Three Buddhist Practices For Getting Your Sh*t Together | Vinny Ferraro | Ten Percent Happier

[Music] Vinnie Ferraro welcome to the show thanks for having me Dan it's a pleasure um in preparation for this interview um my colleague the mighty DJ cashmir who's a student of yours um uh and who is has been arguing for a while that we should have you on the show um DJ got in touch with you and asked a really smart question which is you know sort of what what are the tools and techniques that you as a Dharma teacher are using in your life these days to keep it together and um he then uh DJ passed along a list of these tools and I thought I would just kind of March through them um does that sound like a good agenda to you let's do it all right so the first is alignment what what is alignment yeah so when we start sitting we see how much is going on inside us right there's just so much to choose from right so many parts of our experience right there's our conditioning there's the thoughts there's hopes there's fears the the characteristics the defilements right everything is uh like one moment away and so we get to choose well what do I actually want to give life to what do I want to actually follow right if if the two components of mindfulness are seeing clearly and responding wisely right so I seeing clearly all these different parts of me that are up for grabs in this moment then I say okay if I walk in this Direction Where will that lead me right is this wise is this kind is it generous right so it could have all of these different flavors so are we aligning with that which is wise within us that's that's the short answer yeah I want to encourage you to give long answers here um cool this is a podcast so you can you don't have to edit yourself but I'm going to prod you here um because I think this is fascinating we all have um uh just tons of stuff going on internally if you just turn the laser beam of your attention inward you will see uh you'll see just you probably won't like what you see um there's just a lot of chaos and random thoughts and um and homicidal urges and whatever or desires there's just lots of stuff in there and and there's beautiful stuff in there too of course and you're saying you Vinnie are saying um I try to check in regularly and figure out of this whole menu of Mind states which one do I want to go with am I restating you with some degree of accuracy that's exactly right yeah I mean we get to decide with some mindfulness with some practice we can decide what we align ourselves with right in the beginning in my life I was just um I received thoughts as uh Commandments right they had the power to animate me right my thoughts were my reality and they caused immense suffering right so then we get to decide with some practice like oh well what part of my person it is operating right now you know throwing out these marching Waters I don't know if you've ever seen that the X-Men movies you know those ones of course yes yeah yeah so you remember Magneto MH Magneto so he has the power to completely control metal so he can walk off a roof and as he does every one of his steps are supported right this is a perfect illustration of my understanding of the Dharma right how each moment is conditioned by the next and so you know if I walk in the direction of the Shadow worlds they open up before me right and when I'm able to take refuge in maybe like more wholesome or more like the boundless qualities of uh the natural Radiance of the unobscured heart is what the Buddha kind of called these uh Brahma viharas right when I walk in those beautiful directions those energies inform the world I'm kind of inhabiting and in some way co-creating so that's what I'm saying when I say well what do we align ourselves with it's like what do I want to give life to does that make sense it does it makes complete sense just to you know if anybody's new to the Dharma when you talk about the Brahma viharas I might might be worth spending some time there this is you know for people like me who just kind of have a anti- sentimentalist conditioning um you know I I think both of us are probably gen xers and that was like the age of irony and we're nihilistically sarcastic and all this stuff so when when our kind of well certainly for myself when my kind of mind encounters an idea like the Brahma viharas which translates I think into the Divine abodes um and I that I that kind of language often traditionally I found that a little repellent but it's really it's really interesting this idea these Divine abodes there are four of them uh loving kindness or friendliness uh compassion um uh sympathetic Joy which is like the opposite of shod and Freud just delighting in other people's happiness and then finally equinity which is just the ability to stay cool no matter what's happening and what what the you know if you you can set aside some of this sort of grand language what the Buddhist saying and what you're now saying uh more more recently uh is that these are skills that can be developed and I can see these capacities in my mind and like Magneto create a pathway a sturdy Pathway to go in that direction instead of the more noxious Alternatives yeah well we we seen the limitations of the mind right I mean I certainly have I've seen the limitations of uh taking my psychology to be a reality right because even though a lot of my stories are based in fiction right in in this inner narrative the suffering they deliver is real right so we have to take good care of like what we let the Mind dwell on you know we have to have some kind of U maybe we can call it like uh discipline or yeah uh it's a better word for it uh like um taking when you brush your teeth every day right I a practice Yeah Yeah Yeah a habit or a practice right so we can see oh thoughts in this inner judgment right the inner narrative is strong right it and it comes Factory stock you know in with this biology that we've inherited right and if we look closely at that judgment it doesn't really lead anywhere and sometimes even as our awareness grows we start to practice the Judgment grows so it's like wow hold on a second okay so I've really done my best to you know I know the subtle violence of self-improvement right I know about trying to hate myself into becoming a better person didn't really work and maybe the problem wasn't like a lack of sincerity but the limitations of anger fear or shame as far as like U transformative right um so the Buddha was I believe asserting that the know that comes from love that comes from care is way more transformative than the know that comes from those other afflictive energies so with that in mind we we kind of offer ourselves a pardon you know that that we we say Okay however I I am I've come by it honestly right and that conditioning is actually not who I am so the Buddha kept coming back over and over to this what is I me or mind what is I me or M and he was like not this not this not this not this but he did say and I like you used the word earlier sturdy in terms of the refuges that these heart qualities uh the reliable Refuge that they are a reliable way to receive experience that even if it's painful I can meet that with compassion right it's not some just pseudo spiritual bypass like oh yeah it's all love it's all good it's like how would that ever contribute to wholeness which is what I think the Dharma invites us into is wholeness so it has to hold all of it the difficulty the beauty the generous U you know and and the equinity that holds the whole thing in gear say more about that the equinity holds the whole thing in gear well you know without equinity uh love and kindness can become very sacon right that over sweetness it's not actually authentic it's not real right or the compassion can just be kind of like uh you know over sentimentality right so equinity is you know near to all things so I like that cuz it's like um it gives us that balancing quality so that we're not overly anything right near to All Things meaning it allows you to be up close with stuff that normally you'd armor yourself against that's right that's right I mean in in the prison we talk about it as being you know unfuckable with you know un unshakable right like you remember who you are right so you you don't have to engage in every fight you don't have to um you know defend your honor in all these different cases you remember who you are right so we talk about flashing our basic goodness because that's the real danger when we forget our own goodness at least it was for me yeah flashing your basic goodness what does that mean well you know in in the in prisons or even in schools um you know you talk about flashing on people and that means you're going to flash some anger right so we talk about flashing our basic goodness so that means that I remember there's goodness in here and I that I'm not I'm not determined by your thoughts of me actually your thoughts of me Dan are none of my business you know what I mean so we we stay rooted in that 's goodness here that these these four heart qualities that the Buddha laid out they're immeasurable and they're boundless and they're Incorruptible and untarnishable and it doesn't matter what happened to us or what we done that those things are still there and so I really like that as somebody that's gone through a lot in my life and really lost that my own goodness lost uh connection to it and then well you know all kinds of things come come out of that desperation right that's the real danger e even after everything you've been through you believe and this is interesting to me and I like asking people about this do you believe that we all have the capacity for goodness or do you take it a step further to say that at that foundationally we are all basically good yeah that's a very difficult question I only answer from my experience of myself which which believes that there is no part of me that's beyond Redemption you know that no matter how lost I get and that's all I'm doing when I go to the prisons right I've been going in the prison since ' 87 and as a visitor and um yeah that was a bit different earlier on um but it's like all I'm doing is reflecting value I don't give a [ __ ] whether they know what meditation is I want to go there and remind them of their value because um I feel like that's the most uh important thing and it's a very dehumanizing system so it's meant to uh squash that out and so when I go there that's all I'm reflecting back you know I'm teaching well you know we're it's always everything is an excuse to connect right now we're connecting oh the premise is uh we're going to talk about mindfulness or Buddhism cool killer doesn't really matter right so when I go there that's what's on the Forefront of my mind is can I be in relationship with these fellas and can I reflect their goodness back to them let me go back to alignment um so this is again just a reset you know you DJ reached out and said hey Vinnie what what do you use to you know move through the world with some degree of sanity and you listed a a bunch of techniques that are important to you right now one of them was alignment which is basically having the discernment to see what mind states are wisest the wisest offerings on your inner menu and go in that direction instead of the The Temptations of uh greed or hatred or something like that and you said something you use the phrase the subtle aggression of of or the subtle violence of self-improvement which I I love I think about a lot and there is a way in which we can learn something like the Dharma and immediately turn it into a weapon that we use on ourselves for failing to be perfect at it but I think at the root of what you're talking about here is something very empowering which is even though it is guaranteed we're going to [ __ ] this up on the regular in every moment there is the option to make a choice that will condition the next moment in a way like Magneto that will be sturdy um at least for some period of time totally and all we can do is take care of this moment you know what I mean that's all we're doing with the practice you know everybody I just got off a teaching a retreat you know and everybody's like all right man well how do we take this into the real world like well what have we been doing what have we been doing like we've been tending to each moment yeah we're meditating walking sitting 16 hours a day but we're just tending to each moment and right now you're asking me how to get the drop on next Thursday right because you don't trust that you'll be able to do it right but really you got a bottom line what is it that we're doing we're tending to each moment as it arises cuz it's pregnant with Liberation every freaking moment I mean we don't experience it like that right we experience it the mind like I said Factory stock to turn the miraculous into the mundane you know same old [ __ ] you know and it's like oh wow I can see with the noting practice in particular what I'm under the influence of right what part of my personality is this oh this is the East Coast okay all right I remember that conditioning does that seem like a Direction I want to walk in maybe maybe not right so we have to this the only way we break the trance and not mistaking it for reality is by seeing it right it creates a little bit of a distance the noting practice right as long as I the only way illusion works is if I mistake it for reality right so again this is not I me or M this is just one of the menu options okay and what sees all of this what sees Mara you know these afflictive energies that are very naturally occurring for all of us well that awake part of me sees it and we call that Buddha yeah you can so a lot of people are real in the habit of saying I see you Mara but what the hell sees Mara it's Buddha so you should be saying I see you Buddha I see that awake I see that awake quality in me you know I see it even when I'm off it's like well what part of me knows I'm off the part that's never been off right do you mind if I go back and just Define some terms for folks sure sure sure now this I I I I'm enjoying this immensely just to say cool um so the we all have our demons um and it's actually in certain schools of psychology they can they like ifs internal family systems that will encourage you to name different parts of your personality um and the Buddha had his own demon um he called him Mara and Mara was is basically the in the Buddhist view the the the the inner embodiment if that's even a correct uh caring of words uh inner manifestation yeah yes thank you inner manifestation of of our more toxic qualities and uh including greed and hatred confusion um and uh the Buddha would say he actually you can in the scriptures the Buddha will occasionally even after Enlightenment will Mar is still hanging around the Buddha will say I see you Mara and what Vinnie is pointing out is that many of us get into meditation and we get better and better at seeing our demons Mara and and his uh uh various subcommittees um and uh we get focused on the seeing of the Demons but I think what you're saying Vinnie is we should focus on that which perceives the demons because that is that's really interesting what is you in you that is awake enough that's right to discern that's exactly right man it gets it becomes very exciting to me that there's an awake part of me that's just watching this whole Saga of Vinnie Ferrara play out and and there's some discernment there I don't know man it for me it's like you know you you got to ask yourself who do you take yourself to be right over and over it's like who is this character Dan Harris you know what I mean like what the [ __ ] his problem you know what I mean you know what I mean this is like you know the Buddha asked us to really ask oursel that question like you know where is the real ey here who's making these decisions who is a awake what do you take yourself to be cuz you know for decades I took myself to be this you know this clot of ailments right there um you know a lot of self-pity a lot of uh frustration at the world that they they didn't see me and it's just like man you know that's why so many of us have this impostor syndrome it's like that part of you is an impostor that ego part of you is an impostor but where is there some real wisdom where is the real knowing and so when we start practicing part of my teachers you know part of the teaching was can you step back enough and be the awareness and not what is passing through it you know what I mean if you're always oh this thought this hope this fear this memory this plan it's just like yo but how about the awareness itself how about the you're the presence that's present here you know what I mean like when you can back up enough to see that that there's enough room for all this [ __ ] doesn't land like oh man this is a a problem I got to solve it's like we think that things are the problem you know I have thoughts I I have a 40 foot rope swing right here and uh my son just turned seven and birthday party and somebody pulled it down somebody pulled the swing down trying to hang a pinata a couple days later I was sitting here in my little office writing my little Dara talk and a thought occurred I like this really peaceful there's not a bunch of kids in my yard which there generally is cuz it's the best swing in the neighborhood and the thought occurred that maybe I don't have to put that back up you know I deserve a place you know to write you know what I mean I'm doing good in the world Dan don't I deserve a quiet place and I got up and I hung the [ __ ] swing cuz that thought just reminded me of who I don't want to be right that was a selfish thought it kind of caught me by surprise I was like oh [ __ ] now I could have gone into like well I've been practicing 25 years how am I still having these thoughts just by taking them personally right it's not personal the the Buddha never said I had a thought he used to say a thought occurred oh is is could that be in the service of an Awakening in some way it was for me we think the thought is the problem we think what's passing through is a problem but it's really just because we're taking it so freaking personally everything all all of this that's happening internally can be taken so personally that you don't see the value in it you're just trying to get away from these things I just want I just want to have better thoughts I want to have good thoughts of all-encompassing Loving Thoughts it's like well they're not the only thing that's happening they're just the only thing you're paying attention to so what else is on offer here and when we open that space up we see all kinds of stuff is on offer yeah I suspect a lot of people listening to this are thinking thinking this this sounds really helpful uh but how do I remember to do it um and how do I actually do it once even if I do remember you referenced and I didn't give you a chance yet to explain it noting practice and I suspect that may be one good answer to the question some people are might be having right now yeah yeah the noting practice is uh it's been from the beginning very helpful to me cuz I yeah my therapist after 35 years of seeing people he was just like you might be the most psychologically P psychologically minded person I've ever met I was like well what does that mean he was like that's what it means bro like you live in a very rich internal world you know or in my case a very poverty-stricken internally right that's how I uh oriented toward my life and myself but the noting practice and and we talked about these two components of practice right seeing clearly responding wisely so part of that is just noting what is floating through this awareness of ours okay I can see thoughts memories plans I can feel Sensations there's there's sounds right okay so when we begin noting well what sense door what sense gate are they coming through when we can see can this be in the service of Awakening this this phenomenon that I'm in contact with right I'm having a a memory a plan a thought occurred whatever it is right so the noting practice creates a little bit of distance because the moment that I can note something I'm not lost in it right I'm no longer Jason Bourne running through the the the airport there's a there's that there's that distance that I've woken up out of the dream and I'm noting oh right Thriller Intrigue Espionage whatever it is right so we can we can note what's arising and um and it breaks some of the identification with it so we're not lost in the dreams as long yeah I want to know as early as possible what I'm under the influence of right so staying close to practice right they people always wonder like well I mean you've you've uh interviewed a lot of luminaries and some of them are just like yeah well you know I don't really do formal practice it's more like my whole life is a practice now it's just like oh my God what [ __ ] is that I have never seen the fruit of that practice I've never seen the fruit of that practice not once not in any of my teachers because it's really important to to maintain that connection every day to the dimension that's deeper than thought how else are we going to remember right if I'm taking myself to be my thoughts six days a week how am I going to remember on Sunday or Tuesday or whatever day that oh wow I'm not that so the only way that I have seen it work for me anyway is to make time every day that I sit in a um I rest in a dimension deeper than thought right that's the only way we can really have that connection to our goodness to connection to something deeper that primordial awareness whatever you want to call it right that that awake quality that's not becoming right this whole world is just about becoming my first instruction every time we sit is don't meditate please just don't turn this into the next becoming now I'm become a meditator okay is this position spiritual enough out of here dude you know what I mean it's like that it's just the next game next thing to get good at you know it's the next electric guitar wa till my exes see me it's like oh my god dude [Laughter] okay so in answer to the question of how do we do this I think what I heard you say was uh noting practice is really helpful and and I'll reflect a little bit more about that in a second but the the key is to actually get your ass on the cushion and meditate with some regularity so that you can really get it into your molecules that you don't have to take your thoughts urges and emotions personally and within that rubric under that egis noting it's just like dropping a as Joseph Goldstein likes to say like a a soft mental whisper into the mind of okay anger planning hunger fatigue and you don't have to get pricity about you know like thumbing through your mental thesaurus for the right word it's just like make a little note if it's close enough move move on and I think what you're I think what you're pointing to is it's helpful to have a a a consistent practice of you know whatever duration and then you can take that noting out with you into the world as you're doing this alignment on the regular daytoday that's right that's right listen as long as it's an idea as long as it's like a you know the kind of a philosophy that's at an arms length away it's not doesn't have the power to transform Our Lives we're still uh getting our sense of reality derived from a compulsive movement of thought we have to break that we have to challenge that and say okay this is one reality for me it's like Catch and Release there's many many times a day and the only reason I even agreed to come on here is because I know you have a a versive mind just like I do right you know it's clear it's clear that that it's really easy to believe that there's something wrong with this moment like many many times a day and I can feel my resistance I can feel it you know somebody doesn't use their freaking blinker or somebody cut you know thousand imaginary slights right you know and there's stuff in the world as well right it's not like it's all just in my mind but I can feel resistance arise in my experience many times a day okay what happens when I do that oh well one thing that happens is we get a lot more sensitive to pain with practice we don't become these bulletproof Buddhas that are just like walking around unfaced it's like oh no wow that resistance hurts this kind of sucks and so then you you kind of turn toward it and you release it it's is there anything actually wrong right now you know like can I check in with like a fundamental okayness can I feel my feet on the floor yeah you okay actually I am despite my thoughts despite my fears and hopes and everything else that's uh running through are you actually okay and it's just like holy [ __ ] I am so weird and so you know you know aan Amro one of my first teachers he said it so clearly he said you know I discovered a deep satisfaction and not actively seeking satisfaction it's like oh dude it's been here the whole time I just I was so busy arguing the closing arguments that I I missed it you know the Thousand masks of Mara of like you know what's wrong well everything okay but really what's wrong you know Joseph actually said it so clearly he goes every time I look for a problem I can't find one you know reminds me of something that eart toally who I've made fun of with gusto um uh but nonetheless I think he's actually he's on to many things um he has this little question he asks people is like what is preventing you from being in this moment and that just came to mind as I was listening to your talk yeah there is there is a kind of satisfaction it might not be conventional satisfaction the the way the world defines it that's available pretty much whatever is going on yeah and that's what I meant by saying that each moment is pregnant with Liberation right that's a very poetic way to say it right from thousand years ago I think a w man may have said that but it's like do we trust that what's found in presence can't be found anywhere else you know what I mean like where how where else might satisfaction or contentment or peace arise does it matter if I'm peaceful or content next week you know what I mean this whole the whole movement of life is leaning towards some other moment so it's just like of course we're going to do that in our practice too it's like oh no this is like a Rock montage and I'm getting better at this every day you know and it's going to be more and more and it's just going to continue it's like what leads you to believe that like what would it be like to push all in like right here right now as I listen you speak it strikes me and maybe there's some projection going on because you know I've sat through not a few meditation Retreats myself and try to apply it on the daily um but what you're describing as your approach to life sounds deeply sane and like a lot of work yeah yeah what else is there to do Dan I mean every time I look at my suffering most of it has my fingerprints all over it you know it's really really hard to to have a mind and to have these nervous systems and I made my life so much harder than it needed to be bro you know losing people uh we're not we're not taught how to tend to that which is difficult to Bear you know you just get over it man keep moving you know next thing you know you're strung out because you know basically all drugs are painkillers right we're all running from something and it you know it can be shopping or eating or sex you know it has a thousand faces right the avoidance and I just haven't seen it bear the fruit right when I see Joseph bro I'm like that's a cat that's been sitting for you know over five decades is there fruit on that tree godamn right that's a that's a pretty free character man that that dude you know what I mean so when I see somebody like that I'm like that's where I want to go that's where I believe and and how do we do that day by day and stop postponing awareness or arrival for some time where the part's going to get better it's going to be killer the 10% happier podcast is available adree over on our companion meditation app which is also called 10% happier and uh you will get uh the episodes a week before everybody else does download the 10% happier app right now to get started for free I think we might have touched on this a little bit but I'll um emphasize it here and make and and hang a lantern on it um the second of the three techniques that you have said that you've been using for yourself that in your practice you know to to keep it together generally to do life better the first was alignment the second is something you call redirecting awareness um what do you what do you mean by that yeah well I I I suffer sometimes uh my whole life with anxiety it's what really brought me to the Dharma um you know uh a a real difficulty sometimes accommodating that energy right so when you know it can come in this form of self-incrimination it can come in many forms but it's like gets kind of scary to be inside here so it's like okay how can I accommodate this experience how can I meet that experience and so through some trauma training they really teach you right that you can direct awareness to you know especially if the mind is not offering up anything helpful can you redirect it to a different part of your experience it's like oh yeah okay like I mentioned earlier the fundamental okayness I feel in my feet right touching the ground it's not a story it's a direct experience it's like okay all right um most of the time when I feel anxious I feel it in my trunk sometimes in my throat you know but it's generally a contracted feeling of my trunk my belly is it in my feet not so much oh okay so that means that I can tirate my awareness a bit I can locate awareness very specifically anywhere I want and not through the mind not through thinking about it not imagining my feet but actually oh I can direct awareness and it kind of turns on awareness in my feet where the where my feet are touching the rug it's like okay okay so anxiety is not the only thing happening right now well that's that's good news okay are you okay down here it's like yeah okay do do you want to dip back into the anxiety to see if you can tend to it to see if what what we can discover about this thing I'm calling anxiety right so is there a center is it throbbing what are its characteristics are there edges right in are there places that it's not right that way I can tend to it with care I'm not we're not being asked to cannonball into these overwhelming uh experiences we're asked to to tend to them with some care and so I can do that if I redirect my awareness um where it's not overwhelmed does that make sense yeah I mean this seems like a pretty deeply complimentary practice to alignment um with with alignment you're looking at the full menu of options and then picking the healthiest option and using using your commitment to it to condition future moments with redirecting awareness it seems like maybe a different take on the same idea which is okay I have these unpleasant um Sensations in my trunk in my throat that I'm calling anxiety but I'm G to pick something else to focus on right now maybe it's the feeling in my feet uh and is that okay is that better uh let me go with that do am I am I restating this correctly I yeah I think it's a it's a good way to put it I mean basically we're trying to figure out how to open the closed Fist of the mind right when I am uh activated let's say right with the anger or anxiety or something that's hard to Bear I've lost access to my clearest thinking I'm gone dude you know I'm in that fight flight freeze Fawn right so so the animal the animal body that I I'm in is uh I don't have access to that clear thinking cuz I'm you afraid whatever is happening an anxious angry I mean you you have a kid you know when my son is like wilding out reason and logic ain't going to reach him I can't you know just reassure him again that there's nothing under the bed that there's you know what I mean like bro bro bro you can't is nothing in the nothing in this room wants to hurt you bro there's nothing you know it's it's just going to fall on De ears what does he want to know oh he wants to know that uh he's not alone right he wants to be held it's like okay I can do that okay they say the experts trauma say that trauma happens in the with the absence of an empathetic witness right so we can be that empathetic witness even to ourselves so it's like okay I'm having anxiety I have a place I lay down I wrap myself up with warmth and affection same as I would anybody I love and I say all right I'm I'm right here now I kind of go through yeah I have my own way of dealing with that right so first it's like I I stopped taking it very personally right that's the first part of it because it it it manifests as something that's wrong with me but I hear the Buddhist voice 2600 years echoing through time and space what if it wasn't about you like just for a second I know that it's hard to imagine but what if it wasn't just for a second right and so when I'm not taking it personally when I'm not making it my FL that eases up some of the blame and some of the loneliness that suffering often comes accompanied by right now like okay is this mine is this I me or mine no I'm not the origin story of anxiety I didn't give birth to it on this planet it's like okay do other beings know this how many other beings know this feeling countless oh okay so now I'm in the presence of Sana right now I'm in the presence of community right and how many of my ancestors may have struggled with these energies you know stress anxiety self forgiveness or just buckling under the pressure of trying to meet their family's needs right I mean both of my grandfathers were dead before 45 of heart disease right right they didn't have access to these healing modalities that we do I mean sometimes I'm just trying to just trying to touch into the compassion to the one who's being judged so harshly right but there's a compassionate response and this can be a way that we can break the cycle so you know things tend to get bigger the more I run from them so when we turn and say okay anxiety is here difficult is here grief is here it's like okay what is this thing and so by directing our awareness toward it and if we feel too overwhelmed away from it we can even look at the validity of a path we can say but well what delivers me to a moment what delivers me from it right you know sometimes I need to be delivered from it right sometimes redirecting awareness is like you know what I'm going to take a walk I want to distract myself going just kind of let this pass man you know I don't actually have the inner resources right now to to meet it you know what I mean we have to be honest about ourselves because there has to be that willingness if there's not willingness we're just you know trying to it's like a get out of jail free card we're looking for we're going to outmaneuver it you know what I mean through meditation we're going to you know uh somehow outsmart suffering so silly I mean even when the Buddha right so so we don't need these energies whatever it is to just uh dis somehow disappear right that's not what happened to the Buddha when the Buddha became enlightened Mara continued to arise but he just wasn't he wasn't perceived as a problem right CU it's not the thought it's not the afflictive states that are the problem it's our relationship to them it's taking them for who we think we really are I am this problem I am this anxiety I've always been like this I'm always going to be like this right so in some way redirecting awareness for me has become a superpower of of being able to tend to this and not not even be afraid and then 10 15 minutes I can usually feel that kind of Golden Honey Sunset light you know because we can imbue awareness with qualities just like we imbue it with fear or anger or frustration we can UE it with this kind know wish for all beings to be free and I get to be included in that right every time we sit it's not just for not just for Vinnie you know that would be like some sisifus you know over and over and over but when we're able to hold it that these energies are not me and not I and not mine even the precepts right you you familiar with the precepts Dan yeah um just for folks who may not be it's basically these promises that we make to ourselves and others um in a Buddhist context um to behave in a certain way it what I like about Buddhist ethics you know the precepts maybe maybe like not taking other people's stuff not killing or not harming not you know those kinds of things what I like about the Buddhist version of The Commandments is uh there's more elasticity and um and and no promises of Eternal D damnation that's right yeah I mean the second one is the one that really moves me you know second precept is uh not taking what's not ours well we can think about that quite literally right in terms of property right not stealing okay but we can also in expand that to include how do we not take things personally how do we not take um The Suffering of our families on that are not ours right when I see the cycles of intergenerational trauma right in my family of addiction incarceration and violence I've been conditioned to take that on how do I keep this precept in mind you know is it okay to to be free when somebody uh is suffering in my family it's like I don't know am I am I taking what's not mine am I taking you know like I said taking things personally there's a lot of ways that that particular precept um delivers Freedom just to say that's the third of the techniques uh that we were going to talk about today the first being alignment the second being redirecting awareness and the third not taking what's not mine C can you just elaborate that on that a little bit like especially as it pertains to and I know you you've gotten more interested in ancestor practices ancestor worship even so H how does that connect to not taking what's not yours and not taking things personally yeah you can see how they roll into each other yeah yeah these these these top ICS you know they they they kind of arise pretty seamlessly you know um with some with even a little bit of practice but the ancestor practice for me it's like I I really felt alone in the world you know like uh you know I was a homeless teen you know strung out locked up you know all that stuff I didn't feel like there was anybody pulling for me you know at a certain point in my life life like I I turned my back to the world and kind of lost my sense of belonging you know I felt very exiled that led me to some very scary places that sense because the thing is and belonging is not enough you have to know it you know the the bond is as important The Knowing of it is as important as the bond because you know when did I really not belong you know it's so strange I found myself in 95 you know i' had made some really big commitments to go to India to meet the DI Lama to see to see if this was real or if this was just another hustle you know my whole life was a hustle bro you know the family the neighborhood the drugs it was just like oh another another thing and so I made a commitment I was like okay I'm going to go look in this guy's eyes and if I see some side eye you know what I mean if I see some slickness I'mma snap this dude's elbow I could get close enough to him I'm nice with the hands I I could do this this is how afraid I was bro this is how afraid I was that there wasn't anything in this world worth living for right this is what was at stake and so I uh you know I I got a chance to meet him and I just wailed and oh my God an ocean of Tears cuz of the love you looked at me with right a week later I'm sitting in a cave in Nepal this hermit monk been there and he's doing this Puja and I staying there for two three days just sleeping on the floor he's giving me a little bit of food I didn't I don't understand any Tibetan he spoke even less English so it wasn't in his words but there was something about it bro he's he's up there praying for all beings and and there was some admittance back into the garden bur for me there was just tears flowing down my face and I realized I never been alone this guy been up here for 2600 years you know what I mean that lineage so when I talk about ancestry I look back on this like this idea that like all my ancestors are behind me right I'm at the tip of the spear shooting through time and space yeah because I'm alive right now they're all pulling for me but it's my time to see if I can break somebody's cycles that my family in the world has um been lost in you know and so there's something about that that gives me strength you know that's like I'm not just doing this for me I'm doing this for all my ancestors I couldn't do it and I'm doing it for my kid so I don't pass on anything that's not helpful right yeah so that's how the ancestor um kind of worship or actually you just you know I burn stuff every day and I'm just trying to keep it in mind that like okay I'm at the tip of the spear they're pulling for me and that can be kind of like a a resource yeah a reflection and a question the thought that I had is and listening to you is that um you know I kind of glibly said at the beginning we're going to talk about these three practices you use to keep your [ __ ] together but really it's three practices I mean it's that and then on a on a bigger note it's these three practices you use to break cultural evolutionary familial patterns that have not worked well for your fourbears and might not work well for your kid if you weren't in the middle there trying to show a different way of being yeah I mean I didn't want to have a kid bro you know I wasn't raised in a conventional sense you know so I didn't want to pass on things that were not helpful and I didn't feel like I had anything to offer I was just going to do my best to be a good Godfather good uncle and then I met a woman that I uh know I needed to be with and she was just like this is what I'm doing so I better get get on board or or bounce you know and I you know there was a lot of grief there you know a lifetime of never allowing myself to feel that feeling you know that excitement of like well maybe that could be maybe it's something I could allow myself to um to just consider i' had never let that happen and and then once you do it you realize oh my God this was a such an active generosity oh my God like thankless you know what I mean some ways you know what I mean like it has its own gifts obviously but it would call on me and I I thought I was much further along on the path to be quite honest Real Talk man I mean talk you know I'm back in therapy that can't got me on the cushion every day you know talk of the cruel tutelage of Valentino you know what I mean he he's you know the most beautiful thing I've ever seen you know and uh you know he he really calls forth in me the the most generous part of me you know and you realize that the barrel that you're surrounded around you know you and your wife or you and your partner that Barrel is not you right this life is not your own anymore so I had to sell my Chopper I had to you know sell the low riders I had to do the things that I could do to to make that decision that commitment yeah to something bigger than me you know something more important than me you know because you know what it's like you have a child that moment that birthed into this world I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I would die for him wasn't that he was funny he didn't have some you know Gucci diaper you know just you just like oh [ __ ] wow and then that's where we can get in touch with like or at least what comes to mind for me everyway talks about you know the beauty of kids it's like I don't think babies are beautiful I just think that the eyes that we look at are so blameless it makes them beautiful you know what I mean and it's like okay if we're talking if we go to if we bookend this thing and say all right one of the first things we talked about it's like is there any part of us that's beyond Redemption we know that we can see through those eyes now whether we think we got that coming that's another story right but we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that baby's got a coming so that's something they give us they offer us that that blameless unconditional love that's just like I didn't know it was possible you know there was always a reason you know I loved my friends cuz he was funny I loved her cuz she was beautiful she was smart she you know all these there was always reason to love and then then there was the unconditioned that they bring into our lives into our that knowing in our hearts yeah I remember uh right after our son was born I was I ran into John cabat zin the great Buddhist teacher the great meditation teacher I don't I don't know how Buddhist he considers himself these days but um and he said I told him I had a kid and he said oh yeah the dollar llama just moved into your house that's right that's right so what is the connection between seeing our family patterns and not taking what is not ours yeah you know it's so much of my life has been very very intense then you know dramatic very dramatic you know I came home and found my mom passed away when I was a teenager that was very dramatic and we had to you know one of my family members uh had to take her life very tramatic and so I got to be there you had to take her life no um well we had to pull the plug on my mom but one of my family members you know um she tried to take her own life oh okay okay I'm sorry so I was uh you know in the emergency room again and standing over her and realizing like oh wow okay and I talked her into um you know letting them take her in like for real right not just saying what you need to be said to get out and uh she was like okay and they started Wheeling her away and I was like oh wow I remember this moment for my teenage years and I was part of the problem but now I'm like The Helpful Uncle okay how real do you take these roles you know what I mean like that you're being cast into like just okay I was the pain in the ass teenager now I'm the helpful other it's just like wow you start seeing the intergenerational trauma and then you start you're able to start questioning how loyal I've been to my suffering right what am I pledging allegiance to here is this I me or mine you know and it's not just some spiritual bypass it's a real question I'm like okay what do I take myself to be well obviously I care about this person deeply okay there's compassion there you know okay but how do I not take on more than uh than is helpful right what's helpful and what's personal what's the added layer right sometimes we call the second Arrow this just like oh my God what when is this person ever going to figure it out and now I got got to figure out how to remind them of who they are it's like whoa whoa whoa so in a way I guess it's like not making things harder than they need to be there's already enough real suffering going on we don't need the additional that comes with taking things very personally let me see let me test my own comprehension there and and say it back to you that so as a teenager you had this horrible thing happen to you where you found your mother deceased or near deceased and and then had to bring her to the hospital and make a painful decision fast forward several decades another really hard situation where member of your family has tried to take her own life and you're um trying to play as positive a role as possible so there's already a lot of sort of non-negotiable suffering that's happening in both of these situations specifically in the latter situation where you're you've at this point been practicing meditation for a while um uh but you decline to add on the level of oh I'm part of this messed up family and these people can't get their stuff together and uh I'm never going to get out of these patterns and I'm you know I me mind all of this so you're not taking all of that for as yours anymore um as one great monk said you're not misappropriating public property um you're just focusing on what is actually here now instead of adding out a bunch of voluntary pain yeah and what was there was incredible heart a lot of compassion just not that added [Music] layers and that's it's like okay is this how we break the cycle by seeing through that I wasn't the pain in the ass teenager and I'm not the helpful brother it's like you know what I mean like that was never me that's just like the role okay now I'll be this it's like how wholeheartedly can you hold these roles when you see that you weren't the first one you're not the second one you're not going to be the third one you're just a being here that cares deeply about this person yeah you know I don't know I don't know what it's like to be you but I was really bred to take on that suffering to make it my fault to make it my problem to figure out if you can't figure it out then you failed right and maybe it's different in all kinds of different families but it but that's what I kind of grew up with and so the the Deep failure of losing my mom it was just like hold on it's already hard to lose your mom she was like my best friend but then there's like the it was your fault you should have been there she died alone it was just like whoa Decades of you know trying to run from that the you know a a path a life of destructive relationships based on those beliefs you know kids make everything their fault right so you know I kind of saw through that in this instance you know the the the the details were dramatic enough to wake me up out of that and see like oh my God it's just happening again wow okay what am I in choice about here how can this be in the service of Awakening this very confusing moment what am I Awakening to I don't know if this is a fair or useful question I'll throw it out there and maybe maybe we'll answer a different question but how how much confidence do you have after all of these years of practice that you're making progress on on Breaking the cycle you know it is a hard question to answer I feel a lot less suffering so that that's that's some kind of measurement I tend to stay um to not stay in story as long so that's another measurement right because these stories can often be not generous right internally or externally so it's like okay I can you know that catch and release that I talked about right it's like oh I can feel the resistance we become a lot more sensitive so when I wake up to that that resistance that hurts every time I'm usually able to release it um fairly quickly so there are some uh some measurements that uh lead me to believe that there's uh progress being made certainly not Perfection but I can I can wholeheartedly say that there's just so much less suffering that I'm I'm creating for myself yeah I believe it I do yeah yeah I feel very lucky to have found the D I feel like the luckiest person I know that I because I'm not even supposed to be alive like there's nothing in my uh history that would lead you to believe that I would be alive at this age you know just uh you know yeah and so the fact that I get to go into prisons work with death and dying do all this beautiful work in the world um I just I just never thought I had anything to offer you know I didn't know I could be a part of something good because of the world I was born into it's always uh that that hustle that street uh that survival mentality and then you know growing up and coming into these more wholesome qu ities was like oh my god oh man I'm so glad that I survived the first part so that I have something to offer in the second part and really find out more of who I was and not just uh you know be lost yeah to the world I I sincerely believe we are all lucky that you are alive that's sweet man thank you bro yeah man you feel pretty lucky feel exteme about my life my life has been Charmed from the jump so I had every advantage and so yeah I feel very lucky at Baseline and then extremely lucky that even though I have had attempted to sabotage all of my uh uh unearned advantages um I found the Dharma you know 14 years ago and and have been awkwardly and um unevenly applying it into my life to my life uh ever since so I feel lucky in on in several ways that brings that brings up something so tender for me because what is the Dharma you know what's the main premise here Dan is it that conditions don't lead to suffering because that's a really big question for me because you talk about the difficulties in your life right as I just have what sent me running into the arms of the Dharma but my difficulties you know I think it was Franco that said you know conditions don't lead to suffering or bondage that it's only the being the attitude of the being that determine which way these things flow what a radical proposition you know radical invitation that it's not conditions don't lead to suffering my conditions were so intense at the beginning of my life I couldn't imagine a happiness can imagine a freedom now I can see like oh you're standing in an emergency room okay which direction do these conditions lead throw it on your back throw it in the backpack sop fish back up the hill or is it or is this how we break a cycle here it's an interesting conversation to have with people that are incarcerated you know there's a lot of kinds of incarceration Vinnie Before I Let You Go is there do you have a website well if people want to learn more about you how can they do that yeah I do a friend of mine built me a website it's Vin for.org yeah and uh you know it's sparsely populated I'm not so good at Mar marketing and all these other aspects of teaching you know but I do feel lucky to uh have a Sana in San Francisco um that I've been The Guiding teacher of for about 20 years now and so just to be with witnessed right just to see you know they've seen me through so many of uh the chapters yeah and that's something that Community really provides us right it's not just a place to compare hallucinations but it's also this other part that's like oh wow I'll remind you you remind me when I lose my way and so I've been really really lucky to to have a community yeah that does that for me and with me thank you for doing this this was an absolute pleasure um I think it's going to help everybody who hears it so thank you again thanks thanks for having me Dan I hope to see you again bro I I I'm you may regret saying that cuz I'm going to ensure that you see me again maybe so bro [Music]

Channel: Ten Percent Happier

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Keywords: dharma advice, Vinny Ferraro, meditation, meditation for beginners, Dan Harris, ten percent happier, 10 percent happier, ten percent happier podcast, 10 percent happier podcast, ten percent happier dan harris, 10 percent dan harris, ten percent dan harris, dan harris ten percent, dan harris 10 percent, dan harris meditation, dan harris podcast, dan harris ted talk, dan harris paris interview, dan harris mindfulness, ten percent, 10 percent, mental health podcast

Id: qe2ihDg7cWY

Length: 72min 30sec (4350 seconds)

Published: Wed May 15 2024