Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Small Wins | Bonus Meditation with Matthew Hepburn

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

When the world feels like a dumpster fire, it helps to remember that your contributions to improve things matter—even the small ones.About Matthew Hepburn:Matthew is a meditation and dharma teacher with more than a decade of teaching experience and a passion for getting real about what it means to live well. He emphasizes humor, technique, and authentic kindness as a means to free the mind up from unnecessary struggle and leave a healthier impact on the world. Beyond Ten Percent Happier, Matthew has taught in prisons, schools, corporate events and continues to teach across North America in Buddhist centers offering intensive silent retreats and dharma for urban daily life. To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Celebrate Small Wins.”See 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. Happy weekend, everybody. Time for a bonus meditation. There's a great story from Joseph Goldstein. By the way, Joseph is not leading today's meditation, but I'm going to tell this story

as we head into the meditation. Joseph tells this story about being over in Burma with a great meditation teacher many, many years ago, and he was struggling at some point in his practice and his teacher, this Burmese master, told him to consider your sila. Sila is the ancient word for ethical conduct. And Joseph, at first, thought that the teacher was asking him to think about all the bad stuff he'd done. But no, actually, the teacher was saying, if you think about the good stuff you've done

in your life, that can elevate the mind, brighten the mind, and help you when you're struggling in meditation. So that is what we're going to do in this session today with our teacher du jour, Matthew Hepburn, who's one of our on-staff teachers at the 10% Happier app. He's also taught in prisons, schools, corporations, and all over North America. Here we go now with Matthew Hepburn. Hi, this is Matthew. Sometimes we can get into the mindset that the things we do don't make a difference. We may not be all-powerful, but the truth is that everything we do has an impact, however small, and we need to remind ourselves of that fact so we can continue to work for a better world.

We'll do this reflection together now. Settle into an easy posture that feels upright, wakefulful and relaxed. If you like, you can let the eyes close gently and release any tension from the face and jaw. Acknowledge any mood in the mind. Whatever mood you notice, you can just recognize and acknowledge it, so it's not running the whole show from behind the scenes. You can say, hey, what's up apprehension?

I feel that you're here. In the Buddhist traditions where I first learned meditation, the whole practice of mindfulness is founded on the wisdom that every action we take, no matter how small, has influence on us and the world around us. To begin to get a sense of this, recall something small someone did for you that mattered. Remember how it made you feel. They didn't have to do that, and it made an impression on you. Small actions count.

Now bring to mind a moment when you did something good for yourself or someone else. Any single moment of kindness, generosity, or virtue. Maybe you stop the car to let a pedestrian go by, or avoid it stepping on a worm in the rain. Now take a single moment that represents this memory of something you did, and let one image or phrase represent it. Keep it simple. For instance, just imagining the memory of the pedestrian's face, or a short phrase like,

Good luck little worm. Let your attention stay with clarifying this image or phrase for just a few moments here. If any positive feelings such as delight, appreciation, or gladness arise, you can enjoy them. You can recognize and acknowledge them, letting them be felt and known as they're experienced. This action had anworthy of our attention. Consider all the areas in your life where your small actions can make small differences. Even little actions make a difference, and over time, they add up. When you're ready, you can open your eyes

if they've been closed and begin to slowly broaden your attention to include the space around you. Thanks for spreading the good. Take care. Thank you, Matthew. 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 by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts.

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