Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 60: Matthieu Ricard, French Monk and 'World's Happiest Man'

Episode Date: February 8, 2017

Tibetan Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, who is originally from France, earned the moniker "world's happiest man" after brain scans taken during a neurological study on meditation (led by Dr. Richie Davidson) showed excessive activity in his brain as he meditated on compassion. A staunch vegetarian, Ricard talks about the importance of extending compassion to all beings, including animals, which he lays out in his new book, "A Plea for the Animals: The Moral, Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with Compassion." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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He is a French guy who's sometimes known as the happiest man alive. He got that name because he's one of these meditative adepts who took part in an early scientific experiment that looked at the brains of meditators and the readings from his brain measurements were off the charts. And so some reporter called him the happiest man alive and the name has stuck.

He is a molecular geneticist by training who abandoned his scientific career to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Now he lives mainly in the Himalayas. And he's written a bunch of books that are incredibly interesting about meditation and also about altruism. His latest book, though, is particularly challenging to me as a guy who likes to eat cheeseburgers. It's called Aplee for the Animals, the Moral Philosophical and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with Compassion. I do eat cheeseburgers, but I don't feel good about it, and we dove into that subject and much more in this conversation. So here you are. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast.

I'm Dan Harris. Do you get tired of the whole happiest man alive thing? You know, I try about 500 disclaimers, and nobody cares about the disclaimers. So one of my Tibetan friends, one day we won Korea and there was a big thing about that. He says, you know, just let it be. Use it for a good purpose. But, you know, if you think five seconds, how can anyone in their right mind believe that we could evaluate the happiness of seven billion human beings? And no scientist would ever think it's inconceivable.

So when you think a little bit about it, you can see it's completely a joke. But I would imagine, I agree, I get it, and I want you to give some of the disclaimers in a second, but I would just imagine it would be a big cross to bear because like, what if somebody sees you getting annoyed at an airport counter or, you know, what if you didn't do that? They're not all not what I try not to be too annoyed. I'm quite happy in general, but you know the happiest person in the world is just a ridiculous label, but what to say? Well, first of all, it's better than to be called the unhappy as person in

the world. Right. Right. And then it gives you an occasion to say, look, any man and woman could look at to find to be the happiest person in the world, provided they look for happiness in the right place and not turn them back to it. So trying to turn it into a little bit of talking what's genuine happiness could be. But the worst thing that happened to me once I was giving a talk near at Nakufa University, then in the kind of hall, which was a cinema. You know, cinema, they put the name of the movie with big letters at the entrance. And then there was the happiest man in the world,

like the program from seven to nine, almost didn't dare to go in, you know, so embarrassing. So how did you get this moniker? How did it come? Well, we were doing study with Richard Davidson. Yes, we've been a guest on this podcast. We've been really active in leading. So, great neuroscientists work with emotion

and one of the world leaders in work in studying the effect of mind training or meditation on the brain. So, among all the different types of meditation because there's no such thing as meditation with the big M is like you say, I'm training. Oh, great. What do you do?

Bagminton, rugby, American football or swimming? No, it's not quite the same. So likewise, meditation or mind training depends what you train. Are you training focused attention, compassion or open presence and emotional balance? Whatever you will train in, that skill will be magnified and you will see different areas of the brain being changed. So we were, we realized that among all the meditative states, the one that induced the

greatest change in magnitude in the brain, you know, as a voluntary mental act, when you sit there the greatest change in magnitude in the brain, as a voluntary mental act, when you sit there, and suddenly you generate in your mind a particular state of mind. It was not focused attention, it was not trying to deal with your thought, it was compassion. And that was in long-term meditator,

giving rise to an extremely high increase of certain brain waves in the so-called gamma frequency, which has to do with coherence in the brain, and in areas connected with well-being, the sense of affiliation, positive emotions, and things like that. So, okay, I was one of the first guinea pigs, and then there was 20 or 25 other long term editors who came, were basically the same kind of effect. And it was men and women, easterners, westerners, monastics and laypeople. The main criteria was how much practice you have done.

And it was very similar. But since there was such an exceptional sort of magnitude of activation, as Richie said said was never recorded before in neuroscience. So it was something interesting. So then some, the other ABC, the Australian ABC television was there doing a documentary on happiness. So then they came to film, they came to film in Nepal to see the meditator in context. And the last image of the movie I was coming down, the hill from my hematage was maybe this is the happiest person in the world.

OK, silence for two, three years. And then one morning I got, oh, I was in Nepal. I got midnight. I got a frantic call from the BBC News Hour. And I said, what's going on? I said, OK, maybe. And they say, oh, there was an article this morning in the independent saying, we find the happiest person in the world, front page article. What does that do? What is it about? I say, well, I'm so very

nice. Thank you so much. So, and then that, okay, this is like crazy article, but then it was viral. The next morning in Brazil, the Bangkok morning post, out of control. Then I thought it would go off. Then every two, three years, someone digs that out and comes again with a story. So what to do? So I apologize to my scientist friend because, you know, it's not nothing to do with self-promotion but so you know I'm happy when they don't mention it but then when it comes again here is there have you just but in the world I say well thank you so much. As you said there could be worse nicknames. Yeah exactly.

So let's just go back to the beginning for a second you were raised in France as I recall correctly. Yes. And how did you start meditating? Well I was raised in France as I recall correctly. Yes. And how did you start meditating? Well, I was raised in my mother was very interested in spirituality in general, reading books and all different religions, but in those days there was very little access in the 60s to Buddhism, to Eastern philosophy in terms of practical engagement. So when I was 20, and the father was a philosopher, myself I was doing a PhD in celgenetics at Pastor Institute, so nothing much at that time meditation was not really fashionable, let's say. But I saw when I was 20 series of documentaries made by French filmmaker

near all the great Tibetan masters who had fled the communist invasion of Tibet, from the Dalai Lama to Bhutan and going through Darjeeling and Kalimpong, and then there was 20 extraordinary, you know, masters there, men and women. And it looks like 20 Socrates, 20 San Francisco of Assisi, alive, now in this world. What was the documentary called? It's called The Message of the Tibetans, and one is called the children of wisdom, and there was a four series documentary. So I had this inclination, sort of searching for something, you don't know what you want to do in life, but you don't want a boring life.

Suddenly, you say, oh, you know, why don't I go and see? So I took, I didn't speak much English. My father asked me to learn Greek, classical Greek Latin and German, which I didn't use very much after that. So I went with a little dictionary and I ended up in dazzling. And I met... In the end, or in the end? In India, yes, not in India. And I met many several great masters,

including the one who became my main teacher, Konkure Moshi. So I was, you know, it was really, I would say, I can say, retrospectively life-changing experience, not because, you you know some extraordinary staff with lights shining in the dark. But the extraordinary quality of the presence, the wisdom, the kindness, the simplicity,

you have metis on Isd-e-Darilama, you know what it is. When there's some kind of really genuine person and in immense heart, there's something there that's a bit different. So then I went back and then I realized how much it has brought me. So I went back and forth six, seven times and then decided after my PhD to settle there and do my postdoc in the Himalayas. So meditation in the beginning, you know, basically, you know, he was not speaking English. He was a yogi. I mean, he had children. So this is your teacher. My teacher. So, you know, this book little English, but basically I was sitting all the long in front of him, trying to sort of mingle my little confused mind with his vast wisdom, compassionate mind, this sense of trying

to blend and resting in that, in a state of, you know, sort of, yes, well-being and try to just enhance those qualities which I was perceiving in him to enhance them in myself. I was doing that instinctively. Then later on, when I started to more seriously study Buddhism and the techniques, then I went through the whole curses. The whole what? The whole curses of Buddhist practice. All the curses, right?

Yeah, gotcha. Curriculum of Buddhist practice, which you could call meditation in the sense of mind training, you know the words that we translate as meditation, Bavana and Sanskrit and GOM in Tibetan, doesn't mean just sitting there with open eyes and trying to think of nothing and relax. It's really cultivating. So it could be cultivating specific quality, like compassion,

but also family-arisen, family-ariseation. So you family arise yourself with a new way of being, with a new way of translating outer circumstances in happiness or suffering, and also family-ariseation with the basic nature of your mind. So that's more like what people think of meditation, resting in pure awareness. So that's also a way to familiarize yourself with this basic nature of one, because usually we are so distracted by wild thoughts that we miss, that basic faculty to know that is always beneath the weird pool of the thoughts. So in that sense, this kind of practice leads to that contemplative meditation. At what point did you decide to become a monk?

That was much later. And because, you know, I'd asked my teacher first, you know, should have a family or not. And he said, wait, till you are 30, you'll see. So I was 20 then. So for 10 years, I was just a practice. And no special idea. Then I was 20 then, so for 10 years I was just practiced and no special idea. Then I was 30, you know, I was more or less living there in hemategies as a celibate and both ways seems fine with me, having a family or not. I could see the benefit of both ways. And then I asked again my second teacher, did did go cancer and machine, the first one, cancer and machine passed away. I said, I'm 30 now, so what should I do?

What do you think? It's all, it'll be very good if you are becoming monk because then there's nothing else that practices into Dharma. You don't have, if you want to go for retreats in the mountain for several years, you don't have to worry about leaving a family behind, hurting people.

So just devote yourself completely to Dharma. It seems good, so I say, for great. So I feel more like, you know, sometimes people feel like it's a limitation, you know, sort of. When I back to France as a monk, first time, someone said, oh, a monk is almost like a half-human being. someone said, oh, among us, almost like a half human being. So for me, it was not putting fetters on some of my freedom or something. It was more like a bird coming out of the cage. I felt a great sense of freedom, liberation, unlimited possibilities. I could go here and there. I could stay anywhere I wanted.

And this API 500 is in here, I'm with it. And then I was free to pursue that in a transformation. But of course not in a selfish way, because the whole goal of the part is to get rid of selfishness and be of service to others. It is true that if you have so many personal responsibilities, you have to, for 20 years or so, raise children and really care for them. So it's more difficult to fully devote yourself to serving others here and there. Like I tried to do today with our Humanitarian Organization, Karuna. We work in nomadic areas of Tibet, in remote areas of Nepal, after the earthquakes in very poor countryside in northern India.

You know, if you spend your time going around like that, the family is not very easy. So, Morgh is a great freedom. But can't you, speaking as a householder to use a Buddhist term as a guy or as a kid and a wife and a bunch of jobs, can't you enact the eightfold path, the Buddhist eight steps toward enlightenment in a full civilian life. Can't you be compassionate toward everybody around you in that kind of context? Absolutely. I mean, my three main teachers were, we say, we say more yogi than householders, but they are family. And so, and it's absolutely fantastic teaching to see how the quality of wisdom and compassion

of the teacher was sort of embracing the whole family and have a transformative power with them, not in an authoritative way, but just by the sheer strength of inspiration and presence of the quality of human being. But at the same time, depending on circumstances, to be completely free, and if you decide to, as I said, to go for several years as one of my teacher Mingurim Wushedid, disappearing four years in the mountain, wandering around in the Himalayas, if you have a young children at home,

it's not very compassionate to do so. So it's absolutely not indispensable to be to progress to enlightenment, it's just a choice that might suit you better to fully dedicate yourself to the part. Now, as far as compassion is concerned, definitely you can as fast compassion is concerned, definitely you can't do that. And entirely, in any circumstances, the more the human beings are on you, the more

that compassion has an object to be expressed. But you see, if you want to do long retreats, where you really train your mind like eight, ten hours a day for a long period of time, your mind like eight, 10 hours a day for a long period of time, then I think sometimes I have this kind of freedom it can be useful. Fair enough. You're gonna hear my questions that I'm gonna bounce around a little bit because I'm just reacting to what you're saying. So right now I'm gonna react to something you actually said earlier which was and I had a selfish question which was you were talking about the fact that you got this name, the happiest man on earth, or happiest man alive, or whatever it is, because you were doing compassion

meditation while your brain was being studied, and the readings, the electromagnetic readings were unprecedented. And I just started to think to myself, you know, I do lots of kinds of meditation, including compassion meditation, but I would not say that the kind of meditation that makes me feel the best is compassion meditation. I certainly believe, powerfully, I've seen the science that shows that it can do wonderful things for you and that it can change behavior. So I'm a major proponent of compassion meditation, but I feel like if somebody was measuring

my brain, that is not the kind of meditation that would produce the most interesting effects. So what does that say? That I'm just a jerk at baseline or I'm doing it wrong. What's your reaction to that? Well, so far, you know, we can study all the different states of meditation. There's so many. But we generally, which is Davidson and other neuroscientists, there have been three main sectors, type of meditation that has been investigated. One is attentive presence, focus attention. Because as you know, we are, Dan Gilbert and others have shown that 45% of the time, we are not on the task that we are doing. Our mind is running away somewhere else.

And it turns out that also these are the unhappiest moments compared to when we are on the spot, I mean, focused on what we actually do at the moment. Yes, Daniel Gilbert published a study said a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. That's right. So focusing Daniel Gilbert published a study, said a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. That's right. So, focusing attention, certainly, you know, being present, so the whole thing about mindfulness, being the present moment, it doesn't mean that you are stuck in the present moment as some people think it is. Or, but if you are always stuck

in the present moment, you cannot learn from the past or really seriously think of the future. This is quite stupid because a distracted mind is certainly not the kind of mind that can meaningfully, you know, and consider the future in a very, in a way full of discernment and clarity. Well, if you are in the present moment, then it doesn't mean that you cannot think, of course, simply that you are not distracted. So that's great at one of the main areas of studying meditation to a femurized canner and electrons, the phallogram and so forth. The other one is the compassion

loving kindness area. And the third one is sometimes what we call open presence is a state where you don't focus intensely on something, but your mind is like a big sky, a big space and then thoughts come like birds passing through the sky without leaving trace And this is kind of state for instance when we did with in California with Paul Ekman, a great psychologist and Bob Levinson Which went with a sudden explosion if you are in that state then you are, then you don't startle and fall off your chair. So you're sitting in the lab, you're in open awareness, and then make a big noise. Two big gunshots on your ears, and everyone jumps,

and some people are really big. But with this type of meditation, you hardly move. A little bit blink in your eyes or something, because the mind is such a big space, and that detonation is like a small thing happening somewhere. So this is a third kind of meditation where I've been studying. And it turns out, in terms of activation, but you know, activation doesn't necessarily mean,

I don't know, that is the most satisfying, the deepest, the electrical, the intensity of the activation, whether it's with FMRI, I mean, looking at the brain activation, you know, in imaging or with the electrodes. In both cases, the compassion seems to produce a very powerful effect. But you know, it may be that a state of inner peace, really great inner freedom, Wonderful serenity.

It might be even deeper and more rewarding state, but it doesn't create a huge activation in the brain. So we must be careful that strong activation of brain waves doesn't necessarily say, oh, that's the best type of meditation. It's intense, but something that is less intense may have a quality that is quite extraordinary. So I should keep going with my compassion meditation. Oh, definitely.

One of the reasons, if we link that with happiness, is that there is no such thing as selfish happiness. It doesn't work. Well, there are several reasons for that. First of all, subjectively, no, me, me, all day long, it feels very miserable. In that bubble of self-centredness, it feels like stuffy, like anything. And then, of course, people will not really appreciate someone who thinks me, me, me, all day long. We have a few examples around these days. And not to mention anyone. And

so you will not be very perceived in a very positive way. And that's one thing. So it's a loose-lose situation. On top of that, it doesn't work because you, it assumes that you will be separate entities and you could build your happiness in your little bubble and that you may be not mind, you are quite happy. Or does it get get happy, but it's not your job, nothing to do with you. But that doesn't work because we are interdependent. So basically, it doesn't work. Now, if you look at compassionate attitude, loving attitude, benevolent attitude, altruistic attitude, first of all, all the studies show that it is somehow at least one

of the most, if not the most, satisfactory state of mind. No Baba Raffrediction, she's a positive psychologist, a pioneer. She called Love the Supreme Emotion. It's the one that widens your mind the most, that brings the most other type of positive effect along with compassion and love. So, and of course, love by definition is others oriented. So maybe also left self-saturnness. So it will be perceived by others as a person,

it is good to be with. So then again, a win-win situation. Plus, it is based on the recognition of interdependence of all beings. No, I don't wake up in the morning thinking, I suffer the whole day. I might be confused and look for happiness in the wrong place, but my deep wish is to somehow get out of suffering

and find some kind of fulfilment. So it doesn't take rocket science to transport myself in someone else's mind, see our common humanity or common sentience with the animals are so thought, and say, yes, of course, they don't want to suffer either, so that commonality, that baseline that we all share through interdependence, is the foundation for being concerned, valuing their wish not to suffer, and being concerned by that, and therefore comes altruism and compassion. So you mentioned animals which brings us nicely to your new book, A Plee for the Animals.

So I started to read this book over the last couple of days and it provoked me a response that probably is not the response that you wanted in that. In that I started to feel very guilty because I agree with your thesis. Your thesis basically is we ought to be thinking very hard about the well-being of the, what is it, 70 million other creatures that we share the planet with. I can't remember. It's 8 million species. 8 million species in some, but that we kill 60 billion land animal every year and the trillion which is a thousand billion sea animal every year that's 120 million per hour, so this is food for thought, you know quite literally So yeah, I I I buy it. I mean, I'm not you're I'm you're not you don't have an interview

We're in front of you who's gonna argue with you about the basic idea that we ought to care about these animals. I would not kill a cow. However, I eat hamburgers and I know somewhere pretty deep in myself that I did I'm not happy with this. So I've said that but actually I I'm going to kind of just shut up for a second and let you make your case about what is the book about and what do you want people to walk away with. Well, exactly that, that discomfort, because there's reason for that discourse. So I had the response you wanted. Yes.

Okay. Because I don't want to accuse people. I'll tell you where you are, blah blah blah, but I want to point out that this discomfort is the road for the next cultural change or next step in civilization. When with some feel at odds with something this window, something there is not quite right, but you know there's a statue cool, everybody does it. Oh well, you know, if I don't think too much about it, that will be fine. So that's the beginning of a change of mine, a change of views. And if you look at the last two, three centuries, the immense progress of civilization. No. In France or in Europe, 200 years ago, and Sunday afternoon, you will not take your wife and kids to see a football match.

You will go to very often to see people being tortured on the more. No, hanged or put on the wheel, and bones will be broken and everybody will be look at that as we go look at sport or go to movie today. It's only 200 years ago. The last switch was burned in Switzerland in 1825. The last which was 1820 okay so still which are sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia today but basically okay. So now we have Ab abolished slavery. We have abolished convention against torture, even though it's still going on, but at least it's illegal. We had the universal declaration of human rights. Now we care more about the right of women, the right of the child, so immense progress. We cannot now ascribe a monetary value to human life. You can't say human life is worth $10,000 or something.

It's infinite. But there is still a huge incoherence toward 8 million other species. We are everything they are nothing. Human life is infinite. Other species intrinsic value is zero unless it's commercial or it has some interest for us. Or if there are pet.

Yeah, there are pet but because they bring us something affection and they're always there, they never get so hungry and things like that. So there's something that we know is bit wrong. And I'll give you the example of the abolition of slavery in UK in the late 1970s or something like that. There are 10 people saying slavery is just an abomination, we can or something like that. There are ten people saying slavery is just an abomination, we can't go on like that. And they went to the parliament and said that and everybody loved. And they say, you know, economic life is impossible. The British empire will collapse. We can't do that, it's out of question.

But then they started to move opinion. And then people, you know, not quite comfortable with that. And 10 years later, it was gone. So now, imagine 50 years later, people say, oh, it was not so bad after all. We could put it back, you know. It made sense. It's kind of convenient to have slaves and things like that.

So at some point, you know, there's a consciousness change. And I think the next step is coming slowly, is that one. Now, for that, you need to put good reasons. It's not just like gut feeling. And then first to show that, of course, the way we abuse in a way, animal and leads through this wholesale massacre, 120 know, 120 million per hour. It's not nothing. When thousand people are killed somewhere, it's like the world isn't

rightly so completely upset, but this is happening everywhere. And basically, we'll say, why? So why not? So there's something there a little bit to think about. Hey, I'm Aresha, and I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wunderys Podcast, even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about drag icon RuPaul Charles. After a childhood of being ignored by his absentee father, Ru goes out searching for love and acceptance. But the road to success is a

rocky one. Substance abuse and mental health struggles threaten to veer Rue off course. In our series Rue Paul Bornnaked, we'll show you how Rue Paul overcame his demons and carved out a place for himself as one of the world's top entertainers, opening the doors for aspiring queens everywhere. Follow even the rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app. So the idea that we were so special as a human being and they are so fundamentally different, nothing to do, no, they're almost like objects.

And in France, until recently, in the civil court, domestic animals are under the chapter of furniture. So until last year a sheep was a moving table with four legs. No, we did some debate in the Senate and there are the chance to send you and being, you know, just about time. So things are changing. So you see that this so we have this correlative descendants. We love dogs, we eat cows, we wear cows and eat pigs. So if a dinner, I get another hostess, delicious meal and at the end we ask for the recipe and say why I took my dog this morning, cut it into pieces and put some spice.

And everybody goes, whoops. You know, why? What's the difference? You know, with the pig, pig, I'm in fact more intelligent smarter than dogs. They don't look as cute, but so it doesn't make sense. Now you take a, you eat snails in France.

I don't know if you do that in North America. Rarely, but it's snakes. We call it a slugs. We call it a slugs. It's slugs. It's slugs. No, we don't know if you do that in North America. Rarely, but it's next. We call it a slugs. No, we don't eat slugs. So why? There's one is a little home, so they don't like to hit the homeless or something like that. I mean, there's a cognitive dissonance. So we love some animals because they are cute, or like that. And for the others, it's a whole set. So this doesn't work. And then again, if you look at the whole situation, look at to evolution. If we are so different, we are most intelligent. But these give us also not

only a power, but also some sense of responsibility. It's not because animals cannot claim their rights to be alive and not to be abused. Presumably, because they don't have the faculty to do that, we should be even more careful to us then. But I think the main argument I would say with anyone, whether you care or not, is that the way we proceed now, everybody is losing. So first the animal, the staggering numbers, this is really wholesale massacre. We can say that. Then the climate change. Now, all the study of the APCC FAO has shown that the whole chain of leading from deforestation to mid-production, methane emission by pigs and cows and so forth is the second cause of greenhouse gas emission 15% after habitations and buildings and before even transportation, before those nasty cows and plains and ships, it is the second cause.

Then you have poverty in the world. We ship now about 800 million tons of corn, soy, and wheat from Latin America and Africa to the richer countries in the North for mid-production. This could feed over a billion human beings in those countries who offer neat food. In Ethiopia, during a famine, there was still shipping grain to UK for meat production. So that's another aspect. The fourth aspect is that you say, well, it's indispensable for health. Well, too bad. It turns out it's not, and it's even harmful.

There have been many longitudinal studies over 10, 15 years, conducted on 100,000 people, including in Harvard, showing that regular meat eaters every day, have actually an increased chance of having colonic cancer, no cardiovascular disease, to the extent that the WHO, I think last year, the meta-analysis of 600 studies and concluded there are probably risks of...

there are like a Class B, a Casino genic substance to eat meat every day. So basically everybody's losing. So why are we continuing? It's habit, tradition. There was an interesting survey done in Australia. Why do you want to continue it in mid if you were to know all these things? Well, 70% said well because I like it, full stop. That's not a very powerful ethical argument. Second,

or because my family does it so it's a little hard if I don't. Tradition again. And then because I don't know what to cook, what the sprential good things you can do. So not even an altruism, much less an ethical reason. So sometimes if I happen to do a talk, I ask people, are you in favor of justice and morality? Everybody raise their hands. So is it just and moral to inflict unnecessary suffering on

sentient beings? Everybody says of course no. So that's it. No, there are very, very few people on Earth like Eskimos and few coastal people who really whose life depends on fishing or hunting. Or, yes, or rising livestock. But vast majority, it will be so much better to use, even in poor areas Africa, to use the land for crops, other than livestock is very actually a negative effect on the land, on making, you know, getting rid of vegetation. So the world will be much better to feed the poor if we were focusing on this kind of diet. So then, you wonder, so it's good to know that, and then people make their own decisions.

Yeah, but it's, I mean, I'm not going to dispute any of your facts, but it isn't, nonetheless, kind of just a pain the butt to make this change. I have to convince my wife, I got to figure out, like, how am I going to feed my one and a half year old, I'm not going to give them animal products anymore. So, do I not cook them eggs in the morning? It's just, it's not easy. Well, first of all, people could do gradually, you know, this drastic decision from one day to the next to become vegan or something. Well, everything has to be done in an organic way, going slowly about it, but again, the science is very powerful behind that.

Recently, in the French schools, there was a proposal to have a vegetarian alternative. You could choose a vegetarian diet, not in POSIT, but you could choose. Everybody want berserk, you know. Oh, those poor kids are going to become anemic and so forth. So I was on the radio show like now, and a deputy MP said, no, those children that need me to for iron and for all this and that. I say, and say, but you know, all the scientific studies are just the opposite. Say, no, my de-titian says that. He says, based on what? If you show me a single study,

seeing that people are in better health if they eat meat regularly than not, then I will go along you. But there is none. There is all the opposite. So just to dispel, you know, misconception. The FAO did a review of the hundred types of food that are most used throughout the world and allows the protein content. Well guess what? The first meat, pork meat, 22% come in 13 position. So first is yeast. Of course, you are not going to eat yeast all day long. It's 45%. Then the different variety of tofu, 35% of protein. Okay, maybe I don't want to eat tofu all the long. But you know avocado and lentils and red beans, 27% much more than meat and then the first fish is 18% tuna, X is 12%, milk is 7% of protein.

No, then they say, OK, but there's not the 13 essential amino acids. You don't find them complete, say, in a vegan diet. Well, this is based, of course, the food industry is strong behind that argument, on the study in 1935 made with rats. It's completely obsolete. Now, the proper studies have shown that if you eat your fill, that means if you are not hungry at night, purely on the vegetarian basis, you do have the 13 essential amino acid

in sufficient quantity. And then the cherry on the cake is that a British insurance company is giving 20% rebate on life insurance to vegetarian. So they're not the numbers. Yeah, I'm not actually, my beef with this is not on the math. It's the it's on the logistics of it. But you're basically, you briefly said that just take it slow. Do, if you wanna make the change, you don't try to be overnight radical about it.

Well, you could if you're some people, in a way, I think for me, I feel it's a very easy decision. You'll finish, you'll stop. And that's what you did. You stopped, yeah. I stopped when I became aware of something, I was like, okay, now, I realized that, but that was 50 years ago, by the way. But is the decision? You'll finish. And that's what you did. You stopped. Yeah. But I stopped when I became aware of something. I was like, okay, now I realize that.

But it was 50 years ago, by the way. Yeah, but by the way, in Tibetan tradition, you guys eat a lot of meat. Well, in the book I look at that, in Tibetan, you leave at 12,000 feet average. There's no crop above 10,000 feet. So it depends on livestock. But know that the more and more food come from China, no rice and vegetable, all the many of the big monasteries

have now made the step to become vegetarian. Interesting. So in India, especially, there's almost 90% of monasteries. They don't cook meat anymore in the kitchen. So they don't impose to the monks if they want to eat outside, they suck to them. But this is getting a strong momentum. But in Tibet, I tell you, it's really tough.

I go there, I cannot be vegan because then I will eat nothing, but I eat curd. But you know, then it's all about suffering. It's not because curd or eggs are sort of impure or whatever. The amount of suffering is there free-running chicken, which is almost unknown now. They're all by 200,000 in a big hole. And it's like a hell for chickens. But if they are actually really free happy chickens,

what's wrong? It doesn't harm anyone. And if you have the yaks and the female of the yaks the tree that give milk, fine. The calf gets some milk, you get some milk, you care for them, you look after the health, you protect them. So it's mutual advantage. The problem is not about this whole cell bed is what amount of suffering is connected with eating something.

So in France now a glass of milk is almost as much suffering as a stack if you look at those industrial farming where the cows are sitting in little box they don't see the sky for the whole life when they are five years old and they stop to produce less milk immediately they are transforming to you know meet for the dogs or the cats. So completely instrumentalized a pig becomes a sausage machine and that's it. It's not leaving beings. So yes, again, I'm going to say I completely agree with you.

It's horrifying. I'm just going to throw out some more objections for just my own stuff. The other thing that worries me about becoming a vegan aside from the practicalities of it is it's tough socially. Yes. There was a great cartoon that this is not completely apropos, but it's close enough. There was a great cartoon that ran in the New Yorker

recently, and it had two women having lunch. And one says to the other, I've been gluten free for a week, and I'm already annoying. And there's a way in which that can happen with vegans and vegetarians, where it's not just a dietary choice, it's a cudgel to your conscience. And it can be very preachy.

Okay. First of all, if you come to a place and say, you know, I have diabetes, so there's something I just can't eat because I feel terrible. Nobody cares. Or I have a terrible allergy, I have a friend who there's a trace of sea products.

He faints literally. So he has to be so careful. His wife goes to the kitchen, are you certain there's not a single trace of a little fish source or something? Because he's just faints and I've seen him fainting So everybody understands You come you sit there very quietly. You don't say anything. You don't bother anyone. You just order

vegan food Everybody looks at you Is that a reproach against us? Yes, why? Because suddenly because they know it's wrong you you break the static war. Yes, there is a moral stand even you don't say anything So that shows that Yes, they you're reminding people the best way is going about in a humorous way. I found That's good. So you know when I got the restaurant at the, oh, you are vegetarian, so you eat fish, right? I say, look, everything that flies, everything that swims,

everything that runs, they are all my friends, and I don't eat my friends, and they say, oh, and then they get it. So, and then people say, sometimes, oh, does it bother you if we eat meat? I say, no, it doesn't bother me at all. Maybe it bothers a little bit, and I understand that it is in your flesh, but it's too late.

So I tried to make it a little bit more light and say, no, it doesn't bother me at all, just like that. I've made a choice. And it's more and more common. I was very surprised that I went to Princeton University. And we went to the canteen. You can't believe the whole first 50 meters of the, when you go for the self-service,

is the huge panels vegan vegan. And I heard that 25% of students now in Princeton are vegan. This is quite amazing compared to Europe. So Bill Clinton is vegan. I guess he has a social life. Yes, he's got a social life. So if you make it not in a sort of a preachy way, but very humble, and you explain if they want,

and then you say, you know, it's just, I try my best to live not at the cost of other suffering, but it's completely up to you. I'm not trying to make you feel uncomfortable. People sort of, if you are nice, they are ways to make it seem giving more food for tools than being aggressive and so forth. But the bias is present. There was an analysis of the vocabulary used in the press associated with vegetarian vegans. And you have a lot of negative connotation, extremist, even violent, that you imagine that we are going to put bombs in the meat factories or something.

While you know, the peak of non-violence is the most non-violent diet you can imagine. So there is this kind of trying to demonize a little bit, those will do that because it questions our own stand. And as long as the static will everybody is comfortable, when you show that it is possible to do otherwise, then the cognitive dissonance becomes clear. What about your shoes and your wide nose? You're wearing a watch.

When you're wearing a watch, the wash are they hard time to find a basket. But shoes they are made of rubber. And they look like, so I try my best. But one could take this, but once you get out of the realm of food and get into sort of everything you buy, you could go pretty far.

I mean, I'm wearing an Apple watch. I don't think there's any animal products in here, but what about the labor standards and the factories where it was made? I don't know there's any animal products in here, but what about the labor standards in the factories where it was made? I don't know. I mean, what about the natural resources that are harvested to make this thing? What about the recycling of this thing? So, one, you can get so free. Listen, the main thing is there is a huge unbalanced towards tremendous suffering in animal room. We have, we recognize that there are somehow sentient beings. And when we hear of people who do terrible things to pet animals, they all get all fired up.

In France, there was two years ago a guy in South of France who took a little cat, a very sweet cat called Oscar, after that we knew it. And then he started throwing it in the air, throwing it against the wall, little red cat, and filming himself stupidly and putting on YouTube, even more stupid. So people trusting in all the IT people

they managed to find him. The whole phrase was speaking about Oscar the cat. So there is this kind of thing. We don't tolerate this kind of, you know, an human behavior. Fine, but the same day, 500,000 animals were slaughtered in horrendous conditions in slaughterhouses. So you see, again, it's not that we need to, and then if you want to show those images on TV, it's so shocking. But look at midnight, you get this horror movies where people cut themselves with big monster that come and blood all over the place. Well, that's at this fiction.

Nobody doesn't want to see the reality. So, the main thing is to know about that and then decide slowly with your own consciousness, okay, if there's something uncomfortable, there must be a reason, we want to be good human beings, so maybe slowly we can not just re-adjust our behavior to be more attuned. So now, do your best. You don't have to be obsessed, sort of so extremist, sort of diminished suffering as much as we can. When we know it's possible and easy, not to wholesale, inflicting suffering that when it's so easy, not to do so.

No, I'll teach it. You have to be completely obsessed with that. But already, doing that will make such a difference. It will make a difference for climate change, it will make a difference for poverty in the world, it will make a difference for animals, it will make a difference for human health. So that's already big sort of advantage. You have, you were telling me before we started recording, as you've gone out to discuss this book, you've gotten some pushback. People have, people, this, this, this is, makes people angry.

Some, yeah, it was, because you were saying that some people have told you it's, it's You've gotten some pushback. This thesis makes people angry. Some times. Yeah, because you were saying that some people have told you it's downright indecent to be talking about animal welfare when there's vast, immeasurable, incalculable amounts of human suffering in Syria, for example. So when they tell you that, you feel the most bad, you know, or I'm only caring for peaks, and then this whole disturbance in happening. so you go, oh yes, okay, sure. But think of the argument, what does it test to do? You know, what killing 60 billion land animals and the

trillions of animals, how does that help Syria? And not doing so, how does that help human rights in China or South Sudan? So this is unrelated. And then if you see, and sometimes, of course, if I said if someone is 24 hours, busy helping Syrian refugees, please don't stop. But you know, you do gardening on Sundays,

you go to the beach, you listen to music. So at that time, nobody says you are a nabobinable person because you are not in Sudan, helping people. We have a life that has many pro-occupations. And also, there's this idea that is like a quantity. You have that much compassion or that much altruism that you can have. Like a chocolate cake, you can only have 10 pieces so you give to your kids, you can't give to everyone in the world.

But this is not like that, this is an attitude, this is a way of looking at others. If you look at others within difference or with care. So in fact, this idea that you would love less human being if you care for animals is damn wrong stupid because in fact, by fragmenting your benevolence. Say if you only love your kids and you don't care rest of humanity, obviously it's a very bias, narrow kind of love.

And if you extend to other kids to other human beings, obviously that love has a better quality, like the sun shining on everyone is warmer and brings more light, than if you just shine on one person. So I contend that if you include, if you extend the circle to other species, you will also be somehow more compassionate even for human beings. And there is a scientific study that corroborates that in neuroscience. They took 100 people, 50 vegetarian, that was easy as a criteria,

because you're not just animal sort of, okay, for animal, but vegetarian, for ethical reasons, not just for health. And then 50 regular control group. And you show them images of suffering, both human suffering and animal suffering. And it turns out that the vegetarian were more sensitive to both human and animal. Well of course that's why they became vegetarians. So in the way, no compassion should no barriers. But that means you don't just

obsess with animal rights and then don't care for humans. I see. You see? Because, and then the French poet Lamartin, I quoted in the excerpt of my book, he says, you don't have two hearts, one for humans and one for animals. You have a heart or you don't. And when those French philosophers said, you know, it's in decent, I don't know, look, you know, with our organization, Karuna, last year we helped 400,000 human beings in the rim of health and education in India and Nepal and Tibet. So we did our share. And if

for human beings, and if I had been last year, we would have asked, what do you do for human beings? And it turns out that you know, people who really engage in social activities, they also often are those who care most for animal rights. If you're looking history, the first people who were militant for human rights, for the right of women, they were also some of the pioneer who raised the issue of animal welfare, animal well-being. But in our closing minister, I would love to talk to you about a related but slightly different subject, which is your personal meditation practice. Could you just tell us whatever

you're comfortable telling us about what your daily practice looks like? Well, you know, daily practice when I travel all over the place is I try to live on my credit, but I do formal practice, but mostly is applying all those years of living in hematurgies, near my teachers. First I spend a few minutes. I have a hermitage, when you say a hermitage, you're talking about like a just a little hut. Yes, so first of all, living with a great teacher is a kind of practice in itself, because the living example is so extraordinary. You know, you spend your lives every day with the Dalai Lama, it's going definitely to affect you in a wonderful, positive way. I'm always trying to tell my wife that she gets that benefit by living with me.

Okay. That's how you usually go over. I'm sure she does. So then you also have formal practice. I probably spend about five years all together in solitary retreats in hermitage. So there's little heart. No, I have a jamitation in Nepal facing 300 miles of the Himalayas. It's little heart. No, I have a chameleon in Nepal facing 300 miles of the Himalayas. It's about 10 feet by 10 feet with a big window facing the mountains, no heating, just a little bit of running water and some electricity. So most comfortable

place in the world. When I'm sitting on the balcony looking at the mountain, I'm really the happiest man in the world there. So practice is really, you know, sitting there, turning your mind inwards and try to first cultivate the inner quality that will contribute to flourishing and then gradually way out and erode, you know, the mental states of mind that like hatred, jealousy, arrogance, envy, mental confusion, which undermine flourishing. So that's kind of a main goal, as a practice to cultivate qualities and use antidotes against those mental toxins.

So that's kind of the process. Then, there is something else. As I mentioned in the beginning, just resting, resting in this pure awareness, that is free, that is sort of, as kind of very, very peaceful and rewarding aspect. And there is a state of really freedom that is so sort of, I don't know, it was one of the most fulfilling mentors that I can imagine. So to cultivate that, to become familiar with that. So that's a very powerful meditation. There's also an analytical meditation and the Dalai Lama stress is the importance of that. So we are very attached to the self. So where is that self? How does it work? Does it really exist? Or is it just a mental construct? So that's also helpful to function better in the world.

So let me see if I can describe back these three. Just so that our users can, my listeners can wrap their heads around it. So you describe three styles of practice, and I'm going to see if I can describe them back. One would be a compassion practice where you're generating the feeling of loving kindness toward yourself and then all beings.

So should I give an example about compassion? Yeah, do it. So first of all, you need to start with something easy. If you start with the time to feel meditation, if our Saddam was saying something, not so easy. So you imagine in your mind, like someone like a child, innocent child, it's a good example, everyone who I in a way, we'll agree on that.

And then you see it vividly in front of your eyes, in your mind, and you feel unconditional love to that child. May that child be happy, flowish in life, be spared, no unnecessary suffering or untimely death. Just pouring love to that child. Every atom of that child is pervaded with atom of love. Okay, it feels your mental landscape. But instead of having that for 15 seconds, as we do, sometimes when the child comes in our homes, we try to maintain that, to nourish that,

to cultivate that for 10, 15 minutes. It's just the extension of that. And if it declines to revive it, if it's your distracted, you come back to it, if it becomes dull, you make it more vivid, so like that. Then you extend that. Why only my child? Why not all that children? And then where to stop? 10 years old? It doesn't make sense. So you start to extend gradually all human beings, none of them wants to suffer. It doesn't cost more to let that sun shine and embrace all human beings. And then you come to other species. Why not? There was to don't want to suffer.

And finally, when you become more familiar with that, you come to the difficult case, compassion for Saddam Hussein or Aba-Sahada said, what does that mean? It doesn't mean condoning their dreadful actions, barbaric acts? It means, wow, it will be so great. If the hatred, the indifference, the cruelty, that makes that person harm so many beings, if that could be eradicated. Or if we could make an environment to education to prevent such thing. So that's compassion. That's not stupidly, you know, always not so bad.

If I give you a ticket to go and hold it as a Bahamas, it might behave better. Not that, but compassion aims at removing suffering, wherever it is, whatever shape it takes. It's different for moral judgment. So that you can wish to the worst dictator, made that person change, made the hatred disappear from his mind. So like that gradually you train your mind and at the end you will spend under a few minutes resting in pure sort of quietness of this basic nature of mind, and then, at the end, before you get up, say, oh, may by the, whatever constructive generated during those few minutes, may that serve to continue a process of transformation like a stream that's starting

and benefit beings in the immediate and in the long term So make this aspiration that this may continue and not just be a nice session that you go to a spa Get the mass as soon as I start all over again as if nothing happened Okay, so that's one kind of practice the other you described was more of of what I would refer to as an open awareness, where you're basically allowing the mind to do what the mind does, and you're just being mindful of the contents of your consciousness. You see, if you take this as a part of the sky, when there's too many clouds and tunders and a lot of birds, we forget about space and about the sky itself.

So we are completely enmeshed in this, we are pulled off thoughts, going all over the place. So there's nothing but thoughts. And then we run after some thoughts, try to stop some other thoughts. So it becomes really busy. But if we can start from a spell that is a clear sky, and now we can do that easily, especially,

that's why sometimes the natural places are useful. If you are in a heritage with a big blue sky, it's kind of natural to blend your mind with this big sky outside. Let's state. Then thoughts will come, inevitably. If you try to prevent thoughts of coming, it's not going to work. That's not meditation. Thought will come, but it's like a bird passing through the sky.

Provider, it doesn't leave trace, it's fine. The risk is when you amplify that thought. You run after the thought, oh, why did you do that to me? One thought. Then everything starts building, building, building, and your proliferation of thought invades your mind. You're gone. Finish, meditation is gone.

So you let that thought come, it's coming anyway. You can't wish that it's not there, let it pass. Another one, come, let it pass. Even many birds might come, many tours. Still you keep the awareness of the sky behind. You never lose that, so that basic awareness. So some moment there's no bird, you're resting that open presence, that's awareness. Some of them are birds, clouds, okay, but the space is still there, you are aware of that awareness.

We need the thoughts, so they don't really harm the meditation. You have to get to a state where thoughts do not harm meditation because you are still aware of that basic awareness, we need self-awareness. So that's the secret. Yeah, I'm still working on that. And then the third you described was this analytic meditation, which I took to mean sort of looking for the self and seeing that it's one aspect, looking for the self, looking for solidity of out phenomena, it finds that the self, okay, if the self is this central core of my being, most important thing, then of course I have to protect it, to place it, and we do function like that.

Now, if someone insults me, it really hurts somewhere. Okay, so since it is so important in our life, it plays such a role in determining our happiness or misery. I think it's wise to examine whether it is really there as some kind of entity that is the essence of our life, or if it's just an imposter or just something we made up. So then the analytical meditation comes in, okay, how do you do that? For instance, someone pushes you, so he pushed me, so he pushes me, he's the body now, suddenly. And then you say, oh, you hurt my feelings. Wow, now the Self is in the torso, the feelings.

But you say, my feelings. So there's somebody with the owner of the body and the feelings. So the Self is sometimes the body, sometimes the feelings, sometimes, so you say, where is the Self in the body? So you look and you find it nowhere, of course. If you lose your legs, of course, it has psychological consequences, but still the me is there, the Self is not just half. Okay. Then you say, oh, it's in the mind. Great, but the mind is past or they have gone. Future or they are not yet here. Present moment is ungraspable. So how could a solid self be suspended in all that between something that doesn't exist anymore, something that's not exist yet, and something that

is ungraspable? So at the end, you can't find that and that non-finding shows that yes, there is a self, but it's a conventional self, like you call a river the Mississippi. So it's a name, it like you call a river the Mississippi. So it's a name, it's convenient to describe what the Mississippi is, why it goes, how is the river flow, what are the quality of the water, but there's no a little head that comes up every year and say, I am the real Mississippi, that's me. So to know that is a give you freedom. And you can see, and again, we see it a lot these days, how an exacerbated sense of self leads to narcissism, to people who are not, if you don't feel good to be around them.

When some others who have a very transparent self, like the Dara Ilama, he says, well, some people think I'm a living God, nonsense. Some say I'm a demon nonsense. I'm a simple human being. So that more transparent self leads rise to beings where good human beings, it's good to be with them. They are left center, they're more compassionate. So this is the result of having discovered that yes, the self is a convenient sort of label or illusion. We need to have that.

It simplifies things, but it is not this kind of very core essence of our being that we must protect and boost at all costs, because that leads to actually suffering. What a pleasure to spend an hour with you. It's like a delicious vegan meal. Yes. If people want to learn more about you, how can they, obviously, the book, a plea for the animals, your previous book was called Altrusum, which is a giant book in Atlanta. When you sent it to me, people can't, in my office, it said, somebody thinks you need, you have a lot to learn about altruism. You also wrote a book called Why Meditate. But if people want to get your books,

I assume they can do so on Amazon, but is there any way to learn about more about you and your, your Karuna? When we have a Karuna session, Karuna means compassion in Sanskrit and session is the name of our monastery, so you can see our website. How do you spell session? see our website. Harry Spell Station. SHECHEN. Okay. And Carolina is K-A-R-U-N-A. And you can also find it, someone made a website with my name, which I feel a bit embarrassed, matchyourrecar.org.

It was initially for my photography. I did a number of books of photography. But then it spilled over, including, so there's a sector for the human-region projects, which leads you to the other websites. It's easier with just looking for my humble name. And then, well, you can see different activities that we try to do at the service of others. You can't find the self when you close your eyes and look for it, but you can find the self if you Google it.

Yeah, it looks like. It's more than Asian or self-promotion, names. But if you don't put your name that they cannot find you, it's sometimes when you try to serve in the world and I know I have these activities like we do, it's helpful to be able to find where it happens. I hear you. Thank you very much. I'm welcome, then. Thank you so much. Must welcome Dan. Thank you so much.

Alright, there's another edition of the 10% Happier Podcast. If you like it, I'm going to hit you up for a favor. Please subscribe to it, review it, and rate it. I want to also thank the people who produced this podcast, Josh Cohan, Lauren Efron, Sarah Amos, and the head of ABC News Digital, Dan Silver. And hit me up at Twitter, Dan B. Harris. See you next time. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Hey, one quick note before we let you go.

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