more poetic way.
is honey on a razor's edge, or, yeah, I mean, anything that sort of attracts us.Suffering hides itself in those three poisons, right?And it's really this sort of pervasive dissatisfaction that we end up experiencing with small things like
no matter how good this meal is, I'm going to be hungry again.Or to be gross, it might taste great going in, but not feel so great coming out.And it could be larger things like drugs and alcohol and social media.
They all seem enticing on the front end.And then they generally cause a lot of havoc on the back end.Those are like extreme examples, but it's really, this word dukkha, or suffering, this pervasive dissatisfaction, is woven into all of our
lived stuff if we're relating to it in a way that assumes we should be satisfied.So it's more about the attitude that we bring to whatever we're encountering in life that determines whether it's going to be suffering or an opportunity to wake up.
What the Buddhist perspective generally states is that
Our default setting is usually set to dukkah or suffering, which is being just a hair out of alignment with reality or leagues out of alignment with reality in terms of our relationship to it, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, it's this kind of reflexive way of living.If we're automatically, habitually in sleepwalking mode, wanting stuff, not wanting stuff, or numbing out.If that's the way you're going through life, and that actually is the way
Most people go through life in this kind of robotic, I want it, I don't want it, I'm not noticing way.What the Buddha said is actually there's some alternatives.And one of them, I think that's most relevant to this conversation is mindfulness.
Like just seeing what's happening right now in a way that you're cool with it, even if some part of you wants more or is resisting it or trying to pretend it's not happening.Is that a reasonably accurate restatement of fosu?
Yeah, yeah, I think there's a way in which mindfulness asks us to, when it comes to suffering, there's a teacher named Aya Santichita, who talked about climate change as the outgrowth of our immaturity.
As human beings, we have an immature relationship to the planet, not that we are bad and that we're treating the planet bad, it's just that we're immature.
And that mindfulness, having a mindful approach to how we relate to the planet is our attempt or our journey towards maturity.And I think we can apply that analogy in multiple ways.
The reflexive suffering relationship that we have with reality is kind of our immaturity, and mindfulness gives us the tools to have a more mature outlook.
Like, no, you don't need that fourth breakfast taco, because you know you're going to feel like shit.Just like that, yeah.
I'm appreciating your examples you've used. Twitter, vodka, cocaine, which always gets my ears perked up, and now breakfast burritos or tacos.
This podcast episode is just gonna lead to everyone going and binging afterwards.
Oh no.I'm so sorry, y'all.No.
As long as they binge mindfully, I think it's fine.Absolutely not.
Picking up on that immaturity line, I was re-listening to the beginning of Sapiens the other day, the book about the history of our kind of humans, homo sapiens, because there are many other humans that are non-homo sapiens.
They're not around anymore, but there were. Noah Yuval Harari, the author, was pointing out that for most of our existence, we were not at the top of the food chain.
But then, because of our ability to collaborate, and then we, you know, domesticated fire, and we rose to the top of the food chain, but we brought all of our twitchiness and anxiety and fear with us to the top of the food chain, and the ramifications from that have been profound.
In many ways, I see the Dharma or Buddhism or any of, sort of ancient wisdom traditions backed up in many cases by modern science as the antidote to this set of design flaws.Car, does any of this rambling land for you?
Yeah, definitely.It reminds me of something that I talk about a lot when I teach teen retreats.These young adults who are coming of age and the role models that they've had usually have not had access to mindfulness.
And so they don't know any other way of being happy besides just kind of pursuing greed, aversion, and delusion, trying to do what feels good.And so they've been told this way of being happy that is immature.So they're ending up unhappy.
And then they come on these meditation retreats and learning that there's this alternative way of approaching life that actually hits the happiness nail on the head much better than just
trying to get the right job and trying to meet the right person and trying to get the house and the car and like the 401k, that really resonates with them.
And I think there's something to that, that mindfulness isn't something that's actually really new or foreign to us because a lot of us feel a sense of resonance when we encounter it.It's like, oh, that makes sense.
That really deeply makes a lot of sense. and I can feel for myself how it works in real time because it's relevant to this moment.It's not, you'll be happy when, it's actually right now.We can see the freedom provided by the release of clinging.
I just want to point out, Afosu, that when Cara tries to use examples of things that we might desire, she uses mature examples like 401ks and jobs.You're talking about cocaine and breakfast burritos, just to set the baseline here.
That's what makes us a spectacular team.It's the spectrum of reality at play.
Well, yeah, and Afosu is also just a lot better at being honest about his experience and pretty good at hiding my addictions.
I don't think either of you struggles with honesty.All right, so back to the central point here, and Afosu, I'll just confirm this with you before we move into some of the what can you do about it.But I think the central point of this episode
is that we're in the middle of this particularly piquant, stressful presidential election.I want to be clear if you're listening later, because a lot of people go back and listen to episodes, this wisdom is evergreen.
But right now we're recording this in the middle of the 2024 presidential campaign.It's stressful.And your collective point, yours Ankara,
is that if we can be mindful and aware of these three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion, we actually can navigate all of this in a more supple and seamless way.Am I saying that correctly?
Yeah, definitely.And I think also we can be in a state of perpetual disarming because when greed, hatred, and delusion are
active in us without our awareness, it's very easy for us to identify different points of view, different people, different cultures, different perspectives as other, as enemy, and very easy to identify our own position, our tribal positions as the truth and as the only valid options or responses to life or to reality.
There's a humility that arises when we recognize our own. habit energy that is fueled by greed, hatred, and delusion.And then there's a bit of a leveling of the playing field.
Even that big, bad mob or group or political figure, they're also under the influence of the same things I'm under the influence of.Who's to say which one of us really knows what the answer is?Let's at least be open to respecting each other.
We might not agree.We might not, all of those things.We might just be fundamentally opposed, but we can at least have compassion and respect
when we recognize that we also are easily pulled by these three poisons in a myriad of directions, I think that we can just like begin to quell hostilities.
And like you mentioned pecans, I'm just gonna assume that that means hot or something heat worthy.Hot sauce.Yes, I think it's a spicy, yes.Yeah, like your new nickname, hot sauce.Yes.
We can like just cool the temperature down a little bit within ourselves and in how we respond to others.
Because I really do think that it's easy for us to look externally and say, this is the source of conflict and has nothing to do with me or us or how I'm operating.
But it is our collective work to identify and hopefully uproot these poisons as much as we can.
Just to explain before we started rolling, for reasons that remain opaque to me decided that my new nickname is going to be hot sauce, which I take because as I told him, it's better than shit bird, which is what I usually get called.
All right, Cara, one of the things you wanted to talk about was resistance versus acceptance.
Can you say a little bit about that?
Well, when you think about the three poisons and what they are on a really basic level, I think they all point back to resistance of some kind.So suffering in Buddhist terms is all about resistance, resisting things as they are.
And then acceptance is the opposite of suffering, you know, it's freedom. Acceptance means accepting the moment just as it is.
And it's different from complacency and it's different from giving up because what it is is a recognition of what we do and don't have control over and putting down the struggle against the things that we don't have control over.
typically we are so wrapped up in railing against things that we can't change, trying to get this moment to just be a little bit different, trying to get you to be just a little bit different, trying to get you to think how I think, trying to
get me to be myself, to be a little bit better all the time.And it's exhausting.And so to put down that struggle frees up all this energy to, first of all, simply relax and enjoy the moment.
But also, now we have a plethora of energy to go and do things that are not cocaine binges and gorging on breakfast tacos.
Now we have all this energy to do something that actually could be impactful in the world and onward leading instead of just in the same cycles.
So when I'm with someone who I disagree with and I'm accepting instead of resisting, then there's this space opened up to actually have some curiosity about why they are thinking the way they are thinking.
And not like, why are you thinking the way you're thinking?But like, wow, I wonder what that's about for you?And like, what are you getting from having this way of thinking or this belief system?And how is it affording you some sense of safety?
Because we all want some safety.So I'm not so wrapped up in me and my needs, my need to be okay, because I do feel okay. And so I can actually make it about you and not take it so personally when you disagree with me.
We all know what it's like to have someone who may or may not disagree with us have genuine curiosity and interest in our belief system and how that can really open up space for connection and creativity in the relationship and the conversation.
And actually makes me feel less rigid in my beliefs just because I don't feel like I'm being attacked. I have no jokes to make about hot sauce or breakfast tacos, but I'll work on some of them.
Just accept that there's no humor coming up in your mind.
So you talked about how we can achieve some degree of acceptance in a difficult conversation.
I mean, I think that's probably true right now, as we're recording this, many people who have political disagreements with people in their family or at the workplace.So acceptance, again, is not passivity.It's not resignation.It's not quietude.
just not resisting what's happening right now.
And once your nervous system is relaxed in that way, that you're just, it doesn't mean you have to be excited about it, but on some deep level, you're okay with seeing clearly what is the truth of this situation, then you may actually have some more energy to get curious about it.
That's one example of how seeing one of the three poisons, aversion, clearly in these times can help us navigate it.
What about when we are, and I'll send this one to you, Afosu, what about when we're not in conversation with somebody directly, but we might be on Twitter, which you've already referenced, or any other social media platform, or just interacting with the media generally, and it's not going well for us?
Yeah, I'm glad you asked this because I have had, I've had an itchy block thumb as I've been scrolling, seeing the posts against people who I respect or people who I care about or who I have relationships with.
And then these times, you know, folks tend to express their ideas and sometimes it's like, oh, I never knew you felt that way.
Or people use social media to make really crass jokes or post memes in a knee-jerk way, not realizing if they might be harmful or offensive.And I do find myself Yeah, getting annoyed.
And I wanna circle back to Kara's point about being okay enough to be with whatever's taking place.I wanna bring up that it doesn't mean that it feels good.
At least to me, it means that I've got some additional fortitude to stay and not run away or to stay and simply scroll past.
and not engage or if I really do feel that there's something to offer and that's more and more I find that I really choose to protect my own peace of mind by engaging less and less.
If I see something that I either don't agree with or that's offensive, if it's wildly offensive, the block button or the mute button is always there.On Facebook, that's my gentle middle ground.Snooze this person for 30 days.
So I don't necessarily unfriend or unfollow or block, but if this is what you're going to post, I don't want to see it for a while.I really can feel into where I'm at
And instead of firing off something or severing the digital relationship, I can either choose an option that doesn't feel like it comes from a violent place.
I know violence is a strong word, but these feelings, when we get triggered, those are like the seeds of violence.Those are the seeds that create a very hard line in the sand.So,
There's a way in which practicing mindfulness, being aware of how we are triggered, taking care of our own mental and emotional and physical health does give us the fortitude to pause before we engage in a Twitter fight or block your uncle or some other unhealthy response on social media.
Coming up, Cara and Afosu talk about how we can train our minds on the cushion, the Buddhist term of art, attachment to views and how understanding this concept can make your life a lot easier and much more.
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There are ways to work with, just to give listeners of some behind the scenes, Cara Anafossou worked with one of our ACE producers, our senior producer Marissa Schneiderman, to design the course of this conversation.
They did it in a Google Doc that they were all sharing.
I had a chance to look at it and in looking at that Google Doc, you guys recommended some ways to use our meditation practice to see where when we're crossing the line between acceptance and resistance.
Car, do you want to talk a little bit about how we can on the cushion use that as a dojo for the rest of our lives in this regard?
Yeah, so one thing that has been an interesting exploration for me has been to start to pay more attention to, and it might be hard at first, but start to pay a little more attention to what happens in the moment before you go and get lost in thought, or before your attention moves away from the present moment.
It'll be tricky to catch at first, but you kind of just start by paying attention to the whole of the experience like, oh, wow, I'm lost in thought.Huh, what am I coming back to?
What do I have to come back to and be with now that I've recognized that I've been lost?Is there something that I wasn't wanting to feel? and that looking away from it and just going into thought was helping me numb too.
Although it seems kind of harmless, going into thought is a way of resisting the present moment, right?It's like, I don't want to be here, so I'm going to go somewhere else. when we reconnect back with the present moment, it's not always hunky-dory.
It's not like, oh, I'm so peaceful in this present moment once again.It's actually like, oh, I really don't want to be feeling this or experiencing this right now.
And so just knowing that can be a helpful thing to name because a lot of people think, wow, I must be doing something wrong because I don't feel good when I meditate. But well, actually, there's a reason we've been numbing out all the time.
It's because we haven't been wanting to feel a lot of stuff.There's all this stuff that we've been developing all these bad habits to use to avoid the present moment.It's like, oh yeah, I'm gonna go doom scroll.I'm gonna go watch TV.I'm gonna
just fantasize for a while, I'm going to drink vodka, then I don't have to feel this.And the more I do that, the more I actually feel like I can't handle the present moment.And so it becomes a cycle.
So just to start by begin to notice what is it that I'm having to feel when I come back to the present moment.And We might not have to, in fact, we definitely don't have to just like face it full on and feel all the things we're not wanting to feel.
Even just touching into it a little bit can be really, really impactful.It's like, oh, there is some rage there. or there is some sadness there, or there's some anxiety there.
First, we just name it, and maybe then we go to something easier to be with.You know, we feel our feet or something that feels kind of just neutral.It's like, okay, well, what can I be with in the present moment that isn't so charged?
Okay, that's just gonna help me stay here.That's why we use an anchor.So we go to the anchor and then maybe we can touch back in.It's like, well, what was that thing?How did I know that I was anxious?What was the feeling that I had?
Where does that live in the body?Is it in my stomach?Is it in my chest?And what if I just stayed with it for a little bit longer than I thought that I could? And then we start to build up some confidence and our window of tolerance starts to grow.
And then the mindfulness being applied to the anxiety or the sadness or the grief or the anger, whatever it is, actually can start to transform it and heal it.
oh, like this feeling, which I was avoiding so much, actually just really needed some attention.It really needed to be seen and felt and understood and loved.I was so afraid of it that I kept running away from it, but now
now that I'm fully facing it, not only is it a lot less scary, it's actually working to heal it and transform it.
And now I don't feel like I have to constantly be running away from my experience anymore and avoiding life, which is what a crappy way to be living life, to just be constantly trying to find ways to get out of it.
Something you just said there reminded me of a great comment that I heard just a couple days ago.
I just got back from vacation and we were spending a couple weeks out at the beach and we had a big house and there were a lot of people in the house, a lot of other families that were close with him.
One of my friends, one of my very old, you know, more than two decade long friendships is with this woman, Kayama, and I like to bother her.
And I'm really good at like coming up with little comments that get her, you know, sighing or yelling at me or whatever.And she's been working for a long time at not getting overly reactive to my provocations.And she had a great comeback recently.
I just said some made some snide comments.She said, what's wrong?You just need attention.That's actually what you're recommending for all the things we're trying to avoid in our meditation practice.
I guess so.Yeah.Was it true?Were you just needing attention, Dan?
It's always what I'm going for.That's always what I'm going for.And I do this with my wife all the time.I do it with a lot of people that I'm close with.It's like it's a kind of negative attention seeking.I'm just messing with them.
And of course, that's all it is.So that was the perfect comeback.She's been struggling for 22 years to figure out how to deal with me being annoying.And she just found it.And it is
exactly what I believe I heard you say about like these things that we're resisting in our inner lives that we're papering over with thinking or with tacos or whatever and actually they just you know annoying little kids who need some attention and if you can give them some attention often the knot unties.
Yeah, I think that's a great example because what you described is that she was basically just aversive or reactive towards you, like maybe on like a playful level.
And then actually said something that really connected with the truth of what was going on in the moment and maybe for you.
Maybe there was a little tinge of like belittling you there, but also... More than a little tinge, I just want to be clear, it was... Right.
So, if it was really pure mindfulness, there wouldn't be the belittling piece of it and be like, oh, poor me, I need some attention.But it actually would be like, wow, okay, Dan really needs some attention.
Poor Dan, like he really needs some love and which, you know, it doesn't sound like that was the dynamic.There was some more playful than that.And playfulness is a useful thing to do.
And we can kind of play with the way that we talk to ourselves a little bit like, oh, like, that piece of me like needs some love.Hey, you just need some attention there.
And maybe that can be like our doorway into something that feels like even more actually compassionate towards ourselves.Yes.
I want to be clear that I have not stopped, nor do I plan to stop.Good.Needling Dayama or my wife.
Well, that's actually an important point because just because we see it doesn't mean that it's gonna go away.What often happens is that we're like, oh, I felt that anxiety and I met it with compassion.
And then we have this expectation that it's not gonna happen again, because we just like, oh, I did the transformative work, I'm done. And then it comes back and we're real disappointed or we feel like we didn't do it right.
But we can recognize that, first of all, it just takes a long time.And if we're seeing it again, we're just seeing more layers of it.And we're still growing our capacity to be with it.It's important to know that this process, it takes a while.
But just because it takes a while doesn't mean that one noticing like that is insignificant.It actually can be deeply transformative just to do that.But you do have to keep going and do it again and again. see the trap of expectation.
It's like, oh, I think it's gonna be over now.But we have to keep on reconnecting with what this moment calls for and this moment.
So we're talking about how seeing the so-called three poisons, greed, hatred, delusion, seeing it in our own minds can help us more successfully navigate stressful or tumultuous times, specifically presidential election about which many of us have strong feelings.
In that vein, you also wanted to talk about how we can be attached to our views.So, Fosu, let me send it to you.This is a kind of a Buddhist term of our attachment to view.What does it mean?
Yeah, well, attachment to views, I see kind of as an extension of all three of those poisons of greed, of hatred and delusion.
From the greedy side, it is the idea that our view, our point of view, our perspective on anything or our general life philosophy is A, the right one and B, going to, if applied, and if it were universally applied, would create
the utopia that we all want or the perfect life that I want.Sometimes I just wish that everybody could just see things from the Buddhist perspective and we would be fine.
And I don't know that I'm wrong, but I think that if I hold onto that, I'm bound to suffer and definitely bound to piss people off or cause some additional suffering.That's who I was when I first discovered meditation.
I was telling all my friends, we got to stop doing whatever we're doing and just start meditating.And I was really insufferable.So then there's the aversion aspect, which is saying that everybody else's view is wrong.
And I don't want to hear anybody else's point of view.As soon as I see this person, I see who they vote for.I see what they think about the issues.I see their religious background and it's an non-starter for me.I don't want to hear it.
I don't want to see them.I feel aversion towards them.The delusion aspect kind of goes back to the first point of only my limited perspective or the limited perspective of my tribe or group or political party or family is the right one.
And Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the teachers who really stressed how attachment to views becomes the seeds of fanaticism.And fanaticism tends to lead to all sorts of violence and oppression.
When we sit in meditation, I've been working a lot with open awareness practice.It's been healthier for me with my OCD condition, having a long relationship with sort of
conventional vipassana practice, noticing the breath, et cetera, gave me enough of a stable foundation to begin to just open up.Recently, I've just been sitting and being open to the experience.
And when I do that, one experience will come along and it'll be like, ah, enlightened.And then just like three seconds later, Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, this is the worst.I suck, I suck, I suck.And then, ah, enlightened, then fuck.
And it just keeps going up and down.So like, which is, so what's true?It's just the weather keeps passing through.But what if the bell dings on the up or on the down?Do I then get off the cushion and say,
The bell rang when I was experiencing a shitty moment in meditation.And so I'm, by dint of that, I'm a shitty person.Or can I have a more mature outlook on my experience and say, wow, that was a lot of up and down shit.I guess that's how life is.
I think fixed views, going back to Thich Nhat Hanh, they really do sow the seeds of a lot of potential danger.And the extent to which we can loosen our grip on our ideas is the extent to which we can treat ourselves and others with respect.
Well said.So, Cara, let's talk about what we could do to loosen our grip on our views.One of the things you recommend is to identify your edge.Can you say more about that?
Yeah.So, with the idea being that a view is a form of clinging.So, when we meet up against an edge and we start to develop a view, a tightness kind of enters. For me, actually, it tends to be, well, I have a bunch.
One of them that has been interesting for me to explore, because it wasn't obvious to me right away, is that it's less that I get activated when someone has the complete opposite belief system as me.
It's more that when they have the same belief system as me, but they are going about announcing their views in a way that to me seems like violent or not helpful.
It's like, oh, but you were on my side, but you're like not doing it the way that I think you should do it or the way that I think is helpful.
So just like kind of knowing that for me, because when we're caught in our views, it's so easy to be like, well, this person is wrong and they need to change and then I can be okay.But we can see the trap of that.
It's like this idea that I can't be okay until you're different.And waiting for somebody else to change for us to be okay is really not a great tactic for happiness because we can't control the way other people operate and think.
So I have to take care of myself in the moment that I like read whatever thing on Instagram or get a letter from someone telling me about some situation that I should be speaking up about or that I should call my senator.
And I have to just tend to what's going on for me there and what has me charged and to see that, whoa, what's going on in me right now is actually aversion.
And if I don't recognize that, then I'm just operating from the same place that the person who had activated me in the first place is operating from.And then the cycle continues.
Another thing that has been really helpful for me with views, just to see that they afford us a sense of safety. and we wouldn't have them otherwise.So there's something really intense going on in the world.
For example, there's a war that is really, really painful for us to hear about and learn about.And the thing that comforts us, one of the only ways that we can feel okay is to have an opinion about it.
Oh, like this really needs to end and this group of people is wrong.This is the right way to address the situation.It's helpful for me to recognize that there's something that I am protecting by having a view.
And then I can connect with that thing, you know, that sense of instability or the sense of uncertainty or the sense of helplessness that's often there when a view comes in. and meet that with some care and compassion.
I don't want to pause my notifications on something that triggers me sometimes, or I don't wanna block or unfollow the person who they say something that to me is controversial or activates me because my view that arises when I hear that actually makes me feel good.
I feel like powerful because I'm like, yeah, they're so wrong.I don't want to block this person because I want to hear that again so that I can feel right again or like more validated in my standpoint.
But we can feel the way that it hardens us against someone and it makes us less open to other alternatives and It makes what I think is one of the most healing solutions less accessible, which is to land in not knowing.What if I don't know?
What if I don't have an answer?And can it be okay to live more in uncertainty than I'm used to living? It's better to live in uncertainty than it is to live in a false sense of certainty.
This is another piece of the practice with views is to intentionally go into not knowing.Like, well, what if I'm wrong?What if I actually don't know? and where am I wrong and where do I actually not know?
Where can I admit that I don't really have an answer and I don't know what the solution is and I feel scared and I feel helpless?How can I connect with that?
And then that gets used as a way of connecting with the people who I have a hard time connecting with.It's like, wow, you also
In your strong viewpoint, you also may feel a sense of helplessness or loss of control and don't know how to deal with that other than to cling to a view about how things should be.
I love all of that, just to say, I mean, I think it just makes so much sense that clinging to views can make us feel safe in an unsafe world.And we evolved to this.And there are ways not to cling.
Another aspect of all of this that you wanted to talk about was numbing.And I think this is very common.I mean, this is clearly delusion, right?But we can just go numb in the face of news events, world events that we don't want to take in.
Afosu, any practices for working with numbing?And one of the things I'm also curious about is what's the relationship between numbing and views?
Because views are a kind of dysfunctional tuning in, numbing is a tuning out that seems like I have no view, I'm just eating the tacos.
Well, just real quick, I had a point on something that Carr mentioned about views, just to say that there's a way that we can also see people's views, even if they don't align with our own, still as their way of wishing for things to be the best from their perspective.
So there's a way in which we don't have to receive contradictory views as an attack.
In terms of numbing out, I'm keeping an eye on this within myself too, because Roshi Joan Halifax has dubbed the times that we're living in as the poly-crisis, that there are so many crises happening around the world that it's a multiplicity of very bad things.
And it can be really overwhelming.Like, which one do you pick?Chogyam Trungpa, controversial person, name, but said a bunch of cool stuff, talks about the bravery of being disarmed, the bravery of walking around with a broken heart.
There is an element of, of bravery and warriorship that's necessary to stay in touch with our world.
But I think that numbing becomes attractive to me when I inflate the negative or that which I perceive to be unbearable and forget that the neutral and bearable and good is also at play. The world isn't just the parts that are on fire.
The world is also full of beauty, full of wonder, full of the mundane.Those of us who are at least able to do that because we're not under siege in any given moment, if we can draw resources from the totality of how life is,
then we don't have to numb out because just like in our meditation, when something is painful, we can point our attention to where things are not so intense and then keep touching back into the pain, keep touching back in to the extent that we are able, then we have the ability and the wherewithal to do something about it if we so choose.
Coming up, Cara and Afosu talk about rethinking activism, how we can get involved in the issues we care about in a way that works for us.
Cara, you and Afosu conclude this document that you created in preparation for this interview with a whole section about rethinking activism, which
really is about how can we get involved in whatever issues we care about from presidential election to an overseas war to you name it.
How can we get involved in a way that works for us given our busy lives, given our temperaments, et cetera, et cetera.I want to hear from Afosu too, but can you start us out on that tip, Kara?
Yeah, well, I think Afosu just now talking about this idea of kind of like just opening to what's okay is a good beginning for that because I think we often tend to look at just focusing on what isn't wrong as some kind of avoidance.
at least I feel like there's some kind of social pressure when it comes to activism to always be fighting and doing something.And even the word resistance is often used when it comes to social activism.
It's like, we're resisting the forces of evil in the world.We're resisting the enemy, we're resisting the man, the people in power.So we can see that actually there's the opposite of what the Buddha
pointed to that's kind of embedded in our culture of activism.It's like we got to fight the enemy and we got to win and there's a lot of pushing.Something opposite of that, like just sitting and being with what's okay, definitely looks bad.
You know, it really looks weak and avoidance and lazy.It doesn't look like you're doing anything.And our culture is all about doing stuff.We're supposed to be productive.We're supposed to be out there and getting shit done.
It doesn't look like you're getting anything done when you're sitting on your ass and meditating. But if we don't just pause and resource, like Afosu was just describing, then anything we do is fueled by our pain.
So we're just adding more resistance to the world where the root of the problems that we're trying to fight is resistance.
So if we really want to get to the root of the problem, we can start, the most accessible place to start is in our own heart and mind.
I know it's not a traditional way to talk about activism, but activism really can be taking care of yourself and understanding how resistance, how greed, aversion, and delusion operate in your own heart and mind.
Everything that we talked about on this podcast could be seen as forms of activism, peace work, I, for a while, was really like, I can't be a social activist.I'm not a social activist.I don't feel like I can hang.
It just feels like way more energy than I have.And I don't want to stand in the sun for hours at a time holding a sign made out of cardboard.That doesn't feel resonant with me, and I don't have the energy.I'm tired.
I had to redefine for myself what it could look like for me to actually feel like I can be helpful in the world because it was either that or give up and numb out.
And there are so many other ways if we unpack our concept of social activism to be real social activists.And I think we all have different temperaments and we all have different gifts.
And just to name that we're pushed to be more yang than yin can be helpful for some to hear because it's like, well, actually, maybe I'm a quiet person or maybe I'm shy and how can I help?What's my quiet work?Maybe it doesn't look at all relevant.
You know, maybe it's just, I heard a story recently about a bus driver who was driving through like rush hour in New York City and everyone on the bus was super pissed.There were like fights breaking out, people yelling at each other.
They were in gridlock.Everyone was just like very, very, very upset. and it was in the air and everyone kind of knew it.And the bus driver made an announcement that was like, hey, listen, everyone, I know it's a hard day.
I know you're all having a tough time.Please, please, whatever you do, don't take your troubles home with you.When you get off the bus, I want you to drop your troubles into my hands.
I'm going to hold my hands out and you can just drop them into my hands.Leave them here.Leave them here with me and I'm going to go drive over to that bridge and I'm going to throw them all off the bridge.
and everybody laughed and the mood like totally changed and it just turned the whole environment on the bus from one that was like angry and rageful and brutal to one that was just having perspective and light and playful and everyone did it you know everyone got off the bus and like
through their troubles into this guy's hands.And they kind of laughed about it.And you can see that a bus driver who, you know, is like one of the most invisible workers in our culture had this huge impact.
And who knows how many other lives that impacted when all those people went home to their families and didn't take it out on their families and didn't create more hatred and suffering. And to me, that's activism.
That's such a good example of someone from their seat of power doing something that felt right and good to them.And it didn't have to be something that overtly looked like a big world changing event.
It was something small, but it probably had a huge impact.And I mean, I'm telling the story, so then it has an even bigger impact because more people hear it and feel inspired by it.
So, I think we can really be creative about how we think about activism and see how little things have a big impact and can really ripple out.It's not so much about what you do, it's about the place that it comes from.
Fosu, you wanna have the final word on this?Yeah, I really resonate with what Cara has shared.I also have wondered whether or not I'm, I fit into the dynamic of a social activist.
And I've also, you know, seen, I think Cara mentioned like sometimes it can be hurtful when people who are quote unquote on your team or hold the same similar views then go about things in a way that feel like an attack.
I've seen that in some corners of the more vocal styles of activism recently.It's like, yeah, I kind of believe the same things, but I don't necessarily think about going about it in the same way.
I want to read a quote from Conda Mason that I saw recently that feels really inspiring and relevant.
Conda says, often we think that we have to do something grandiose, but if we can't be nonviolent to ourselves and to each other, then we're not going to have a nonviolent world.
when I've been teaching retreats since things started to get really hot recently, I've mentioned to the folks that have been on retreat that we might think that the world
is on fire and that peace is elusive, but where we are right now is also the world.And what we've been doing is cultivating peace in the world.
To not think that our efforts are minimal or that they don't count, even if they're not loud or if they don't look a certain way.There's a reason why in the Buddhist tradition, we dedicate the merit of our practice
to everything and everyone everywhere, because this practice is not just for us.This practice is dedicated to the happiness and liberation of all.
That can also be an antidote to numbing, is that when we see and hear about the suffering, then we bring that into our practice and say, I'm practicing right now to, in my small way, provide an antidote to that suffering.
I'm not going to perpetuate greed, hatred, and delusion as best I can in my own mind, in my own body, in my own home, in my friend group, in my office, whatever.
And just like that story that Cara mentioned, we say in our practice, you know, may this practice have eternal ripple effects.And just this action of this bus driver continues on.If each one of us makes a small dedication
towards alleviating suffering in our own minds and bodies and then in the environment around us, then I become that much more optimistic that our world can transform into a happier and safer place.
My mother-in-law always says, your joy is your purpose.And for some people, certain types of activism is what really flips their light switch on and brings them a sense of joy and purpose.
And I applaud that, but that doesn't mean that that form of activism is to the exclusion of all others.I think that in these times, any act of kindness is an act of activism.
Well, I agree.As part of our election programming, we've been doing a run of 10 Dharma episodes.One of them, I talked to Tara Brock, who I know both of you know, great, great meditation teacher.
And she used this phrase, I don't think it's her phrase, but she used it, action absorbs anxiety.And so it's helpful to get involved.
because that taking action can reduce your anxiety, but you don't have to get involved the way you're seeing people do it on TV.
You can do it the way the bus driver did it, or you can just sit in meditation because who knows what kind of good outcomes that could have for you and for everybody else. Well, this has been super helpful.
Thank you both for taking the time to do this and also to, I know you put a lot of thought into what you wanted to talk about today.Kara and Afosu, thank you, great job.
Thank you, Hot Sauce.Hey, can we plug anything?Yeah, you can plug anything.Okay, Kara and I, we have a monthly parenting Dharma group that we offer.We're both parents and we wanna help support other parents who are practitioners.
It's called Parenting as the Path.And you can go to Kara's website to figure out how to sign up for that.C-A-R-A-L-A-I dot O-R-G and come to our class and see all the stuff that Carr's doing.
Yeah, you can go to my website, easiest under my artist name, Born I, so you can go to Born I Music, B-O-R-N, the letter I, the word music, bornimusic.com for music and meditation stuff.You can meditate with me on balance.
I also teach a couple other classes that you can also find on my website that are just drop-in meditation classes and they're free for anyone who wants to sign up.
We'll put links to all of this in the show notes.Thank you.Thank you both again.Appreciate it.
Thanks again to Cara and Afosu.Don't forget to go over to danharris.com.If you sign up, you'll get cheat sheets that allow you to look back at the major takeaways from this episode and all the other new episodes we're putting out there.
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Before I go, I want to thank everybody who worked so hard to make this show.Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili.Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People.
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