Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 67: Colin Beavan, the 'No Impact Man'

Episode Date: March 22, 2017

In his famous book and documentary film project, "No Impact Man," Colin Beavan, a senior Dharma teacher in the Zen tradition, chronicled a year of his life as he tried to have minimal impact on the environment while living in the bustling metropolis of New York City. He followed it up with a book called, "How to Be Alive: A Guide to the Kind of Happiness that Helps the World," a sort of twist on the self-help genre that he calls "each other help." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out..com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, baby, this is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts,

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If you read my book, which you're not required to do in order to listen to this podcast, but if you did, you know that I obsessed over the balance between ambition and peace of mind. You could argue, though, that I left out a key dimension, which is how can you help fix the world's problems? In other words, how do you balance ambition with happiness and also with meaning? The further I go into embracing Buddhism, which again I want to say to be clear, I see as not something to believe in,

but something to do. But the further I go into embracing Buddhism, I sometimes wonder about whether I'm actually living in alignment with what I claim to be my values. I mean, even that phrase living in alignment with my values has a certain sort of after-school, special vibe to it. It's because it's hard to talk about helping the world without lapsing into very annoying cliches,

and which brings me to my guess today, who put a lot of thought into this very issue, and he's come up with some really interesting approaches. His name is Colin Bevin. You may know him from his rather famous book and documentary project called No Impact Man where he attempted to live here in New York City with minimal impact on the planet. He followed up with a book called How to Be Alive, which is a really interesting twist on the self-help genre. He calls it each other help. Also, he's a senior Dharma teacher in the Zen tradition. So he's got a lot to add to the conversation I'm having in my own head. Colin, thanks for coming in, man. Thanks for having me, Dan.

It's great to see you. Likewise. Let me start with a question I always start with, which is how did you come to meditation? It's funny because when I first, I had a girlfriend who meditated and it really annoyed me. What's the point in that sitting still doing that? And we broke up. And some years later, I actually, I was living in Providence,

Rhode Island. And this guy was telling me about this Zen Master Song-San, who is a Korean monk who'd come over to the United States. And my friend was telling me, he says that you must wash your mind with don't know soap. And I thought, that's really cool. And then he also told me that this monk said, this body is just a rental car. Big question. Who drives this rental car? And I thought,

I like that. And so I started going to the Zen group and sitting and meditating. And that was 24 years ago. So you were held, you know? I'm 53. Okay, so you were in your I was 29. Yeah, okay Saturn returns the astrologer said it's it's it's it's just when you're having a life crisis and wondering what the hell you're doing or Quarter life crisis is another way to put it so pretty young guy got into it. You got really into it Yeah, I mean at first I Was around the fringes, but for the last say say, 15 years, I sit week-long retreats. I'm a teacher in my school. I do meditation instruction. And yeah, it's a big part of my life, an important part.

When you say teacher in my school, what do you mean by that? So, there are a bunch of different Zen schools or sangas in the United States that come down from different traditions, most of them from Asia. Mine comes from originally, comes from Korea, and it's called the Kwanum School of Zen. And I, to be a teacher in our school, means that you help other students with their meditation practice, that you answer some life questions, and also that you help to do administration jobs around the temple or help to run retreats, run practice, that type of thing. And so how much daily practice do you do?

I generally, I meditate 40 minutes every day, sometimes life interferes, sometimes I'm on retreat, in which case I might be meditating 12 hours in a day, but I have a very quite a very regular committed practice. What does Zen practice look like? I know there are lots of flavors of Zen practice, so what do you do in your school? First of all, let me just say what is Zen? And Zen in itself is basically a discipline in which we we try to Understand ourselves as human beings Zen is understanding yourself. So what am I and so in you have answered that question I'm the person sitting here talking to you

And that's about as much as I know. So you answer it in the sort of gerundial, like sort of like ING. It's actually, it's not so much the words of the question, what am I, that's so important. But the question mark itself in a certain way, the kind of spirit of constant inquiry of when ideas about your life and what you are come up in your mind, that you actually don't believe the story that they're telling you necessarily, but see them as phenomenon, the thoughts themselves are phenomenon,

just as much as this microphone in front of my mouth as a phenomenon. They're just things, they're not me. So this question, what am I that really ends up in a place of not knowing? And the concept in our school and in this end tradition is that when you don't know, that is to say, when you put down all the stories that you have about your life and you actually allow yourself to be and not knowing, then your intuition and that part of yourself

that acts together with the world can actually rise up and be in control and you can actually, to what's in front of you instead of the stories that you have about your life. And so how does that translate into actual practice? So in sitting, I follow my breath and I keep a mantra, the mantra that I keep is Kwansem Bho Saal, which is Korean for Kwanlin. It's the bodhisattva of compression. So as I'm sitting, I pay attention to my breath going in and out, and I also kind of mentally say to myself, Kwanse mbosal, Kwanse mbosal. And then I added to that is just a layer of

what is this or who is this that's saying this this mantra just again that that inquiry that desire to understand What it is that's happening so is the mantra coordinated with the breath in anyway some people do and I do sometimes And sometimes I don't lately I haven't been so it's you lot going on You're feeling your breath and also saying this things yourself and then adding over at this layer of inquiry Yeah, it's it's but it doesn't feel like there's that much going on. The mantra comes and goes, as you know, your attention comes and goes, but the level of inquiry, which is just like, so in some ways it's about actually when you're saying the mantra and not believing that that's it either, like, oh, now I'm the perfect one that's

saying the mantra and not thinking about anything else, but just having this curiosity, like, that's it either. Like, oh, now I'm the perfect one that's saying the mantra and not thinking about anything else, but just having this curiosity, like, what is this? Just, in some ways, it's just a way of bringing our attention back to the moment, because it's not about thinking about what this is or what am I. It's not about coming up with conceptual answers, but actually pay attention and seeing and feeling and hearing what am I in this moment.

I'm just trying to say, I've heard it said, and I'm trying to remember who, that it's like you look for the mind and in not finding it because you can't find the mind, that's the finding. That's the thing. Something, there's, well, the thing. There's something there. There's, well, the thing. There's no thing. In our school, what we would say is the thing is sitting here talking to you. Like, the thing is right here, right now, what this is, what this is right now, before our eyes and in our ears.

That's the thing. We can see it, we can taste it, we can smell it. The thing is right here, and you don't have to add anything to it at all. And what people, I think the thing that people know you for the most is no impact man. So I'm going to get you to describe what that was, better than I did in my introduction. And also, I guess what I'm getting at here is to what extent did your zen practice drive you toward that or were they disconnected? No, I think that if you practice long enough, we kind of think that if you practice long enough,

then you'll achieve this piece for yourself. And in some ways, that's true. If you practice long enough, you achieve a certain amount of inner peace for yourself. But it also because your self as it were is more peaceful, you also become more sensitized to what isn't peaceful, which is the world. You know, your mind and your concerns about your selfish things don't go away, but it becomes less quiet and you're less attached to them. And all of a sudden your eyes open up to the suffering that you see around you. And so in my case, I was really kind of obsessed with what was happening to our world because of the two things, the Iraq war, which most people I think would agree was a war about oil now, and climate change.

So we had what happened when you, what we had to do to get the oil, which was war or since then, you know, the BP oil disaster or the Alberta tar sands or the North Dakota pipeline, the things that we're doing to get it. And then what happens when we burn it, which is the climate change, and in between, by the way, a way of life that even for the richest among us, I wouldn't, I would argue, is not as happy as it could be, leave alone for the poorest among us. So there was something wrong with the way we were living, and I thought, how can I draw attention to this?

And I came up with this idea, well, maybe I should just worry about keeping my side of the street clean, and I thought, well, what would happen if I lived as environmentally as possible for the course of a year? And then I came up with this concept, no impact man, where me and my family, as it was then comprised of my co-parent and my daughter Isabella and our dog Frankie, ten legs at a tail I called us. For the course of a year, we lived as environmentally as possible here in New York City. And there's a book about it and a film about it. And so how extreme was it? You know, extreme is a front any word because people said, why do you have to be so extreme about it?

And I would argue that actually a world in which we worry about who's going to build the next tallest skyscraper and not about the billion people who don't have access to clean drinking water, I would argue that that's an extreme society. And so the idea of actually living no impact in relation to that extreme society seems extreme, but actually doing as much as you can to try to help the world as it were, is not actually so extreme. It's kind of normal. I would say that the way we are forced to

live societally is the extreme thing, but having said that For the last six months we lived without electricity We we didn't eat any food that came from more than a hundred miles away We didn't use any sort of transportation that caused carbon dioxide to be emitted so it was it was at times austere Do you still live that way? I say I I say, I'm not no impact man anymore. I'm medium impact man. So I do, it turns out one of the big learnings of no impact man was that what I did

and what we did in how we lived was not just good for the environment, it was good for us. So for example, when we got rid of the TV, something had to fill the hole. And it turns out that hanging with our friends filled the hole. When we got rid of food that came from far away and red meat, what filled that hole was good, fresh vegetables from nearby, and food that was better for us. When I got rid of automated transportation and I started

walking and biking, I got exercise. And so those are the types of things that stay in my life. But the thing that I think is most important that I learn from no impact man and that I keep is that I continue to use my voice, that I continue to dedicate my life and use my voice to help persuade people that they too can find a way of life that's both better for them and better for the world. So in preparing to talk to you, I should say we've been friends for a while and we have

an ongoing conversation which is enriching to me at least. And me? And in preparing to talk to you, I started to feel guilty and actually it actually came in conjunction with I've been taking this class through what's called the Barry Center for Buddhist Studies, Barry spelled not like a dude's name, but B-A-R-R-E, which is in Barry, Massachusetts, and they run these great classes online about studying Buddhism. And recently, the teacher of one of the courses said something in one of the videos I was watching that

made me wonder whether like I'm a failed Buddhist because my practice is so much about, you know, like me feeling better in calmer. And the teacher said something about an essential ingredient on this path. And this is a quote, is the aspiration to engage in this practice for the benefit not only of ourselves, but for others as well. And I started to realize, I do, what's called loving kindness meditation, where you know, ostensibly at least are sending good vibes

to all living beings. But I'm not sure that I mean it. I'm not sure, you know, they talk in Buddhism about dedicating all of the merit, all the benefit accrued from your own practice to other people. And sometimes I feel a little stinginess around that. You know, like, you know, I'm doing this for me. And then there was a quote from the Buddha that I, I like, it said, just as from a cow comes milk, from milk curd comes curd butter, from butter ghee, from butter ghee, and from ghee cream of ghee, which has reckoned the foremost of all of these.

So the person practicing both for his own welfare and for the welfare of others is the foremost, the best, the preeminent, the supreme, the finest. And I realize like, I'm not cream of ghee. And so I put that to you. Do you think as a Dharma teacher that I'm a failed Buddhist in this way? Am I not cream of geek? You know, actually, I think we've known each other for a few years.

And you've posed this question to me in various different ways. Like, one time, remember you asked me about a well-known Buddhist teacher who was getting divorced and you seemed a little disappointed that somebody who did all that meditation, they couldn't keep their marriage together. You asked these questions about whether you're a good enough guy or not. For one thing, I actually experienced you as very kind. I've heard that a lot of other people experience you that way too.

But it just means I fooled you. That doesn't mean anything is real. Yeah, but it doesn't matter what you think about yourself. What matters is actually what you have thoughts that are coming up about yourself, about whether you're kind or unkind. But what I've seen in many, many people, and I think I see in you too,

is that the actual practice changes the way you behave, regardless of whether you think you're good or bad. So I would say, no, Dan, you're not a failed Buddhist. But I don't think I'm unkind. Again, that just goes back to whether I'm masquerading as kind. And what that quote from Buddha about the cream of ghee brings to mind is like is your practice really about not only benefiting you but others and the whole world. And that's where I feel insecure.

Are you clearly you've done you at a not only through no impact man and through also your book which we'll get to how to be alive, your other book, one of your other books, you really have this strong motivation to do things to heal the world. And I'm just wondering, and I think I speak for a lot of people listening to this, like, are we meditating for those reasons? And if not, are we missing something big? I'm not sure. I think that this is why in our school, this question of what am I becomes important. And it's not actually a matter of coming up with a word answer, a conceptual or a thinking

answer to that. It's more about breaking down the thinking answers that we have. So what am I? Well, I'm a dad. I'm a person. I'm a media figure, or whatever. And actually, watching as you're meditating that when you ask this question, what am I? That a thought comes up and that again, it's just a thought.

Until it gets to the point where it's slowly but surely the kind of eye itself begins to break down. And so when thoughts come up like, I want this and I want that to come up, those two break down. And we are actually in a place where we don't have to act from our most greedy and selfish thoughts and we find ourselves automatically acting from a more compassionate place. And people do that in all sorts of situations. There's the Buddhist story of the butcher who, I always forget the names from the Buddha story, so I don't

know which one this is, but one of Buddha's disciples comes through town and this butcher is really upset and says, you know, how can I possibly get enlightenment? I'll never be able to get enlightenment because I'm a butcher and because of the caste system at the time, once a butcher, always a butcher. And this particular butcher also had three children to feed. So it wasn't like he could just go off. And so the disciple of Buttigieg said to this butcher at all times, in all places, when you're butchering, when you're taking care of your children, just pay attention and hold this curiosity, what am I? What's the truth of this existence? And don't believe any thoughts that arise in your mind about it. And so this butcher had this kind of all-day meditation practice. And because of this practice,

Sully, but surely he found like when somebody came with a cow to be slaughtered, but he saw that the cow had a calf that was too young to lose its mother, he wouldn't slaughter that particular cow. Or when poor people came, he would give them some meat. Or so, even though he was in this position, which was, you know, by so-called Buddhist standards, because he actually killed the people for a living, it could not put people, animals for a living, and the first precept is, do not kill. Even though he killed, he actually killed, if you like, in a kinder and better way. Now, there's an important point that comes from this because sometimes, and we might talk

about this a more I know, but sometimes in the Buddhist community, we make the mistake of thinking that our Buddhist practice, the point of our Buddhist practice, is only about interpersonal kindness. It's only about whether I say please and thank you to you and I'm generous to you without actually thinking about the wider world and the systems that we're involved in. That's another point that we can then take that kindness and actually look for the places to be kind. For example, look at the fact that we live in a racist society and that how can we change

the systems as well as opposed to just being kind to each other? Yeah, I think that's of a piece of what I'm getting at here, which is I think that I just speak for myself here as a meditator, I wonder whether this is a deficit, and I whether whether this is a deficit for a lot of people who are practicing for stress relief or to be more focused, to be more effective because the science says it's good for you,

that actually, you know, that seems pretty far removed from what the dude who invented this practice was really driving at. Well, there's, I mean, definitely in the Buddhist community, there's a criticism of what people call mick-mindfulness, right? This idea of franchising meditation and turning it into a practice where you can take it into any corporate headquarters and whatnot. And I should say that in my particular practice, this holding this question, what am I, is combined with a vow?

How can I help? Like, the two things come together. But first of all, I have friends who say that meditation, mindfulness meditation, even if it's without a bodhisattva or a saintly intention, is not morally neutral. That just the act of meditating, you have no choice. Like I said, so it's like standing in a pond and you say to yourself, I want the water around me to be peaceful. And so you become stiller and stiller and stiller and stiller and stiller and still it seems like the the water around you is very peaceful

except that somebody on the other end of the pann starts thrashing and All of a sudden there's ripples in the water. So it's not peaceful for you anymore Right, so you have no choice but to eventually go over and help that person to stop thrashing that so that the act of meditation actually causes a transformation within us. And I do believe that that's true. And that sometimes we can't even see the transformation for ourselves. Just as maybe that butcher didn't see the transformation or you maybe you don't see

the transformation. But the other thing is that first of all, we come to realize that for us to live meaningful and purposeful lives and to have that sense of meaning that we do, we become sensitive to the fact that we do have to help others if we want to feel as though we actually have a place in the world. It's just a need that we become sensitive to. I'm going to be like a dog with a bone with this because I appreciate everything you're saying and I agree with it. I'm a bit doing myhtick of just kind of playing a role here, but you know, in how to be alive your most recent book, you are really addressing it to, as we said before, it's like a, it's instead of self-help, it's each other help.

You're really addressing it to people who want to live sort of in alignment with their values and do the right thing in the world and be a constructive player in the world. And I just, it did make me feel a little guilty again because I'm not sure when I was a young person, was I really thinking about that? And is that part of, my ambition, and is that a missing piece? And do most people even think about that? Or, I don't know, I'm flailing a little bit here, but I think you know what I'm getting at, right?

I think many people in our society are so stressed and so anxious that they can't get to the point where they're thinking about these things. And that's for sure. And that certainly it's a big privilege. It's both in terms of whatever dogma there is in Buddhism, it's a big privilege. It's both in terms of whatever dogma there is in Buddhism, it's considered a privilege to have what's called a human birth. And human birth, I think, is a metaphor where you're actually

not suffering too much that you're seduced by luxuries. And so don't care about life. And not suffering so little that is to say that your life is so luxurious that everything is fine and why should you examine it or not suffering so much where you're overwhelmed by the suffering, but that you're right in the middle, so it's a privilege to have that kind of place.

And in your own story, actually, that's kind of, you tell the story, actually I was thinking, just thinking now that's kind of you tell the story. Actually, I was thinking just thinking now that your story is you tell it in 10% happiness actually kind of mirrors the story of the Buddha itself, like you were in the palace, you know, you were really having a successful professional life, and then all of a sudden you have like a panic attack on live television, and you actually have to ask yourself, well, wait, why am I alive? What is going on? Why am I alive?

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So that happens to people too, that they live at a certain level of stress and anxiety, and they don't have time to take care of themselves properly and to think about these things until one day, something cracks, and then they do. And then we say, don't make self-in say don't make self another, don't make, don't make form and emptiness, like don't make separates. And what really becomes interesting is that if you are one of those people who becomes so anxious or so stressed that they crack, what you find is that, and you're like, I need a meaningful purpose while it exists, and what you find is that what self-interested and what's other-interested actually turn out to be the same thing. That a lot of the actions that you end up, which is by the way, what how to be alive is the real philosophical

underpinning of how to be alive, is that those things that are actually best for us, even though we might be thinking that the Mercedes is best for us or the bigger house is best for us, the things that are actually best for us like being related to other people Acting acting in accord with the needs of our communities our health those things actually are best for us are better for the world and those behaviors that are actually better for the world are in fact better for us Okay, well, okay, so what do you think I would be doing the right thing for myself if I were to quit my job and go work at a homeless shelter? I mean, that would probably be maybe better for the world, right?

No, that sounds like, actually what that would sound like is that you had this really big ego investment in being able to say that you helped the world. As opposed to what you would, not to overflatter you, but what I see in your case and and and it's up to your own conscious conscience decide if you can do more of this is that you're using your position in the world. You're using your privilege to actually help others like you you have you have this podcast and other ideas that you're propagating in the world.

Yes, but when I do the podcast and maybe I get more listeners and maybe sell more books and build a bigger brand. And so I can't start from you to point to that as altruistic. Well, it may not feel altruistic right when you do it. But if you're looking for the feeling of altruism, if you're looking for like, I feel really good about myself, then that's kind of a certain level of self-involved. Right, too, right.

This is complicated stuff, because again, I'm just trying to channel some of our listeners who are either doing meditation or just curious about it. And maybe you have jobs that you know, you can't argue are, you know, clearly world healing, you know, maybe I don't know, I don't want to pick a job because then I'm singling somebody out. Maybe they're news reporters, right? I'll say I'll single us out. And, and, and you know, there are lots of reasons to be a news reporter and they're on the idealistic spectrum spectrum i think there are a lot of them

uh... but there are also uh... one one one's that are less idealistic if you know it can pay well it's uh... you get a public profile uh... it's exciting et cetera et cetera uh... and so i wonder whether we need to have a certain amount of thinking about like are we doing is our job good for the world?

Right is our is our life good for the world, but we also don't want to be looking around for a saintly feeling or a saintly image for the sake of feeling or being or appearing saintly. Right. So I'm going to turn your question around a little bit and just say, suppose I'm a listener and I feel in a job that doesn't give me purpose in meaning the way that I want, and I want purpose in meaning. One of the practices that I suggest is just to hold this question in your mind like a mantra. How may I help? How may I help? And I know from experience that this, I don't mean for it to sound like all,

wooboo and wacko, but if you actually hold this as a mantra How may I help? And I know from experience that this, it's, it's, I don't mean for it to sound like all woo-woo and wacko, but if you actually hold this as a mantra and believe it as you say, how may I help, how may I help? Then what happens is you find moments within the day where you can be helpful, even if you're in a profession that, that, that doesn't work, you know, you might, it might be as little as being, you know, just a little kinder to your own children. It might be as much as changing, somehow finding yourself changing the course of the company. But many of us, that's why I tell that story about the butcher.

Many of us are stuck in positions that we cannot change. Not all of us are going to be privileged to have jobs where we get to, where we're social workers or where we care for orphans where we get to, you know, where we're social workers or, or, or, or, or where we care for orphans, where we get to so clearly say that we're helping people. And yet, the world still does need bankers, and the world still does need news people. We obviously we have that whole, the whole conversation about how the news people are, you know, what Trump's been saying about the news media at the moment in the election and all that. News is a really important part of the democracy. So in some ways, the question is not, do I have the job title that sounds as though I'm the most helpful?

But do I use my job title, the position that I'm in to help, regardless of what that particular position is? I like it. I'm feeling better. I don't know if I'm cream of ghee. So speaking of using the connection between having a meditation practice and wanting to be part of making the world better place

to live in, you wrote a really interesting blog piece recently that I want to get you to talk about. The title was provocative, called, Does Enlightenment Matter When Police are Shooting Black People? So tell me about what went into that. In my school. In your Zen school. Yes, sorry, in my Zen school. Recently, well, two things. First of all, I've like

everybody else have been seeing the news coverage of our Black fellow citizens being shot by the police and been appalled. And wondering, what's my connection to that? What's my relationship? How can I use my position to help? And so, as a white, you know, I haven't said it, but I am a white man. As a white man, how do I use my privileged position to help? And an interesting thing happened, the thing that I did that would, in some ways you could say was racist because, or at least bigoted, because somebody in my school, who is a person of color, became a very senior teacher. And during those, these ceremonies we have, students get to come up and challenge the teachers with questions.

And I went up to this particular teacher and I said, and when you become one of these senior teachers, you also end up on the Board of Trustees on my school. And I went to this teacher and I said, now that you're one of these senior teachers, how are you going to help our school to be more diverse and inclusive? Well, it was only afterwards that day two of two teachers got this high position.

One was white and one was a person of color. And it was only afterwards that I realized that they asked this question of the person of color because somehow I thought it was more his responsibility than the white guy's responsibility. So that tells me by the way that I continue, as all of us do, have to continue to examine my own situation with regards to race and whatnot. But anyway, as a result of asking that question about a lot of people from my school came and talked to me and yes, we should be doing something.

And so I ended up, is it mostly what? Yes, it's mostly right. Yeah, I would say 90% white. And so lots ended up- Is it mostly what? Yes, it's mostly right. Yeah, I would say 90% white. And so lots of people came and talked to me, and we should do something, we should do something, which in our school means we should do something, means you should do something. So I started to put together this race and diversity workshop,

which, and the first of, for our teacher training, which the first of which we did last year, and the last of which we did this weekend, collaborating with others within the school, of course. And because of that, I got asked to write this article for our school newsletter, which was, somebody asked, can I just write an article on the relationship to Buddhism to race in our society?

And I think all the Buddhist schools, the yoga schools, all the churches, the Christian churches, all of us are seeing that there's a problem where people are coming and they're almost trying to escape from societal problems by racism, like the systemic racism, they see by coming to meditation or by coming to prayer. And in fact, and chasing after some sort of peace or

nirvana or enlightenment, but what is the point of those things if people are still getting shot? And in our school we have this question, what is the function of nirvana? So that's where that question, that question doesn't lighten, even matter when when police are shooting black people. That's what that that title points do. What if we have so much peace? Now that we have that peace, what do we do with it? And that's why I point to this thing that the more peace you get, the more you can't help but perceive the suffering of others. Once you really have that peace, you don't really have any choice with to help others.

So that article was just about that. How does a white privileged meditator like me use his or her practice to actually find ways to help with the situation that we're seeing? So two questions, take them in whatever order you want. What is the answer to that? And two, how is it going in terms of diversifying your school?

Okay. So in terms of, there are many, many answers and I don't want to suggest that I'm, I know the answer is, but I posited it a few in this article. I mean, first of all, is actually to accept that. So the bodhisattva vow, how can I help? Sometimes we think that it's an imposition. We have to hold the vow. Like, how can I help? Sometimes we think that it's an imposition. We have to hold the vow. How can I help? How can I help? But actually, I believe that it's already at the center of us and that our meditation practice

is not about injecting this vow. How can I help into ourselves? But removing everything else so that the vow, how can I help can shine through. I talked about this a little bit before, but in Tibetan, one of our previous guests pointed out, in Tibetan, the word for enlightenment means clearing away and bringing forth.

Well, me and your Tibetan friend are totally on the same page. We're BFFs because that's what I'm talking about. Clear away the stuff that's not really important to our natures and be left with what really is important. So, to actually cling to Nirvana first as a meditation practitioner or any sort of a spiritual practitioner, to understand that having heaven or Nirvana is not the point of practice. That's number one. And then to begin to ask ourselves, what I do in all my writings, what I talk about is,

how does my personal life intercept with the social problem that I see? So ways that I know that I can help where racism is concerned is I can go to my employers and ask them not to hire people through personal networks anymore, that we need a good hiring policy that ensures that people outside are personal, because if you're working a white company and you hire from your personal networks, then people with perfectly good qualifications or

people of color are not going to hear of those. So change your hiring policy to not just diversify and to make your own white organization diverse and inclusive, I'm using your quotes when I say that, diverse and inclusive. But as a white person, actually participate and give, spend your money with and give your power to, and your support to black organizations, or organizations run and owned by people of color, like go and be part of those. Find organizations that are dealing with racism, the systemic racism in our society, and actually become part of that.

Now, just to return to your thing, this is not about necessarily that you have to turn your whole life over to it and murder it, but ask yourself, what's my situation, how much time do I have, what are the levers of power I have in my own life, and actually become mindful of that. That was your first question. And the second question about how is it going with the diversity effort in the school? We had the second workshop just this weekend. One thing I can say is that if you're going to run a workshop on such a charged issue

as diversity and inclusiveness, running it amongst a bunch of Buddhists is the best thing you can possibly do, because at least they have in the front of their minds the idea that they want to help and they want to be kind. All the same, it's messy. It's really messy to talk about race. And I don't, you know, it's scary no matter who you are to talk about it, to stand up publicly and talk about it,

and then just to have conversations, like we were in working group having conversations, also messy, because especially white people aren't used to talking about race. It's like we live in whiteness, and so we don't actually have to converse about it. So what I can say in my school is that the conversation is starting to happen and becoming

more and more robust. Was there resistance though? The kind of resistance that you get, I got my school and that you see in all spiritual disciplines I think, and having talked to a bunch of different people about this from other schools and orientations about this, there is this idea of if we just meditate hard enough or we just pray hard enough, we'll all become the kind of people that will fix the problem. So we don't actually have to explicitly talk about race, we just need to meditate more, which is, if you think about it, that is a very privileged statement to make.

That's a very white statement that we don't have to think about it. We'll just go away if we meditate, but if you're a part of a community where your members are getting shot, you don't think that. So there's resistance in that regard, and that's that kind of same attachment to Nirvana or attachment. I just want peace. Don't bother me with those details. Just give me peace.

So a certain amount of resistance. What is our school becoming more diverse and inclusive? I have to say not yet. And is that even the point? Because there's also the point is the conversation becomes, is it really about the survival of this institution and making this institution better, or is it about taking our teaching to people who might need it wherever they are regardless of our institution? It's another very complex issue that I'm honestly just starting to become part of.

It's totally fascinating, just for myself. I mean, I think this messy stuff is like where it gets good. Right? You know what I mean? Maybe that's because I'm a rabble razzle by nature and a journalist. You made mention before about me talking about some senior meditation teacher being divorced and I express some sort of disappointment about, I can't remember the exact context

of that, but I wonder if you could hold forth on this because you said before that your own family configuration from what we saw and no impact man where you had a wife and a child, things have actually changed for you too. So can you talk about that in context of your own Buddhist practice? Yeah, you know, so we're, just because we have a practice in mirror spiritual animals, doesn't mean that we're not subject to cause and effect, right? It doesn't, or the Buddhists would call it karma and the West would cause it cause an effect, but it's what happens.

So, and it's just a fact of life, you know. And, and in all the stories in Buddhist literature, there are really sweet and kind Buddhist teachers. There are really kind of teachers that are kind of jerks. There are all sorts of different ways, but underlying their action is a kind of tide of compassion as opposed to everything turning out the way society thinks. One time I'll say this, I was on a Christian radio show and after how to be alive came out and the woman said,

you're divorced, right? And I said, yes, I am. And she said, well, why should any of us listen to you about how to be alive when you don't even have the commitment to take care of your own family, right? And for some reason, I was like, how did you say that to me? To anybody, how could you say that? But I was fortunately fast on my feet.

And my family configuration is like this now, that Bella, my daughter, lives half the time with me and half the time with my co-parent Michelle. Michelle is this amazing person, also a writer, a correspondent, and she lives with her own partner. On Christmas day coming, Michelle and Bella, and Michelle's partner, and Michelle's partner and

Michelle's partner's parents are coming to my house for Christmas along with some other friends who all celebrate Christmas together and that's just an example of how, you know, we do all sorts of things together. What I said to this person on the radio show was, you, she, because she went on also about me and my husband of Mary 30 years I said that you and your husband show commitment to each other and you're married for 30 years is great. But there is an argument to suggest that my commitment to Michelle is even greater because I'm not even married to her.

And so my point is I'm not trying to hold myself up. My point is is just to say that whether we are able to make all the different structures work and the marriage work and this work and that work, it's not really the, it's not a magic trick being a spiritual person. You know, sometimes we have this kind of spiritual materialism. If I just pray hard enough or if I just meditate enough, I'll have, I'll get all the things I want. That's not necessarily so.

What's more the case is, if you do these practices that in spite of the tides of fate, that you will actually be able to cut through your own feelings to be as compassionate as you can in the moment as things change. So well said, and I think I'm glad you brought up this statement that I don't even remember making because I didn't think speaks to some of brought up this statement that I don't even remember making, because I didn't think speaks to some of the naive it's a, that a lot of myself and a lot of people can bring to this process just because you start meditating.

It doesn't mean, even if you've been doing it for decades, doesn't mean that stuff won't happen to you. That's right. And I'm really gonna, I think to me, the foremost, the cream of ghee take away from this conversation to me is how can I help that? No matter what position you are, if you even if you may, whether or not you make it a daily mantra that you're saying to yourself all day long or or if it's just your orientation, then things are gonna open up for you. It seems to me.

Where can we, if people, and I suspect they will be, people wanna connect to you or read your books or learn more about you, where can people do that? So I'm on all the social networks, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, just callin' Bevin' at callin' Bevin' and then at my webpage is callin'bevin.com so I'll spell it because some people don't get it. It's co-l-i-n-b-E-A-V-A-N dot com. Okay, there's another edition of the 10% Happier Podcast.

If you liked it, please make sure to subscribe, rate us, and if you want to suggest topics we should cover or guess we should bring in, hit me up on Twitter at Dan B. Harris. I also want to thank Hardly, the people who produced this podcast and really do pretty much all the work. Lauren, Efron, Josh Cohan, Sarah Amos, Andrew Calp, Steve Jones, and the head of ABC News Digital Dance Silver. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

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