Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: The Dali Lama walks in and he immediately took my
Speaker 2: hand and he said, I want you to take the
Speaker 2: practices in my tradition, turn them into a form that
Speaker 2: anyone would feel comfortable practicing, investigate them with the tools
Speaker 2: of modern science, and if you find them to be valuable,
Speaker 2: disseminate them widely. And I consider that to be my
Speaker 2: assignment for the remainder of my time on this planet.
Speaker 1: Doctor Richie Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry, was
Speaker 1: one of the first people to conduct a rigorous scientific
Speaker 1: study on the effect of meditation. He's the author of
Speaker 1: the book Altered Traits, and his research shows that meditation
Speaker 1: is a powerful and accessible tool that we can use
Speaker 1: to improve our lives. It can also help us foster
Speaker 1: more generosity and compassion for others.
Speaker 2: What we're talking about is something that we believe is
Speaker 2: really critical for our personal mental hygiene, and I think
Speaker 2: most people would agree that their minds are even more
Speaker 2: important than their teeth. And the science shows that if
Speaker 2: we spend even as little time as we spend brushing
Speaker 2: our teeth nourishing our mind, this world would be a
Speaker 2: different place.
Speaker 1: On today's show, a pioneer in meditation science makes the
Speaker 1: case for how even short practices like one you can
Speaker 1: do while taking out the trash can have a big impact.
Speaker 1: I'm Maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: a show about who we are and who we become
Speaker 1: in the face of a big change. I'll start with
Speaker 1: a confession non meditator here. I've tried countless times to
Speaker 1: integrate meditation into my life and it's just never stuck.
Speaker 1: But talking to Richie was a turning point for me.
Speaker 1: This conversation has something for everyone. It's for the full
Speaker 1: on skeptics of meditation. It's for people like me who
Speaker 1: see the value in meditation but haven't been able to
Speaker 1: adopt a practice. And it's for the meditation pros who
Speaker 1: want a deep dive into what the science really says
Speaker 1: about the impact of meditation. While Richie was getting his
Speaker 1: psychology PhD in the nineteen seventies, he met a group
Speaker 1: of people who met up regularly to practice meditation. You
Speaker 1: might be familiar with some of them, people like Ramdas
Speaker 1: and John cabot Zin, who later became legendary figures in
Speaker 1: Western branches of meditation. Richie enjoyed and marveled at the
Speaker 1: practice of meditation, so much so that he actually traveled
Speaker 1: to India and Sri Lanka for a week's long retreat.
Speaker 1: But when he returned to school and wanted to make
Speaker 1: meditation the focus of his research, academia did not welcome
Speaker 1: him with open arms.
Speaker 2: I came back with a fervent aspiration to study this
Speaker 2: and with the conviction that this was important for Western
Speaker 2: psychology and Western science. But it was really difficult in
Speaker 2: those days, and I didn't have a lot of support
Speaker 2: from inside the academy.
Speaker 1: Tell me more about what the resistance was like and
Speaker 1: how you engage with that resistance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just to give you one sort of comical example,
Speaker 2: I was in a graduate seminar on psychopathology, and I'll
Speaker 2: leave out the name of the professor who was teaching it.
Speaker 2: It was a regular Harvard faculty member with a named chair.
Speaker 2: And I looked like I just came back from India.
Speaker 2: I had long hair at that time. I was wearing
Speaker 2: Indian clothes and he was commenting on the signs and
Speaker 2: symptoms of psychopathology, and then he was looking at me
Speaker 2: and made some comment about how even one's dress can
Speaker 2: be a sign of psychopathology. And as he was staring
Speaker 2: at me, and you know, this was the kind of
Speaker 2: stuff that I just encountered, And you know, it was
Speaker 2: made more explicit to me that if I wanted a
Speaker 2: successful career in science, studying meditation was not a particularly
Speaker 2: healthy or fruitful way to begin. And I was strongly
Speaker 2: encouraged to find something else to study that would be
Speaker 2: more mainstream, and I actually I did do that. That
Speaker 2: really was the segue into me becoming a closet meditator,
Speaker 2: where I kept my meditation practice to myself for the
Speaker 2: most part and did not share it with most of
Speaker 2: my professional colleagues.
Speaker 1: So what ended up changing for you, Richie, Like what
Speaker 1: increased your resolve to double down and commit to not
Speaker 1: only coming out of the meditation closet, as you just suggested,
Speaker 1: but also conducting research in this space.
Speaker 2: The opportunity that I had in nineteen ninety two to
Speaker 2: meet His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, and that meeting was
Speaker 2: a pivotal meeting that really changed the course of both
Speaker 2: my professional life and my personal life. He invited me
Speaker 2: to his residence to meet with him because he learned
Speaker 2: that I was a serious scientist who also was a meditator,
Speaker 2: and he knew I interested in doing scientific research in
Speaker 2: this area. He was told that's through some mutual friends,
Speaker 2: and he wanted to encourage serious scientific research on the topic,
Speaker 2: so he invited me to meet with him. I came
Speaker 2: with three other scientists and I almost had a panic attack.
Speaker 2: And I'm not someone who is prone to anxiety. I've
Speaker 2: never had a panic attack in my life. I was
Speaker 2: completely overwhelmed by anxiety because I could not envision what
Speaker 2: my first words would be to the Dalai Lama. I
Speaker 2: just couldn't imagine what these first words would be, and
Speaker 2: I started sweating, my heart was palpitating, and you know,
Speaker 2: within three seconds after that, the Dhali Lama walks in
Speaker 2: and he immediately took my hand, and within fifteen seconds,
Speaker 2: all of this anxiety was completely totally dissipated, gone, but
Speaker 2: more than gone, I felt like I was in exactly
Speaker 2: the place I needed to be, and I felt the safest,
Speaker 2: most secure, and most loved that I've ever felt in
Speaker 2: my life. You know, it was not hard to figure
Speaker 2: out what to say. It just came very organically. But
Speaker 2: then he challenged me, and he was quite sort of
Speaker 2: adamant about it and said, look, you've been using tools
Speaker 2: of modern neuroscience to study depression and anxiety and stress
Speaker 2: and fear. Why can't you use those same tools to
Speaker 2: study kindness and to study compassion. And that was a
Speaker 2: really major wake up call for me because I didn't
Speaker 2: have a very good answer for him. And then a
Speaker 2: few years later, when I was with him, he was
Speaker 2: more direct, and this time I was alone with him
Speaker 2: in a room. He took me by the arm and
Speaker 2: he said, I want you to take the practices in
Speaker 2: my tradition, turn them into a form that anyone would
Speaker 2: feel comfortable practicing, investigate them with the tools of modern science,
Speaker 2: and if you find them to be valuable, disseminate them widely.
Speaker 2: And I consider that to be my assignment for the
Speaker 2: remainder of my time on this planet.
Speaker 1: So, Richie, later in the interview, we're going to get
Speaker 1: to the Olympic meditators, the Russian gymnast equivalent meditators, but
Speaker 1: I want to talk just about those of us who
Speaker 1: do meditation more recreationally for a moment, in terms of
Speaker 1: what the research shows. So, what do you think are
Speaker 1: some of the biggest misconceptions people have about what meditation
Speaker 1: can do and what meditation can't do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, one of the things that's important to point
Speaker 2: out at the beginning is that not all forms of
Speaker 2: meditation are the same. There are literally hundreds of different
Speaker 2: kinds of menas meditation practices, and only a small fraction
Speaker 2: of them have actually been investigated in the West. You know,
Speaker 2: sometimes I think the lay public thinks that we're a
Speaker 2: lot further along in this research than we actually are.
Speaker 2: We're still pretty much in kindergarten.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Having said that, it's also important to point out that
Speaker 2: meditation did not arise over the course of history to
Speaker 2: treat illness, be it physical or mental. What meditation is
Speaker 2: good for, I think is in nurturing the core elements
Speaker 2: of what it means to flourish. And we've written a
Speaker 2: lot about that, and we have described four key pillars
Speaker 2: of well being or flourishing. There is evidence to suggest
Speaker 2: that meditation can nurture each of these pillars of wellbeing
Speaker 2: or flourishing, and then they can have beneficial effects in
Speaker 2: a variety of ways.
Speaker 1: Do you mind talking about those pillars?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So these four pillars of wellbeing are the following.
Speaker 2: The first we call awareness, which is where mindfulness would
Speaker 2: be and it includes our capacity to focus our attention.
Speaker 2: It also includes our capacity for what scientists call meta
Speaker 2: awareness and what is met awareness. Met awareness is knowing
Speaker 2: what our minds are doing. Now, to some listeners, that
Speaker 2: may seem a little strange. Don't we always know what
Speaker 2: our minds are doing. But one of the examples that
Speaker 2: I often give is reading a book where you might
Speaker 2: be reading each word on a page, and you might
Speaker 2: be reading one page, you might be reading two pages,
Speaker 2: and after a few minutes you realize you have no
Speaker 2: idea what you've just read. Your mind is lost somewhere else.
Speaker 2: But the moment you recognize that is a moment of
Speaker 2: meta awareness. It's a moment of awakening. And it turns
Speaker 2: out that metawareness is super important. We think it's actually
Speaker 2: a necessary ingredient for all other forms of human flourishing
Speaker 2: and transformation, and we know that simple practices to cultivate
Speaker 2: awareness can help to nurture this quality of meta awareness.
Speaker 1: Do you have a recommendation about the kind of practices
Speaker 1: that have been shown to have a positive impact on focus.
Speaker 2: Yes, These include the most frequently taught forms of meditation
Speaker 2: in the West, and they would be all the forms
Speaker 2: of meditation we would include in mindfulness meditation. And so
Speaker 2: we often would take an object as our focus, and
Speaker 2: it might be our breath, it could be an external object,
Speaker 2: it could be sound, and we become aware of that object.
Speaker 2: We know that we're attending to that object. And then
Speaker 2: when our mind find wanders, which it inevitably, will you
Speaker 2: simply gently bring it back to that focus. And that's
Speaker 2: what the training is. It's strengthening this muscle of meta awareness.
Speaker 2: And you do that again and again and again and
Speaker 2: again and again.
Speaker 1: Do you mind sharing the second pillar of well being
Speaker 1: and flourishing?
Speaker 2: Sure? The second pillar is connection, and connection here is
Speaker 2: about the qualities which are important for healthy social relationships.
Speaker 2: Qualities like appreciation and gratitude, kindness, compassion, all would be
Speaker 2: included in connection. And also we like to have a
Speaker 2: very broad view of connection to not only other social beings,
Speaker 2: but also to our environment, to our land, to nature,
Speaker 2: to our planet, which we think actual can help to
Speaker 2: promote more intelligent ecological decision making.
Speaker 1: There's one kind of meditation practice that focuses exclusively on
Speaker 1: the second pillar, which is cultivating compassion. And I was
Speaker 1: wondering if you could tell me a bit more about
Speaker 1: this one study in particular, where they compared the effectiveness
Speaker 1: of compassion and cognitive behavioral therapy or cognitive therapy on
Speaker 1: people's altruism.
Speaker 2: Sure happy to do that. This was actually a study
Speaker 2: from our own lab, and participants were recruited for a
Speaker 2: study where they were told that they would learn a
Speaker 2: strategy to promote their well being, and then they were
Speaker 2: randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group was
Speaker 2: a compassion meditation group and a second group was a
Speaker 2: group that received training in cognitive behavioral therapy. The compassion
Speaker 2: meditation group, they were given classical instructions for a simple
Speaker 2: form of compassion meditation that began with a loved one,
Speaker 2: where they were asked to bring into their mind a
Speaker 2: person who they're close to. It could be a family member,
Speaker 2: it could be a very close friend or colleague, and
Speaker 2: think back and imagine a time in their life when
Speaker 2: they may have had some difficulty and as you are
Speaker 2: bringing them into your mind in your heart, cultivate the
Speaker 2: strong aspiration that they'd be relieved of suffering. And they
Speaker 2: were taught a simple phrase to use, May you be happy,
Speaker 2: May you be free of suffering, And then simply repeat
Speaker 2: that phrase a few times in your mind, and then rest.
Speaker 2: And after the first category, which is a loved one,
Speaker 2: a person moves on to themselves. Often that's very challenging
Speaker 2: for people in our country in particular. The third category
Speaker 2: we call a stranger, and it's a very particular definition
Speaker 2: of a stranger. What we mean is a person whose
Speaker 2: face you recognize, but you may not know them very well.
Speaker 2: It could be someone who works in the same office building.
Speaker 2: It could be someone who's in a class that you're in,
Speaker 2: but you really don't know anything about their lives. So
Speaker 2: imagine that they were experiencing some difficulty, some adversity, and
Speaker 2: then go through this same process. And then finally, the
Speaker 2: last category is perhaps the most important one, which is
Speaker 2: bring into your mind and heart a difficult person, someone
Speaker 2: who pushes your buttons, and go through the same process
Speaker 2: with them. And they did it for thirty minutes a
Speaker 2: day for two weeks. And the group that got cognitive
Speaker 2: therapy received the same amount of training from a very
Speaker 2: experienced cognitive therapist. And in this study we found that
Speaker 2: indeed the individuals who are randomly assigned to the compassion
Speaker 2: group behaved in a more altruistic way and they show
Speaker 2: changes in their brain which the cognitive therapy people didn't show,
Speaker 2: and these changes in their brain predicted the extent to
Speaker 2: which they behaved altruistically on the decision making task.
Speaker 1: Wow, I'd love to dig in now to the third pillar.
Speaker 2: Yes, So the third pillar we call insight, and insight
Speaker 2: is insight into the nature of the self and the
Speaker 2: nature of the narrative that we all tell about ourselves.
Speaker 2: So all of us have this narrative, this story that
Speaker 2: is who we are, and it's quite normal if you
Speaker 2: will to have this narrative. Everybody has a narrative. This
Speaker 2: is what minds do. What insight is having a deep
Speaker 2: experiential understanding of how this narrative shapes our experience of
Speaker 2: the world. And when we can have that experiential insight,
Speaker 2: it can help to free us from the blinders that
Speaker 2: are imposed by this narrative. All of us have blinders.
Speaker 2: The question is, only some of us are aware that
Speaker 2: we actually have blinders. And if you can be aware
Speaker 2: of your blinders, you have some possibility of going beyond them.
Speaker 2: And so insight is really that. And we also know
Speaker 2: that there are people who are at one end of
Speaker 2: a distribution who have a very negative narrative about themselves,
Speaker 2: They have negative self beliefs, they have low self esteem,
Speaker 2: and of course that's a prescription for depression. And the
Speaker 2: science shows that what is really essential for flourishing is
Speaker 2: not so much changing the narrative, but it's changing our
Speaker 2: relationship to the narrative so that we can see the
Speaker 2: narrative for what it is, which is really simply a
Speaker 2: bunch of thoughts.
Speaker 1: And is there a particular kind of practice that, again
Speaker 1: you would guide people towards if they're looking for greater insight?
Speaker 2: Yeah, now here is a case where the practices from
Speaker 2: the ancient traditions which are designed to help with this
Speaker 2: are ones that have essentially not been studied at all
Speaker 2: in the West.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: Interesting, And this practice, the primary practice is called analytic meditation,
Speaker 2: where you actually reflect, using your thoughts about who this
Speaker 2: self is, where is the self? What form is the self?
Speaker 2: Can we feel the self? Where does the self end
Speaker 2: and another self begin? We can ask ourselves all of
Speaker 2: these questions. And when we ask ourselves these questions and
Speaker 2: then observe what the answer is, what we come up
Speaker 2: with is that it is not the unitary, fixed entity
Speaker 2: that we might have imagined in the first place. It's
Speaker 2: a lot more variable, it's a lot more porous than
Speaker 2: what it's cracked up to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so resonant with the theme of the show,
Speaker 1: which is in large part about self identity and how
Speaker 1: we also see our identities as more malleable than we
Speaker 1: might otherwise. Okay, so now, Richie, let's finish up these
Speaker 1: pillars and talk about the fourth pillar.
Speaker 2: Yes, the fourth pillar is purpose, and purpose is about
Speaker 2: staying motivated. It's about identifying our true north in life,
Speaker 2: and it is not so much about finding something more
Speaker 2: purposeful to do with our lives, but rather, how can
Speaker 2: we derive meaning and purpose from that which we are
Speaker 2: already doing, including the pedestrian activities of our daily life.
Speaker 2: Can taking out the garbage be directly connected to your
Speaker 2: sense of purpose? And of course it can be. It
Speaker 2: simply requires a little bit of reframing, and so there
Speaker 2: are specific meditation practices that we can do to help
Speaker 2: more deeply connect our sense of purpose and our four
Speaker 2: values to more and more of what we do.
Speaker 1: Tell me more about this relationship with taking out the trash.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, so what would be an example of reframing
Speaker 1: this very annoying task that I have to do in
Speaker 1: a way that feels more purposeful. What could that look
Speaker 1: like in theory.
Speaker 2: Well, it could look, for example, like I am taking
Speaker 2: out this trash, which will help the people I live with.
Speaker 2: It will help the community stay clean, it will help
Speaker 2: keep the environment. You know, the possibilities are endless. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know, just reflecting on that, this is what
Speaker 2: we call a micro intervention or the microdosing of well being.
Speaker 2: You can spend literally thirty seconds reflecting on that just
Speaker 2: before you do it or as you're doing it, and
Speaker 2: it can completely change how you do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and my husband's going to write you a thank
Speaker 1: you note after this interview, Richie being like, man, I
Speaker 1: don't know what you guys talked about. All I know
Speaker 1: is that after her interview on meditation, she's been taking
Speaker 1: out the trash a lot. We'll be back in a
Speaker 1: moment with a slight change of plans. Doctor Richie Davidson
Speaker 1: is well known for study he did with what he
Speaker 1: calls Olympic meditators, people who've meditated for well over thirty
Speaker 1: four thousand hours each. While most of us will never
Speaker 1: achieve a feat like this, his study represented a major
Speaker 1: step forward in meditation science. It showed that meditation can
Speaker 1: change the brain in profound ways.
Speaker 2: The study of these very long term meditators was one
Speaker 2: of the first things that we did when we began
Speaker 2: to fulfill the Dalai Lama's wish to study these practices
Speaker 2: really seriously in the laboratory, because we reasoned that if
Speaker 2: we didn't see big differences in people who've meditated for
Speaker 2: tens of thousands of hours, the likelihood of seeing differences
Speaker 2: in the brain of more novice meditators was not going
Speaker 2: to be there. One of the first studies that we
Speaker 2: did is a study of pain. Pain is a very
Speaker 2: well studied phenomenon in neuroscience, and so we know a
Speaker 2: lot about which areas of the brain contribute to our
Speaker 2: experience of pain, and we can search for these specific
Speaker 2: areas very precisely. One of the ways that we can
Speaker 2: interrogate pain in the laboratory is with a painful stimulus
Speaker 2: that is very realistic. And what do we use That
Speaker 2: we use heat. Every one of us has experienced the
Speaker 2: pain of touching a hot stove, and this is a
Speaker 2: very robust response that virtually every human being has, and
Speaker 2: so we do it with a device that has a
Speaker 2: metal plate through which very rapidly circulating water is going,
Speaker 2: and we can vary the temperature of the water very precisely,
Speaker 2: and in this way we can create a burning sensation
Speaker 2: without causing harm. So we brought people into the laboratory
Speaker 2: and we gave them an experience of this pain, so
Speaker 2: everybody had the same common experience, and then we brought
Speaker 2: them into the scanner.
Speaker 1: Into the MRI skin the brain scanner, and.
Speaker 2: We said that in this experiment, you're going to get
Speaker 2: a tone, just a beep, and when the tone is
Speaker 2: a certain pitch, it means that ten seconds later you're
Speaker 2: going to get zapped with this pain that you just experienced.
Speaker 2: And it's strapped onto the wrist, which is a very
Speaker 2: sensitive part of the body, and we present the painful
Speaker 2: stimulus for ten seconds. And I've had this done to
Speaker 2: myself many times, and my experience is that the first
Speaker 2: two or three seconds is really intense, but you can
Speaker 2: bear it, and then after like the fourth second, it's
Speaker 2: so intense you have no idea how you're going to
Speaker 2: survive this entire period. So that's what we did in
Speaker 2: this experiment, and we brought novices in who are just
Speaker 2: learning to meditate. And we brought these Olympic athletes of
Speaker 2: meditation in and I should say that these Olympic athletes
Speaker 2: they all live in Asia. We flew them from India, Nepal,
Speaker 2: and Bhutan to Madison, Wisconsin, where they spent a few
Speaker 2: days being tested. So we brought the people into the lab,
Speaker 2: we give them the tone, and among non meditators, their
Speaker 2: brains begin to activate immediately before the pain comes on.
Speaker 2: All that has happened is they hear this babe, which
Speaker 2: indicates that in ten seconds they're going to get zapped,
Speaker 2: and the areas of the brain, which we call the
Speaker 2: pain matrix which respond to pain, become activated just to
Speaker 2: the sound, so it's as if the pain has started already.
Speaker 2: Then when the actual painful stimulus comes on, they continue
Speaker 2: to show our response. And then when it goes on off,
Speaker 2: they continue to show a response and have a very
Speaker 2: slow drop off.
Speaker 1: So there's a sticky quality to the pain. It sticks around,
Speaker 1: it sticks around.
Speaker 2: It's both during this anticipation period and also during the
Speaker 2: recovery period. Among the expert meditators, they come in, we
Speaker 2: present the tone, and there literally is no significant activation
Speaker 2: whatsoever in any area of the pain matrix. The only
Speaker 2: activation we see is activation in their auditory cortex registering
Speaker 2: the sound the beep. That's it. Their brains are completely
Speaker 2: calm except for that. Then when the painful stimulus comes on,
Speaker 2: they show a big response and in fact in the
Speaker 2: sensory regions of the brain which are basically reflecting the
Speaker 2: sensory quality of the pain. Often people reported as prickly
Speaker 2: sensations that they feel during the pain, the tingling that
Speaker 2: area the brain. Among the meditators actually showed an even
Speaker 2: greater response than the controls. But then when the pain
Speaker 2: went off after the ten seconds, it came right back
Speaker 2: down to baseline immediately. That is the neural signature of resilience. Wow,
Speaker 2: the capacity to rapidly come back to baseline after adversity
Speaker 2: and showing essentially no anticipatory anxiety. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this, I mean, this is just absolutely remarkable
Speaker 1: this finding. And Richie, do we understand at all what
Speaker 1: the mechanisms might be at play here that are leading
Speaker 1: these Olympian meditators to have such a different response from
Speaker 1: the ones that you and I might have.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the important contributors to this is the
Speaker 2: prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex in humans is this big
Speaker 2: chunk of real estate in the front of our brain,
Speaker 2: and it is responsible for many of the things that
Speaker 2: we often think of as characteristically human. And one of
Speaker 2: the most important elements that's characteristically human is our ability
Speaker 2: to do what psychologists call mental time travel. We can
Speaker 2: anticipate the future, and we can reminisce about the past,
Speaker 2: and we can do that in a way that's far
Speaker 2: more sophisticated than any other species. But we need to
Speaker 2: get it under control, so to speak. It can afford
Speaker 2: many advantages, but it also can get us into trouble.
Speaker 2: And so if we can learn to regulate our prefrontal cortex,
Speaker 2: and this is something that we think occurs as a
Speaker 2: byproduct of meditation, then we can basically experience emotions that
Speaker 2: are context appropriate and then have the capacity to just
Speaker 2: let them go so that they come right back down
Speaker 2: to baseline. The quality of emotions lingering beyond the point
Speaker 2: where they're useful is what really gets us into trouble, except.
Speaker 1: When they're positive ones. Though, so are these lifelong meditators
Speaker 1: able to kind of opportunistically use the skill when they
Speaker 1: would like the happy glow that comes after a nice
Speaker 1: wedding you've attended or a good movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's a really interesting question. And you know,
Speaker 2: the first answer that I'll say is that I don't
Speaker 2: actually think we know, but there's certainly things that we
Speaker 2: can say, and that is that one of the conjectures
Speaker 2: in this tradition of meditation is that the human mind
Speaker 2: is fundamental positive. One way to think about this is
Speaker 2: we're born to flourish. We actually have all these capacities innately,
Speaker 2: just as we have language innately, but they need to
Speaker 2: be nurtured in order for them to be realized. And
Speaker 2: if we can sort of let go of all the
Speaker 2: gunk that we have accumulated in the process of conditioning
Speaker 2: and social learning and really connect with our true basic nature,
Speaker 2: which is this quality of basic goodness that is a
Speaker 2: state of enduring well being. And so we don't need
Speaker 2: to preserve anything, we don't need to hold on to anything.
Speaker 2: It's simply resting in the natural state of being, which
Speaker 2: is positive. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's such a hopeful message, you know for those
Speaker 1: of us who who don't end up this superhero Olympic meditators,
Speaker 1: or don't even strive to be that because for example,
Speaker 1: they know they're not capable of such things. Cough cough myself.
Speaker 1: What lessons do you think we can and should draw
Speaker 1: from these findings from these supermeditators.
Speaker 2: Here's the amazing news. The amazing news is that it
Speaker 2: actually doesn't take much to get these systems in the mind,
Speaker 2: in the brain going, and just a few minutes a
Speaker 2: day can really be transformative. What we're talking about is
Speaker 2: something that we believe is really critical for our personal
Speaker 2: mental hygiene. And I think most people would agree that
Speaker 2: their minds are even more important than their teeth. And
Speaker 2: the science shows that if we spend even as little
Speaker 2: time as we spend brushing our teeth nourishing our mind,
Speaker 2: this world would be a different place.
Speaker 1: Look, I mean full confessional here, right. I don't meditate.
Speaker 1: I've tried so many times to implement a practice. You
Speaker 1: say five minutes, I'm like, oh my gosh, it's just
Speaker 1: five minutes. And I'm like, wait, five minut It's where
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be seated alone with my thoughts. No,
Speaker 1: thank you, but I just.
Speaker 2: Well let me give you. Let me say one other
Speaker 2: thing in response to that, and that.
Speaker 1: Is, yeah, help me out here, richie, because like, look,
Speaker 1: I have all the intention of the world. I understand
Speaker 1: the neuroscience behind it. I don't have to be convinced
Speaker 1: of its value. I need to be convinced to do it.
Speaker 2: Yes, And you know you are like millions and millions
Speaker 2: of other people. And here's the thing. You don't need
Speaker 2: to take any time out of your day. You can
Speaker 2: do this while you're engaged in other activities of daily living,
Speaker 2: like taking out the garbage or doing your dishes, or
Speaker 2: commuting or standing in a line whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Okay, that is the most compelling pitch I've ever heard,
Speaker 1: So thank you, and it's true. I mean, you can
Speaker 1: do that compassion exercise that you just described. Absolutely you
Speaker 1: have that full experience totally. Okay, Wow, Okay, I think
Speaker 1: this might be a transformative moment for me. You know,
Speaker 1: I invite you on a slight change of plans that
Speaker 1: actual this is just a therapy session, Richie. So I
Speaker 1: appreciate your guidance. You know, Richie, we've talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about you know, we can do this for a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes a day and see benefits. And I
Speaker 1: think I just have a broader question about meditation. So
Speaker 1: it does seem like in recent years in the Western
Speaker 1: world anyway, meditation is often marketed as this self help tool, right,
Speaker 1: something that can make you more productive, happier, less anxious,
Speaker 1: what have you. And while it may be capable of
Speaker 1: doing those very things, helping you achieve some of those things,
Speaker 1: what I gleaned from your book is that traditionally meditation
Speaker 1: was aimed at something deeper, right, something that was more
Speaker 1: other focused. So by meditating, people could cultivate traits that
Speaker 1: would positively impact others, traits like compassion and selflessness and
Speaker 1: equanimity and loving presence. And I wonder how you feel
Speaker 1: about this, and whether you think that as a society
Speaker 1: we should try and better align with the original intent
Speaker 1: of meditation, or whether we should just accept that this
Speaker 1: self help version is an offshoot. And you know, while
Speaker 1: it might not be quote the purest form, it can
Speaker 1: work for people. It can make their lives better.
Speaker 2: I think this is really such a profoundly important question, Maya,
Speaker 2: and I'm so happy you're asking it. I strongly believe
Speaker 2: that we need to resist this commodification of meditation in
Speaker 2: our center. People often call it, Mike mindfulness well said,
Speaker 2: it is stripping the practice away from the ethical context
Speaker 2: really in which it was originally embedded.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, And it doesn't take much to bring it back,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't have to be religious. It could be
Speaker 2: ethical in a universal way. And so when I put
Speaker 2: my b on the cushion every morning before I formally meditate,
Speaker 2: I invoke the explicit intention that I'm meditating not only
Speaker 2: for myself, but recognizing that having a common mind and
Speaker 2: a more open heart is beneficial for those around me,
Speaker 2: and that I'm doing it as much for them as
Speaker 2: I'm doing it for myself. And it turns out that
Speaker 2: that simple invocation of this altruistic motive can be so
Speaker 2: powerful and can change the nature of the practice. And
Speaker 2: I have the conviction this has never been studied, but
Speaker 2: I have the conviction that the biology of the practice,
Speaker 2: whether it's meditating or physical exercise, is going to be
Speaker 2: affected by the intention that we bring to it.
Speaker 1: I completely share your intuition. I have no idea what
Speaker 1: the empirics will say. That's exactly the thought I had
Speaker 1: as I was thinking about our conversation, which is, would
Speaker 1: we actually find greater effectiveness of the whole thing if
Speaker 1: people's motives, if their intention around the practice was different,
Speaker 1: and you could so easily imagine that that's the case totally,
Speaker 1: and you know, aside from me just loving the more
Speaker 1: virtuous qualities around that original intention of meditation, right, which
Speaker 1: is other minded kindness, compassion. When I think about someone
Speaker 1: like the Dalai Lama to the extent he can get
Speaker 1: pissed off, which he clearly can't because of the Dalai Lama,
Speaker 1: but let's say in this hypothetical world he could get
Speaker 1: ticked off. I just feel like if you were to
Speaker 1: see some versions of Western practice, it would almost be
Speaker 1: offensive Ritchie to his sensibilities, like they've totally bastardized this
Speaker 1: thing so that they can be more productive at work
Speaker 1: and you know, have a slightly higher quality sleep cycle
Speaker 1: or whatever. The many many things were told in mainstream
Speaker 1: media meditation can help with Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's true. He has been told about
Speaker 2: some of this kind of direction of the work. And
Speaker 2: one of the things that he has been strongly advocating
Speaker 2: is for kind of secular ethics. And what he means
Speaker 2: by that is a kind of ethical framework which can
Speaker 2: be congenial to a person from any faith tradition or
Speaker 2: to someone who has no faith tradition, but really to
Speaker 2: be universal to really help to bring back this ethical framework.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. I mean, as a person who
Speaker 1: is not religious and not particularly spiritual, I would really
Speaker 1: appreciate having that kind of ethical framework to guide me
Speaker 1: because I think what you have, what I found in
Speaker 1: reading your book is that this original intention was elevating
Speaker 1: ourselves to the best version of human we can be
Speaker 1: with respect to one another. Absolutely, so we can all
Speaker 1: share that same goal irrespective of religious or spiritual beliefs.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I think that the very future of humanity
Speaker 2: is really dependent on it. And I think the future
Speaker 2: of democracy is dependent on it as well, which is
Speaker 2: a whole other conversation.
Speaker 1: You know, other thing, what do you see as the
Speaker 1: next frontier? And meditation science? So where would you like
Speaker 1: to see the field head Where do you think the
Speaker 1: most valuable use of researchers time lies?
Speaker 2: I think they're one of the most important things is
Speaker 2: going to be micro practices, really short practices that can
Speaker 2: be done in the moment, sprinkled throughout a day. And
Speaker 2: you know, let's face it that the vast majority of
Speaker 2: people maya are very much like you, and so how
Speaker 2: can we bring these practices to you know, the Dalai Lama.
Speaker 2: Every time with him, he always is talking about seven
Speaker 2: billion people on the planet. Everyone has the right to flourish, yeah,
Speaker 2: and has the capacity. And so how do we bring
Speaker 2: it to those people? They're not going to meditate, the
Speaker 2: vast majority of them are never going to meditate. So
Speaker 2: what could we do. Well, we can bring micro into ventionance.
Speaker 2: We can bring these thirty second practices that can be
Speaker 2: sprinkled throughout their day. And this is where the union
Speaker 2: of ancient wisdom and modern technology is really there to
Speaker 2: be harnessed.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so nice. Yeah, I was wondering, Richie, you
Speaker 1: could close us out by actually guiding us through a
Speaker 1: short meditation.
Speaker 2: Happy to do that. So for listeners, you can close
Speaker 2: your eyes if that feels comfortable, and if not, simply
Speaker 2: gaze softly. And let's begin by bringing our awareness into
Speaker 2: our bodies, simply sensing our feet on the floor if
Speaker 2: that's where they are, our sit bones in a chair,
Speaker 2: or where it might be. Let's see if we can
Speaker 2: all lean into this quality of simply being present, where
Speaker 2: all our senses are open, where we are awake, and
Speaker 2: simply noticing whatever may arise in our bodies. And as
Speaker 2: we do this short period of practice, it's really helpful,
Speaker 2: as we discussed earlier, to reflect on why we might
Speaker 2: do such a practice in the first place. And let's
Speaker 2: see if we can find within ourselves this understanding that
Speaker 2: calming our mind and warming our heart is beneficial not
Speaker 2: only for ourselves, but also benefits all of the people
Speaker 2: that we touch directly or indirectly. So let's spend a
Speaker 2: few moments leaning into this altruistic motivation if we can't.
Speaker 2: And these have been challenging times for so many of us,
Speaker 2: and one of the elements that's often helpful during times
Speaker 2: of adversity is to have someone that we connect with,
Speaker 2: someone who has been helpful to us in whatever way.
Speaker 2: And let's now bring a person into our mind and
Speaker 2: our heart who has been helpful in some way over
Speaker 2: this past year, and allow this sense of appreciation to
Speaker 2: arise for whatever ways in which they might have been helpful,
Speaker 2: and even reflecting on how you may express your gratitude
Speaker 2: to this person the next time you're with them. And
Speaker 2: as we end this very short period of practice and
Speaker 2: slowly open our eyes and re engage, let's see if
Speaker 2: we can take whatever insight, whatever benefit we may have
Speaker 2: gleaned from this time together and bring it out into
Speaker 2: the world in a way that could be of benefit
Speaker 2: to others. So thank you all, and thank you Dear
Speaker 2: Mayah for your wonderful questions, and may you all have
Speaker 2: a very happy remainder of your day.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for listening. Join me next week
Speaker 1: when I talk to psychologist Kristin Neth. She explains why
Speaker 1: it's important to treat ourselves with self compassion and how
Speaker 1: self compassion is actually more motivating than shame. And if
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this convert on Meditation, you might enjoy an
Speaker 1: episode I created with the team at Meditative Story. I
Speaker 1: reflect on a memorable walk I had with my dad
Speaker 1: decades ago. His wisdom helped me navigate a painful time.
Speaker 1: The episode is filled with short meditations as well. It's
Speaker 1: called Maya's Slight Change in Perspective and we'll link to
Speaker 1: it in the show notes. See you next week. A
Speaker 1: slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive produced
Speaker 1: by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes our
Speaker 1: showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our
Speaker 1: producer Trisha Bobida, and our sound engineer Andrew Vestola. Luis
Speaker 1: Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped
Speaker 1: arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a
Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there,
Speaker 1: and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.
Speaker 1: You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram
Speaker 1: at doctor Maya Shunker.