Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Mindfulness Without All The Effort | Loch Kelly (Co-Interviewed By Matt Harris)

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

Loch Kelly is an author, psychotherapist, and nondual meditation teacher. Loch has Master’s Degrees from both Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary. He has his own app, called Mindful Glimpses. Loch is also a very popular teacher on the Waking Up app, run by friend of show, Sam Harris.Free 30 days of the Waking Up meditation app: https://www.wakingup.com/tenpercent Free training and guided meditation pack from Loch Kelly: https://lochkelly.org/cycle-of-dissatisfaction Related Episodes:Sam Harris on: Vipassana vs. Dzogchen, Looking for the Looker, and Psychic PowersSign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter hereFollow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTokTen Percent Happier online bookstoreSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelOur favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular EpisodesFull Shownotes: https://wwwdww.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/loch-kellySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to 10% happier early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, my fellow suffering beings. How are we doing? One of the things I hear all the time from beginning meditators and actually meditators at all stages is this shit is hard. It takes a lot of effort.

My guest today, however, holds out a tantalizing proposition, effortless mindfulness. That's what he calls it, effortless mindfulness. My guest is Locke Kelly, who's an author, psychotherapist, and non-dual meditation teacher. I'm going to have much more to say about non-duality in a moment. Locke has a master's degree from both Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary. He has an app called Mindful Glimpses and he's a very popular teacher over on the Waking Up app run by my close friend and mentor Sam Harris. And speaking of waking up, if you go to wakingup.com slash 10% you can get 10%

off a subscription to that app, which in my opinion is best in class. But anyway, back to Lock Kelly. Two more things to say before we dive into this rangy and fascinating conversation. First, my brother Matt has become a big fan of Locke's, so I asked Matt to join me for this interview so you'll hear another dude with a very similar voice to mine asking some of the questions. And second, let me just concede before we dive in here that the subject we're going to explore today, non-duality,

can be a little challenging. I wanna urge you to listen to this conversation in a different kind of way. Don't try to understand everything. Kind of just let it wash over you with a sense of curiosity, maybe a sense of humor, and just know that Locke is doing his best to use words to describe the wordless or the ineffable.

And if you can relax while you're listening, you might let his words in in a surprising way. Locke Kelly coming up. But first some BSP. As you've heard me say before, the hardest part of personal growth, self-improvement, spiritual development, whatever you want to call it. The hardest part is forgetting. You listen to a great podcast, you read a great book, you go to a great talk, whatever it is, and the message is electrifying. But then you get sucked back into your daily routines, your habitual patterns, and you

forget. So this is the problem for which I have designed my new newsletter, which we just started a few months ago and we're just really hitting our stride. So I'd love it if you sign up. Every week I list one quote that I'm pondering right now, and then I give you two of the top takeaways from the podcast this week. It's really for both me and for you to get these messages into our molecules. I'm just kind of mainlining the practical aspects of the episodes from the week and

listing it out for you. And then I also list three cultural recommendations, books, movies, TV shows that I'm into right now. You can sign up. It's free. It's at danharris.com. That's my new website. Danharris.com.

Sign up for the newsletter. I also want to tell you about a course that we're highlighting over on the 10% Happier app. It's called Healthy Habits. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal and the meditation teacher Alexis Santos. It's great stuff. To access it, just download the 10% Happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting

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and your first audio audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. Audible.ca. Hello, I'm Rob Brydon. When I looked out at the podcast landscape, I thought to myself, you know, there just aren't enough podcasts. And so I launched Brydon and where I talked to a series of interesting creative types we're now on to our fourth series and I've been speaking to amongst others Ruth Jones, Tidy, Chris McCausland, Aisling B, Richard Ayoade and Ewan Reyon and that's just a few. We tend to chat for about 45 minutes to an hour never longer it's a terrific conversation every time.

Reminiscence where appropriate and an exchange of anecdotes. I do like an anecdote. So do join me, Rob Brydon, and listen to Brydon and on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Wondery Plus by subscribing in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Locke Kelly, welcome to the show. Thank you, Dan and Matt. Yes, well, thanks for mentioning Matt is here.

Matt Harris, welcome back. Very happy to be here. I'm glad someone mentioned me. Thank you Locke for seeing me. Matt was the younger sibling to a problematic older child, so he's used to being overlooked. But he's included now. Locke, let me start with some definitional questions

for you. Sure. You talk about the difference between conventional mindfulness versus effortless mindfulness. start with some definitional questions for you. Sure. You talk about the difference between conventional mindfulness versus effortless mindfulness. Can you explain? Sure. So I got that distinction and those terms having traveled to Sri Lanka and practiced insight meditation, Theravada meditation for nine months on a traveling fellowship and in the monasteries and universities and meditation centers, and then going up to meet a Tibetan

teacher, Thokururgen Rinpoche's name was, and he said there's two kinds of mindfulness, deliberate and effortless. And often deliberate is the first few stages, although you can certainly travel up the mountain either way fully, but in the way that the system was taught, you would do the calming practices and the observing practices of the contents of consciousness and then turn toward the nature of mind which is described really more as kind of an awareness-based knowing. So that awareness becomes where you're aware of thoughts from and it becomes the foundation of a kind of mindfulness that isn't just using your mind or even just attention like a flashlight looking at your breath or at contents, but it becomes a feeling of being in a flow, a feeling of being embodied and open-minded and open-hearted, that your thoughts are not

dominating and your emotions don't have to take you over to become identified. You can feel everything, but not from a detached place, but from a kind of whole integrated interconnected way. That's an attempt at trying to describe something that it's hard to describe. Right. Right. We should say from the jump, we're trying to put words on experiences that are not very congenial to verbal description.

So let me see, I think I got about two thirds of that, so let me see if I can restate the two thirds back to you. Okay. Confirm that and then build up to the final third. Sure. When most of us are learning to meditate, we're told to sit and watch our breath or pick some

other quote unquote, object of meditation. So it's, I, Dan am looking at something like my breath or the sensations in my body. That's a conventional or deliberate mindfulness. Effortless mindfulness turns the gaze around at the gazer. Like what is it that knows the feeling of the breath or the thoughts skittering through my mind? How am I doing? Great, yeah. So yeah, you could say there's another

half step in between. So in conventional mindfulness, which is really shamatha and insight meditation or vipassana, shamatha means calm abiding. So the first focusing on your breath or one object like a candle is meant to give a simple task to the scattered mind, the agitated identity, which is I think therefore I am, and give it a simple task. Okay, stop thinking about everything else and focus on one sensation or one point. When your mind wanders to anything else, that's called wandering and come on back. By giving that simple task, it tends to calm the mind and calm the body.

And then the next step in traditional mindfulness is insight or what's called the four foundations of mindfulness. So now once you calm, you do make a mindful move to a meditator or a mindful awareness so that you can see your thoughts. Because even from mindfulness of breath, you can see your sensations, you can feel your sensations like interoception, feel within, you can feel feelings pleasant and unpleasant, but you can't feel your thoughts until you step up. The first mindful move is, am I aware from my thoughts or am I aware of my thoughts? And then where am I aware of my thoughts from i thought i was the thinker i was the thinker i was the focuser and now this made this consciousness move to step out or into a meditator or a mindful witness or a mindful awareness. Does that jive with kind of the insights first two steps?

Yes, so the first step is I'm gonna calm the monkey mind by giving it a very simple task, focusing on one thing. Could be loving kindness phrases, could be the breath, could be sensations in the body, a candle. The next stage is once the mind is settled a little bit, you start to see things that otherwise flit by unnoticed, like thoughts, urges, and emotions, and you can notice them from, let's say, the perspective of Meditator Dan, Meditator Matt, Meditator Locke.

That's right. And then the next step is, well, actually, let's investigate Meditator Dan. Like like where is that awareness coming from? Well, that's important because as many people say, almost as you described it initially, it's almost as if mindfulness of breath is mindfulness. As I look through the Google mindfulness, it tends to stop at that first calming practice and say, mindfulness of breath, when you pick an object, when it wanders,

you bring it back, that's mindfulness. But this next phase requires a little bit of a non-culturally normative move of, wait a minute, I'm the thinker of the thoughts looking out from my head, oh wait a minute, if I'm gonna be aware of my feelings, I can do that from here. I can be aware of sensations, but am I the thoughts or can I be aware of the one who is focusing? And as soon as that move, wherever you feel that is, it's a kind of a mindful move to another location. So I call this often location, location, location instruction.

Matt, of the three of us, I'm not trying to make a hierarchy here, but of the three of us, you're the newest to consistent meditation. I'm the second newest, and Locke, of course, is the master here. But having heard all of the things that Locke just said, do they make sense to you? I would say that they do. I am particularly intrigued with Locke's theory here and I have

lots of questions about it. But part of the intrigue is that it does make intuitive sense and kind of explains a lot, I would say, explains a lot of the things that I had been sort of thorny knots that I both conceptual and actual non-conceptual things that I've been sort of thorny knots that i both conceptual and actual non conceptual things that i've been working through and that that half step lock that you explain of transitioning between. This focus based even if it is inside the focus based still to one in which there's more of a open awareness to where you can see your thoughts and you can then start asking interesting questions about who is thinking. You were the first teacher who really made that clear to me. I was busy looking for the looker while I was still in focus mode and that didn't work for me. I needed a different location from where to observe that. So I am very grateful. I do just a quick follow-up here though,

Dan when he's meditating and Joseph Goldstein has talked about this as well, many have of choiceless awareness. So to move from this focus on the breath, which is as it relates to my insight practice, generally still where I am is spending a fair amount of this focus on the breath, which is as it relates to my insight practice, generally still where I am is spending a fair amount of time focused on the dynamic process of breathing. And I've noted Dan and Joseph talk about choiceless awareness. So the breath might factor in, but really it's you focus on whatever comes and you let attention find whatever its best object should be.

Is that similar to this half step that you're referring to? You equate it to choiceless awareness? Yes. Yeah. So first of all, just to kind of know that move, which is kind of an unusual thing to be like, am I the thinker? Am I the focuser? I'm focusing on the breath. That I know. Okay, focus on your breath when it wants to come back. Okay,

now are you the thinker or are you the awareness of the thoughts or where the thinker was? So now the subject becomes the object and you're in this some type of awareness based, still dualistic, because there's two things going on. From there you can do practices like labeling or noting practice, which some people know who are listening, which is just become aware of, oh, judging mind, planning mind, and you can start to be aware of what used to be me, oh, I should make sure I remember to go shopping and pick up the, oh, planning mind. All of a sudden, the I has become the contents of consciousness and now you've upgraded to this. Now to move to the next. If you pull the camera back from there, so you're looking from, feels like you're looking at what

was the looker from another point of view, a meditator, now you pull the camera back to a wide angle to a bird's eye view or big sky mind or choiceless awareness, it's still that meditative consciousness that's looking back toward the contents. So it's still an observer or what I call don't get caught in the witness protection program. So if you stay in that witness consciousness, you have more space, but you're still in a dualistic perspective. So the next move, which I know was originally your first question, is that somehow you kind of are curious, well, what's behind the camera? If I'm pulling the camera back, what's back there? What's aware of the camera? As far as you pull back, turning awareness around

is one way to kind of just quickly shift. And the reason it's quick is because you're just shifting to a kind of awareness that's already effortlessly aware. It's not a move where you're doing anything like concentrating or focusing. It's kind of uncovering or discovering an awareness that is aware from outside and inside without your help. So you've kind of opened to the space in the room and then you kind of mingle awareness

with space and then you just notice, oh, is this, am I aware of the space or is actually am I aware as this more spacious panoramic awareness that's equally inside and out that doesn't need to maintain a local witness, it's just everywhere. Locke, just to follow up on this, you know, I use your app Glimpses and I love it and I've read your books as well. One of the concepts that you have helped me with is so much of the writing and thinking about this non-dual path involves kind of the negative.

Look for the looker and you won't find it. Centerless awareness, it's sort of this about, it's this lacuna or absence of a thing that's supposed to be the the dawning realization. But I find there's a positiveness, not in the sense of, you know, sunny happy optimism, but there's a there is a presence of something you're finding, not just an absence in in your writing. Could you say more about that? What is it that we can be looking for that isn't merely the absence

of something? Yeah, I mean, this is really like the important distinction that has been, you know, like what is emptiness? Is emptiness full or is it the absence? But it is more, as you say, interestingly, in studies of consciousness and even theology, they call the two paths to discover this true nature or divine. They call it via negativa and via positiva. So the via negativa says, look, we can't describe it, so let's just get rid of everything. Let's just sit here as the Zen poem says, muddy water, let's stand, becomes clear. So you kind of just don't do anything, don't attach to anything, don't make any positive inferences on what it is, just let everything else relax or fall away or let go or turn over or turn over or analyze it away. And the via positiva says, okay, let's, we can do that, but then what's here? Once we have cedulas, where am I aware from? And

what's this? Okay, we'll say it's ineffable. Okay, good. Now let's describe it. You know, now let's give it a sense that is it who I am? Is it where I'm aware from? What's its relationship to sensation, thought, feeling, and this particular human body and personality? Does it have qualities that are what we've been looking for? Freedom, unconditional love, connection. So these schools like these words and these phrases and these practices, the Tibetan word rigpa is when you're centralist, when there's no self, there is this awake awareness, this awareness that's centralist but has clarity and leads to compassionate activity. So it connects kind of the ultimate, not centered, so you can deconstruct or maybe more step out of conditioning.

So you're not just in this cloud of body and mind trying to clean it up, you know, and this cloud of sensation thought, and let's try to calm it down, let's try to fix it, let's try to be better, let's act. You know, I have a negative thought, let's replace it with a positive thought. You step out of the cloud and you recognize, oh, there's the sky. Oh, I'm the sky and the sky feels no fear, is not worried or anxious, is not striving to be anything better than it is, and it's what the cloud is made of, and it has this nature of mind. It can use thought and it can move your hand and you can act from a non-thought-based small self,

you can act from this more holistic view. This is all fascinating. And I suspect there might be some people who are a little confused at this point. So let me report on how this goes for me, literally the blocking and tackling of what I do in my own meditation practice and see if it's landing me in the place that you're describing.

And hopefully that will put some meat on the bone for people. Does that sound like a decent way to proceed? Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that. Experiential. And then Matt goes next. Well, this is the way we were raised.

Matt always goes second. And he better not get more ice cream to me There's plenty for everyone So when I meditate Oddly I do find for this for the turning the attention back at like what is awareness Walking with my eyes open is the best way to get to this place. But, uh, I'll just run you through my seated, um, routine, which is I sit down and meditate. I usually start, and this is a good day where I've got plenty of time. I sit down and I pick some sort of, you use the term shamatha or concentration practice.

So it might be focusing on the feeling of my breath right at the top of my lip and bottom of my nose, or the loving kindness phrases, may you be happy, may you be safe, or a body scan where I'm just feeling the sensations from the top of my head systematically, body part by body part down to my toes and starting again. And I develop some sort of stability. Then I open up to just, this is the term Mac keeps using,

choiceless awareness, where I'm just aware of whatever arises. It could be a thought, it could be a physical sensation, it could be an emotion, and I'm using mental notes. This is thinking, this is planning, this is pain, this is tightness. And of course, throughout, I'm getting distracted and starting again. So even when I'm in the quote unquote concentration part, I'm still planning homicides or whatever it is that my mind naturally does.

So I'm not like doing this without interruption, just to the listener. I wanna be clear about that. And at some point, after I've done my concentration stuff and I've opened up into choiceless awareness and I'm doing mental noting and I'm seeing the various thoughts and urges and physical sensations, the way I do it is I will drop this word into my mind, which is effortless. I'll just try to focus the mind on the fact

that it takes no effort for me to know any of this. There's some effort in getting lost and starting again, but the raw awareness of whatever is there is absolutely effortless. And then I will say known by what, by the way, I'm taking this all from Joseph Goldstein, the great meditation teacher. These objects are being known.

He often has people do this in the passive voice because it takes the eye out of it. These objects are being known. Known by what? And then I'll just quickly like it is very quick because if you push too hard at this door, it won't open. So it's like just it has to be right there on the surface. Like what I know that there's a bunch of stuff on being. I'm hearing sounds, I'm thinking thoughts,

I'm feeling physical sensations. I can also feel a sense of me as a looker, usually at that sense of I gathers behind my eyes or oddly in like some, like around my mouth a little bit, like this sense of meanness, but the raw data of the physical sensations, that's all coming in on a separate channel, has nothing to do. The eye is just another thing that's being known.

And there's a vertiginous sense of like, oh, there's this, there's nobody here to take delivery of these packages and yet they're still coming. So that's as far as I get with this. I hope that is useful. Yeah. Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, so you can see that that shift, like you said, it happens very quickly because the one who

drops the word effortless in can't keep holding on to the effortless and try to be effortless. It's actually got a shift. The looker constellation has to let go into, so that's why it's quick. It just goes, oh, oh, like I'm looking from this location, this location. Now the whole thing relaxes into an effortless. And then what is aware or another curious question is where are you aware from? Yeah.

Another question is who's asking this question? Who's asking the question? The who can kind of lead toward oh I should find a who but the what and the where are a little better because they have they're a little as you say like impersonal not back. So the what is aware, and that gives the feeling of a non-local or all-pervasive. And then the key is to be interested. Now the subject and object become that what, rather than doing any labeling. one of the instructions at that point is instead of

noting or labeling don't particularize. So don't be interested in what's arising be interested in who or what is it rising to and let that manage the whole thing not you. and let that manage the whole thing, not you. Nobody's helping to manage, and yet that awareness is the same awareness that I feel that people operate from when they're in optimal flow consciousness doing extreme sports or just walking in the woods or playing a sport or dancing or music the woods or playing a sport or dancing or music because it's ego-less and it's just naturally responsive without having to create a subject. But it's engaged like when you're walking, you can be walking and doing it because the implicit memory is trusted to just be the operational system. You don't have to keep going back to thought to be self-conscious about am I doing it right? Am I left foot going in front of my right foot? It's like trust

that you're an animal that knows how to walk. 10,000 hours have been done. So go into this awareness-based knowing and just see what that's like to not have to create a middle manager. You want the newbie version now? Well, I'll say I exclusively pursue lock your method off the cushion. I treat meditating as meditating a little too much. You know, it's like a thing I'm doing. And so I do many of the things, Dan, you described when I'm sitting down and meditating, but I have a hard time getting to effortless awareness in a meditation session, even walking, frankly. So it's for me, it's always off the cushion. So I kind of do it from a standing start. It's not something where I've done a

concentration or insight exercise. It'll often be in the office. And the key word for me is unhook, where I conceptual and cerebral mode, and then I can unhook from that. And I feel a very palpable can unhook from that. And I feel a very palpable movement of something from my head to my abdomen in a very centering way. And then it kind of expands from there where I'm there's a warmth and expansiveness, no conceptual activity, other than this strong sense of benevolence. And then it goes away, but it can happen many times in a day and can be growing more stable. You know, like I think I'd like to bring that into meetings with me, you know, and starting to be able to do that. I find it different than the flow of playing tennis or walking in the woods because of the benevolence. It's just so positive. Yes. flow of playing tennis or walking in the woods because of the benevolence. It's just so positive and calm and understanding.

Maybe other people feel that way when they play tennis, but to me, I, you know, I have more of a neutral feeling when I'm in a kind of an athletic flow state or otherwise in a flow state, but this effortless awareness, it really feels like the best version of myself, but that's not quite exactly right. Yeah, beautiful. You each described a different kind of classical direction. Dan described going out to kind of choiceless awareness and then kind of coming back. And you described the other direction that some people find one easier or more difficult. You described unhooking and dropping. So literally it seems what happens is, and you can tell me your experience if it's different, but the location of awareness is identified with thought and the eyes and the ears and

the head and it's just habitually located. But awareness is in the whole body in fact, even on a physical level, Dan Siegel talks about the whole nervous system is your brain. So awareness decenters and can feel your jaw from within your jaw, it can drop. And so the new center is your throat and it can feel the sensation, vibration, and then it can also be aware of your head and your feet as two ends of that, but the center is no longer in your head. It now drops and now you're embodied for the first time. I've had yoga teachers, ballerinas from Russia, pro athletes just start crying and saying, oh my God, I've never been in my body. I'm feeling my body from within because it's different than a body scan where you kind of do it from above. You kind of be aware of your feet

and then you're aware of your knees. But this is literally embodiment from your mind, which is awareness, and then once it gets to your heart mind or your belly mind, there's a natural loving-kindness. In Tibetan Buddhism, there's relative loving-kindness and ultimate loving-kindness. There's relative compassion and ultimate called bodhicitta, awake heart-mind. And so this ultimate just means it's already there, you don't have to try to create it. Once it's there you can fan the flames a little bit but it starts to show itself as heart-mind. So it has a kind of love and compassion, unconditional love, meaning there's no conditions, it's not judging, but it has a connection to everything. Everything feels connected and non-threatening. There's a wisdom

to it so you could discriminate from here. You don't have to go back to your head to feel safe. You feel like a groundedness as it opens up, it becomes the new feeling. I don't know if that gives a few more little words to what you're experiencing. Yeah, it does. Speaking of words and on this topic, I was comparing notes with a friend, Adam, who also loves listening to you, and

he described your words as psychoactive, which I thought was really interesting. And I wonder if this is deliberate, if you've cultivated a way of talking and a set of words that you find actually act on other people's consciousness and help them get into this mode. That's certainly how I experienced the pretty distinctive way that you talk about this stuff. You know, I'm very much of a scientist rather than a religionist in that I think there's mirror neurons that are people kind of... but I'll just say this, you know, sometimes the word transmission, that the actual awake consciousness can't be transmitted anywhere because it's already within everyone. So how could it be transmitted? It's just being pointed to.

So there's some kind of sense that when I speak I go into it. So I'm in the awake and I'm just waiting for the words to come out. So I'm trying to speak from it or I use my hands and I kind of unhook awareness and let it feel like it's dropping and aware from within your jaw and then like a bubble of awareness. The awareness can be aware of the effervescent aliveness, the space and the awareness from within and then drops below your neck. And as I say that, I'm resonating it. But I've had people like, just to give the counter example, a guy a couple years ago in New York helped me fix my computer and I taught him one of these things and he had

never even heard of any of this. What are you doing? What is this stuff? And he said, oh, well show me what you, you know, I was like, Oh, I get it like this. And oh, well, that's really cool. He said he went home and he just, you know, told his girlfriend and she had this awakening, you know, so he, he was, she's like my girlfriend.

What did, what's going on here? She's like, she's this, she's this happy person. She was all anxious and worried about everything. I couldn't sleep. And now she's, you know, just this one little thing. So what was that? I said, I don't know. You did everything. I couldn't sleep and now she's just this one little thing. So what was that? I said, I don't know, you did it. I didn't do anything.

That wasn't me. I wasn't anywhere around. It is the pointers, ultimately. And what I'm trying to do is make it more contemporary, simpler, more elegant, more practical, so that the language, which is always imperfect, is a little more experiential. And, you know, so that's, that I think is more of what's going on.

Let me see if I can speak for what I imagine is a contingent of the audience. I think some people are probably listening and they get this either because they've done it or just make sense to them or you know maybe there are some people out there popping off with awakenings right now and I suspect there are some people who are a little pissed who are like I this sounds awesome but I can't fucking understand what you're saying. So it's got to be experienced. I mean we're kind of playing with a little bit so some people who can

resonate with it either having you know had this naturally through a flow consciousness many people who experience this only at peak states they experience a kind of a connection to everything or during times of love or you know they may know it and they're kind of like, oh yeah, no, that what you mean you can do that on purpose, you can do that intentionally and others who have been doing just the first couple stages of mindfulness haven't most people haven't been introduced to it. So it's just new and it needs to be experienced. So this is a map impressionist map. Right. That's all very helpful. I think where I and on some others bump on some of this is it's not like there's zero effort required in getting to

effortless mindfulness. I mean, I'm great at effortless mindlessness. That's right. That's right. But the effort here is tricky. Yeah. Because as I said before, if you push too hard at this thing, you get very quickly to frustration.

And Sam Harris talks about this well. It's like, this observation is right there on the surface. Like you don't want to go digging too hard for it. Can you say some more about that? Yeah. So in some ways it's on the surface, but what it is, is it's a shift of consciousness just as going from mind wandering to shift, oh, let me focus on my breath. Now you're shifting your consciousness from mind-wandering to first-level mindfulness that mind wanders. And

if you do it during a retreat or something, you'll get to a place where you're able to focus on your breath and you're in a calm. And then you can shift to another kind of awareness as you observe what was the focuser or the thinker or the thoughts. What this is, is a type of learning that isn't mental, can't be done by thought or the efforter or even attention, even the type of awareness called attention that does the first thing, can't do this. So many people try to do these pointers with attention. So, you know, look for the looker. So if you look at a lamp outside or an object in your room now, you're using attention. It's a type of awareness. If you look at your breath, you can move it. But when you look at that object and let the attention rest on it,

can you then also let another kind of more spacious awareness be aware of the space between you and the object, and let that awareness be more the awareness that fills the room while the flashlight is still on the object and then let that more spacious awareness that's aware of the room be aware of feeling back through the looker to the space behind you so that you feel that awareness has your back or that there's kind of a feeling of what you're looking at as the space level of consciousness. You're not looking at the contents of the cloud, you're just going right through to the space. And then the space, if you're doing anything, you're surrendering backwards even while your attention is forward. That awareness then almost is panoramically

outside and within. So now it feels almost like a feeling of an ocean and wave. So the ocean of awareness can now feel like it includes the cloud and the sensations and the object in front of you. So you feel this expansive and embodied feeling more. So it's that shift that getting a feel for what is that that's weird, it doesn't make sense, how can you be aware from space? If you go back to your mind, you won't get it. It's the feeling when you do this in whatever way works and just get the feeling of it, then the fMRI shows that your brain changes. So it's not, am I literally aware of the space behind my back? Well, I don't know, not really, maybe, not on a relative level, but your brain which was maybe too tight and creating a scared subject-object that has certain

parts of the brain that are about keeping you in time and space have relaxed so that it feels like you're just more balanced. And when you feel balanced, then you're less scanning for danger and projecting worst case scenarios into the future and living from your more open-hearted, you have more open-minded, open-hearted field. So does that make sense that it really is that it's like a feeling sense related to space really more than body or energy or thought feeling sensation? Well, literally none of this makes sense. I mean, that by design, I mean, that's just the way it is. And yet some of these words do make a kind of sense.

But let me just stay with the pissed contingent for a second. For those people, what do you recommend? It's possible they're going to walk away from this whole discussion feeling intrigued, but FOMO. I'm guessing you would say use my app, do these little glimpse practices, and over time, you'll learn to relax enough to see what's already there anyway. Yes, yes, certainly that's part of it. I mean, the attempt here is really first, I think, just to say, you like mindfulness,

there is another type you can try it, you might like it, you know, like it requires like any mindfulness, you got to do it. You can't even describe the describable type of mindfulness. To practice it, but just to say that and to give reports from the ancient cultures from around the world at all times that said, this is called the ultimate medicine. This is not just a fancy way to live in a cave, this is what heals suffering at the root. This is the next stage of development of human consciousness that is now available in a more widespread way, and it's hard to describe, and it's new. But because it's natural and it's already within us, once those who feel it and get it say, it's teachable and it's learnable to say that it's not just like a fun calming thing. It literally heals. It's what I use in psychological work to introduce people who are experiencing complex trauma.

And it is the healing mechanism in the types of therapy that only things somewhat like psychedelic therapy have helped because they're actually accessing the same dimension of consciousness. It's not the medicines, psychedelics, it's this that you can experience without medicines and that has this capacity. It's that you then have a capacity to feel a part of you, let's say that's feeling grief and you feel a part of you that's in a meeting about to give a talk and you can be aware of both those parts as not shutting them down, not letting one of them take you over. One of them's anxious about the meeting, one of them's had a loss in his personal situation or his feeling, and you can

be aware from this awake consciousness which feels loving toward those two and says, okay, you two sweethearts can just relax because you don't have to give the talk at the meeting, from this awake consciousness which feels loving toward those two and says, okay, you two sweethearts can just relax because you don't have to give the talk at the meeting, I'll give it. And then you can feel and be with, feel sadness and not be sad. It leads to kind of the next level of healing anxiety and loneliness too, because loneliness, I find, is this word that's being used now. So people will come and say, I have friends, I have work friends, I have an intimate relationship, or young people say, my parents are okay, but I just feel so

lonely. And the loneliness is somewhat outside and we can certainly talk about that and phones and things like that, but it's that they haven't found a connected sense of self that is here and this seems to be the existential root of our identity and our mind that can be combined with contemporary psychology and neuroscience into a way to help people feel whole and and relate to each other with eyes open. If I'm understanding this correctly which I may not be the punchline here the twist is that so yes you can combine traditional psychotherapeutic modes with this non-dual awareness and we haven't yet

defined non-dual so we should come back to that. But this really, the twist is you're sort of understanding the self and then you're throwing in the fact that there is nobody home, you don't need to take this thing personally at all. And it seems like that is the combination that is the ultimate medicine. Yeah, and a little bit of what Matt was saying is that there's this kind of openheartedness toward the human condition, which will never be completely healed. I'll have to say this aloud because it just came up

twice for me. So I'll say, Dan, I was going to call one of my chapters in one of my programs in the app, 90% happy. Will you be hearing from my attorney? Cause well, I figured you got the other 10. in one of my programs in the app, 90% happy. Will you be hearing from my attorney? Because, well, I figured you got the other 10, so I must well, I must cover, cover. I want it all.

I drink your milkshake. But then I thought, oh, okay, let him have, he's got that. But what it means is the reason to say that is that this is not treating the symptoms, that this is going to this root and it feels connected and you're more sensitive and yet more safe. You feel more open-hearted and like in your body and like, oh my god, wow, what a life. You feel good but you don't feel a physical bliss or you know, there's the no-self thing we talked about where people can stop at central ness or no-self without getting the awareness and the body and the open-heartedness. And then

another group that stops at pure awareness where you're kind of in this, there's nobody here named Locke, there's just awareness, everything else is illusion, I am the awareness, what kind of tea would you like? All tea is the same. So you feel like a disembodied robot that feels no pain, but that's not the full non-dual, more the Buddhist non-dual or the therapeutic non-dual, which is both and. Coming up, Block Kelly talks about what the definition of non-duality is, what he calls

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Can you just keep going with that to find non-duality or because that is kind of a derogatory term right now? Yes. Yeah. It's not a great term. It's why I use more effortless mindfulness than non-dual mindfulness because it has many different definitions and it's been one that's been used by different meditation systems, different religions, so there's more of an Advaita non-duality. Even within the Hindu tradition, Advaita tradition, there's different

debates about what it means, but there's some more on one side of the spectrum let's call it that you're in a dualistic mind and it's as if you become aware of pure awareness that's called non-dual awareness but actually it's more not dualistic awareness so the awareness is not dualistic, but the question is what is this this body mind, is that a second thing? So some make it like a pure awareness and that's the main definition you'll see out there's more of a neo-advaita non-dual awareness is this awareness, which is who you are and everything else is changing or illusion. And then the Buddhist is more saying that there is this non-dual awareness, you can unhook from it, and then it's not other than the relative. So it's the ultimate sense of your mind, but it's arising as thoughts, feelings, sensations,

your body and the world, and they're not two. So they're all co-arising as this non-dual awareness and this non-dual experience. So those two together, they arise together, is the other definition of non-dual. So it just means it's trying to avoid oneness or emptiness, like everything is one is not exactly right, or everything is empty meaning there's nothing here. So there is something here but it's not the only reality, there's this other non-dual awareness but then it comes back. So even in Hinduism they say pure awareness is called turiya in Sanskrit, and then turiyatita means pure awareness that

includes and welcomes all other experience. So that's more of the feeling of this both and quality. But it first starts with distinguishing this type of awareness that's not on the Western map, that's not on the psychological map, barely on the philosophical map. You have to dig for it. You can find it a little bit and not on the cultural or educational map. Is that a start to define it? Little brother, what do you think? Well, let me give you the layman's version, which will pale in comparison to Locke's masterful erudite

multi-traditional version. For me, put simply and maybe inaccurately, I feel like ordinary life involves this enormous identification with the self as the subject and lots of other things as objects. And that's the duality, to me, that has created so much suffering. I can only speak about my direct experience, but I think through my research, maybe generally human suffering, that duality of subject and object. And I've had brief glimpses of a different lived experience without that duality, where if I can tap into this awareness that is awake, it does seem like everything is happening simultaneously. Locke would say arising. Everything is just happening all of a piece with identifiable

components, but all of a piece with no me in it and no you in it and no separate thoughts and feelings, just all integrated. And where the of a piece-ness can allow for, for instance, a wave that appears distinct from the ocean but isn't. So you can identify things, thoughts, feelings, sensations, but that doesn't make them separate. So that is my simple version of non-duality. Now, it's a good tag team. That was good. I thought I'd cover the... and then you gave it the experiential. The key there is that, just for those who are the pissed off people or the people who aren't getting is the non-dual is also saying on the relative level of your physical body,

there is a subject and object that should not try to walk through walls, you know, that needs to drive a car and watch out for the other cars. So that's the simultaneous thing. It's like, wait a minute, how could it be not dual? I have to navigate through this day, you know, how can I do that? So it's this simultaneous like, well, on the level of identity though, and that's why I use flow or wake loving flow, which adds the heart element, because it does seem to be you don't have to create a self-conscious, dualistic, mental, small self in order to try to be safe on all these levels. And in fact, that's what Tai Chi

masters try to train to do is to be more in their bodies and more safe by going into this. But more in their bodies and more safe by going into this. But as you say, there's something in that I think therefore I am level of culture that we've reached and we're trying to get smarter and faster and now we've got AI that's imitating that. It's like, well, AI, you can't do this. This is IA. This is intelligent awareness. You know, like, this doesn't have any contents. This is the potential that includes but that's the key is that it in as you said it, it includes, embraces, welcomes, heals, imperfect, pleasant and unpleasant, present with the

unpleasant. You know, Dan, I as a sort of former charter member of the Pissed Off contingent, one of the things that people need that I needed and still need is rarely tactical advice. And I found, you know, for a year, the simple admonishment to look for the looker, like maddening, it really was getting in the way of my mindfulness. And we've gotten at this and you got at this, but I just wanna be very explicit and tactical about it is that it is not for me useful

when you're looking at something to just turn around and try to find the looker. I've tried it 10,000 times with total failure, but what worked for me, and maybe it could work for someone else is you're looking at something, you realize you can also, your peripheral vision is active. And then you realize that even while you're looking at the thing, you actually are seeing lots of other things.

And then you can broaden that from just a simple peripheral vision to more of a corporeal sense of awareness as we describe with this unhooking. And then you can see that in a sense you're still looking at the thing you were looking at. You haven't shifted your attention. The flashlight version of attention is still doing what it was doing, the flashlight version of attention is still doing what it was doing, but you've unhooked from it and can see it from a positive new vantage point, not just try to find the absence of something. So that to me was transformational in my understanding of Look for the Looker. Yeah. Yeah, there's a few, you know, a few of those glimpses which are called panoramic awareness on the app. I don't know, those listening may not quite get it, but if you kind of just as Matt was saying,

you let your eyes relax forward and then you start to open your peripheral vision as if you're unhooking from the looker even though you can let attention as another kind of awareness continue. And as your awareness feels like it opens, your peripheral vision will open and then you can somehow continue to feel as if this awake awareness can open to the sides in which sound is coming and going and then curiously feel around and open up behind you to find an awareness that's already awake so you can kind of feel as if you're aware of the spacious awareness and then feel as if you're aware as the spacious awareness even while your eyes are just looking forward and then feel as if the

spacious awareness is also pervasive. So it's equally above you, below you, in front of you, to the left, to the right, behind you and then like an ocean and wave within you and then it's almost like you're looking out of the eyes of your heart more, you're kind of dropped down into your body. You're more fully whole and take a little deeper breath in, kind of breathe out, and just kind of feel a kind of extraordinary ordinariness which has just kind of taken away the looker and upgraded it to an awarenessing type of knowing that you could move your hand from or you could think a thought from, you could remember your phone number, and then you could let it go and just be. So it's this kind of, could it just take, you know, that was the thing when I was had this first pointing out instruction. It took,

you know, three minutes or five minutes and I felt the same way I did at the end of a ten-day Vipassana retreat, except I was open-eyed and feeling just as calm, but more embodied, like almost laughing and crying. Like, what just is that? How did that happen so quickly? And they call some of these practices orientation instructions. So the pointers are just So the pointers are just orient, orienting from a kind of constellation of consciousness that is, the habit is to go from thought to thought to create a thinker to look out of the eyes and keep managing that way to unhook, open, drop and include and welcome. Well, so that didn't work for me at all. I guess I would imagine, and I'm asking this to confirm with you, that there are many different tactics that work for different people at different times. Yes, yes. And that's been my interest is like, okay, what are the learning styles?

Because I was being a psychotherapist and a high school teacher for a year at one point. I was like, okay, well, how do you teach this? Well, oh, why is this person not getting it? Oh, they're more of a body-based person. They need to start with their body and this other person needs to come in the door of the eyes or the ears, like they can't watch their breath but they can listen to sound. Okay, well let's start there. It doesn't matter, it's just a few simple quick moves, it's just that everyone's different, just like learning anything. So another one that's very simple now that people have heard that there is this kind of

the problem is orienting from this small sense of self that's constantly looking out, scanning for danger, trying to solve the problems on all levels. What's inside? What's the problem? What's outside? What's the problem? There's a sense of this more spacious pervasive awareness. So just to offer for those who are listening, if you do this simple inquiry and inquire what's here now, just now if there's no problem to solve. So if you can just let the problem solver relax or step back, and then see if you can feel what's here, what's aware. It's alert by itself. And then just see as you feel

that open awareness, whether you're aware of it or whether you can actually rest as it. And just not going down to sleep, not going up to thought, not going back to daydream, just including all of that happening within the field. And then just curiously, as this awareness, what's the relationship to vibration, sensation, feeling, thoughts, your body, and the room? And what if it's just an ordinary clear experience? Is this a meditation state or curiously wondering if this is actually more than natural condition to which other states that you've called normal will come and

go? No I can get a toehold in that. You got that one? Did that one get you, or did you get it? I think I more got it. Okay. Coming up, Locke talks about where love fits into this entire process, and Matt Paris, my baby brother, gives a pitch on why this is a practice worth pursuing. who rather gives a pitch on why this is a practice worth pursuing.

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Like can someone give consent to be cannibalized? What drives a child to kill? And what's the psychology of a terrorist? Listen to Red Handed wherever you get your podcasts and access our bonus short hand episodes exclusively on Amazon Music or by subscribing to Wondry Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app. One of the things that I bump on personally or that I can let become a source of self-criticism is my way in really is I think sound. It's like when I can hear the sound and recognize that whatever is hearing it is not what I conventionally call I I can look for what is the feeling of meanness and it's usually some as I said before like something behind the eyes or

The gathering around my mouth in some way. That's where I sense Dan But the hearing is happening without any of that. That's my experience and if I then ask the question, like, who's asking this question? Who's even looking for it? And then it's like, I'm shouting in an empty room. But where that doesn't take me is love. And that has come up, and way back at the beginning

of this conversation, I said something to the effect of, I understood two thirds of what you were saying, Locke, and I don't understand the final third. And the final third was something you said, and then Matt said later about dropping into his belly and then feeling love in the middle of, you know, his busy venture capital life. I definitely have access to the feeling of love,

compassion, kindness, friendliness, but I think it is, again, to call back to something you said earlier, more of a relative or conventional meta than an ultimate meta. Yeah, so I wonder if what you make of that blathering on my end. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's two things there. One is the sound thing, which is, can I do with that first?

Then we'll come to the other. So the hearing is really interesting because one of the key pointers for those who are more sound-oriented is sound is outside and inside and so you can be aware of this sound outside, the sound inside and then be aware of the space outside and inside and then notice that thinking is actually inner hearing. So just let thinking become like mental sensations. So it's still moving, but you're just not that interested in sentences or word. It's like talking at other tables at a restaurant. And then you just become more aware of where is the hearer? There's hearing without a hearer, not focused on what you're

hearing or who's hearing. There's just this awareness, spacious, impervasive space, and all-at-once-ness, this all happening at once. So that curious question, if hearing is thinking, thinking is mainly hearing, then where is the hearer? Yes, as Joseph says, known by what. Yes, and then known by what, but then the key is, answer the question with the not knowing that knows. Yes. In other words, that's not a question for the mind to give it a label, oh that's's awareness. Like it's okay, know by what means. Feel into that which is not a thought that's aware and then where is it aware? Where is it aware you are aware from? And what's the, what is it like if this is

you more who or what's aware than a thought based you. For me though, this is all very quick. You know, I can't rest in it. It just happens quickly and then it, then I'm back to, you know, what's for lunch. Yes, yeah. So, so, so two things. One is that it is, you know, one of the main descriptions

of this kind of practice is small glimpses many times during the day. The other thing is this one catch, which is what I just said, the not knowing that knows. So the habit of creating a thinker is one thing, but the habit of checking to make sure you're right or am I getting it or okay that was done so now what is the second one that's the metacognition.

So you've got to realize okay you don't have to go back to the mind for a second opinion to begin to feel and then just almost wait for that checker to come in like he's going to come in it's going to come in it's's going to come in. It's going to say, like, all right, did you get it? And you're just like, OK, that's a mind object. There it goes. Now I'm still here. Now can I move my hand? Can I stand up and go walk, trusting that walking

takes no checking. What you start to do is you start to get the move from the meditative on the cushion glimpse of it to moving from what's called recognition of it to realization, to familiarization. And then you take it into action off the cushion, then you lose it, then you say, oh, no big surprise, just re-recognize. And then you do another glimpse a little later on. So it's that. That's one of the key things is the non-conceptual trust in more of a flow. When you're in flow, you're not checking whether you're doing it right. You're not going to self-consciousness or metacognition. You're just walking in the woods. You're talking to friends. You're in a, you know, you're just like, Oh yeah, sure.

What's going on? Yeah, that's really good. You know, yeah, that's one of the key pointers. Does that make sense? Ish. Ish. Yeah. Does that give you another second or two? What's the connection to love? Yeah. So then, so then the love, the love starts with when you go to the awareness and you come back, the love starts with a feeling of being connected. So the love starts with a feeling of safety and not being separate and not dualistically parsing things off or scanning for danger. So it starts with a non-fear, non-worry sense of okayness, well-being, a kind of like, oh, we're kind of all the same. And then there can be a little bit so then people have a little different flavors of love right there. Relief can be

a first feeling or connection or sweet sadness, more emotional styles, but even just the love of unconditional love, meaning, oh, there's no conditions that I need to set. Everything's just the way it is. And is that okay? So that would be the question. Is that okay? Or how do you feel toward everything just appearing by itself? How do you feel toward some situation that's arising that feels a little painful or something? I feel, oh, I feel towards some situation that's arising that feels a little painful or something. I feel, oh, I feel like that's okay too. Does that make sense? So it's a little trying to get right at the beginning

of what might be the arising of it. Does that feel like there's something there? Yes, definitely the relief I think would be because it's like, I don't have to take all of this personally, yes, I can get attached to and complain about the pain, or I could tune into what's aware of the pain. And as Joseph Goldstein likes to say,

awareness doesn't care. For me, a lot of it, my initial reaction is, holy shit, wow, like, wow, this, I can toggle back and forth very quickly between feeling like Dan and then recognizing that all of these sensory objects that quote unquote Dan is aware of, the interfering executive function of my brain like has nothing to do, that's actually just another thing known by the awareness.

And so like this is the mystery of consciousness. We know that we know stuff, we just don't know by what or how or why. And so that's, so I, for me, it's, it's an awe that kicks in, which I know also is the beginnings of love too, but I don't think I'm taking it all the way to. Yeah. So it is kind of letting go and it's a lot of, you know, it's a lot of conditioning. It's like cultural conditioning that doesn't allow that to open up because the tendency of the mind is to stay, its nature is contraction. So that's one of its main location, location, location is be separate and other. So it separates and others and so it

doesn't allow itself to connect and feel awe. And so, you know, kind of leaning into that or letting that flower or letting that breathe itself into your own flavor of love. The first level of, you know, kind of insight meditation is awareness doesn't care. And then the second movement is awareness is unconditionally loving and has compassionate activity. So first you do the deconditioning, you step out, you unhook, and then you let the connection start to show itself. So all is beautiful, all is really one of the... so that would be the thing is just be curious about that and let that show itself.

It's not, you're not doing it. I have that sneaking suspicion that the way in here has something to do with the opposite of your normal self. So for me, like, I generally feel quite burdened. And when I tap into this, again, very briefly, when I'm successful, I feel unburdened. And then I feel benevolent. Maybe you're just cynical, Dan. And then it's the opposite feeling for you is this feeling of awe. And that might be a door into some version of love. I think my default mode, my default modes, plural are selfish and angry.

So the opposite of that feels like love. Yeah. And the odd door, your odd door is that something that's bigger than yourself. Because awesome means like it's not selfish. It's like, oh, wow, that's not I'm not controlling that. That's awesome. You know, it got right. Yeah, that's good. And it's not angry because it's almost bliss.

It has a bliss to it, right? Yes. The aw seems to have a little bliss. Yeah, I feel that little bliss, which is the opposite of angry. And the all is the opposite of selfish. Like it's, it's just bigger than you. It's like, but it's big good. It's not big neutral. Right, right. I do fear Matt that I've been typical domineering older brother here, and we only have a few

minutes left, which is also typical that I'm now saying anything else you want to ask with five minutes left, but I'm doing my best. Oh, I feel like I've worked my questions and observations in as we went. One other thing I'll note that I think I'm getting this right, Locke, where you say that roughly seven out of 10 people who commit themselves to this or who you see do ultimately make this connection and find this awake awareness. And I found that really interesting in that,

one, I think it acknowledges that for some people, this is not gonna work for them. But also the hopefulness of 70%, it really struck me that this was quite accessible as a path and you've got a large sample size to work from. So I did wanna make sure that even our most frustrated listeners got that data point so that they might take heart.

It's not easy but it's simple. Just to be a little paradoxical. And it does take a little curiosity and interest in experimenting for a while and being willing to be frustrated a little bit because the one who wants to get it is never gonna get it. The little small self is never gonna grow up to be the awake self.

So it's kind of relax, you know, and, and how do you do that? And who's doing that? It takes a little, like these glimpses are just trying to say, okay, well, you know, I'm trying to do like, some people know, like sometimes they say the Colombo approach. It's like, oh, one, one thing before I leave, before I walk out the door, just try this for a minute. Just check this out. Yeah, move your awareness around, drop it in, open it up. What do you think about that? Oh, you know. So it's trying to just

give people options for their own style. But once it is tasted, the sense that especially in the interesting group is this group in psychotherapy, this internal family systems work I've done with where the self with a capital S, which is basically awake consciousness, is the healing dimension. When people who have been told, well, you'll never even experience love because you didn't get love as a kid, you just had abuse. And the many theories say, well, you can't experience it if you didn't get it. You could only try to create it maybe through another person or something. It's not in you because you didn't. When they open to this, you because you didn't. When they open to this, oh well that's not the part of me that feels completely worthless, that's me. Well what do you mean you? Well that's this me that has always been here and that now I'm aware of the part that feels worthless and it's okay. And you know, so that kind of amazing thing that it's not

just as sometimes has been said for the elite or for those who have done, you know, three month retreats or three year retreats or three lifetimes retreat, you know, it can be for anyone. So regardless, when you find it, it does really heal this feeling of dissatisfaction. This has been incredible, Locke. Thank you so much. Great to see you again. Yeah, Locke, great job. Matt loved doing the show with you. Loved seeing you.

I think of you as Robin to my bed. Oh, man. So you know. Oh, boy. Wow. I'll pay for that, Loc Wow. I'll pay for that. I will pay for that. I'm the second son too. So I'm gonna have to stand up with Matt. We'll get him back. Have a good day guys. Bye. Okay. Thank you both. Thanks again to Locke Kelly. If you're looking for another episode that is similar to this, I'm going to post in the show notes a link to a conversation that Matt and I had with Sam Harris.

And speaking of Sam Harris, don't forget you can go to wakingup.com slash 10% to get 10% off Sam's excellent app, the Waking Up app, which is really an incredible resource. WakingUp.com slash 10%. Just want to remind you before I go that you can sign up for my newsletter, which will arrive in your inbox weekly. I sum up my key learnings from the week's episodes and also recommend some TV shows and books and stuff like that that I've been turned on to recently you can sign up at danharris.com

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DJ Cashmere is our managing producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. And I should say, Nick's got a new album out. Go check it out wherever you listen to your music. If you like 10% happier, and I hope you do, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. From Wondry, this is Black History for Real. I'm Francesca Ramsey.

And I'm Conscious Lee. And every week we gonna be chronicling a lot of trials and triumphs from black folks who ain't never heard about, even though we've been doing the damn thing since forever. Together we'll weave black history's most overlooked figures back into the rightful place in American culture and all over the world. Because on this show, you're gonna hear a little less

in August, 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue and a little bit more. Sam looks to his fellow students. They just as mad as he is. He can't stop thinking about the tragic war in Vietnam and the violent backlash to the civil rights movement. It's like the whole world falling apart and ain't nobody ready to make it right.

The school board could do something to change it, but they'd have to listen first. Follow Black History for Real on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. Divorced beheaded died. Divorced beheaded survived. We know the six wives of Henry VIII as pawns in his hunt for a son, but their lives were so much more than just being the king's wives. I'm Arisha Skidmore Williams. And I'm Brooke Zifrin. And we're the hosts of Wondry's podcast,

Even the Royals. In each episode, we'll pull back the curtain on royal families, past and present, from all over the world to show you the darker side of what it means to be royalty. We rarely see Henry VIII's wives in their own light as women who use the tools available to them to hold on to power. Some women won the game, others lost.

But they were all unexpected agents in their own stories. Being a part of a royal family might seem enticing, but more often than not, it comes at the expense of everything else. Like your freedom, your privacy, and sometimes even your head. Follow even the royals on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Go deeper and get more of the story with Wondery's top history podcasts, including American Scandal, Legacy, and Black History for Real.