Tami Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Dan Harris. Dan is a correspondent for ABC News, an anchor for Nightline, and a co-anchor for the weekend edition of Good Morning America. A former self-proclaimed skeptic of meditation and mindfulness, Dan became a believer after he had a panic attack on live national television in 2004. That panic attack put him on a search and led him to research the benefits of mindfulness and meditation. Dan is the author the bestselling book Ten Percent Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works—A True Story.
In this episode of Insights at the Edge, I had the privilege to talk to Dan about how meditation, in his view, has a PR problem and what might be required to introduce meditation to the uninitiated—especially to a generation of people who were raised in what he calls “The Age of Irony.” We also talked about how Dan’s life has changed since becoming a meditator—how work relationships are different, how he balances his drive for success with equanimity, and how he deals differently with criticism. Finally, we talked about happiness and the real percentages that he’s experiencing in his life about the impacts of meditation on his experience. Here’s my conversation with the very generous Dan Harris:
Dan, thank you so much for making the time in the midst of your busy broadcasting schedule to talk to Sounds True. Thank you!
Dan Harris: It’s a pleasure. Thanks for having me on.
TS: So, what do you think is happening in the culture at this point in time—now—that meditation is entering the mainstream? What are the changes that make this a ripe situation?
DH: I think the major driving force—I think there a lot of them, but the biggie is the science. It carries so much capital in our culture—science does—and it’s what makes this practice that has long been viewed as fringe-y and weird—or maybe just impossible—seem attractive to people who would have reflexively rejected it not too long ago. From the military to the C-suites to the locker rooms to the hallways of network newscasts—which is all fascinating, I think and, while complicated in my view, mostly good. Ninety percent good. Apparently, I have a knack for using percentages.
So, I would say the science is the big thing. Then I would say—well, one other thing comes to mind is the fact that we’re so bombarded by sensory input in the form of computers and mobile devices. I think people feel that their attention is more fractured than ever.
TS: Now, I’m very comfortable with percentages. I love numbers, and I’m glad that you’re bringing them up here in the beginning. So, what’s the ten percent of meditation entering the mainstream in this way that you don’t think is good? Or potentially isn’t good?
DH: I would just say “complicated.” I pay a very close attention to the voices of people who are worried about “McMindfulness”—that something has been lost in the secularizing of Buddhist meditation. I think these folks make a lot of good points.
Overall, my view is that more mindfulness is better than less mindfulness. Even if people we may disagree with—I’m not sure who I mean by “we,” but even if people that you disagree with are adopting this practice that you hold dear, I think it’s better for them to be more mindful than less mindful.
That being said, I do worry a little bit about the loss of emphasis on compassion in the mainstreaming of mindfulness. My answer to that is we ought to do for mindfulness what’s been done for compassion—which is to cast it in self-interested terms. By the way, the Dalai Lama himself does this. He talks about “wise selfishness” as opposed to “stupid selfishness.” I’m not sure he uses the word “stupid,” but something along those lines.
I talk about this in my book at length. I don’t know if I can swear on this podcast but—
TS: You certainly can swear. Go for it. Don’t hold back.
DH: OK, cool. I call it the self-interested case for not being a dick. I think that there’s a common-sense and also scientific argument that can be mustered for compassion. Research shows that people who are compassionate are happier and healthier, more successful. Furthermore, very compelling research seems to suggest that people who do compassion meditation can make themselves more compassionate.
So, I’ve just found in my own life that this is very powerful. I think that if you make these kinds of arguments for compassion, that will fill one of the major holes that’s come about or been created as a result of the mainstreaming.
TS: I’ll tell you what my concern is with the mainstreaming of meditation and see what you think. My concern is that the way that it’s often described as a self-improvement technique kind of bolsters up, “You can do this and you can become better at this [and] better at that! You’ll focus more! You’ll be more relaxed when it’s your turn to speak on the microphone!” Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In your own language in your book, Ten Percent Happier, meditation is a superpower.
It’s portrayed as this thing that actually, in a way, bolsters—you could say—the ego, the sense of self. My power and control in the world. I think that’s the thing, personally, that bothers me. I’m curious what you think about that.
DH: It doesn’t bother me. Clearly, it doesn’t bother me because I am like the loudest voice arguing for this.
I reserve the right to disavow everything I say on this podcast and everything I’ve written in my book, but at this point I do the exact opposite—I’ll double down. I think that you’ve got to meet people where they are, to use a cliché. To make this practice attractive to people, I think you need to cast it in terms of self-interest. I don’t think you’re going to get there through moralizing, finger-wagging, or talking about the obliteration of the self, which people don’t even understand. I’m not even sure I understand that, and I’ve been poking around in Buddhism for five years, which isn’t a long time—but it’s enough.
So, I don’t think your average American or your average citizen of this planet is going to find the traditional presentation attractive. We do know that it can be good for people in lots of ways.
So, I don’t think it’s wrong. First of all, I don’t think it’s false advertising. Second of all, I don’t see the damage that’s done from this presentation. But, I invite you cordially to disabuse me of all of those notions.
TS: Well, let’s just take it a little further. In my own experience with meditation, it’s “disassembled” me in a certain kind of way. Some of the things I used to believe, I question everything now. So many different perspectives make sense to me in a given moment. There’s a way that I don’t feel in charge in the same way. I feel a sense of being moved by something bigger than me—that comes through me.
I know this could start sounding metaphysical, and that that’s not your favorite direction to go in. But what I’m curious about here, Dan is: here you are. You’ve been meditating. And I’m curious if any experiences have come in that feel like [“disassembly”], if you will—for you—that don’t make you feel more like Mr. Superpower. But something else is actually happening.
DH: I don’t hear what you’re saying as metaphysical, per se. I find all of that really fascinating, and I’m envious of it. I think that is a sign of somebody who’s been practicing in a probably much more rigorous way for much longer than I’ve been practicing. But, these are all experiences—what you describe—that I would love to have.
And I do think that there are stages of practice. There’s the shallow end of the pool, there’s the kiddie pool, and then there’s the deeper end of the pool. Motivations change, as we know, the longer you practice.
So, where I’m at in my practice and the things I’m interested in personally are a little bit different from what I talk about to the broad audience that address. That’s because I am—to use a loaded phrase—mindful of what is going to be attractive (I think) to people who have no experience to this and probably approach it with a level of hostility. I feel like I can talk to those people because that was me not too long ago.
So, I actually think we agree on more than you may think we agree on. Those experiences that you’re describing—I would like to get there.
TS: I think we do too, incidentally. I feel it. I feel it, Dan. I feel our agreement.
OK, so you write in Ten Percent Happier that meditation has a PR problem, which is I think part of what we’re talking about here. So, I’m curious: If you were in charge of branding meditation in the world—creating a new brand for it, publicizing it—how would you put meditation out into the world?
DH: Well, first of all, I wouldn’t change the name. I’ve had this argument with a lot of people you know too—a lot of our friends in the “mindfulness movement,” or whatever you want to call it.
[To] kind of [rebrand] it as “mental fitness” or “mindfulness practice” is—you’re never going to get somebody sitting down with their eyes closed and trick them into—they’re going to know they’re meditating. So, you might as well just call it what it is.
I think that we need to change the connotations around it. I think we need to disabuse people of these notions they have about meditation, like it’s only for this strange little subculture of folks who have been doing it since the Beat poets brought it over. Or, two, that it involves magically clearing the mind—which most of us know is intuitively just not possible unless you’ve had a ton of practice. Or, three, that it involves going away and cloistering yourself at some monastery.
So, those are all the things I think that [need to be] changed in the messaging we need to get out there. But overall—I think this is an imperfect analogy, but I use it because it’s fine as far as it goes. I think comparing it to exercise is the right beginner’s analogy for people who are coming to this clean and cold.
TS: So, what would be your advice—and I’m just curious. I’ve been in this field now with Sounds True for 30 years. I think a lot of Sounds True listeners have been at this for a long time. Of course, there’s new people coming in too. What would be your advice [as to] how to help bring mindfulness meditation into the culture at large and not have this kind of elitist attitude? “Don’t turn it into McMindfulness! Don’t sell it as a superpower!” What [do you think] would be a more effective approach? Help me here, Dan.
DH: Well, I’m just going to think out loud and say a couple things. I don’t know if this will answer the question—and if I fail to answer the question, just keep pushing me.
First of all, I just want to be clear that I think—and I believe this very strongly—that there is a real need—for as much fun as I make of the kind of Buddhist subculture in America, I’m a part of it now, for sure. You can define “Buddhist” in lots of ways, or you can even say Buddhism is reifying something that is empty at its very core. But by many definitions, I am a Buddhist and I am a student of Joseph Goldstein. I read his most recent book, which I believe you published. I’m on the fourth read-through of that book. I go to retreats at IMS and Spirit Rock. I have gifts from Sharon Salzberg in my baby room, where our new child sleeps.
So, I’m in this world and I am deeply, deeply convinced that people who are publishing books for Buddhists and teaching Buddhist meditation are doing a huge service. And I’m a consumer of this.
I think that none of that should change or stop. I also think there’s a pivot that needs to happen to make it palatable to a broader audience. But, I don’t think these things are mutually exclusive, and I don’t think a lot of the people who are providing the aforementioned service to Buddhists are precluded from being part of that pivot. I think you can do two things at once.
Interestingly, a lot of the folks here in New York City—Sebene Selassie, who runs New York Insight Meditation Center—a lot of their teachers teach both Vipassana and MBSR, and they’re great at it. So, I just want to be clear that I think there’s a ton of value there that I don’t think should be erased as this thing goes more and more mainstream.
Now, I feel like I’ve lost the thread a little bit. Push me again, if you will.
TS: Well, I’m interested in something slightly different, because you mention that you were—years ago, a decade ago—hostile towards meditation. Because of that, you can help now be a bridge to people who perhaps have that kind of hostility today, or are just beginning to open their mind to it, and there’s a crack.
So, I’d be curious to know: why were you hostile? Why do you think people out there are hostile towards meditation?
DH: I think I reflexively, mindlessly bought into all the stereotypes that I listed before. I just thought it was impossible—you had to sit in a funny position, maybe join a group and wear special outfits.
I’m a fidgety guy. It was deeply unattractive to me for those reasons. I assumed that the only people who did it wore wool socks with Birkenstocks over them, and were like the hippie parents of my childhood. I’m just free-associating here. I just had all these completely ignorant assumptions—to the extent that I even thought about meditation at all, because I don’t actually think I thought about it.
But if you had stopped me on the street seven years ago and said, “Give me a stream-of-consciousness about meditation,” those are probably some of the things I would have said—that this is for people who are really into making dreamcatchers, wear little finger cymbals, and use the word “Namaste” without irony.
So—that was the question—why do I think that people are hostile? I think it’s just ignorance. They haven’t been told the truth.
TS: And now, having been a meditator now for five years—and in many ways now, being a public champion, we could say, of meditation—you’ve actually predicted—and I heard this in a talk, and also it’s in your book, Ten Percent Happier—that a public health revolution is on the horizon, in which more and more people will think of meditation like exercise [or] brushing their teeth. We’ll be able to do walking meditation at the rest stop on a long drive—a walk slowly, right there in the long rest stop up and down the parking lot. Nobody will call the police or throw something at me. I mean—really, is that going to happen?
DH: What do I know? I mean, this is my prediction. When I make this prediction, I always provide the caveat that my powers of prognostication are historically weak, and I make a joke about the fact that I strong-armed my little brother in the early 2000s into investing in the company that made the PalmPilot—which didn’t work out so well.
So, this is my prediction based on—I think—a reasonable amount of evidence. But, I can’t guarantee it. I do think there is a reasonable amount of evidence, and I think the exercise analogy here is where I think it actually holds up.
As I like to point out, in the 1940s, if you told somebody you were going running, they probably would have said, “Who’s chasing you?” What happened? The scientists swooped in and illustrated that there are many, many benefits both physical and psychological to exercise. Now, we all do it. And if we don’t, we feel guilty about it.
It seems to me that’s where we’re headed with meditation, and there seem to be a lot of signs to support that. But, there are any number of reasons why this trend could evaporate overnight. It won’t stop me from meditating, but it may stop others.
TS: I’m curious, Dan, why you have felt motivated to put yourself out in this way—as the poster-child, you will. One of the news anchors—one of a couple news anchors—who want to be public about their meditation life. What’s your motivation in doing it?
DH: I think there are two. One is more lofty and one’s a little more crass.
On the crass side, I think that it’s a good story. I love covering good stories, and to me this seemed like an untold story—this budding little movement. Bear in mind I started working on this long before it was on the cover of Time magazine. So, I really felt like I was on to something.
And I also felt that I had a bit of an entrepreneurial itch when I first started getting interested in meditation. I read all these great books, but I realized all these great books that I was reading about meditation—which we’ve all read—really didn’t speak to somebody like me. [I was] raised in the “Age of Irony.” They were all sort of written by people raised in the Age of Aquarius. I thought, “OK. I don’t have any original ideas, but I might be able to rephrase some of these amazing ideas in a way that would be attractive to a broader audience.”
I think on the loftier side, I really did experience—and continue to experience—a lot of genuine benefits in my life—in my moment-to-moment life—from the practice. I feel a desire to share it with other people.
Now, I really try to avoid one-on-one proselytizing, because I know that can be very, very annoying. There was a cartoon in The New Yorker recently that had two women talking to each other over lunch. One of them says to the other, “I’ve been gluten-free for a week and I’m already annoying!” So, I bear that in mind. I try not to walk around lecturing people about the benefits of meditation.
But, I don’t have any problem getting up publicly and telling my story, and saying, “You know, you might want to consider this.” Thus far, it seems to be working out. Every day, I get messages on Facebook and Twitter from people who said, “I wouldn’t have tried this and now I am, and it’s making a difference.”
I heard from a guy who was considering suicide—a recovering addict. He went and learned how to meditate—and obviously continues to do AA; it’s not the only thing. But it really has a made a huge difference for him and he’s in a much better place—while he still has challenges. Stories like that make me think that this is worthwhile endeavor, even though parts of it have been pretty embarrassing.
I really see myself as kind of a gateway drug. If I can get people in the door, then they can go and read and book by Sharon or Joseph. The phraseology and terminology won’t be off-putting for them because they’ll have been initiated.
TS: Well, I think you’re providing a tremendous service—a statement like that from someone who’s more in the Age of Aquarius than the Age of Irony. And I want to pull that out for a moment, because it’s interesting to me that you said that because I noticed, as I was reading your book, I thought, “God, I don’t immerse myself in this kind of—I guess you would call it ironic—way of talking about people.” You have your section on Eckhart Tolle . . .
DH: “Genius or Lunatic,” I think.
TS: I think yes—“Genius or Lunatic.” I mean: nobody in the Sounds True canon would ever say something like that exactly, I think, out loud and in public. “Eckhart Tolle: Genius or Lunatic.”
But here’s the question, I realized on the one hand that I laughed out loud reading your book several times. Early in the morning, there I was—huddled in my pajamas and a silk comforter, but I was laughing out loud every couple of chapters. But I also felt a little uncomfortable. I felt a little uncomfortable because—in a way—it was on the edge of mean. You weren’t quite mean, but it was the edge of mean. I’m not used to that.
So, I’m curious about that. This idea of introducing meditation to people in the Age of Irony. I never would have been able to name that, but I think you’re naming something really important.
DH: Yes. I don’t know anything other than that. It’s just the way I was raised, and it’s the culture in which I came up. This is the way a lot of us talk. I just had this gut feeling that if I could take these fantastic teachings and use swear words and be self-deprecating, that it would be attractive to a lot of people.
You’re right: some of the things in the book are edge-of-mean, but there’s nobody in the book—and this is by design—maybe only one person in the book—who doesn’t get redeemed by the end. I come back to Eckhart Tolle at the end and talk about him in an entirely different way.
The only character who I definitely don’t let off the hook is me. So, I think that’s OK.
So, I was really aware of really trying not to be what I think Buddhists would refer to as “unethically unkind” in the book. I definitely walked the line. But, I would feel badly if it could be pointed out to me in a pretty obvious way that I crossed the line. Then I would feel badly. I would probably endeavor not to do that in my next book.
TS: Actually, I don’t think you did. I think what I’m trying to tease out here is when you said that—“writing from the Age of Irony”—I guess I want to know more what you mean by that. That’s the thing [that I was feeling] that I couldn’t quite name.
DH: To me, there is something that I don’t trust about—at least the old me—that I didn’t trust about anything that wasn’t a little bit funny. I don’t know why. I grew up watching Seinfeld. That was the seminal show of my youth, right? And The Simpsons. That is just in the water for my generation, and on down, I think.
When some people are too—what’s the word I’m looking for? I’m having trouble finding the word. When people speak in a way that is so lacking in irony—there’s a word, and I’ll come to it as soon as we end this conversation—it somehow, for me, I wonder whether it’s disingenuous.
I know that’s an unfair thought, but it is the thought that does arise. Now, I know better of course—having spent a reasonable amount of time with Buddhists—that that’s not the case. But that was just my initial reaction. I think, consciously or subconsciously, for a lot of people out there who aren’t part of this world, that’s the way they feel too.
TS: Now, at this point, you’ve covered a lot of stories for network news on meditation and mindfulness. I’m curious which stories have made the biggest impact on you.
DH: Interviewing the Dalai Lama made an impact, just to pick one. You know, I went into that interview with a bit of a bad attitude, because to me the Dalai Lama represented the part of this culture with which I wasn’t actually—to an extent, still am—least comfortable. The robes and quite a few metaphysical claims, including rebirth and the whole calling him “His Holiness.”
What I like about Buddhism is that there isn’t a whole lot of holiness. Buddhists keep it real. We’re talking about how the body falls apart, what happens to your food when you eat it, and really [being] forced to confront everything that will devour us. I like that.
So, the Dalai Lama and that whole scene raised my antennae just a little bit. But, then meeting him in person, I was impressed by a lot of things. One was that he said right away that if anything in the scientific community were to pop up that disproved any of the notions that he and his brethren espouse, he would drop it. I like that.
I also asked him whether he ever gets into a bad mood, and he said, “No. I get into a bad mood all the time. And anybody who says they don’t get into a bad mood—they must be from outer space.” Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra and all these other gurus will tell you that they never get into a bad mood, which seems to me—at least in Deepak’s case—to be demonstrably untrue. I’ve been with Deepak when he’s clearly in a bad mood.
So, that made a big difference. Also, I think the biggest thing that the Dalai Lama said to me that I found to be compelling was this idea of the selfish case to be made for compassion—that there is a wise selfishness there. Your life is happier, you’re less angry, [and] you’re less tied up in your own ego when you’re concerned with the well-being of others.
TS: OK. So, you work in this very competitive environment, I imagine. The world of network news—very competitive. Yes?
DH: Yes. For sure.
TS: I’m curious how it’s going for you these days, being a meditator in such an environment.
DH: Right now, it’s going great. I will pretty much guarantee there will be crises, I’m sure. But right now, things are great. There’s at least one very specific way—maybe two specific ways—in which my becoming a Buddhist meditator has really helped.
One is that—and I talk about this in the book—being more—this is on the anchor desk. One of the things I do here at ABC is I anchor the weekend edition of GMA. So, I’m sitting on this desk every weekend morning with four other people, any of whom can say whatever they want at any point. I used to be very tense and uncomfortable—like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs—in that situation because I had this urge to control everything and I was always kind of seven steps ahead, thinking about how we’re going to get out of any particular conversation we were in and into the next commercial break, and all that stuff. Really, the practice has helped me drop a lot of that—at least the unhelpful parts of that—and focus a little bit more on what people are actually saying, so that I can have a more spontaneous and sometimes maybe amusing reaction.
I found that to be a really terrific professional value-add. Then, the other thing is: just improved relationships with the people in my orbit. Just really being conscious of the fact that when somebody walks into my office, I should walk away from my computer. I work at a standing desk, so I just walk away from my computer screen and give them my attention while they’re in my office—instead of checking my email while somebody’s trying to talk to me.
By the way, those conversations are much more successful and quicker when I’m actually listening. I get an email this morning from a colleague who—we’re working on a big project together—and she said, “Thanks for trusting us,” (she was referring to her and her team), “enough to feel like we can be creative.” I wasn’t even aware that I was doing that—that just enjoying being part of a team and realizing that I can’t do anything on my own—this business is very collaborative—and wanting the people around me to be successful. Also, deriving a lot of benefits from mutual respect and concern. We do better work, and that ends up redounding to my benefit.
TS: Do people in the environment where you work—do they tease you at all? For your meditation interest?
DH: You know, they did. They still tease me for lots of reasons. I don’t get any respect around here.
So, yes. I take a lot of verbal abuse for a lot of things. Yes, meditation for sure is something that people tease me about. When I first started doing it, I got a lot of funny looks and it was a little strange. But now, it’s really taken off in ABC. George Stephanopoulos [and] Diane Sawyer both meditate. Barbara Walters said she tried it, but it didn’t take. Ben Sherwood, who was until recently head of ABC News and now the head of all ABC—he also meditates. There’s an active meditation group that Dr. Rich Besser—who’s our on-air doctor—he and his team [do] mindfulness sessions in their corner of the building not infrequently. A couple times a week.
In fact, in February there’s going to be a little mindfulness conference at ABC News for the employees. Sharon Salzberg’s coming in, and a few other prominent voices are coming in to talk to the team about the benefits of meditation.
So, at this point, it’s not like a ridiculous thing to do anymore.
TS: Do you think there are any places where the cultural norm of a competitive environment bangs up against this interest in people meditating? And it’s just like, “Wow, this just doesn’t fit together,” because the culture is not shifting even if a few individuals are?
DH: Well, I think you’ve talked to any of the folks—the researchers, like Amishi Jha or the folks involved with MMFT—about their work with the Army and the Marines, respectively, I think they’ll tell you that they’ve run into a lot of cultural issues. That’s going to be a long, tricky road.
So, that’s one example. But, it’s heartening to see that the Seattle Seahawks embraced it with a certain robustness. I know Phil Jackson, the former coach of the Bulls and Lakers, is now using it with the New York Knicks. It hasn’t been improving their performance, but as far as I know there hasn’t been a lot of pushback from the team.
So, it seems to me that if framed correctly, [you can] seemingly introduce it into any culture. I don’t know that the idiots from ISIS would want it in their culture per se, but I think there are a lot of cultures at the extreme end and the sort-of macho end of American society appear to be—quite surprisingly—embracing it.
TS: Now, Dan, a big section of your book, Ten Percent Happier, talks about your search to try to balance ambition or drive with equanimity. I’m wondering, first of all, just how’s that going for you?
DH: Always it’s just an ongoing, tough balance. But the mantra I come back to all the time was sort of off-handedly given to me by Joseph Goldstein at a retreat at Spirit Rock back in 2010. Toward the end of the retreat—it was a 10-day retreat—he was saying to the retreatants that, “We’re toward the end here. You’re going to find your mind inclining toward the things you need to do when you leave here. You may want to try to be aware of that and try to focus on what’s happening here.” I raised my hand and said, “Well, wait a minute. If I miss my flight, that’s a real issue. I don’t think it’s illegitimate to be worrying about that.” He said, “Absolutely. But on the seventeenth time you find yourself worrying about what happens if you miss your flight, maybe ask yourself, ‘Is this useful?’”
That was a hallelujah moment for me, because I realized that is such a scalable piece of advice. So, on the seventeenth time that I’m wondering about all the awful consequences of one of my colleagues getting an assignment that I wanted, I ask myself, “Is it useful?” Most of the time, it’s not useful to continue thinking about that—perseverating about that—and maybe it would be more useful to focus on the work I have to do now—or listening to the things my wife wants me to hear, staring at my baby in disbelief that we were able to create this thing. Or any number of other more useful things.
So, it’s an ongoing balance. But, I think that—again, because of Buddhist practices—it’s an easier balance to strike.
TS: Would you say there’s a change in how you receive criticism now that you’ve been meditating for a while? Is it different?
DH: Yes. I oftentimes—if every time—I can feel the defensiveness arise. But, some percentage of the time, I’m able to just recognize, “Oh, this is an unconstructive urge I’m feeling right now.” I can let that be and let it go, try to listen to what people are saying, and extract from it what is useful.
TS: OK. There’s an interesting quote from Ten Percent Happier that I’d love to have you comment upon. Here it is—you say toward the end of the book, “In my view, Buddhists underplay the utility of constructive anguish.”
I thought, “Well, that’s interesting. That’s provocative.” What’s the utility of constructive anguish?
DH: Here, I’m going to disagree with Joseph Goldstein. This is pretty much the only thing he’s ever said that I disagree with, and maybe if he was here he could win the debate or tell me that I understood it incorrectly. He quoted some teacher approvingly as saying—and maybe this teacher isn’t the only person who said this, because I feel like I’ve heard it elsewhere too. Something along the lines of, “Worrying is useless because if there’s a solution to the problem, just execute the solution. If there isn’t, then there’s nothing to do.”
I’m not actually sure that’s true. In my world, there are lots of things where it’s not so clear. It’s not so cut-and-dried. Actually, there is a lot of utility to [worrying]. Figuring out what the right move is, what the ethical move is—the tactical, strategic aspect of it. There’s a certain amount of hand-wringing, I think, that makes sense. The trick is to figure out when [we] are making our suffering worse than it needs to be.
Again, to me, when we’re talking about the professional value-add of meditation, this is really a biggie. What do you think of that?
TS: Of what you just said?
DH: Yes, because I’m always aware that I could be wrong.
TS: Well, I think that the term that you use—constructive anguish—“anguish” is a pretty big, harsh word. It makes me think of pulling my hair out. Even the word “worrying” is not—I think it’s possible to solve problems and deeply consider [and] reflect without—and even be disturbed. There’s a word—being disturbed. The positive consequences of “disturbance.”
But “anguish”—I don’t know. Often when I’m in anguish, I’m not doing my most creative thinking.
DH: Yes. I’ll buy that. I think you may be right. I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot, which is why I wanted to get your view on it. I’m trying to figure out what my next book might be, and one of the things I’ve thought about is really to dive in to how people are applying mindfulness in a professional context, and really get into—in a more granular way—the benefits of mindfulness at work.
Talking about the value of worrying and stress is of interest to me, because I may just have the language off, or I may have it wrong conceptually.
But there is some interesting research. There was a great article in Time magazine about the utility of depression. There’s some rogue psychologists out there that believe that our ability to problem-solve goes up when we’re depressed—that there may be an evolutionary benefit to depression.
So, I’m kind of aware of that. Also, just in my own experience, when I’m trying to solve a problem it’s often kind of painful. And yet, when done correctly, I can reach a solution—even though it is a little painful.
TS: Now, your book is called Ten Percent Happier. Explain to our listeners, if you will, the title of your book. I’m sure they could guess, but I’d love to hear it from you.
DH: Well, it’s a joke. It’s an absurdly unscientific estimate. I am not guaranteeing anybody a 10-percent happiness boost, nor do I think you can measure it. There are a couple reasons why I came up with the name.
One is that in my early days as a meditator—back when ABC News was a less congenial place to meditation—people sort of looked at me askance. In one of my conversations with a colleague, she was asking me, “What’s going on with you with this whole meditation thing?” After a series of unsuccessful encounters along those lines, I out of nowhere answered, “Oh, I do it because it makes me about 10 percent happier.”
I noticed that in that moment, the look on her face was transformed from one of something approaching scorn to something approaching interest. I realized that this was not a bad way to frame it for skeptics.
Also, in my peregrinations in the self-help and Buddhist world—but mostly in the self-help world—I met a lot of people who really did advertise silver bullets. I came to realize that the only people who had all their problems solved because of a self-help book were the people who were writing them. The idea that you can read this book and get anything you want through the power of positive thinking is bullshit, and dangerous bullshit—and irresponsible!
So, I’m kind of trying to counterprogram against that. Now, of course, this gets into some interesting terrain when you start to talking in a more Buddhist context, because as will be obvious to anybody listening to this podcast, Buddhists talk about enlightenment—which, if I read the text correctly, does seem to indicate not only a hundred percent happier, but a hundred percent happy.
Again, as we all know, it’s not like some sort of unsophisticated elation. It’s more of the uprooting of the defilements, or whatever you want to call them. So, I don’t know where I stand on that. But, I’m increasingly open to it more than I ever thought I would be.
TS: Well, what I’m curious about is, not the billboard ten percent happier and how that works with skeptics, but—since you like numbers and percentages—how much happier are you really than you were five, six, seven years ago?
DH: I’ve started to say that the 10 percent compounds annually—
TS: Oh! I like that.
DH: —and so I do think that’s true. That means truth within these ridiculous numbers I’m throwing out. It’s true enough, let’s just say.
I drew a graph recently. You know the concept that psychologists use of the “happiness set-point” that when good things happen to us or bad things happen to us, we can be happy or sad for a little while, but we all tend to gravitate back to this happiness set-point. So, in this graph I drew, I showed that for me post-meditation, that if you draw a horizontal line as the happiness set-point and then a wavy line above and below it—so that the curve goes up when good things happen and it goes down below the happiness set-point when bad things happen—for me, the top of the graph has gotten bigger.
So, when good things happen—like, as I mentioned, we had a baby a couple weeks ago—that’s been really good to an extent that I wouldn’t have been able to pull off a couple years ago. I’m not racing on to the next thing. I’m actually paying attention to what’s happening right now and really enjoying being a dad.
When bad things happen, like we had to give blood the other day and I almost wept in the doctor’s office, I recover much more quickly. I’m not spinning off into rounds and rounds of useless prapancha—one of my favorite Buddhist terms, of just proliferating off into endless worry. Yes, I do some of that—but less than I used to.
So, the top of the graph has gotten taller and the bottom of the graph has gotten more shallow. Meanwhile, I think the set-point goes up—so that your baseline happiness goes up.
Again, I’m pulling all this out of my butt, this is just kind of the way I feel.
TS: Now, this a little bit of personal question I want to ask you—and it has back to do with this Age of Irony thing. What do you think about sincerity? Just plain sincerity?
DH: This is what I was trying to get at before. That’s the word I was trying to get at before. Well, actually, it isn’t exactly the word I was trying to get at before. That will come to me.
But, there is something about sincerity that—for better or for worse; I’m not defending this—among people in my—not everybody, but I think it’s among certain members of my generation and maybe the generation coming up behind me—where sincerity can make you just a little bit uncomfortable.
[Tami laughs.]
DH: So, that’s not to say the things I’m talking about I’m being insincere [about]. I truly believe that meditation is useful to a lot of people, if not everyone. So, I will go to great lengths to preach the good news on that front.
So, I am sincere in that. But my way of saying it involves a lot of foul language and humor. But overall, I am increasingly—as I get older and meditate more and lose my edge in all sorts of ways—comfortable with sincerity. I hug my friends all the time . . . and mean it.
TS: Right. Now, this thing that you just said: “lose your edge.” You’re not really losing your edge, Dan! That’s the whole point.
DH: Yes, I’m kidding.
TS: Yes. Well, your career is growing and your profile is growing. You have a beautiful new baby. Meaning, your life is flourishing—it appears.
DH: Yes. Yes! Although I try to—and I’m very aware that it doesn’t end happily for all of us, or for anybody, really. I try to be aware of impermanence to the best of my ability.
But yes—right now, things are amazing. I really, really do my best not to take it for granted.
TS: OK. I just have two more questions for you. When you started the book Ten Percent Happier, you traced back to when you had an on-air panic attack a little more than a decade ago. I’m curious: do you ever have a fear that you’ll have a panic attack again on the air?
DH: Do I ever have a fear?
TS: Yes. Just a fear of—
DH: Every time I go on the television. Yes.
TS: Wow.
DH: Every time I go on TV, I have that fear. So, it’s not like once in a while. It’s every time.
TS: Wow.
DH: If you have a panic attack, your brain gets very good at panicking. So, you’re just more susceptible to it, and I’m aware of it.
TS: As I was reading about the panic attack and thinking of interviewing you, I was sure I was going to have a panic attack during this conversation just even thinking about having a panic attack—and I’ve never even had one. It’s that terrifying!
DH: A panic attack is prapancha on steroids. That’s really what it is. It’s proliferation, just really fast and really bad.
So, I think in Buddhist terms people will really understand it if you think of it that way.
Nothing’s scarier. It was the scariest, most embarrassing moment of my life.
TS: So, if that comes up for you every time you’re on the air—and you’re on the air many times a week—what do you do when that feeling comes up?
DH: I try to be aware of it [and] try to be mindful of it, and see it for what it is. Again, I am not a meditation master by any stretch. But, one of the big benefits is that when things arise, you can objectify them and see the emotions or urges or whatever for what they are.
It’s not a silver bullet. While the fear comes up, it’s much more psychological than it is physical now. In other words, I’m not actually experiencing a massive release of adrenaline—which is what happens in a panic attack. I’m less likely to have that happen, because I’m not using drugs anymore.
We haven’t gone into this in this yet in this conversation, but for your listeners who don’t know this part of the story, the reason why I had a panic attack on live television in 2004 is that I had gotten depressed after covering war zones for ABC News as a young reporter. [I] came home from Iraq , and mindlessly self-medicated with recreational drugs including cocaine and ecstasy. That is—what I later learned from my doctor—most likely created the causes and conditions for that panic attack, because it raised the overall level of adrenaline in my brain. So, since I haven’t been doing drugs for eight or nine or ten years, I know I’m less likely to have a panic attack.
And I just want to be clear—I don’t think that meditation is somehow the guaranteed cure for panic attacks. It isn’t. But, it certainly helps. Also, removing other aggravating factors like cocaine also helps.
TS: OK, Dan. One final question: This program is called Insights at the Edge, and I’m always curious to know what someone’s edge is in terms of their personal growth—what it is that really you’re consciously working on in your life right now.
DH: So many things. This is the value of having an amazing teacher. In Joseph—and that amazing book that you put out, Mindfulness—which is just chock full of useful things. Little exercises that help you scale your practice off the cushion and into the rest of your life.
So, let me just say that as one edge that I’m trying to push—which is really not quarantining my mindfulness to the 30 minutes that I practice every day. It’s just trying to have it—this is a negative term, but I mean it in a positive way—have it metastasize to the rest of my life, to the best of my ability. Joseph’s book is just a great way—it’s just filled with so many great suggestions for doing that. From walking between meetings to listening to people to—I keep talking about this, but just staring at my kid. Or, the moments before you fall asleep or the moments when you wake up—just infusing your whole life with that. I think it’s just a great project and incredibly fulfilling.
TS: Dan, thank you so much for your generosity. And I’m really going to use the word: I think you’re really a sincere person, actually. I feel it. You’re just wicked funny.
DH: Well, thank you. Thank you for having me on. I think I’d probably cop to being sincere on many levels. I really appreciate your feedback and ginger, well-intentioned critique because I try to be very, very— to the best of my ability—open to the fact of my own fallibility. So, I’m willing to revise lots of my assertions and I appreciate your input.
TS: Dan Harris, the author of the new book, Ten Percent Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works—A True Story. Thanks for being Insights on the Edge.
SoundsTrue.com. Many voices, once journey. Thanks for listening.
