Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Relaxed, Not Casual | Bonus Meditation with Joseph Goldstein

Episode Date: July 28, 2024

Watching things come and go helps weaken obsessive cravings both in meditation and in our lives.About Joseph Goldstein:Joseph is one of the most respected meditation teachers in the world -- a key architect of the rise of mindfulness in our modern society -- with a sense of humor to boot. In the 1970's, he co-founded the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) alongside Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. Since its founding, thousands of people from around the world have come to IMS to learn mindfulness from leaders in the field. Joseph has been a teacher there since its founding and continues as the resident guiding teacher.To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Going Deeper: Seeing Change.”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Happy weekend, everybody. Time for a bonus meditation. Today we've got my guy Joseph Goldstein, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday. He's going to talk about a key distinction in meditation practice between relaxed, which you should aim for, and casual, which is to be avoided. This is one of his many pithy catchphrases, relaxed, not casual. Before we dive in a little bit more about Joseph, he co-founded the Insight Meditation

Society back in the 1970s alongside Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. Joseph has also written many books, including One Dharma and Mindfulness. And he's somebody I've worked with very closely for coming up on 15 years. Here we go now with Joseph Goldstein. Hello, this is Joseph. An important understanding of why his effort in meditation practice is recognizing the difference between being relaxed and being casual. Relaxation is an essential component of meditation practice, and we learn to be more accepting

and easeful with what is arising. When we have a relaxed but caring attitude, then we're better able to notice the changing nature of whatever arises, and in particular the endings or passings away of each moment's experience. We'll begin the meditation by settling into the awareness of the body and the body posture, becoming aware of your body breathing, maybe feeling the breath at the nostrils or in the movement in the mind or body that may be arising. Maybe different kinds of sensations in the body sounds or thoughts or images.

Sometimes different emotions are predominant and they become the object of meditation. In highlighting the changing nature of what's arising, you might keep in mind the question, what happens to this experience as I'm becoming aware of it? For example, with a sensation, what happens to it in moments of mindfulness? Does the sensation increase in intensity, become stronger? Does it weaken? slowly. When we hold the question in mind, what happens to this moment's experience. We're highlighting or focusing on its changing nature.. At times in our meditation, we begin to experience very rapid change, things arising and passing away very quickly.

And at these times it may be that the noting falls away, that the noting is too slow to capture the rapidity of change.... Seeing impermanence and knowing more deeply how all experience arises and passes away helps to weaken the various obsessive cravings that play out both in our meditation and in our lives. When you're ready, you can open your eyes, connecting again with the world around you. I look forward to being with you next time. Thank you to Joseph. You can find more meditations like this one over on the 10% Happier app. Just download the app wherever you get your apps to get started. If you like 10% Happier, and I hope you do, you can listen early and ad free right now

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